I’ll be honest here, I owe a lot to Martin Berkhan’s Leangains system. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the system, it’s basically an Intermittent Fasting scheme. You eat during an 8 hour feeding window, fasting for the other 16 hours.
In a way, it’s an eating philosophy. The reason it piqued my interest was because Berkhan used this system for body recomposition, to great effect. So at the beginning of last year (2009), I decided to take the plunge, and give his system a legitimate shot.
While it got me out of my perpetual dieting rut and allowed me to make tremendous gains since then, it took a good year to be able to seamlessly integrate this eating psychology into my life. The reason was simple: I had so much emotional baggage tied to my previous assumptions about how I should be eating.
A Note before we start
This post will mainly talk about the psychological benefits that I gained from eating this way. I’ll throw out some half-assed science about why this works, but do take this as a psychological discussion.
I’ll do another post next week briefly talking about some of the actual physiological benefits (which I believe exist) to intermittent fasting Leangains style.
With that, let’s recap on the real goal of today’s discussion.
The Goal
We can’t eat as per our instincts. Obesity proves that most of the population can’t regulate their calories to a satisfactory degree.
We need an eating philosophy.
Specifically, we need to be able to control what and how much we eat. Moreover, we need to be satisfied on a daily basis.
My first attempts
My first attempts at intermittent fasting to go out and get all the things that I craved. I’d go workout, then have massive bowls of cereal, chocolate, etc. They were nice, but for some reason I was never satisfied with eating. Some people have managed to make this work, but I knew I couldn’t.
So I went the direct opposite, and tried to do only “paleo foods”. That meant doing stupid things like eating huge batches of oatmeal, and paying the price for it (gas). Sometimes I was so stuffed that I could barely move, but had to down the calories for the day regardless. [1]
Fortunately, through at that, I still counted my calories, and didn’t blow up like a beached whale (get fat).
The slow road of experimentation
Experimenting is tough, mainly because you have to live with the consequences of failed experiments. When it comes to eating, every meal is an experiment. Because of whatever emotional baggage one has with eating, it’s all too easy to hit a few failures and give up.
OCD
The next problem was that it was difficult for me to balance out the obsessive energy of waiting for that next (big) meal. I’d get distracted thinking about what I what I’d do next. After all, the fun of such a scheme is in the anticipation of destroying some huge meals.
Basically, my thinking was out of alignment, and I was letting it get the best of me, time to set it straight.
Letting Go
Nowadays, I’m far more relaxed in my attitude. I know that a great meal is coming, but it isn’t the highlight of the day. You could say that I’ve gotten more worried about other aspects of life that I gave up worrying about food altogether. Only when I did that, did I actually start to enjoy food again, and actually eat what I wanted.
Like all other journeys, this one has to be taken alone, with the attitude of “Always be questioning, always be experimenting”.
So there were no secrets. I recognised that this wasn’t a problem with the eating system, but with my eating psychology. I knew that others before me had succeeded. I knew that experimentation was the only way to go forward. And hence I knew to not give up.
These efforts have paid dividends and I can now enjoy the deliciousness of coming home to great meals on a daily basis. Most importantly, I can do so completely stress-free.
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Some recent meals
Post Workout Madness:
2 Beers, 1kg Oranges, 1kg potatoes, 500g chicken ≈ 2100kcal
1kg tub of yogurt, 500g pasta and sauce ≈ 2400kcal
125g whey protein (shakes), 500g mixed berries, 1.5kg potatoes with ketchup and ajvar ≈ 2000kcal
Rest Day Dinners:
1kg of chicken thigh, bunch of broccolini, 500g of potatoes ≈ 2000kcal
800g chicken breast with homemade "BBQ sauce" and a glass of Shiraz ≈ 1000kcal
700g eye fillet, 300g peas, and a glass of port wine ≈ 1400kcal
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[1] – To put things in perspective, I was around 87kg/ 190lbs at the time, which meant downing 3500kcal a day for a bulking phase.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting comments on your health/fitness odyssey.
I was never too OCD in my food intake because I hate micromanaging.
I see you’re a regular on Martin’s IF. I’m a regular lurker there, and I must say IF has made diet compliance very easy. I can’t wait to break fast at noon, and working out fasted actually feels good.
Even PSMF calories executed via IF makes the whole process much less painful.
Haha, I’m PSMF as we speak. O well, that’s the price you pay for holiday over-indulgence. Well worth it of course =). Even 1400kcal doesn’t feel too hard, so long as it’s not done too frequently.
“I’d get distracted thinking about what I what I’d do next. After all, the fun of such a scheme is in the anticipation of destroying some huge meals.”
Man, oh, man do I know what you mean!
As much as I love IF and have made more weight loss/strength training progress with it than plain calorie counting or low-carbing, the anticipation of a large meal is what I’m struggling to get over. I consider myself a foodie and IF allows me to have just about any gourmet dish I want and still stay within my calorie range. Devouring something new every day is awesome, but cumbersome when unexpected social activities and trips arise, I get over to someone’s party after having some super-rich dish I whipped up, and everyone wants me to try whatever dish they brought to the party (of course, my try-o-holic nature prevents me from saying no most of the time.) On those days I usually end up blowing past my range, which not bad unless those days come in pairs or threes. Still…
Cool to see someone have a similar issue and get over it though. I’ve only been doing IF for about 3.5 months so far, so I’m working on it!
Great to hear! As always, Intermittent Fasting is just another tool in the arsenal. Use it when necessary and profit!