10 Ways to Expect Less

the daily zen

Friday, February 10, 2012

10 Ways to Expect Less

Many of our woes come from expectations.  We build elaborate scenarios in our heads detailing the potential outcomes of situations-- how careers will work out, the longevity of relationships-- all for comfort.  
  

In a bizarre twist of irony that only real life could provide, rarely are our experiences fully synchronous with our expectations, leaving us quite uncomfortable.

Solution?  Have no preconceived notion of the experience.  Just live, act, and allow things to happen as they will.  Like Kurt Vonnegut said, "So it goes."

Here are ten strategies you can utilize nearly every day to tone down your expectations and live fuller, detached from the heavy anchor of outcomes.  

1.  No goals.  This seems counterintuitive-- if you have no goals, how can you achieve?  Goals seem productive, but they're merely constraints.  Don't set goals; live deliberately and with the fullest of intentions right now and you'll act with such passion and vehemence that you won't need them.  

2.  Tell the truth.  Ultimate honesty is rooted in not trying to force an outcome.  You don't lie if you have no reason to alter someone's reaction to what you're saying. 


3.  Don't judge.  We judge people as another method of self-comfort.  It's easy to force another person into a pre-conceived place you've created for them in your mind, but it's very selfish and will leave both of you disappointed.  

4.  Make time for someone else.  Expect less for yourself, and more for others-- doing so will often work in your favor regardless.  

5.  Relieve the people around you of blame.  Doing so adds a neutral, calm element to what others will see as a negative situation.

6.  Listen to someone intently for a long time, whether you think you care or not.  You'll give them an opportunity to vent and your empathy will improve in the process.

7.  Meditation.  The mother of all non-expectation activities.  

8.  Don't teach, reveal.  By this, what I mean is, instead of preaching to someone, give them a few words of wisdom and allow them to discover it for themselves.  Old Chinese proverb:  "Tell me, I'll forget.  Show me, I'll remember.  Involve me, I'll understand."   

9.  Spend less.  We spend money with expectations.  Big-screen TV's will relax us.  A fancy meal at a 5-star restaurant will appease our lust for the high-class.  These are such limited trains of thought.  Attaching yourself to material objects is not the best (nor cheapest) route to happiness.  

10.  People watch.  I don't mean, "Hey, that guy looks ridiculous!" people watching, even though it's tempting (especially where I live in NYC).  Instead, watch people with an inherent sense of empathy.  Your own ideas of your problems and your expectations will drift away when you put yourself in someone else's shoes.  

You Need To Go After The Things You Want

Dec. 4, 2012

By Ryan O'Connell

Broken English

Have you ever been emotion-shamed before? You know what I’m talking about, has someone ever made you feel bad for being honest, for putting yourself out there and articulating your feelings to them? It’s a rare thing to do these days, to really let yourself be raw and vulnerable. We live in an age of posturing. People hide behind their phones, they carefully curate their communication with other people, which makes honest moments few and far between. When one manages to slip itself in, it’s jarring. “You’re being so real with me right now,” the person on the receiving end says. “I don’t really know what to do with all of this truth. We’ve gone off-script. We’re like in the 70s or something.”
You don’t get anything you want by subscribing to the social rules of today. You remain frozen and in perpetual fear that you’ll come off as “crazy” to someone, you’re unhinged, you are officially seen as someone with no filter. God, I hate that term: no filter. What the hell does that even mean? Like, sorry, that I won’t lie and do this elaborate dance with you? Yes, I must be truly a loose cannon then!
Don’t follow these rules of modern love. They’re shit. Imagine yourself at age 90 and filled with regret. Imagine being surrounded with “what if”s and “how come”s and not being able to do anything about it because you’re too old now, you’ve been edged out of society and the only thing you have left to do now is die. That’s what will happen to you if you keep on holding the love in.
Let it out. Let the love out.

Read this quote by Harvey Milk.

Go after her. Fuck, don’t sit there and wait for her to call, go after her because that’s what you should do if you love someone, don’t wait for them to give you a sign cause it might never come, don’t let people happen to you, don’t let me happen to you, or her, she’s not a fucking television show or tornado. There are people I might have loved had they gotten on the airplane or run down the street after me or called me up drunk at four in the morning because they need to tell me right now and because they cannot regret this and I always thought I’d be the only one doing crazy things for people who would never give enough of a fuck to do it back or to act like idiots or be entirely vulnerable and honest and making someone fall in love with you is easy and flying 3000 miles on four days notice because you can’t just sit there and do nothing and breathe into telephones is not everyone’s idea of love but it is the way I can recognize it because that is what I do. Go scream it and be with her in meaningful ways because that is beautiful and that is generous and that is what loving someone is, that is raw and that is unguarded, and that is all that is worth anything, really.

Harvey Milk said this decades ago but it has never felt more relevant to how we live our lives today. When did we become so afraid to love someone with vulnerability? When did we become so fearful of spilling our guts and being who we are? It sounds corny but it’s true. A few months ago, after a long time of doing the elaborate modern dance and keeping my feelings in, I let them out at 5 a.m. to someone and it didn’t go well. I could see this person make the switch in his mind. I was the “crazy emotional” one now. I told the truth and I was going to pay for my sins.

We need to move away from this constant need of coming across as calm, cool and collected. WE WEREN’T BUILT TO BE CALM, COOL, AND COLLECTED. If we were, it wouldn’t feel so fucking exhausting all the time. It would, you know, come naturally to us. You know what comes naturally to human beings though? Being open, being messy, being raw, being unfiltered, having lots of feelings. Why should we have to stifle our true nature? Let’s go after the things we want, let’s love each other brutally and honestly, and not worry about the consequences. Let’s release the feelings inside of us and let them land somewhere special. Otherwise, we might have a lifetime of longing in front of us. 

 

Introducing Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting: How to Lose Fat, Build Muscle, Stay Focused & Feel Great

If you want to lose fat and improve your health as fast as possible, without feeling mentally slow, it’s hard to beat Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting.
Plain intermittent fasting has become popular in biohacker circles because it shows tremendous promise for fat loss, preventing cancer, building muscle, and increasing resilience. The most popular site that covers plain intermittent fasting is Leangains.com.  It’s totally worth a visit. The basic idea behind plain intermittent fasting is to eat all of your daily food in a shortened period (8 hours in the case of Lean Gains) and fast the rest of the time. For reasons we will get into below, this tells your body to simultaneously build muscle and burn fat.  It really works.
The problem is not everyone does well with fasting. If you’re a busy entrepreneur or even a student who needs to be in a high performance state all day, dealing with hunger can be a distraction. It’s much worse for those with an impaired metabolism (i.e. the people who need to lose weight). If you have more than 30 pounds of extra fat or if you’re facing diabetes, it can be hard to skip meals and still get things done.
Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting is a biohack that changes that and makes it possible to lose fat and build muscle faster than plain intermittent fasting… without feeling hungry or tired.

