Well, I know I promised I'd be posting results from the past week of experimenting with IF. And I had every intention to (as you can see by the check-ins over the last week). Things were looking pretty good, but then something horrible happened... something that will ruin every fitness plan... I got the flu. It is that time of year, and I'm not surprised that I've come down with it considering I've moved to a colder climate this winter. Results are extremely contradictory. And somewhat unbelievable when you think about it logically. I thought about postponing publishing my results, but that would go against everything I believe in. I will, however preface them with the following caveat: I am pretty sure that even if you ate junk food for 3 days straight, your body fat will not jump 5% in 3 days while simultaneously losing inches at almost all measurement points on the body. The one thing that is believable, though, is that Bioelectric Impedance Analysis (BIA - those little hand grip body fat calculators) are very sensitive to hydration level of the subject. When you're sick, you really can't drink enough fluids... especially water. And the past 3 days, I certainly did not drink enough. So when I stepped on the scale and saw "160 lb." I was cautiously optimistic. Then I took my bf reading.... 16% !! Are you shitting me? on Thursday, it was 11%!
On Thursday, I was ready to preach about how well things were working, how great I feel, etc. But sadly, today, I have to post the bizarre results with an asterisk.
Weight: 160 lb
BF %: 16 % *
Target caloric Intake: 2500 calories
Chest: lost 1/2 inch ( 36" down to 35.5" )
Waist: lost 1/4 inch ( 32" down to 31.75" )
Hips: lost 1/2 inch (38" down to 37.5" )
Thighs: lost 1/2 inch R 3/4 inch L (22 to 21.5" and 22 to 21.25" )
Biceps: lost 1/4 inch each (13.5" to 13.25" and 13.75" to 13.5" )
It just doesn't make any sense to me. You can't gain that much body fat and lose lean mass at the same time, and you can't lose body fat and gain a ton of lean mass in that short a time period.
So whats the plan? Re-baseline. I was still too sick to make it in for a Monday morning workout. I'm going to continue with my workout on Wednesday and Friday. I am not planning to fast on Monday night - Tuesday evening. I will fast on Wednesday evening - Thursday evening. and hopefully things will level out by then. Once my hydration levels are stabilizing, I have a feeling things will get back to normal. I will repost results next week.
Current conclusions: I think the IF is doing what its intended to do. I think I would have seen spectacular results had I not been sick for the past 3 days. I'm not ready to declare success or failure. I chose to do this experiment for 1 month to get some trend data behind it. One week won't do that for either case. I'll stick it out for another 3 - 5 weeks and see how the overall trend looks. Stay tuned!
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