My thoughts in IF, briefly, are that it’s a highly understudied area.
The more research I review, the more I’ve come to find out how well-adapted the human species is to prolonged periods of zero food. There are several variants of IF, some are less conducive to typical recomp goals than others. I have come to appreciate many of the virtues of the incarnation of IF that Martin Berkhan has developed. In the past I have been highly critical of lower meal frequency, but much of that was a product of being stuck in the dogma of the mainstream curriculum. None of the ‘stoking of the metabolic fire’ stuff has been solidly supported by research. Now, whether IF has any *special* effects remains anecdotal. I will concede that I was incorrect about my former negatively slanted stance towards IF.
Alan Aragon
Recent quote from the bodybuilding.com forums. He is right on point with regards to intermittent fasting being a highly understudied area, particularly in the context of controlled human studies. Much of the research I’m looking at involves various confounders such as ad libitum calorie intake and no non-IF-control group. Not to mention that studies on intermittent fasting and weight training are completely lacking.
There have been some studies on athletes during Ramadan fasting, which show interesting results. I briefly mentioned one such study in this post. However, one very obvious confounder that plagues the Ramadan-studies is that of fluid restriction. One would presume this would impact various performance related parameters negatively. Yet interestingly, tests suggests that both aerobic and anaerobic performance is left fairly intact in most studies on the topic.