Introducing Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting

Bulletproof Fasting is the same as intermittent fasting, except you consume a cup of Bulletproof Coffee in the morning. The healthy fats from grass-fed butter and MCT oil give you a stable current of energy that sustains you through the day. The ultra low toxin Upgraded Coffee Beans optimize brain function and fat loss with high octane caffeine. The MCT oil also serves to increase ketone production and boosts your metabolic rate by up to 12%. This drink is so filling, we’ve had clients who drank one cup of Bulletproof Coffee in the morning and didn’t feel like eating until mid afternoon. Adding extra MCT oil will promote ketogenesis (the formation of ketones) and provide more of a mental kick.
For optimal results, you should be following the green side of Bulletproof Diet in conjunction with this protocol. Bulletproof Fasting will not save you from the effects of Poptarts and fried Oreos.

Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting: Mental Performance Protocol

Goal: Improve and/or sustain mental performance while getting more benefits than plain intermittent fasting.

Step 1: Finish dinner by 8 pm

No snacking after dinner – go to bed whenever you want.

Step 2: Drink Bulletproof Coffee in the morning

Bulletproof Coffee is a mix of brewed Upgraded Coffee Beans, grass-fed butter, and pharmaceutical grade MCT oil. You can find the complete recipe here. Don’t mess around with cheap coffee, which will sabotage your efforts since 91.7% of green coffee has mycotoxins in it.
Drink as much Bulletproof Coffee as you like in the morning. You can have another cup before 2:00 PM if you get hungry. No coffee after 2:00 PM or you won’t sleep.

Step 2.5 (optional) – Work out

This is not necessary to gain muscle and lose fat, but it helps. If you’re going to work out, lift something heavy right before you break the fast in step 3. I’d suggest high intensity weight training. Shorter and harder is better than longer exercise. You will need to sleep more if you exercise.

Step 3: Do not eat until 2pm

This means you’ve not had anything to eat except Bulletproof Coffee for 18 hours.  This should occur from the time you wake, through the morning, and into the afternoon. If 18 hours is too long, start with a shorter fast and increase from there.

Step 4: Eat as much Bulletproof food as you like for 6 hours (until 8 pm)

The number of meals you eat during this time is irrelevant, as is the amount of calories.
Here is a sample day of Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting:
8:00 AM: Drink Bulletproof Coffee.
2:00 PM: Break fast with foods from the Bulletproof Diet.
8:00 PM: Eat your last meal before beginning the fast.
Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting extends your life, improves brain function, and makes you more resilient on all levels. Even if you just start drinking Bulletproof Coffee for breakfast in place of the watery bags of sugar we call fruit, you can take advantage of some of these benefits. Once you start Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting, you will have gained an unfair advantage on your peers in health, longevity, and performance.
Benefits of Plain Intermittent Fasting

Animal studies (thanks Wikipedia!)

• “Reduced serum glucose and insulin levels and increased resistance of neurons in the brain to excitotoxic stress“^[2]
• “Enhance[s] cardiovascular and brain functions and improve[s] several risk factors for coronary artery disease and stroke including a reduction in blood pressure and increased insulin sensitivity” and that “cardiovascular stress adaptation is improved and heart rate variability is increased in rodents” and that “rodents maintained on an IF regimen exhibit increased resistance of heart and brain cells to ischemic injury in experimental models of myocardial infarction and stroke.”^[3]
• May “ameliorate age-related deficits in cognitive function” in mice^[4]
• Correlation with IF and significantly improved biochemical parameters associated with development of diabetic nephropathy^[5]
• Resistance in mice to the effects of gamma irradiation^[6]
• Lifespan increases of 40.4% and 56.6% in C. elegans for alternate day (24 hour) and two-of-each-three day (48 hour) fasting, respectively, as compared to an ad libitum diet.^[7]
• Rats showed markedly improved long-term survival after chronic heart failure via pro-angiogenic, anti-apoptotic and anti-remodeling effects.^[8]

Human studies

• Alternative day fasting (ADF) may produce significant improvements in several markers such as LDL cholesterol in as little as eight weeks.^[10]
• “may effectively modulate several risk factors, thereby preventing chronic disease, and that ADF may modulate disease risk to an extent similar to that of CR”.^[11]
• Serum from humans following an IF diet had positive effects (reduced triglycerides in men and increased HDL in women, as well as reduced cell proliferation and increased heat resistance) in vitro on human hepatoma cells.^[12]
• IF confers protection from toxic chemotherapy treatments, allowing higher doses and therefore more effective treatment for cancers.^[13]
• IF may function as a form of nutritional hormesis.^[14][15]

Reasons Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting Works Better

Reason #1: Tripling down on mTOR.
mTOR sounds like it should be the name of a hero in a Japanese comic book, but it’s a little more important than that. mTOR stands for “Mammalian Target of Rapamycin.” It’s one of those things that only a biohacker (or a fat person) could get excited about.  mTOR is a major mechanism that increases protein synthesis in your muscles. Both exercise and coffee raise cellular energy use while simultaneously inhibiting your muscle building mechanisms (mTOR) for a brief period, which causes it to “spring back” and build even more muscle as soon as you eat.
There are 3 known ways to raise mTOR. Intermittent fasting, exercise, and coffee (or more weakly, chocolate, green tea, turmeric, or resveratrol)

Bulletproof Fasting hits all 3 ways to compress mTOR, causing a bigger rebound and better use of your food for muscle building. I used Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting occasionally during my 4500 calorie per day no exercise long term experiment, and ended up looking like this after doing it for 4 days per week for 2 weeks. Keep in mind that I used to weigh 300lbs, and I hadn’t worked out for 18 months when this photo was taken.
Plain intermittent fasting doesn’t use coffee, so it only hits one, or possibly 2 of the 3 possible mTOR triggers. Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting works better because it can use all 3 mechanisms, but it works very well (as you can see) with just coffee and intermittent fasting. The cool thing is that an all fat breakfast (like Bulletproof Coffee ™ ) doesn’t make your body think it’s broken the fast, so you get the benefits of the fasting anyway. It’s awesome!

Reason #2: Ketosis
Plain intermittent fasting helps you enter ketosis (fat burning mode that’s good for your brain) but then you end ketosis if you eat carb-containing foods at the end of the fast. Using MCT in your Bulletproof Coffee increases the speed at which you go into ketosis, so it fuels your brain, and it helps you stay in ketosis even in the presence of some carbs in your diet. MCT is noticeably better than just grass fed butter in my coffee for this effect.

