Hey, Athletes! Do you fast? Have you thought about fasting? Listen to this week’s episode to see if it will affect your gains!
Episode 33 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
Does Intermittent Fasting Limit Strength and Muscle Gains?
On this week’s podcast the team discusses nutrition and intermittent fasting. This method of eating, known as time restricted feeding, can affect muscle gain in a variety of ways. Keeping with nutrition, we talk food prep and give some tips and tricks in this area. This week’s Meet Yourself Saturday comes from an old guest and former super bowl champ! It’s called Patriot and it may seem simple but it’s far from easy!
If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast either on Stitcher, iTunes, or Google Play by using the link below:
IN THIS 59-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- Joe’s Painful PT Experience
- Intermittent Fasting
- Meal Prep-Tips and Tricks
- Ashley Starts Reintroducing Food Back into Diet
- Will Your Gains Be Affected By Fasting
- Patriot
- Updates and Announcements
- And A LOT MORE!!
Diving Deeper
If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here are some links for you:
Study of the Week
Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week
Be sure to listen to this week’s episode:
Related Resources at End of Three Fitness:
—
Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!
To becoming better!
Jerred
Transcript:
Does Intermittent Fasting Limit Strength and Muscle Gains?
[00:00:00] Jerred Moon: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. I’m your host Jared moon. The garage team athlete podcast is a result of my desire to do better humans, unequivocal coaches, and autonomous athletes. I’ve spent the last several years obsessing over program design, nutrition in every other way you can optimize human performance.
This podcast is stills the latest scientific research with what I’ve learned and blends it with the not-so scientific field of mental toughness. We are here to build you into a dangerously effective athlete. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find out more about our training at garage gym, athlete.com and if you want to pursue more into the field of coaching and programming, head to end@threefitness.com.
All [00:01:00] right, lady and Joan, welcome to the garage, the mathlete podcast. Jared moon here with Kyle Schrum. What’s up Kyle?
Kyle Shrum: Hey, what’s up,
Jerred Moon: Ashley Hicks? How are you doing?
Ashley Hicks: Hola.
Jerred Moon: Love the shirt. Thank you. So blue rogue shirt. For anyone who’s listening. We share it in common. It’s nice.
Kyle Shrum: Joe can mail it back and forth to each other.
Jerred Moon: Yes.
Yo, how you doing man? Fine.
Joe Courtney : You can tell Jared determines the roll call order. Right off the bat. It’s like up in the air. Whatever ones he’s going to catch first,
Jerred Moon: I actually go clockwise or counterclockwise to how you guys appear on my screen. Oh, so what behind ends, zoom does determines what w how to randomly place you guys.
So,
Kyle Shrum: so really zoom chooses who goes
Jerred Moon: to him, picks it. Sweet. And if you don’t know, zoom is, don’t worry about it. All right, so we are getting into things today. [00:02:00] I guess we should go updates. It’s gonna. It’s gonna be fun here. See if you guys get our creative. Joe, what’s your update?
Joe Courtney : I actually have a really good one.
So I’m feeling fantastic. My body is amazing right now
Jerred Moon: going through anymore.
Joe Courtney : I am, I am flexible, like a bird. cause that’s the thing. Yeah. so I’ve been getting these, so like with PT, I get some massage every once in a while. Well, there’s something else they do. They do active release massage or tool massages, and these things are a amazing, be the most uncomfortable thing in the world.
So it’s like a regular massage that will have smooth out knots and stuff. But this guy uses it like a metal scraping tool. It’s like basically just call it a scraping tool, massage. It’s a pizza metal. It’s very smooth and he puts like lotion on you and like he runs it over your muscles and then he kinda like chops away at your muscles as he’s moving your limbs and your muscles through motions.
Jerred Moon: It’s [00:03:00] terrible.
Ashley Hicks: So painful,
Joe Courtney : but, and even looks terrible. I have a bunch of red marks on me. But mobility wise helps a ton. Pain-wise helps a ton afterwards. So it really, really releases a lot of like scar tissue and like, things that are really knotted up. So they’re only 30 minutes because you can only take so much.
And, I’ve gotten to two sessions done really helped my shoulder and tricep and my, my lat situation going on. so just wanted to throw that one out there.
Jerred Moon: I have done that. I think once, and it looks like they’re pulling out torture tools.
Joe Courtney : Yes. It’s like a case like, like when you see in the movies, like, okay, here, dark back room.
I’m going to open up this case and line up my tools.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. It’s pretty scary stuff, but yeah, it’s a, it’s a necessary evil.
Joe Courtney : So active release massage.
Jerred Moon: There you go. You release therapy, get it done. For anyone out there listening, who wants to release some of those hotspots? Ashley, what updates? Yeah.
[00:04:00] Ashley Hicks: So I’m not broken, but I’m super sore, so I’m not flexible.
Like a bird. Joe,
Joe Courtney : you know, you’ve seen the flamingos knees, they go all kinds of
Jerred Moon: ways.
Kyle Shrum: You can go in this situation.
Joe Courtney : You know, let’s just one bird,
Ashley Hicks: one bird. So, yeah, I haven’t been this sore in a very long time. After today’s workout I had was all legs, which I love, but my goodness, I had to not just stretch after the workout, but then I had to roll and smashed, and I normally don’t do, I normally get my stretching in, but if I roll in smash, it’s gotta be pretty Epic.
So, but my hamstrings, my right hamstring in particular is. Feeling kindness. I see that. And then my other update is I’m adding things back into my diet. now that I am done with the month of January. So I started with whey protein cause I was doing not a nondairy [00:05:00] all the month of January. And. so I started this week, so we’ll see how it goes so far enough, no issues.
My stomach’s not being torn up or anything like that. So we’ll see if we’ll see what triggers what.
Jerred Moon: I wish I could have way.
Ashley Hicks: I know.
Jerred Moon: Kyle, how are you doing?
Kyle Shrum: I’m good. I’m actually in the middle of a nutrition experiment experiment myself. I have dealt with migraines. Basically my whole life. well, not really my whole life, but just since I was a kid.
And so trying to. narrow down some things in my diet to see if those things are triggering my migraines. Unfortunately, like science can not really help me and point me in the right direction on this cause migraines are just kind of a mystery. so just trying to experiment with some different things nutritionally.
actually using a blood tester and kind of testing my blood sugar and seeing if that. [00:06:00] Has an effect, you know, like when I have a migraine, what the blood sugar looks like and all those things. So I’m trying to narrow that down so that I don’t have migraines anymore cause they are pretty, pretty horrible.
So
Jerred Moon: are you noticing any correlation between blood sugar and migraine?
Kyle Shrum: Yes.
Jerred Moon: Yes. Xing. Is it high or low? That’s pretty good.
Kyle Shrum: It’s, higher. Most, most of the time it’s higher when I have one. Obviously I’m not giving myself migraines on purpose, but if, you know, just I have the blood test or, and you know, when I can fit, cause I always get the aura, like the blurred vision.
so, I would rather just have the headache, but I always get that. before, so I know that it’s coming. So I always just test it when that’s happening. And, more often than not, most of the time, I think only one time it’s been lower. every other time it’s been higher than normal. So think I’m kind of narrowing in on some things to stay away from.
So anyway,
Jerred Moon: that’s [00:07:00] rough.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah, stuff sucks. Also, thinking of the things that I may have to give up for the rest of my life, that’s not. Very fun. So yes. And some of it is stuff that I like to eat. yeah. Facing the prospect of maybe not getting to eat those,
Jerred Moon: are they fried?
Kyle Shrum: No, I have not had fried foods in a while actually, but it is.
It’s, I think it’s, I think it’s carb related. And there are some, some specific carbs that I think I’m going to have to start staying away from, which is not fun. But anyway,
Jerred Moon: that’s me. All right. You don’t want to share the carbs. It’s fine. No,
Kyle Shrum: I’m not done with the experiment yet. I’m
Jerred Moon: not ready
Joe Courtney : to say goodbye.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah, it’s going to be a process for me, so just
Jerred Moon: keep us updated. so only two updates for me. One, I started using the five minute journal. Again, I use the five minute journal several [00:08:00] years ago. I don’t, maybe like 2013 2014. It’s 2014 and I did one from beginning to end. And, Kind of forgot about it completely.
And then I found my old five minute journal and it was really fun to go through it. So the, I have it on my desk, so I’ll just kinda read you guys through like what you do. It’s very simple. It takes about five minutes. so you, there’s a quote each day, and then you do three things that you’re grateful for.
Then you write what would make today great. Like three things I’d make today. Great. Then you write a daily affirmation, and then at nighttime, it’s three amazing things that happen today and how could I have made today even better? That’s it. So it’s one piece of paper, one page. and yeah. What really made me want to do it again, as you know, there are, I’m sure there’s some mental benefit on a daily basis of like.
You know, helping you to stay focused and, you know, having that gratitude, being thankful for things. And there’s a lot of research on that too. but like I said, the most fun was finding my old one and going through it and like seeing the [00:09:00] things I was thankful for when I didn’t even have three kids yet.
And like, the business was just getting started and all these things, so it was really cool to go through. So I’m like, yeah, it’s just cool to have a journal that’s not like. It’s not long. You know, you could re if I gave you my other one, you could read the whole thing like pretty fast. And so I’m going to do it again.
That was cool. So anyway, that’s thing one. If you guys are interested, you can get it on Amazon. they are actually a sponsor. They paid for this entire thing that I’m saying right now. No, I’m kidding. No sponsors. it’s just a cool tool that, if you guys want to use, you can, and then sauna. I don’t feel like I’ve really given any sauna updates, have I?
I’ve been doing the sauna, I guess. Every other night, may, I mean, more, probably like five, five nights a week. So I turn it on when kind of, when we start bedtime for the kids. And then I, Emily and I, most of the time hop in together and it’s awesome. So I’m a big fan of the sauna and, It gets [00:10:00] really hot, like really hot.
I always turn it up to max cause I don’t do anything halfway and it’s like gets up to like two Oh five two Oh seven just some wicked hot temperatures, wicked hot temperatures and like, it’s pretty cool though. I’m trying to see how long I can stay in and what happens to my heart rate. And last night was 142 beats per minute.
At like 27 minutes in 207 degrees, but it was also because like it was raining in Texas. These, it’s supposed to be a dry sauna. It’s, that’s what it’s supposed to be, but it’s, it’s subject to wherever you live. Really. It was like 47% humidity. Oh, it’s kind of a wet sauna. Way hotter. A wet sauna should be like 115 degrees with really high humidity and this is like 200 plus degrees with.
Decently high humidity and, Borderline dangerous, but a lot of fun. Good.
Joe Courtney : What do want to intersperse a lot of fun?
Jerred Moon: No, it is. I’ve been enjoying it. I do [00:11:00] that and then I think it helps me sleep a lot. Like I just, I’m out like a sack of flamingos as soon as it hits. Good. Now that doesn’t make sense. Okay. I was trying to throw in the bird reference, but we can move on to the study for today.
All right. Actually, so actually has the most to say about it, but the actual study is time restricted, feeding plus resistance training and active females, a randomized trial. So pretty cool. we actually get to go over in a minute, fasting a little bit. I did an AMA, it was just like a week or two ago on intimate fasting and the reasons why I do it and continue to do it.
And to be honest, I don’t pay as much attention to the science on intermittent fasting or time restricted feeding because I don’t do it for a lot of those reasons. Like I know, you know, people like to throw around the word autophagy and they don’t even know what the hell that actually is or how to measure it.
