 To intermittent fast or not to intermittent fast that is the question you guys we've got a lot of questions from the community asking us what is intermittent fasting should i do it is it right for me i'm a guy i'm a girl i'm this age i have this goal so today we're going to answer the question should i be intermittent fasting let me start off by saying this dan and i use intermittent fasting almost every single day and it's worked really well for us and many other community members a lot of people have gone through awesome weight loss transformations because they found intermittent fasting as a tool that just made getting lean easier for them so it might work for you it might not go through this video learn a little bit more about intermittent fasting by the end of the video hopefully you'll have an idea regarding whether you should start intermittent fasting or you should just keep doing what you're already doing before getting into whether you should do it or not let's review what intermittent fasting is so intermittent fasting is just splitting up your day into a feeding window and a fasting window so specifically we're going to be talking about the lean gains today it's something that we use for the most part sometimes we get a little bit outside of the typical protocol but for the most part we're fasting for 16 hours and then we're feasting for eight hours for example we'll stop eating at 8 p.m the night before start eating again the next day at 12 p.m so it's 16 hours where we don't eat and then we'll eat from that 12 p.m to 8 p.m so that eight hours of eating simple enough right now why in the world would anyone want to do this I mean you can't skip meals right like that's bad for you wait on it how about the fact that when you do intermittent fasting you have greater insulin sensitivity which allows your body to make better use of carbohydrates or how about the fact that a wide variety of potential health benefits come with intermittent fasting including cardiovascular health and life extension through neuroprotective mechanisms such as the protective mechanisms against brain diseases such as Alzheimer's you also get improved mental alertness in a boost in metabolism and overall energy especially during these fasted periods of time how about the increased levels of growth hormone while you're fasted which also helps you fuel your metabolism into fat burning mode and make sure that you maintain the muscle mass that you have let's talk about appetite suppression most people think that if you're not eating you're going to be ravenously hungry it's not true once you get into a rhythm after two or three weeks of doing intermittent fasting you get into this state of being where you just feel comfortable not eating you don't feel desperate all the time you're ready to eat when your fast is over let's talk about the practicality of it no one likes to be the tupperware person who has to bring food to work in like four different tupperware containers eating every two to three hours no when you intermittent fast you can split up your day into this fasted window where you don't have to worry about food at all and in the afternoon and the evening you can have two big delicious satiating meals i don't know about you but i don't like eating small meals i don't like to eat like a rabbit i want to eat big meals and i want to feel satisfied by the end and so that is a really big one for me as well and you might resonate with this as well wait but i thought eating a bunch of small meals is way better for your metabolism and if you go a long period of time without eating you're going to end up getting fat and your metabolism is going to slow down false this is one of the biggest things in pseudoscience that keeps on getting passed over and over and over it's just not true you can't find one medical study that's going to say this really we know the most important thing period is a total calories and macronutrients that you're consuming in a day but beyond that meal frequency not really important so you might as well optimize for convenience and overall lifestyle enjoyment listen if you're a big nerd when it comes to this research science when it regarding nutrition please tell us if you found studies that definitively show that you're gonna have a faster functioning metabolism when you eat more frequent meals because we're always open to learning more about the research out there but what we found personally is that the research that does say that well they try to replicate these studies they find different results so it's really hard to definitively say if you eat many meals a day you're going to have a faster functioning metabolism versus just eating two big meals with that being said something you might want to protect against is maintaining your muscle mass now it's not going to be super super important for someone who doesn't really care that much about maintaining their muscle or putting on lean muscle but if you're someone who wants to you know create that zen dude physique have nice sculpted arms shoulders chest and just maintain a good amount of muscle mass we recommend taking branched chain amino acids in the morning to help you maintain an anabolic state while you're fasting so essentially just giving your muscles the nutrients they need to maintain the mass because branched chain amino acids are the building blocks of protein and protein is the building blocks of muscle and so while you're fasting you're not getting protein so you can replace that with branched chain amino acids so if you want the same branched chain amino acids that we use personally we use athletic grains and we'll link it in the description below we found it to be the highest quality branched chain amino acids out there that's what you recommend it that's where you take it on a daily basis while we're fasting and also pre-workout as well so intermittent fasting has all these benefits but is it right for you personally well it's right for you if you can answer yes to these following questions if you're someone who often overeats or binge eats if that's true for you you should definitely try intermittent fasting because it'll help you solve that problem one of your goals is spend less time thinking about food and food prep if that's you then definitely try intermittent fasting because you're eating less meals it's just more convenient you are not a competitive athlete if you're a competitive athlete training multiple hours a day don't worry about intermittent fasting but if you are not one then go ahead and give intermittent fasting a shot you are over 18 years old now if you're under 18 you probably have a lot of development still going on within your body so we don't want to recommend you mess your hormones they're doing things like fasting not that it can be dangerous but we kind of want to cover our own butts here so if you are under 18 just wait until you're over 18 if you are over 18 you can give it a shot if you like to eat delicious feasts this is one of the main reasons why we do intermittent fasting because we love eating delicious feasts in our afternoon and into the evening and doing intermittent fasting allows you to do that because you have more calories to work with later in the day so if that's you then go ahead and give it a shot and finally if you're not pregnant then you can give it a shot if you are pregnant don't start doing fasting obviously but i feel like we should say this if you're pregnant don't do this if you're not pregnant go for it here's a caveat to this if you are a woman and you want to give intermittent fasting a shot we recommend starting off with a longer eating window so 12 hours eating 12 hours fasting see how you feel and if your hormones and everything feel good then you can try shrinking that window down to around 10 hours of eating and 14 hours of fasting and again listen to your body see how you feel play up by ear but also understand that for the first two to three weeks you're going to be hungry this is normal you can blunt that appetite by using caffeine so having coffee in the morning and drinking lots of water but it's going to be uncomfortable for the first two to three weeks after that way easier feels good it's completely normal if you want a more in-depth how to video on intermittent fasting we'll link it up in the top corner of the screen right now dan did an awesome video really breaking down everything you'd everyone know about intermittent fasting and how to start doing it so this video is to basically answer question should i be doing intermittent fasting dan's video is how exactly can i do it finally you guys if you want to join a community of other people getting lean having fun here at zen do fitness we have a free four week challenge along with the facebook accountability group we'll link that in the description below for you we'll also put it up here in the corner of the screen click whatever you want just join the group join us join the family we'll help you with reaching your getting lean and living an overall awesome life goals and final thing guys those branched amino asses i mentioned before we do take those while we're fasting we do take and pre-workout so if you do want to try them out take five grams in the morning another five grams before your workout and if you want the ones that we use personally and recommend we put it in the description below for you it's by athletic greens it's the best most high quality branched amino asses that we've taken personally there's a lot out there there's a lot to search through so we wanted to give you our recommendation in case you wanted to take with the zen dudes take it's down in the description you guys thank you thank you thank you thank you for watching this video appreciate you so much every single one of you in this community the gratitude is just coming out my ears because this community grows day by day and each one of you is so special and so appreciated and everything that you're doing in here helps us build this movement together it's a co-creator process so again thank you for your comments like subscribe shares all that super super important if you're not subscribed to community yet you can hit the subscribe button it's in the corner of the screen right now do that you'll officially become a member of the community a zen dude or a dudette that's it deuces and do nation