Reason #3: You’ll actually do it because you feel awesome
Let’s face it. You’re not a super athlete. You’re not a model or a professional body builder. You have work to do at your day job and being hungry, sluggish, and cranky all morning during a fast is not fun or good for your career. It’s easier, and far more pleasant to do a Bulletproof Intermittent Fast than a plain one. I’ve done plain ones and enjoy them to be honest, but they are even more enjoyable with Bulletproof Coffee. Plus, I get better results with the coffee protocols.

Reason #4: Metabolic hacking
Coffee increases your metabolism by up to 20 percent. Plain intermittent fasting doesn’t. This combination is superior.
That just about covers it.  If you benefit from this Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting Protocol, please leave a comment here or on the Bulletproof Forum.  The next article on Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting will show you the protocol that produced 75 pounds of weight loss in 75 days.

Recipe: How to Make Your Coffee Bulletproof…And Your Morning Too

When people hear more than half my calories come from healthy fats, one of the most common questions after “Why?” is “How?”

I start the day with a cup of Bulletproof coffee. I learned about the power of butter at 18,000 feet elevation near Mt. Kailash in Tibet when I staggered into a guest house from the -10 degree weather and was literally rejuvenated by a creamy cup of yak butter tea.

 The biohacker in me asked, “why?” and after a couple years of careful research, that was the genesis of the recipe below, which is today used by Billboard recording artists before they go on stage, by world champion athletes, and some of the world’s top executives, because it has a massive impact on cognitive function.

It was John Patrick Henry’s 2nd cousin’s boyfriend Juan Valdez who said, “Give me high-end coffee or give me death.” That’s because toxins in cheap coffee (Starbucks included) will steal your mental edge and actually make you weak, but clean coffee actually fights cancer and provides antioxidants.

So I use the lowest toxin, highest performance coffee there is (I know, because I created it and tested it!), brew it, and then I blend unsalted grass-fed butter into it, along with an extract of coconut oil that improves brain energy. Yes, butter. All the benefits of healthy milk fat with none of the damaging denatured casein proteins found in cream. It makes for the creamiest, most satisfying cup of coffee you’ve ever had. It will keep you satisfied with level energy for 6 hours if you need it. And because I’m having it for breakfast, I’m programming my body to burn fat for energy all day long!

Bulletproof Coffee Recipe

Download the Bulletproof® Coffee recipe card

• Start with 1 cup (8 oz.) filtered water, just off the boil.
•  
• Measure 2 1/2 heaping tablespoons freshly ground Bulletproof® Upgraded™ Coffee beans (approximately 2 rounded tablespoons per 6 oz. water) and brew strong black coffee using your favorite coffee brewing method. (Why this is important)
• Pour in 1 teaspoon Bulletproof® Upgraded™ Brain Octane™ or Bulletproof® Upgraded™ MCT Oil (build up to 1-2 tablespoons over several days).
• Add 1 tablespoon grass-fed, unsalted butter or ghee (build up to 2 tablespoons or much more over several days).
• Mix in a blender for at least 20 seconds until the drink is frothy and looks like a creamy latte without a film of oil on the surface.

It’s really fast and easy to prepare.  Realize salted coffee is a crime. Do not do this with salted butter. Bleah.
Kerrygold butter or another grass-fed brand of butter really matters because corn or soy-fed cows don’t make butter with the same fats. Those butters don’t blend well, don’t taste good, and don’t make you feel Bulletproof.

Grass-fed butter is much healthier than other butter.  It doesn’t make cholesterol levels worse, it optimizes them!  Starting your day with grass-fed butter will give you lots of energy and it will give your body healthy fats that it will use to make cell walls and hormones.

If you’re like most of my friends who try this, your body is so starved for healthy fats that you feel like you can’t get enough. It will take your body a week or two to fully turn on its fat digestion systems when you switch to a high healthy fat breakfast of Bulletproof coffee. If at first it is a little too rich, try using less butter initially then build up to the amount you like. Taking a betaine HCl or digestive enzyme supplement with your coffee will also help your body digest the butter.

Try this just once, with at least 2 Tbs of butter, and have nothing else for breakfast. You will experience one of the best mornings of your life, with boundless energy and focus. It’s amazing.
After one drink of Bulletproof coffee, you’ll never be tempted to eat fat-free, insulin-raising, fat-storing toast and oatmeal breakfasts again!

Recipe: How to Make Your Coffee Bulletproof…And Your Morning Too

Burn Away Fat Cells With Intermittent Fasting

By Dr. Mercola

If you're already off to a good start on a healthy fitness plan, and you're looking for ways to take it to the next level, then you might want to consider a form of fasting called Scheduled Eating, or intermittent fasting.
In essence this fitness-enhancing strategy looks at the timing of meals, as well as when NOT to eat. This isn't one of those fad plans, where you eat just one or two things for several days in a row.
In fact, the longest time you'll ever abstain from food is 36 hours, although 14-18 hours is more common. You can also opt to simply delay eating. For example, skipping breakfast may be just the thing to kick-start you off a plateau in your fitness routine.
But hypoglycemics and diabetics beware—there is a proper way to implement fasting, and hypoglycemic and/or diabetics need to be particularly careful in order to not worsen their health.Ditto for pregnant or breastfeeding women.
The plan is supported by a growing body of evidence showing that certain forms of fasting are good for you, and Mark Sisson's excellent series on this topic on his blog on marksdailyapple.com, delve into this topic at some depth.
For me, the issue of fasting is a major shift from my typical recommendations.
I've not been a major advocate for it in the past, but as many of you who have been reading this site for years know, I am always learning. Life is a journey, and no one has all the answers.
I seek to explore the best concepts out there to maximize learning.
To that end, I've been playing around with various forms of fasting for about a year and a half, and I now feel I'm ready to make some suggestions based on my experience.
First of all, I believe that fasting is not something you should undertake willy-nilly. You need to pay careful attention to your body, your energy levels, and how it makes you feel in general—especially if you're diabetic, hypoglycemic, or pregnant. I'll share some precautionary notes in a moment.
Furthermore, remember that the type of diet and/or form of fasting that might be best for you will vary depending on your weight, health, and fitness goals. Is your goal to live a longer, healthier life? Or are you a competitive or elite athlete? It may surprise many to learn that you cannot achieve maximum fitness and maximum longevity and fertility at the same time.
Each goal requires a different strategy, and will not provide you with equal end results. For example, elite female athletes typically have a difficult time getting pregnant—their fitness has been maximized at the expense of their fertility, as female hormones depend on sufficient amounts of body fat.
While most people need to address the foods they DO eat, before considering skipping meals, fasting can provide you with many benefits, and is another tool you can experiment with to help you reach your goals. However, please keep in mind that proper nutrition becomes even MORE important when fasting, so addressing your diet really should be your first step. Common sense will tell you that fasting combined with a denatured, highly processed, toxin-rich diet is likely to do more harm than good, as you're not giving your body proper fuel to thrive when you DO eat.

Intermittent Fasting for Weight Loss

In part 1, Mark Sisson discusses the merits of using fasting—in whatever form—to achieve weight loss. Overall, the research is very favorable for this goal. He lists three studies from recent years into fasting for weight loss, all of which showed positive results:

1. Non-obese patients lost an average of four percent of their total fat with alternate-day fasting for 22 days. Their fasting insulin also decreased.ⁱ
2. Alternate-day fasting was also effective for obese patients in a 2009 study. On fasting days, participants consumed 25 percent of their daily calorie needs. On average, they lost just over 5.5 pounds in eight weeks, and about three percent of their total body fat. Total cholesterol and LDL ("bad") cholesterol decreased, while HDL ("good") cholesterol remained unchanged. Systolic blood pressure also decreased.ⁱⁱ
3. In young, overweight women, alternate-day fasting was just as effective as calorie restriction for promoting weight loss and improving metabolic markers.ⁱⁱⁱ

One of the mechanisms that makes fasting so effective for weight loss is the fact that it provokes the secretion of human growth hormone (HGH), which is a fat-burning hormone. It also plays an important role in muscle building. Fasting also increases catecholamines, which increases resting energy expenditure, while decreasing insulin levels, which allows stored fat to be burned for fuel. Together, these and other factors will turn you into an effective fat-burning machine.
Hence, if like many tens of millions of people, your goal is to shed excess fat, fasting can be both effective and beneficial for improving many disease markers. The type of fast you choose appears to be less important, so pick whichever one fits your lifestyle, schedule, and temperament the best.
I'll summarize the four different types of intermittent fasting programs that are covered very well in Mark Sisson's excellent series on this subject (see Sources below for links to his blog). Mark is particularly well qualified to report on this topic as he's a leading blogger in the Paleo community, and a former elite Olympic Trials athlete.

Intermittent Fasting for Athletes

One 2008 study that evaluated the effect of fasting during the Muslim observance of Ramadan found it had a positive effect on body mass and other health markers in trained athletes^iv.
While athletes are certainly concerned with shedding excess fat, another overriding concern is the optimization of muscle growth. For this, you need protein. As a general guideline, you'll want to consume a high quality protein 30-60 minutes after finishing your workout—whey being one of the most ideal for this purpose, as it helps your body build muscle and lose fat simultaneously. Research has also shown that high quality protein from meat and whey has a positive effect on blood sugar, muscle building, changing body composition, and sparing muscle while losing fat.
Many find it works out well to break their fast after working out, which would allow you to get the best of both worlds: the benefits of working out in a fasted state, and protein-loading about half-an-hour to an hour afterward. This is my new strategy. I will typically delay my breakfast until 11 or 12 and workout around 9 AM. Since my last meal is typically around 7 PM, I will fast for about 14-17 hours before I eat my first meal. The fact that you are sleeping during most of this time makes it relatively painless and easy to do.
Avoid grain carbs, however. Although popular with many, "carb loading" is a mistake, particularly for people engaged in intense strength training, as you will burn carb fuel very quickly and then "hit the wall." The same goes for most people who start their day with muffins, bagels, or pancakes for example. This type of breakfast typically ignites a vicious cycle of hunger and snacking on even more carbs. And the more you continue eating these carb snacks, the more insulin resistant you become.
Part of what makes working out in a fasted state so effective is that your body actually has a preservation mechanism that protects your active muscle from wasting itself. So if you don't have sufficient fuel in your system when you exercise, you're going to break down other tissues but not the active muscle, i.e. the muscle being exercised. According to Ori Hofmekler, author of The Warrior Diet, you can quite literally re-design your physique using a combination of under-eating and exercise. However this really only works well once your metabolism has become proficient at burning fat. Mark discusses this in his series.
What about competitive sports athletes who may be exerting themselves in competitions several times a week—should they fast, and if so, when? Mark Sisson offers the following advice^v:

"Personally, I would eat on game days. It might be fun to try out a few fasted games, just to see how you perform, but the likely optimal way to integrate fasting into competition is to save the fasting days for your training days. By doing this, you'll be "training low, playing high," which should result in some beneficial adaptations after training and improved performance in the game (when you're "high" or fully replete with nutrients and calories)."

If you're an athlete, keep in mind that fasting can be contraindicated with overtraining, so be cautious if you're more or less in constant training.

Intermittent Fasting for General Health and Longevity

Fasting is historically common-place as it has been a part of spiritual practice for millennia. But modern science has confirmed there are many good reasons for fasting, including:

• Normalizing your insulin sensitivity, which is key for optimal health as insulin resistance (which is what you get when your insulin sensitivity plummets) is a primary contributing factor to nearly all chronic disease, from diabetes to heart disease and even cancer
• Normalizing ghrelin levels, also known as "the hunger hormone"
• Promoting human growth hormone (HGH) production, which plays an important part in health, fitness and slowing the aging process
• Lowering triglyceride levels
• Reducing inflammation and lessening free radical damage

There's also plenty of research showing that fasting has a beneficial impact on longevity in animals. There are a number of mechanisms contributing to this effect. Normalizing insulin sensitivity is a major one, but fasting also inhibits the mTOR pathway, which plays an important part in driving the aging process. The fact that it improves a number of potent disease markers also contributes to fasting's overall beneficial effects on general health.
Interestingly, one recent study that included more than 200 individuals, found that fasting increased the participants' low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL or "bad" cholesterol) and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL, the "good" cholesterol) by 14 percent and 6 percent, respectively^vi. Why would fasting raise total cholesterol? Dr. Benjamin D. Horne, PhD, MPH, director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute, and the study's lead author, offers the following explanation:

"Fasting causes hunger or stress. In response, the body releases more cholesterol, allowing it to utilize fat as a source of fuel, instead of glucose. This decreases the number of fat cells in the body... This is important because the fewer fat cells a body has, the less likely it will experience insulin resistance, or diabetes."

Even more remarkable, the study also found that fasting triggered a dramatic rise in HGH—1,300 percent in women, and an astounding 2,000 percent in men!
HGH, commonly referred to as "the fitness hormone" plays an important role in maintaining health, fitness and longevity, including promotion of muscle growth, and boosting fat loss by revving up your metabolism. The fact that it helps build muscle while simultaneously promoting fat loss explains why HGH helps you lose weight without sacrificing muscle mass, and why even athletes can benefit from the practice (as long as they don't overtrain and are careful about their nutrition).
The only other thing that can compete in terms of dramatically boosting HGH levels is high-intensity interval training. If you're over the age of 30, especially if you lead an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, you've likely entered a phase known as somatopause (age-related growth hormone deficiency). As your HGH levels decrease, your levels of insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) also decrease, and this is yet another important part of what drives your body's aging process.