And [00:12:00] like all these other things that the greatness of fasting. but really we don’t know a lot about fasting in the scientific world. and the only reason I do it there are two fold. Is I, I mentioned in the asking anything video, which is also published on this podcast, so you guys probably heard it, but it’s primarily cognition.
I feel like, I think better and focus better when I, when I’m doing, time restricted feeding intermit fasting. And then also I had some awful blood sugar issues back in the day that this helped cure really? And I don’t know, I don’t, I’ve never really met anyone else who had that same problem. So I’m not like, Hey, if you have this problem, they go to help you.
I’ve literally never met another person who said that was a thing for them. So I don’t know. Oh, there we go. There we go. Congratulations to me for finding somebody that fast. Anyway. and the only other thing I want to throw out there is they get, anytime someone talks about or TRF, [00:13:00] people get real. like.
Stickler on the definition of these things. TRF is technically what we do, like a 16, eight, you know, 16 hours, fasting, eight hours eating time restricted feeding, is what that’s called intermittent fasting is really supposed to be more of like not eating for several days. So just that we have any sticklers listening to the podcast, I might use the terms back and forth, but my apologies.
so the actual study. Was done by a bunch of people unimportant. It was published in 2019 and they’re objective really. They’re actually looking at HMB supplementation, and I don’t normally pull up studies where they’re trying to look at a supplement, but I felt like the data that they pulled out of this is through the three groups was worth going over because it wasn’t really just.
And it’s not what we’ll focus on. it wasn’t just the effects of HIV, it was really how is TRF going to help amongst the three groups, doing resistance training with, [00:14:00] TRF, TRF, H, and B, and then just like pretty much normal, you know, and they gave them some advice on, eating and all these other things.
And they measured, they really measured every single thing that you could measure on the planet. Like we could go through, All of these things, and it takes several podcasts, but the most important ones, probably like fat free mass, and they had some performance stuff with like one or Max’s and everything else.
But ultimately that’s what we were looking at. So I, I kinda want to just throw that in there without drawing any conclusions or talking about anything else because. I feel like the team has done a pretty good job. And so I’ll throw it to Ashley first. What were you takeaways from the study or, or points you want to hit on?
Ashley Hicks: So, for this study, I, what I really liked, was, well, some of the things that they focused on, I’ll talk about first, is they focused on weight loss and the lean mass and not so much the effect that it had on your training. so it was more. aesthetic, [00:15:00] if you will. but the thing, the key takeaway that I got from this, and I think is applicable to our garage gym athletes, is they hit on the fact that they were, you know, time restricted feeding, but, they had sufficient amount of protein, to support their strength and their gains from the training.
So. The takeaway from this is that intermittent fasting or time restricted feeding, did not. hinder their strength, did not hinder their gains. And the main point from that for me was the protein, the sufficient amount of protein. And anytime I ever had, you know, someone come to me for nutrition, that is the one that I always talk about when we’re talking about macronutrients.
You know, the protein is important, is how much protein you’re actually putting into your body. So that was my main takeaway
Jerred Moon: from this one. So essentially if you want to benefit and you’re going to be [00:16:00] doing TRF or IMF, just make sure you get enough protein. Yup. Yeah. And I think that’s, I think that’s huge because we get this question all the time with, and it wasn’t asking me anything question, you know, more about intermittent fasting and how it fits in with the training.
And I always. I always start with what’s your goal? Like why are you doing this in the first place? To make sure that people were doing it for the right reasons. But yeah, some people were worried about performance setbacks or you know, losing muscle mass and all these different things. And that’s something I think if you are doing the true like a three day fast.
You need to be really mindful about what you’re consuming, and what kind of training you’re doing to for sparing muscle and maintaining your lean muscle mass. But with a a 16 eight, it seems perfectly fine as long as you get enough protein. I think that’s, that’s huge. Kyle, what’d you have.
Kyle Shrum: Some of the, similar to what you were saying, it’s kind of, to me it was kind of like another, another myth busted.
