My Feast And Famine Diet

That’s a pretty cool name don’t you think?

“The feast and famine diet.” I don’t know how I came up with it, but I think it was one night when I was trying to go to sleep and my mind was just racing back and forth thinking of all the crazy stuff I had to do the next day…

It’s Shark Week. Feast Time.

BTW: A good tip that I have been using recently to calm my thoughts before heading off to bed is writing everything down on a blackboard, a steno pad, or a marker board of what I have to do the next day that needs to get done. My entire day is scripted which leaves me the ability to relax and not think about anything when trying to go to sleep.

Okay, enough about my weird insomnia sometimes and back to the Feast And Famine Diet.

Recently I have been really hooked on going against conventional wisdom when it comes to nutrition, eating, weight loss, muscle building etc…

For example, I have decided to stop worrying about maintaining a perfect, slim waistline and have started focusing on building lean muscle tissue exclusively without worrying too much about body fat. This requires an above daily amount of calories, therefore adding some fat on my frame is quite likely.

Also I do not have a fast metabolism. It’s in the middle, so I’m not blessed with being able to eat McDonald’s and not gain a pound.

Now there are ways to combat this like carbohydrate cut offs, fasting days, performing cardio in a fasted state, and watching the scale. But still, a little bit of fat gain is inevitable.

But before I embarked on this 7 – 8 month long lean muscle phase, for a few weeks I was playing around with intermittent fasting and consuming large meals during the day and throwing in fast days after.

And I have to say I really like this way of eating. It fits with my schedule and my make up. I love eating large quantities of meals at one sitting and can go quite some time without eating if need be. It’s much easier than you think.

Plus, who doesn’t like eating big meals full of protein, veggies, healthy fats and some carbs?

Anyways, some of the days that I “pigged out” I would purposefully eat junk food, not have carb cut offs later in the day, and consume a whole lot of protein. However, the next day I would fast, which was a rest day anyway from any form of weight training and I just did 30 minutes to an hour of low intensity cardio.

For the fast days I was usually waking up at 5:30 a.m. – 6 a.m, working till 12, do some work on the computer till 1 p.m., head to the gym for some cardio and then return home. I wouldn’t have any solid meals during this whole time. Usually my first meal of the day, which was in the form of shakes was around 2:30 – 3:00 p.m.

I would then head off to train more clients and have a shake in between.

I came home at night, done around 7-8 p.m. and would have another shake. I’d watch some t.v. then go to bed.

So during my entire fast day I would only have around 300-400 calories, plus doing the 30-60 minutes of low intensity cardio on a treadmill walking at a steep incline of 15 degrees, I guess you could say I had a negative calorie balance that day.

Now you might think this is crazy, but when you look at the principles of weight loss, and calories in vs. calories out, a lot of it makes sense.

Basically if you want to lose weight, you need to burn more calories then you ingest. Plain and simple. However, what if you were able to have a healthy “pig out” day and then the next day have a complete fast where all you did was take in protein shakes?

And then the next day you repeated this sequence? Maybe one day a week you would throw in a cheat meal to keep leptin levels high and your metabolism rocking.

I think I’m on the verge of something…Not totally sure yet. I am implimenting this somewhat in my lean muscle phase. For example, yesterday I had my fast day and this morning so far I ate 4 whole eggs and fudge

But it was healthy fudge that I had a recipe for and my client made. It consisted of splenda, organic peanut butter, 100% dark chocolate, non-fat sour cream, smart balance omega 3 butter, and 2 scoops of protein powder.

Pretty healthy if you ask me considering it would be labeled a dessert. High in calories…yes, but low in carbs, low in sugar, medium in protein and also high in healthy fats.

Now for the rest of the day, I will have a protein shake before I head to the gym, then have a large meal consisting of probably 1-2 cups of oatmeal (carbs after the workout) plus 1 pound of grilled chicken thighs.

After this, I’ll have one more giant meal consisting of a large quantity of protein, a bag of broccoli, and throw some olive oil into the mix.

And that’s it. Tomorrow, I have a dinner date with a friend of mine in the city and we’re going for sushi and sake. Since sushi and sake contain a ton of carbohydrates, I’ll low carb it all day tomorrow eating mostly lean protein with healthy fats.

And if we go out for drinks after, I’ll throw in another fast day on Sunday since Sunday is my rest day, therefore I don’t need the carbohydrates.

I hope this all makes sense for you. I kind of went off a little bit and just let the words flow.

But I think this is something that can work for a lot of people since  many don’t like eating breakfast and like eating large meals. Conventional wisdom is boring and dumb in my opinion, especially when it comes to fitness, fat loss, and building lean muscle.

The body is an extremely adaptive machine. It will adapt to whatever you throw at it.

And you know what…everything works. It’s just a matter of finding out what is the best plan and course of action that fits your individual characteristics as a person and your lifestyle!

Let me know what you think below…