Variations of Fasting

In his blog on marksdailyapple.com, Mark Sisson delves into four different variations of fasting, and how to implement them. The variations he includes are:

1. LeanGains (a fasting protocol by Martin Berkhan^vii )—A daily 14-16 hour fast, during which time you consume nothing, with the exception of non-caloric fluids. Sleeping time is included in this time-frame, leaving an 8-10 hour window during the day when you're allowed to eat.
This protocol is designed with regular exercise in mind, with specific nutrient ratios for workout days and rest days, and is geared for those who want to shed excess fat and gain muscle mass. Hence, it's best suited for those who are actually exercising and lifting weights each week and can tolerate working out in a fasted state.

1. Eat Stop Eat (created by Brad Pilon^viii)—In this protocol, you fast for a full 24 hours once or twice a week. Your fast should be broken with a regular-sized meal (i.e. avoid gorging when coming off your fast), and you can maintain a regular exercise program without any special diet recommendations for workout days.
Fasting for 24 hours can be tough for some people, but I would agree with Mark's advice that eating a high-fat, low-carb diet can make 24-hour fasting easier, as a higher fat diet will tend to normalize your hunger hormones and provide improved satiety for longer periods of time.

1. The Warrior Diet (by Ori Hofmekler)—This is another protocol designed to improve your fitness by exercising in a fasted state. I've interviewed Ori and posted detailed articles on this in the past. His plan calls for 20 hours of fasting, and four hours of "feasting." You exercise during the day in a fasted state. Raw vegetables are allowed during your fast, but no protein, which is reserved for "feasting" or post-exercise recovery meals.
To learn more about the Warrior Diet, please see this previous interview with Ori.

1. Alternate Day Fasting—This fasting protocol is exactly as it sounds: one day off, one day on. When you include sleeping time, the fast can end up being as long as 32-36 hours.
As Mark notes, this may be the most difficult of all types of fasting, as it will require you to go to bed with an empty stomach a few times a week. It's definitely not for everyone.

Mark rounds off his list with one last suggestion: to simply let your hunger guide you and skip meals if you're not hungry. While this should work really well for those who are otherwise healthy and are not struggling with food cravings, it may not work if you're constantly craving food. Food cravings is a sign that you're not providing your body with proper nutrients in the appropriate ratios, so following your hunger in this case could be staggeringly counterproductive.

Who Should Use Extra Caution when Fasting, or Avoid it Altogether?

As I mentioned earlier, if you're hypoglycemic, diabetic, or pregnant (and/or breastfeeding), you need to be extra cautious with fasting, and may be best served to avoid it entirely, until you've normalized your blood glucose and insulin levels, or weaned the baby.
Hypoglycemia is a condition characterized by an abnormally low level of blood sugar. It's commonly associated with diabetes, but you can be hypoglycemic even if you're not diabetic. Common symptoms of a hypoglycemic crash include:

• Headache
• Weakness
• Tremors
• Irritability
• Hunger

As your blood glucose levels continue to plummet, more severe symptoms can set in, such as:

• Confusion and/or abnormal behavior
• Visual disturbances, such as double vision and blurred vision
• Seizures
• Loss of consciousness

One of the keys to eliminating hypoglycemia is to eliminate sugars, especially fructose from your diet. It will also be helpful to eliminate grains, and replace them with higher amounts of quality proteins and healthful fats, However it will take some time for your blood sugar to normalize. You'll want to pay careful attention to hypoglycemic signs and symptoms, and if you suspect that you're crashing, make sure to eat something. Ideally, you should avoid fasting if you're hypoglycemic, and work on your overall diet to normalize your blood sugar levels first. Then try out one of the less rigid versions of fasting and work your way up to a full 24-hour fast.
As for pregnant and/or lactating women, I don't think fasting would be a wise choice. Your baby needs plenty of nutrients, during and after birth, and there's no research supporting fasting during this important time. Sisson lists three studies on fasting during pregnancy, and all three suggested it might be contraindicated, as it can alter fetal breathing patterns, heartbeat, and increase gestational diabetes. It may even induce premature labor.
My recommendation would be to really focus on improving your nutrition during this crucial time. A diet with plenty of raw organic, biodynamic foods, and foods high in healthful fats, coupled with high quality proteins will give your baby a head start on good health. You'll also want to be sure to include plenty of cultured and fermented foods to optimize your—and consequently your baby's—gut flora. For more information, please see this previous article that includes specific dietary recommendations for a healthy pregnancy, as well as my interview with Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride.
Others categories of people that would be best served to avoid fasting include those living with chronic stress, and those with cortisol dysregulation.

Fasting—Is it Right for You?

I understand it can get confusing at times, trying to determine when and what to eat in order to optimize your health. Unfortunately, besides a few basic principles that will apply to virtually everyone, such as strictly limiting consumption of sugars (particularly fructose) and grains, the rest is really a matter of figuring out what works for your individual biochemistry. This requires some trial and error.
For example, there is good evidence supporting the recommendation to eat a protein-heavy breakfast if you want to lose weight, and even more so if you exercise first thing in the morning to optimize muscle growth and recovery. But there may be times when you feel like you've hit a plateau, and while your diet and exercise routine may be good, the simple act of skipping breakfast and exercising on an empty stomach could be just the thing that will kick start you onto that next level.

Personally, I skip breakfast and exercise in a fasting state whenever I've gained a few pounds and want to get them off. I find this works well for me. While I'm not eating breakfast, I don't really eliminate that meal entirely; rather I'm simply delaying it until noon or later, in order to reap the metabolic rewards of exercise combined with calorie restriction.

While I have not widely promoted calorie restriction in the past (as I believe most people need to address the foods they DO eat, before considering skipping meals), it is an important piece of the puzzle, and intermittent fasting may be helpful for many, especially if you've already mastered a nutritious diet, which really should be your first step. Fasting combined with a highly processed, toxin-rich diet is not going to do your health any favors. In fact, you may be making things worse, since you're not giving your body proper fuel when you DO eat.

Also remember that fasting does not mean abstaining from ALL food for extended periods of time, but rather a dramatic reduction of calorie intake at regular intervals—whether you opt for a 16, 20, or 24 hour fast once or twice a week, or fasting every other day, or simply delaying certain meals, such as skipping breakfast and exercising on an empty stomach. As always, listen to your body, and go slow; work your way up to full day fasts if your normal schedule has included multiple meals a day. Also be sure to address any hypoglycemic tendencies, as it can get increasingly dangerous the longer you go without eating to level out your blood sugar.