Maybe the way that people kind of think of things is, you know, doing, doing intermittent [00:17:00] fasting or doing, you know, this time restricted feeding, it’s going to hurt my gains, you know, or something like that. kind of similar to what we talked about last time with concurrent training, you know, of throwing the, the conditioning and the strength in.
Together and doing that, those things, concurrent training does not hurt your gains. And it’s the same thing here. Intermittent fasting, or at least time restricted feeding is specifically what they were looking at. so time restricted feeding doesn’t hurt your gains either. So to me it’s just kind of something else to say, Nope, this isn’t going to hurt you.
It actually might benefit you even more than what you’re doing right now. So go for it. I can personally say that time restricted feeding. And I’ve been calling it intermittent fasting. So like I’m having to force myself to say, time restricted feeding,
Jerred Moon: and I don’t care. I know a lot of people do care out there, but I don’t think that, I don’t think it matters.
Like, yeah.
Kyle Shrum: but. I can personally say, Tom restricted feeding was the entire difference in me. Like losing all the weight that I did, losing all the body fat [00:18:00] that I’ve lost. and I lost almost 65 pounds, you know, when I, when I first joined Gresham mathlete and my wife, you know, since she joined with the women’s health track, back in late last year.
And moving forward into, even now, like she’s lost, you know, I think 35 pounds, you know, since September. And this is one of the things that she’s doing, is time restricted feeding. And she swears by it as well. So, you know, just know him from personal experience. it will absolutely. Help you with? or at least it did for me.
Again, not, you know, not everybody is the same, but I can personally attest to how effective it is to help. And you cut body fat. and I didn’t lose any strength. I actually gained and a lot of strength. You know, by doing the training and doing the time restricted feeding as well. So, just a personal, short, personal,
Jerred Moon: when you started,
Kyle Shrum: was it, what,
Jerred Moon: was it hard for you when you started?
Kyle Shrum: it was hard to make the switch [00:19:00] from just what I had been doing. I’ve just kind of, you know, cause I had always heard, you know, I think what a lot of other people have heard and believe, you know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But you know, that’s kind of, that’s kind of. The difference is it’s like you’re not actually like skipping a meal.
It’s like you’re just restricting everything to one window. And so it’s not really that you’re like skipping breakfast. It’s like you’re just putting it all. Like breakfast is technically just the first meal that you eat during the day. So if you don’t eat it till one o’clock, you’re still eating breakfast, you know?
So anyway, I thought it was, I found it difficult at first, just for like the first week or two to kind of get used to, Used to training that way and used to eating that way. And also something that for a long time I thought was triggering my migraines was that I talked about earlier, was not eating in the morning.
I kind of thought for a while, you know, like not eating in the morning and actually led to a migraine later in the day. [00:20:00] And I’ve actually found that’s not really true. It’s really just kind of what I’m eating. I think that’s, that’s. Triggering the migraines and not really the, going for a specific amount of time at the beginning of the day without eating.
And so I found, I found it difficult to switch for the first couple of weeks, but then once I got used to it, then it’s just kind of, and of course I’ve been doing it for him almost three years now, so it’s just kind of, that’s just how I am now. So not really that tough.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. It’s funny how your body gets used to things.
I do remember it being so hard, like at the end, I would just. I, it would backfire when I very first started. I’d be so hungry at the end of the 16 hour fasting window that I would eat an enormous amount of food, and it wouldn’t always be like the best quality. Like I would normally have like something healthy, but then I would still be really hungry.
And so then I’m like, Oh, well I’m gonna need something else, you know? And it would typically, you’d be more carbohydrate base and then I’d have a huge crash. , you know, cause I like loaded up on all these carbs [00:21:00] and then came down, so I had to fix that problem. and then, but yeah, once you, once you finally get a dialed in.
