Posted by Mike Stickel on Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Over the past two years I've been following the conventional mantra of eating smaller meals often and generally following guidelines set out by the Beachbody programs I've done (e.g., P90X, Insanity, etc. [affiliate links]). As you can see from my transformation story it's worked great so far.

More recently I discovered the Paleo/Primal lifestyle and Intermittent Fasting. After reading more and more about these lifestyles it's easier for me to relate to them than it is for me to relate to conventional wisdom (a term Mark Sisson uses to describe the current widespread health information/thought) — at least as far as eating goes.

For the last month or so my nutrition goals have aligned more with Paleo/Primal standards as much as possible. If you're unfamiliar with what those standards are simply put it means whole, organic food, no grains, and little to no dairy (see Mark's Daily Apple for more).

During that time I discovered LeanGains.com, where Martin Berkham talks about Intermittent Fasting (IF). He is a consultant helping people achieve astounding results using IF and the system he's personally developed over years of trial and error on himself and his clients. The success stories Martin posts on his blog and Twitter are so inspiring to me I decided to follow his method of IF for the foreseeable future.

Fasting for 16 hours a day took some adjustment at first. Two weeks into IF and I'm totally comfortable with the fasting and compressed feeding window. An unexpected twist is just how much improvement I'm seeing in my workouts and body composition in such a short time.

Here are a couple comparison pics after two weeks doing Insanity: The Asylum (affiliate link) and IF: