ExRx.net

Guess I might as well read and judge for myself

For people who are not already close to there target leanness, Leangains typicaly causes cortisol buildup and eventually adrenal fatique. Fasting is not a beginner technique.

Leangains typicaly causes cortisol buildup and eventually adrenal fatique.

Links?

Cortisol is a steroid hormone that maintains blood pressure, regulates the immune system and helps break down proteins, glucose and lipids. (...) Chronically elevated levels of cortisol, resulting from psychological and/or physiological stress, is another thing and unquestionably bad for your health; it increases protein breakdown, appetite and may lead to depression.

Short-term fasting has no effect on average cortisol levels and this is an area that has been extensively studied in the context of Ramadan fasting. Cortisol typically follows a diurnal variation, which means that its levels peak in the morning at around 8 a.m. and decline in the evenings. What changes during Ramadan is simply the cortisol rhythm, average levels across 24 hours remain unchanged.

In one Ramadan study on rugby players, subjects lost fat and retained muscle very well. And they did despite training in a dehydrated state, without pre-workout or post-workout protein intake, and with a lower protein intake overall nonetheless.

(...) In conclusion, the belief that fasting increases cortisol, which then might cause all kinds of mischief such as muscle loss, has no scientific basis whatsoever.

Origin

Prolonged fasting or severe calorie restriction causes elevated baseline levels of cortisol. This occurs in conjunction with depletion of liver glycogen, as cortisol speeds up DNG, which is necessary to maintain blood sugar in absence of dietary carbs, protein, or stored glycogen. Again, it seems someone looked at what happens during starvation and took that to mean that short-term fasting is bad.

Finding actual research backing up anything worthwhile is very hard. Research tends to trail the internet gurus by 5-10 years.

If Chris Kresser has noticed that IF make people's blood sugar control worse, then I would recommend that IF NOT be used as means of controlling obesity.

Martin Berkhan is selling books.

You can't use his site as confirmation that what is in his book is valid or not, or that it's appropriate in a specific case.

Leangains site has a link to this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21475137 (...) I read that as evidence of the validity of the Warrior Diet concept.

not enough to raise insulin or to actually meet the energy needs by themself. This forces fat burning, just as IF would do but it's less stressful.

When we eat protein-rich food, another chemical is released by the body that actually has a contrary effect to insulin. Protein-rich foods also result in a release of glucagon. (Carb-rich food does not.) Glucagon raises blood sugar levels in part to allow for absorption of amino acids in the liver and their subsequent transformation there to glucose.

Protein is insulinogenic and raises glucagon which triggers the liver to release more glucose. Else you'd go hypoglycemic.

[glucagon]'s not really lipolytic in humans (activates hepatic glycogen phosphorylase), and it's already been stated that apparently counterregulatory hormones won't matter in the face of insulin anyway.

If you're under constant stress, IF will add not improve the situation. I'm not saying it does that for everyone, just that it's a potential issue. Crossfit doesn't burn out averyone either, just enough that it's noticable.

I eat canned salmon and sardines almost everyday. They are high in sodium so if you have high blood pressue, you might want to look for reduced salt stuff. You also want to make sure it's not packed in some weird oil like soy.