But yeah, I remember being such a challenge for me when I first started, and now it’s a lot easier
Kyle Shrum: offer, I feel. For me it was when I, when I first started doing that, it almost felt like, and maybe it actually does, I don’t know, I’m not a scientist, but it kind of felt like my stomach actually got smaller.
And so like for, for that, after I was doing time restricted feeding for awhile, well, actually before that, like, I could eat like an insane amount of food for breakfast, right? but once I started doing this, like the first meal of the day that I eat now, I cannot eat. An insane amount of food. If I ate an insane amount of food for breakfast, I will just be totally wrecked for the rest of the day.
Like I just have to say, Nope, I’m going to have, you know, three scrambled eggs or something, you know, and three scrambled eggs is going to hold me for a while. And before I started doing this, I was like, three scrambled eggs is [00:22:00] nothing like I’m going to starve myself if all I eat three scrambled eggs.
But I don’t know if. If I just did or maybe I’ll just eat like a protein bar or something and you know, at once from a window opens up and just something that small is enough to hold me for a longer period of time than it used to be. So it’s actually forced me to now, like I will feel miserable if I eat all of that food, so I’m not going to, I’m just going to eat what I need to eat and be good with it.
Yeah,
Jerred Moon: no, I, that’s all I’m chasing. How do I feel with everything? Is it better or worse? Cut out the things that make you feel worse and more of the things that make you feel better. Joe, what’d you get from the study, man?
Joe Courtney : Well, on the meal note, my scrambles get slightly out of handsome times.
Jerred Moon: 1,000 calories scramble.
Joe Courtney : Yeah. I’m just like, Oh, I need these veggies. I need these veggies. Oh, I’ve got to add, had meet and that. Yeah. They’re like over a thousand calories sometimes. Anyway. not a ton. That hasn’t been said really. they pretty, everybody pretty much took it [00:23:00] away. main point that I wanted to hit on that, Kyle also said was people that a lot of times start these fasting.
Just think they’re skipping meals, but you’re just moving them closer together so your calories never change. And that’s it. If anything, this study made me want to see more studies, so this was about strength. I wanted to see more about either endurance conditioning. And also they should’ve had somebody trained fast as well for the study instead of just everybody.
Cause everybody who, the three groups that they, that they, studied on or that, that, that went through it all trained after eating. So they, there’s another more fat training facet to be cool to see that train fast to training with strength and also endurance as well. but other than that, it was, it was pretty good.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, no, go ahead Ashley.
Ashley Hicks: I think it would be cool to see a study that was specifically geared towards the training aspect of it. That was my other takeaway of this, like I really wanted, because they, again, they were more focused on like the fat loss and their lean. By mass kind of thing.
Jerred Moon: So
[00:24:00] Ashley Hicks: necessarily the training.
Joe Courtney : So I pulled up one of the, I’ll actually put one of the end of the study and pulled up the main graph of their, the metrics that they tested, and they didn’t mention it too much, but actually looking at all of the force metrics and the performance ones, they tested the fasted, the two fastest groups.
Performed, their performance went up compared to the control group. And, and then even the group that took the calcium supplement performed a little bit better than the other fast group. So both fasad ones did a little bit better.
Jerred Moon: Yeah, they did. They have like one rep max, and like all these, so many RFDS like rate of force development on so many different, yeah, like unnecessary amount of tracking.
just looking at the graph. But yeah. So anyone who’s curious, one. Yeah, the, the study they were looking at. HMB if you’re interested in HMB, I’ll, I’ll just recap the data for you from the study real quick. Doesn’t look like it’s worth your money because from experience HMB is pretty expensive. It’s not, and I’m [00:25:00] sure that there are cheaper options, out there, but I try to normally buy really clean supplements so HMB can be more expensive and it doesn’t look like it’s going to be this game changer for your training.
Like a, you know, creatine actually could be. So if you’re worried about that part of the study there, I kind of recapped it for you. Don’t worry about H and B now, the fasting side, and like I said, we were interested in, yes, it was done on females, but there’s also been very similar studies to this one, almost exactly in males in the results are basically the same, you know, very, very similar.
so it seems like, and I think the, the mechanism behind it was, you know, lifting heavy weight resistance training in general. There’s that muscle protein breakdown, and then you have muscle protein synthesis activated for. Depending on how well trained you are, can be like 24 to 48 hours. That’s why it only matters total protein intake over the course of the day, and that whole, you know, gains window that 30 minutes after workout.
Yeah. [00:26:00] That’s, that’s kind of realistic. Like you want to do that to be the most optimal possible. but really if you miss it, you’ve stimulated these pathways for such a long period of time. As long as you’re getting enough protein every single day, you’re going to be fine. but bodybuilders don’t do this at all, just to like contrast what bodybuilders actually do.
bodybuilders for the most part, eat every two hours and they eat a lot of leucine and a lot of amino acids, and they try to keep those levels high as much as they can every two to three hours intentionally. So I do think that that would be the more optimal way to gain muscle mass because. As I probably give the least crap to bodybuilders.
you know, if you’ve paid attention, like CrossFitters, whatever, power lifters, yeah. You know, like, but bodybuilders actually have a ton of respect for, just because. Really good bodybuilders are insanely intelligent about nutrition, and, you know, what they’re doing and why they’re doing it, which is not the case in a lot of other fields.
[00:27:00] so, and I’m not talking about the guy who’s doing backend buys today. I’m talking about like a legitimate bodybuilder who knows what they’re doing and you know, has the body to show for it. They are, they’re normally very smart people and they’ve, they’ve got a lot of this figured out. So if you do want to gain muscle, that’s your ultimate thing.
You might want to keep that. That’s the only, my only caveat is like, you might want to not fast, you might want to just eat regular intervals because that’s what the best in the business are doing. Ah, that’s non-scientific. It’s just, Hey, that’s, that’s what I see. I think that’s it. You know, other than the, the big, my big takeaway, in, in lines with, with like Ashley, making sure that you’re getting enough protein every day is huge.
And I think one of the most important thing, that’s why I’ve done the protein and water challenge so many times, but then I, I like to zoom out and be like, okay, you’re telling me it’s not, it’s not a magic bullet. Right. That’s not what we got from the study. It wasn’t like, okay, if you’re doing TRF or [00:28:00] IMF, everything’s going to be better than anything else because it’s amazing.
That’s not what we, we found out. We just found out, Hey. You’re going to, as long as you can have protein you, it won’t hurt your gains at all, which is good. So now we can look at our, all the other benefits, things like I’ve mentioned why I do it, you know, cognitive benefits or blood sugar regulation, you know, weight loss, autophagy, you know, all these other, all these other others, enough to have it is a real thing.
If anyone’s wondering like, why I’m doing that, it’s just because I, I was like, that’s awesome. I love this autophagy thing. And the more I researched it. I found out, like scientists basically don’t know how to measure it very well, and there’s no way to know if you’re doing it like ever. And so there’s like, there’s no real reason I think that people should be hung up on that.
Anyway, tangent. So there are a lot of other benefits to fasting. So I say, Hey, why not do it? If you’re getting enough protein every day, it’s not going to hurt you. so it’s definitely worth a try if you are on the fence about it.
Joe Courtney : After like two years [00:29:00] of intermittent fasting, it’s been harder for me to break my fast early to just do normal 12 hour eating windows than to not.
And that’s what I’ve been trying to do these last couple of weeks is actually mix it up and train and not fast because I did that for so long. but it’s, yeah, it’s been harder to break that earlier than not.
Jerred Moon: That’s what happened to me after our Tahoe trip. So I had been so militant about fasting, like never breaking.
Like my fast until it’s been at least 16 hours. And then we, on our way out, we’re headed to the airport and we stopped at that breakfast place and I was like, okay, I’ll have breakfast, like a normal person. And then my stomach was wrecked for hours, and I’m like, okay, I’m not going to be this little like.