Bottom Line

I will finish off with Mark Sisson's "bottom line," practical, and sound recommendations, as he sums it up nicely^ix:

"... [T]here is no concrete, objective law regarding the suitability of intermittent fasting for a particular person.
If you're truly hungry, eat. Failing to do so will add stress.
If you're stressed, don't IF (intermittent fast). You don't need another stressor.
If you're training six days a week, don't IF. Unless you're genetically blessed, you'll need lots of fuel to prevent overtraining.
If you're not hungry, don't eat. If coffee's enough, skip breakfast.
If life is good, try fasting.
In the end, the prudent path is to simply listen to your body. Don't let CW grazing propaganda drive you to eat when you aren't hungry; don't let the IF dogma make you feel guilty about grabbing a handful of macadamia nuts and jerky in between meals when you are fasting. Try it out, skip a meal, go fourteen hours or so (you already do eight every night) without eating, get a workout in, go for a walk, go about your day and see how you feel. A quick trial is not going to kill you...
Are you lightheaded?
Are you weak?
Did your workout suffer?
Then maybe it's not for you. Maybe you need to fix a few things (Primal eating, sleep, chronic stress) and then try again..."

Story at-a-glance

• It's long been known that calorie restriction can increase the lifespan of certain animals. More recent research suggests that intermittent fasting can provide the same health benefits as constant calorie restriction, which may be helpful for those who cannot successfully reduce their everyday calorie intake
• “Undernutrition without malnutrition” is the only experimental approach that consistently improves survival in animals with cancer, and extends overall lifespan by about 30 percent
• Both intermittent fasting and continuous calorie restriction have been shown to produce weight loss and improve metabolic disease risk markers. However, intermittent fasting tends to be slightly more effective for reducing insulin resistance
• Besides turning you into an efficient fat burner, intermittent fasting can also boost your level of human growth hormone (aka the “fitness hormone”) production by as much as 1,200 percent for women and 2,000 percent for men
• Intermittent fasting can improve brain function by boosting production of the protein BDNF, which activates brain stem cells to convert into new neurons and triggers other chemicals that promote neural health. This protein also protects your brain cells from changes associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and helps protect your neuro-muscular system from degradation

What the Science Says About Intermittent Fasting

By Dr. Mercola

Is it a good idea to “starve” yourself just a little bit each day, or a couple of days a week? Mounting evidence indicates that yes, intermittent fasting (IF) could have a very beneficial impact on your health and longevity.

I believe it’s one of the most powerful interventions out there if you’re struggling with your weight and related health issues. One of the primary reasons for this is because it helps shift your body from burning sugar/carbs to burning fat as its primary fuel.

As discussed in the featured article,¹ intermittent fasting is not about binge eating followed by starvation, or any other extreme form of dieting. Rather what we’re talking about here involves timing your meals to allow for regular periods of fasting.
I prefer daily intermittent fasting, but you could also fast a couple of days a week if you prefer, or every other day. There are many different variations.

To be effective, in the case of daily intermittent fasting, the length of your fast must be at least 16 hours. This means eating only between the hours of 11am until 7pm, as an example. Essentially, this equates to simply skipping breakfast, and making lunch your first meal of the day instead. You can restrict it even further — down to six, four, or even two hours if you want, but you can still reap many of these rewards by limiting your eating to an eight-hour window each day.

This is because it takes about six to eight hours for your body to metabolize your glycogen stores; after that you start to shift to burning fat. However, if you are replenishing your glycogen by eating every eight hours (or sooner), you make it far more difficult for your body to use your fat stores as fuel.

Intermittent Fasting — More a Lifestyle Than a Diet

I have been experimenting with different types of scheduled eating for the past two years and currently restrict my eating to a 6- to 7-hour window each day. While you’re not required to restrict the amount of food you eat when on this type of daily scheduled eating plan, I would caution against versions of intermittent fasting that gives you free reign to eat all the junk food you want when not fasting, as this seems awfully counterproductive.

Also, according to research published in 2010,² intermittent fasting with compensatory overeating did not improve survival rates nor delay prostate tumor growth in mice. Essentially, by gorging on non-fasting days, the health benefits of fasting can easily be lost. If so, then what’s the point?

I view intermittent fasting as a lifestyle, not a diet, and that includes making healthy food choices whenever you do eat. Also, proper nutrition becomes even more important when fasting, so you really want to address your food choices before you try fasting.
This includes minimizing carbs and replacing them with healthful fats, like coconut oil, olive oil, olives, butter, eggs, avocados, and nuts. It typically takes several weeks to shift to fat burning mode, but once you do, your cravings for unhealthy foods and carbs will automatically disappear. This is because you’re now actually able to burn your stored fat and don’t have to rely on new fast-burning carbs for fuel. Unfortunately, despite mounting evidence, many health practitioners are still reluctant to prescribe fasting to their patients. According to Brad Pilon, author of Eat Stop Eat:³

“Health care practitioners across the board are so afraid to recommend eating less because of the stigma involved in that recommendation, but we are more than happy to recommend that someone start going to the gym. If all I said was you need to get to the gym and start eating healthier, no one would have a problem with it. When the message is not only should you eat less, you could probably go without eating for 24 hours once or twice a week, suddenly it’s heresy.”

The Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

Aside from removing your cravings for sugar and snack foods and turning you into an efficient fat-burning machine, thereby making it far easier to maintain a healthy body weight, modern science has confirmed there are many other good reasons to fast intermittently. For example, research presented at the 2011 annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans⁴ showed that fasting triggered a 1,300 percent rise of human growth hormone (HGH) in women, and an astounding 2,000 percent in men.
HGH, human growth hormone, commonly referred to as "the fitness hormone," plays an important role in maintaining health, fitness and longevity, including promotion of muscle growth, and boosting fat loss by revving up your metabolism. The fact that it helps build muscle while simultaneously promoting fat loss explains why HGH helps you lose weight without sacrificing muscle mass, and why even athletes can benefit from the practice (as long as they don't overtrain and are careful about their nutrition). The only other thing that can compete in terms of dramatically boosting HGH levels is high-intensity interval training. Other health benefits of intermittent fasting include:

Normalizing your insulin and leptin sensitivity, which is key for optimal health	Improving biomarkers of disease
Normalizing ghrelin levels, also known as "the hunger hormone"	Reducing inflammation and lessening free radical damage
Lowering triglyceride levels	Preserving memory functioning and learning

Intermittent Fasting Is as Good or Better Than Continuous Calorie Restriction

According to Dr. Stephen Freedland, associate professor of urology and pathology at the Duke University Medical Center, “undernutrition without malnutrition” is the only experimental approach that consistently improves survival in animals with cancer, as well as extends lifespan overall by as much as 30 percent.⁵ Interestingly enough, intermittent fasting appears to provide nearly identical health benefits without being as difficult to implement and maintain. It’s easier for most people to simply restrict their eating to a narrow window of time each day, opposed to dramatically decreasing their overall daily calorie intake.
Mark Mattson, senior investigator for the National Institute on Aging, which is part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), has researched the health benefits of intermittent fasting, as well as the benefits of calorie restriction. According to Mattson,⁶ there are several theories to explain why fasting works:

"The one that we've studied a lot, and designed experiments to test, is the hypothesis that during the fasting period, cells are under a mild stress, and they respond to the stress adaptively by enhancing their ability to cope with stress and, maybe, to resist disease... There is considerable similarity between how cells respond to the stress of exercise and how cells respond to intermittent fasting.”

