I started posting about my approach to intermittent fasting back in 2006.
Back then my writings and results inspired many to take the leap themselves. My blog came into fruition 2007 and more people decided to give intermittent fasting a chance. My clientele grew exponentially.
Since then I’ve received numerous e-mails from people, telling me about their results and thanking me for the inspiration and advice on this blog and the various forums I’ve posted on throughout the years.
Success stories
I’ve decided to post some of these success stories on the blog. If you have a success story of your own, feel free to e-mail me and tell me about it. If you have some before and after pics that would be great too. To narrow it down, I’m only interested in success stories where you feel I played some part. Maybe you feel you learned something useful from my writings that helped you change your physique for the better.
Bob Kupniewski
First out is Bob Kupniewski who recently won a muscle gaining contest, Iron Contest 2, hosted by Animal Pak (a big supplement company). The cool thing is that he did it by going against the advice of the trainer*, which was to eat seven times a day. Bob fasted at least 16 hours daily and ate two to three times a day. And won the damn thing.
* The trainer posted general diet and training guidelines on the Animal Pak forum.
Bob converted to the Leangains approach after having read my posts at bodybuilding.com. Here are his before and after pics that won him the competition. These were taken Nov 30th 2009 and March 1st 2010.
Stats in the before-pics.
- Weight: 153 lbs
- Squat: 235 lbs x 7
- Bench: 220 lbs x 5
- Deadlift: 225 lbs x 10
Stats in the after-pics.
- Weight: 171 lbs (+ 18 lbs)
- Squat: 275 lbs x 8 (+ 40 lbs and + 1 reps
- Bench: 255 lbs x 5 (+ 35 lbs)
- Deadlift: 285 lbs x 10 (+ 60 lbs)
According to BodPod-readings, Bob’s body fat was 11% in the before-pics and 11.2% in the after-pics. This must be off by a few percentage points as in my view he’s more along the lines of 14-15% in both pics. It’s not often you see someone pack on 18 lbs without their body fat percentage changing much. The quality of the weight gain was very high. Well done, Bob.
I asked Bob to write about how he felt about intermittent fasting and this is what he wrote.
I came from a background of working with previous trainers that always approached a higher meal frequency. Everything had to revolve around 4-6 meals per day in order to ‘Keep the metabolism going, and stimulating muscle protein synthesis the best.’ I would always be in a hurry to packing my food everyday, spending countless hours in the kitchen, and while working 2 jobs over the summer and not having much time for a gym, and food prep consuming my time I knew that something was not right and there was an easier alternative out there.
I am a full time education major, on top of that I am getting a minor in Economics to add to my resume. My time is very limited, and I cannot afford to sit around and eat throughout the day as my schedule does not allow much time for breaks. I saw a few people from the bodybuilding.com forums who took the Leangains approach to intermittent fasting, and I thought I should give this a try myself to see how it would suit me.
How do I feel about intermittent fasting? It’s more of a lifestyle if anything, I enjoy eating big and eating a few times a day. I have had the best workouts of my life fasted and I have spent less time at the dinner table but yet am making incredible results in the weight room and in the mirror. Once I have turned this way I really don’t see why I should ever turn back.
Now I can go out and enjoy family social events where food may not be very clean, but I can just eat a very large portion of protein in a meal prior and graze on foods to meet my caloric total for the day and not stress about a damn thing and be social without having to pull out Tupperware and eat some nasty ass fish or eggs.
Fasted training has brought the best of both worlds. Increased energy, better focus, and it has provided personal records for me over and over for the last 4 months. Even dealing with a low testosterone issue I am still seeing gains in the gym by keeping my gym time short (45 minutes) and not training as frequent (4x a week max). I used to do 5 day splits, hit every bodypart at least 2 x a week, and spend over 60-90 minutes, but then I got so worn out and tired that I saw no progress and cortisol levels were stressed to the max. It was not worth it and I needed to change my ways.
Martin’s idea of less time in the gym and more rest seemed odd at first, but once I got the hang of it my body and lifts exploded. I do not see myself ever going back.”
Bob Kupniewski
