Eating enough in my feed window

Jay Cohen · 11-08-2007, 06:49 AM

I'm doing pretty good on IF'ing from 6:00 PM to 12 noon. When I get home for lunch, pretty hungry. Eat about 800-1000 calories, 55% fat, 35 P and 10 ish carbs. I make/pack a second meal to eat around 4-4:30, but either find myself not real hungry or on M/W/F, I have Oly practice at 6, so I really don't want to eat another 800-1000 calories. Now, if I wasn't lifting, then I'd eat around 5:30, no problem.

Before IF'ing, I was averaging about 1600-1800 cals per day and feeling good, BUT, I want to get stronger, hence need to eat more food. I down loaded Robb and Gregs Mass gain article and it's mentioned that I should increase cals by 1k, which freaked me out, but willing to add at least 500 per day.

How do I add the extra calories, but still get the benefits of IF'ing. I guess I could expand my eating window?

Open to all ideas and comments.

Thanks.

Mike ODonnell · 11-08-2007, 06:57 AM

- add more healthy fats (as fats are easy condensed calories)
- put almond butter on chicken (make sure you get enough omega 3s too from fish oil to balance the excessive omega 6 intake)
- make sure to keep your protein intake aroud 0.8-1gram/lean lbs
- If you need to, add a protein shake with each meal to get in more protein, or have a protein shake with flaxseed/coconut oil or some other healthy fat. I find that of benefit around training hours as it will digest quickly compared to food (of course if you can get all your protein from food that would be the best option, I however need like 200+ grams of protein to start putting on muscle so no way I can eat that much. I need lower amounts to maintain.)

Gaining muscle is all about 2 things:
- Increased Protein Utilization
- Decreased Muscle Loss

IF should help with both, and it couldn't hurt to also add in some digestive enzymes (both fasting to improve GI environment, and with food to improve protein digestion/utilization). Also Omega 3 Fish Oil will have a huge advantage in decreasing muscle loss through lower cortisol levels from training, so get that as well.

Jay Cohen · 11-08-2007, 07:34 AM

Mike;
Excellent suggestions.
Thanks very much for the quick response.

William Hunter · 11-08-2007, 09:00 AM

IMO, you should seriously consider expanding your window an hour or two in order to include a post training meal. You could switch your window from 3pm-9pm or something like that. I have found it difficult to train at the beginning of my fast...YMMV.

Jay Cohen · 11-08-2007, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by William Hunter

IMO, you should seriously consider expanding your window an hour or two in order to include a post training meal. You could switch your window from 3pm-9pm or something like that. I have found it difficult to train at the beginning of my fast...YMMV.

William;
I do the CF WOD at 6:00am, which goes really well and I'm at 12 hours into fasting. MWF, I do a small protein shake, at 7:30 PM. I'm getting pretty cranky by noon, so eating then and maybe at 4(hungry or not), then light shake on Oly days should work.
I'll keep tweaking, thanks for the advice.

William Hunter · 11-08-2007, 11:51 AM

Oops, my bad. When you said Oly at 6, I was thinking 6pm.

I've done 5 and 6 hr windows during the year. I'm now experimenting with an 8 hr window, mostly b/c of my schedule, which allows me to eat at noon, or not until 5pm. There's just no slowing down inbetween right now. So...we all continue to experiment, no?