FT Questions....

[Scott Stevenson]

I am joking about the rhabdo thing. I'm the guy who runs Tier 1 with every other day training, and it took me many blasts to figure out that it was the best way for me to train and properly recover.

I had a bunch of thoughts in my head with a bunch of sources and a very poor way of covering them as a question [emoji846]

The idea of fasting during a cruise meant a restoration of appetite and giving your digestive tract a break. John Meadows mentioned this in an interview ; we see many many bodybuilders over the years develop some form of gastrointestinal issue like colitis or sheer malabsorption from pounding calories day in and day out. Maybe a 1 day a week fast for the 2 weeks we cruise can help in this regard? But the caloric deficit it creates can be pretty substantial for one trying to grow bigger, and/or hold on to newly acquired muscle.

Now a 72 hour fast is probably not a great idea now that I think about what you mentioned earlier. And fasting overall from a performance perspective (because we are still recovering from the stress accumulated over weeks) seems horrible vs just lowering calories but consuming enough protein to prevent breakdown, and try to hold onto tissue (which is mentioned in the ebook).

Anyway, I think I've answered quite a bit of my own question by thinking it through (which is what u want all of us doing anyway [emoji39] ).

Sorry for the badly put together question.

No worries at all, man. We got you thinking a bit more deeply about this, which is - you're right - one of my main goals here in helping folks.

So, that study, while cool, isn't directly applicable here (to you) I don't think. (BTW, here's the actual study - the link I posted above was for a correction to the article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/article...601547.pdf )

There is something to say though for the idea that, perhaps in someone who's been pushing food and also getting sick frequently, in bringing the food back down or even fasting. I learned this the hard way years ago in that when I was off-season and I got sick, I'd try to keep food intake high and would stay sick (for weeks and weeks on a few occasions). When I'd finally give in and just eat according to appetite (which was very little), I'd typically be better in a matter of days.


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John talks about this approach - which he's using with clients nowadays in particular to help with fat loss when dieting - in the lectures from the Arnold weekend he's put up on his site. You could give it just a half day of fasting on a non-training day in the off-season and see how this helps.

The nutrient timing approach - low carbs on non-training days / away from workouts - helps quite a bit with appetite I've found. The desire for carbohydrate comes back and when you get into a circadian rhythm of eating more peri-workout, folks can entrain themselves into eating a good bit of food during this period (and grow this way).

-S