Yo guys. Hope you’re well. I’ve been doing IF and it’s been working phenomenally for me. Doing that, combined with some longer 24-48 hour fasts has let my weight drop like a stone.
I had a question about using these 24 hour fasts for damage control, which is another technique that I like. So for instance, this weekend, I worked a gig at a restaurant for their anniversary. The food was so good, I went out of control basically lol. I went wayyyy over my calories and I’m sure I didn’t hit my protein. I probably went about 3000 calories over, and I maybe only hit 60 G of protein that day. Lots of beer and pasta.
I never really agreed with the mindset of “just let it go and move on.” I know from experience that all it takes is one day to undo 1-2 weeks of weight loss. I’ve been there and it’s not a good time. Personally, I believe that some degree of damage control needs to be done.
For situations that are a complete wash like that, I would want to do a 24-48 hour fast to instantly undo the damage to my cut. But I’m a bit worried that I could lose muscle due to the fact I didn’t hit my protein before starting the fast. I know fasting doesn’t burn muscle due to the increase in HGH. But am I in trouble on binge days like that where I don’t hit my protein, and then I want to fast right away to mitigate any damage done? Or due to the HGH increase from fasting, could I consider that fast day still “hitting my protein?” I know that one day of missing my protein(the cheat day) won’t affect my gainz at all.
I know that some people only eat chicken breast and lettuce after days like that. But to me, that sounds like absolute torture. I’d prefer to just do a full fast if possible.
So yeah, just wanted to make sure I won’t lose muscle by doing this: having a cheat day where I don’t hit my protein, and then doing 24-48 hours of fasting afterwards to smooth out my calories.
that’s not how metabolism works though. If you eat high carb for one day, you are not doing to gain 5lb, or whatever amount of lbs your scale is showing.
You can absolutely “undo” a bit of progress (lets say you ate at 500 cal deficit for 6 days, and then on day 7 ate 3000 cal surplus, then its like eating 7 days on maintenance). Mind you, it is HARD to eat 3000 cal surplus in a day. So likely “undoing the progress” is just not really moving much down.
Thatb being said cheat days help with hunger and hormones, you know when you start obsessing with food. So it’s not all entirely bad. fasting right after undoes all the benefit.
“damage control” is not an entirely healthy way to handle it tho. It’s better to just not overdo it with the cheat days (e.g. no more than every couple weeks).
Muscle growth and maintenance is about consistency and patterns of behavior. You neither gain, slow down, or lose muscle that quickly, it’s a gradual process. Going three days without hitting your protein goals is certainly going to have an effect and the frequency determines the amount. It’s like if you skipped a workout once a month vs once a week.
However, I would urge you to really examine this approach. This is all borderline eating disorder territory. You’re justifying it as damage control but it’s just punishing yourself for binging. This never gets you to a healthier relationship with food it just perpetuates the cycle.