In one of his studies,⁷ overweight adults with moderate asthma lost eight percent of their body weight by cutting their calorie intake by 80 percent on alternate days for eight weeks. Markers of oxidative stress and inflammation also decreased, and asthma-related symptoms improved, along with several quality-of-life indicators.
More recently, Mattson and colleagues compared the effectiveness of intermittent fasting against continuous calorie restriction for weight loss, insulin sensitivity and other metabolic disease risk markers. The study, published in the International Journal of Obesity in 2011,⁸ found that intermittent fasting was as effective as continuous calorie restriction for improving all of these issues, and slightly better for reducing insulin resistance. According to the authors:

“Both groups experienced comparable reductions in leptin, free androgen index, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, total and LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressure and increases in sex hormone binding globulin, IGF binding proteins 1 and 2. Reductions in fasting insulin and insulin resistance were modest in both groups, but greater with IER [intermittent fasting] than with CER [continuous energy restriction].”

How Intermittent Fasting Benefits Your Brain

Your brain can also benefit from intermittent fasting. As reported in the featured article:

“Mattson has also researched the protective benefits of fasting to neurons. If you don't eat for 10–16 hours, your body will go to its fat stores for energy, and fatty acids called ketones will be released into the bloodstream. This has been shown to protect memory and learning functionality, says Mattson, as well as slow disease processes in the brain.”

Besides releasing ketones as a byproduct of burning fat, intermittent fasting also affects brain function by boosting production of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Mattson’s research suggests that fasting every other day (restricting your meal on fasting days to about 600 calories), tends to boost BDNF by anywhere from 50 to 400 percent,⁹ depending on the brain region. BDNF activates brain stem cells to convert into new neurons, and triggers numerous other chemicals that promote neural health. This protein also protects your brain cells from changes associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
BDNF also expresses itself in the neuro-muscular system where it protects neuro-motors from degradation. (The neuromotor is the most critical element in your muscle. Without the neuromotor, your muscle is like an engine without ignition. Neuro-motor degradation is part of the process that explains age-related muscle atrophy.) So BDNF is actively involved in both your muscles and your brain, and this cross-connection, if you will, appears to be a major part of the explanation for why a physical workout can have such a beneficial impact on your brain tissue — and why the combination of intermittent fasting with high intensity exercise appears to be a particularly potent combination.

Give Intermittent Fasting a Try

If you’re ready to give intermittent fasting a try, consider skipping breakfast, make sure you stop eating and drinking anything but water three hours before you go to sleep, and restrict your eating to an 8-hour (or less) time frame every day. In the 6-8 hours that you do eat, have healthy protein, minimize your carbs like pasta, bread, and potatoes and exchange them for healthful fats like butter, eggs, avocado, coconut oil, olive oil and nuts — essentially the very fats the media and “experts” tell you to avoid.

What the Science Says About Intermittent Fasting

This will help shift you from carb burning to fat burning mode. Once your body has made this shift, it is nothing short of magical as your cravings for sweets, and food in general, rapidly normalizes and your desire for sweets and junk food radically decreases if not disappears entirely.

Remember it takes a few weeks, and you have to do it gradually, but once you succeed and switch to fat burning mode, you'll be easily able to fast for 18 hours and not feel hungry. The “hunger” most people feel is actually cravings for sugar, and these will disappear, as if by magic, once you successfully shift over to burning fat instead.

Another phenomenal side effect/benefit that occurs is that you will radically improve the beneficial bacteria in your gut. Supporting healthy gut bacteria, which actually outnumber your cells 10 to one, is one of the most important things you can do to improve your immune system so you won’t get sick, or get coughs, colds and flus. You will sleep better, have more energy, have increased mental clarity and concentrate better. Essentially every aspect of your health will improve as your gut flora becomes balanced.

Based on my own phenomenal experience with intermittent fasting, I believe it’s one of the most powerful ways to shift your body into fat burning mode and improve a wide variety of biomarkers for disease. The effects can be further magnified by exercising while in a fasted state. For more information on that, please see my previous article High-Intensity Interval Training and Intermittent Fasting - A Winning Combo.

Clearly, it’s another powerful tool in your box to help you and your family take control of your health, and an excellent way to take your fitness to the next level.

High-Intensity Interval Training and Intermittent Fasting

By Dr. Mercola

If you're still not doing interval training, you're likely wasting an awful lot of time in the gym. This is one of the most important developments in fitness science that I can think of, as you can reap far greater health benefits in less time.

But I've recently also started talking about the potential health benefits of intermittent fasting and working out in a fasted state (i.e. skipping breakfast before hitting the gym).

When you exercise while fasting, it essentially forces your body to shed fat, as your body's fat burning processes are controlled by your sympathetic nervous system (SNS), and your SNS is activated by exercise and lack of food. The combination of fasting and exercising maximizes the impact of cellular factors and catalysts (cyclic AMP and AMP Kinases), which force the breakdown of fat and glycogen for energy.

Evidence is indeed mounting in support of this strategy, and I believe it could be quite beneficial, provided you've already made some fundamental lifestyle changes with regards to diet and exercise.

When combined, high-intensity exercise and intermittent fasting could very well be a winning strategy to bring your fitness to the next level.

Keep in mind that fasting, or exercising in a fasted state, would be unwise if you're still eating a diet full of processed foods, so addressing your diet is absolutely crucial before you venture into any kind of fasting. Also, when undertaking any kind of calorie restriction, such as intermittent fasting or simply skipping breakfast, it's critical to cut the right calories, namely carbohydrates (those from sugars and grains that is, NOT vegetable carbs).

Carb Restriction May Improve Performance in Elite Athletes

A recent study from the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences¹ shows that restricting carbohydrates can help burn calories more efficiently and increase muscle oxidative potential even in highly trained athletes.
Ten elite level cyclists performed one hour of interval training at approximately 64 percent of maximal aerobic capacity with either low or normal muscle glycogen levels, achieved by prior exercise or diet intervention. Muscle biopsies were taken before and three hours after exercise. Results showed that exercising in a glyocogen depleted state increased mitochondrial biogenesis. (Mitochondrial biogenesis is the process by which new mitochondria are formed in your cells.)
According to the authors:

"We conclude that exercise with low glycogen levels amplifies the expression of the major genetic marker for mitochondrial biogenesis in highly trained cyclists. The results suggest that low glycogen exercise may be beneficial for improving muscle oxidative capacity."

Part of what makes working out in a fasted state so effective is that your body actually has a preservation mechanism that protects your active muscle from wasting itself. So if you don't have sufficient fuel in your system when you exercise, you're going to break down other tissues but not the active muscle, i.e. the muscle being exercised.
According to fitness expert Ori Hofmekler, author of The Warrior Diet, you can quite literally re-design your physique using a combination of under-eating and exercise. However this really only works well once you've become fat-adapted, meaning your metabolism has become proficient at burning fat. To learn more about this, please see my other recent article on this topic, What Does it Mean to Be Fat-Adapted?

Interval Training Burns More Calories in Less Time

In related news, research presented at the Integrative Biology of Exercise VI meeting² in Colorado on October 10-13 this year, demonstrated that high-intensity interval training burns more calories in less time – a mere 2.5 minutes, divided into five 30-second sprint intervals at maximum exertion, each followed by four minutes of light pedaling to recuperate, can burn as much as 220 calories. All in all, in less than 25 minutes total, you can burn more calories than you would if you were cycling at a moderate pace for half an hour.
According to lead researcher, exercise physiology graduate student Kyle Sevits:³

"'You burn a lot of calories in a very short time... Nearly all the calories are burned in those 2.5 minutes; you burn very few during the rest period.' He also points to additional benefits that come from interval training, including increased insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance, both of which are important for overall good health."

High-intensity interval training, which is part of my total Peak Fitness program, has also been shown to produce greater health benefits overall than conventional aerobic training. Back in April, I reported on a study that found doing just three minutes of high-intensity training per week for four weeks, could lead to significant changes in important health indices, including a 24 percent improvement in insulin sensitivity.
Another important benefit of high-intensity interval training is its ability to naturally increase your body's production of human growth hormone (HGH), also known as "the fitness hormone." HGH is a synergistic, foundational biochemical underpinning that promotes muscle and effectively burns excessive fat. It also plays an important part in promoting overall health and longevity. This is something you cannot get from conventional, aerobic endurance training.

How to Maximize the Health Benefits of Peak Fitness Training

While it's theoretically possible to reap valuable results with as little as three minutes (plus rest periods in between spurts) once a week, it would be more beneficial doing them two or three times a week for a total of four minutes of intense exertion per session, especially if you are not doing strength training. You do not need to do high-intensity exercises more often than that however. In fact, doing it more frequently than two or three times a week can be counterproductive, as your body needs to recover between sessions.
Intensity is KEY for reaping all the benefits interval training can offer. To perform it correctly, you'll want to raise your heart rate to your anaerobic threshold, and to do that, you have to give it your all for those 20 to 30 second intervals. Different studies will use different intervals of exertion and recuperation. For example, in the featured study on elite athletes, bouts of exertion were separated by four-minute rest intervals. They also didn't "max out" during the exertion phase.
I use and recommend the program developed by Phil Campbell, which will trigger HGH production as you go "all out" during the exertion phase. Here's a summary of what a typical interval routine might look like using an elliptical:

• Warm up for three minutes.
• Exercise as hard and fast as you can for 30 seconds. You should be gasping for breath and feel like you couldn't possibly go on another few seconds. It is better to use lower resistance and higher repetitions to increase your heart rate.
• Recover for 90 seconds, still moving, but at slower pace and decreased resistance.
• Repeat the high-intensity exercise and recovery 7 more times.

When you're first starting out, depending on your level of fitness, you may only be able to do two or three repetitions of the high-intensity intervals. As you get fitter, just keep adding repetitions until you're doing eight during your 20-minute session. Once you regularly incorporate these 20-minute exercises about twice a week, most people notice the following benefits:

Decrease in body fat	Improved muscle tone
Improved athletic speed and performance	Ability to achieve your fitness goals much faster
Increase in energy and sexual desire	Firmer skin and reduced wrinkles

Exercise is Key for Reducing Body Fat While Preserving Your Muscle

I've frequently stated that 80 percent of the health benefits you reap from a healthy lifestyle come from your diet, and the remaining 20 percent from exercise. However, it's important to realize that there is a profound synergy between the two, as yet another recent study demonstrates.
The researchers examined data from 11 participants in the reality TV show "The Biggest Loser." Total body fat, total energy expenditure, and resting metabolic rate were measured three times: at the start of the program, six weeks into the program, and at week 30, which was at least four months after participants returned home. Using a mathematical computer model of human metabolism, the researchers calculated the impact of the diet and exercise changes resulting in weight loss, to evaluate the relative contributions of each.
Interestingly, while diet alone was calculated to be responsible for more weight loss overall than exercise, only 65 percent of that weight loss was body fat. The remaining 35 percent reduction in total body weight was a reduction in lean muscle mass. Exercise alone resulted in fat loss only, along with a small increase in lean muscle mass. According to the National Institutes of Health press release:⁴

"The simulations also suggest that the participants could sustain their weight loss and avoid weight regain by adopting more moderate lifestyle changes – like 20 minutes of daily vigorous exercise and a 20 percent calorie restriction – than those demonstrated on the television program."

Tips for Fasting and Exercising Safely: A Post-Workout Recovery Meal is Crucial

An effective exercise program that incorporates high-intensity interval training combined with intermittent fasting can help counteract muscle aging and wasting, and boost fat-burning. If at any point you don't have enough energy or don't feel good, then it is likely time to shift your experiment and reduce the hours of fasting. Intermittent fasting should make you feel better, and if it doesn't then it is best to reevaluate your strategy.
Make sure to keep the following two points in mind:

1. Timing of meals: Intermittent fasting is not extreme calorie restriction. You're not supposed to starve yourself. Rather it's simply a matter of timing your meals properly by abstaining from food during much of the day, and limiting your eating to a small window later in the evening. If you were to limit eating to say 4-7 pm, you are effectively fasting for 21 hours. Ideally, you'll want to fast for at least 12-18 hours.
If you can't abstain from food entirely during the day, limit it to small servings of light, low-glycemic, mostly raw foods such as fruits, vegetables, whey protein or lightly poached eggs every 4-6 hours. Whatever times you choose, it will be very helpful to avoid having any food or calories for three hours prior to going to bed as this will minimize oxidative damage to your system and give your body a major jumpstart in intermittent fasting.

2. Break your fast with a recovery meal on workout days: On the days that you work out while fasting, you need to consume a recovery meal 30 minutes after your workout. Fast-assimilating whey protein is ideal. Then fast again until you eat your main meal at night. It's very important that you eat an appropriate recovery meal after your workout session, as this will prevent brain and muscle damage from occurring, so do NOT skip this meal.

If the thought of fasting for 12-18 hours is too much, you can get many of the same benefits of fasting and exercise by simply skipping breakfast and exercising first thing in the morning when your stomach is empty. This is because eating a full meal, particularly carbohydrates, before your workout will inhibit your sympathetic nervous system and reduce the fat burning effect of your exercise. Instead, eating lots of carbs activates your parasympathetic nervous system, (which promotes energy storage – the complete opposite of what you're aiming for).