Creature that needs to be coddled, you know, like I’ll either not eat or you’re going to learn how to eat again stomach. So I’ve been, I’ve been switching it back and forth. I, I, there’ll probably be one or two days a week now where I don’t wait the 16 hours and I’ve been fine. but I w I haven’t been as militant as up to that [00:30:00] trip, so, yeah.
All right. Getting into the, the topic, I feel like we. Crushed that one. Are we good? Yeah. Cool. Let’s topic this week. More
Ashley Hicks: food topic is meal prep. So this is to just kind of give you guys are. Our own success stories for meal prep and maybe spur on a new wisdom nugget for you to take away and say, I’m going to start and use that to help you out.
And so we’re just going to kind of go around and talk about how our meal prep has been. Jareds is probably even what years is the longest? The same
Jerred Moon: forever. I tried to change it up, but my entire diet is really the same. So I have a shake. Every day the shake, I try to mix it up. I should probably mention what’s in it cause it has changed over the years.
greens, some sort of [00:31:00] greens, normally spinach, but it can be kale or whatever. And that’s normally two cups if you guys want to know amounts. So two cups of that, which is quite a bit a cup of blueberries. And then. Right now it’s P protein. Yep. and then a TOC, and that’s basically it. So pretty basic, unless it’s like after training or I need like, I need more carbohydrates, I’ll throw a banana in there.
So it’s like banana
Ashley Hicks: optional. So you stopped doing your sweet potato thing,
Joe Courtney : three car, but it makes it three car, makes it really, really, really thick.
Jerred Moon: Oh yeah. I don’t put any carbs supplements in there. I was doing that leading up to the bike ride, bright bike race training last year, but no, I’m not doing it anymore.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s actually relatively low carb, especially with how much is in there. It was insane amount of fiber and blueberries. There’s a lot of fiber and chia seeds, so it’s. It’s not even that filling anymore because I’ve like cut it down on [00:32:00] accident. and then anyway, so that one’s easy. It’s not a meal prep thing.
But yeah, I, I either buy paleo Nick, or what’s it called? ice age meals I’ve been doing. I’ll buy those, no affiliation with that company whatsoever. And then, or I meal prep, and I’ve. Been telling athletes for years, you can go to my Instagram. It’s a save story. It’s some version of that. I do change out the vegetables, or you know, I won’t have carrots one time, or I won’t have sweet potatoes or whatever.
I might change out the meat, but essentially it’s that a form that’s my meal prep. So meat, veggies, freeze it done in. Other than that, I don’t really prep beyond that. so I don’t know if that’s helpful, but yes, that’s what I got. How about you guys?
Ashley Hicks: Do you want to go?
Joe Courtney : What meal prep? I don’t really know. I don’t really do much meal prep anymore since I’m home all the time and, but I do like, I like variety, so I cook all different stuff all the time and it just depends on [00:33:00] what we’re doing. When we used to meal prep. It was, I would just pick a meat, make it in the crock platter, bake a whole bunch of it.
Cooking in bulk is, is key. Make one or two like two different kinds of edge and maybe some sweet potatoes. Have those all in different containers. And then we just have them in the fridge and you can mix and match and put whatever with whatever. And I just always making different, different stuff. I don’t, I like to change things up a lot.
Jerred Moon: You’re like, Emily, she doesn’t really do well with meal prep. Cause that means you have to eat some variation of the same thing every day. And, and she’s actually really good at cooking as are you. So she can just make really awesome stuff for lunch that I would’ve never thought about. And. Yeah.
Joe Courtney : Yeah. I don’t mind eating the same thing over and over or like reasoning leftovers, but I’m also not gonna make up premake all my containers and week on, week in and week out, always have the same thing.
I also don’t do something that helps cells that don’t do anything individualized. Like some people I know Elizabeth will look at [00:34:00] the recipes and other people would throw out there like stuffed peppers, like, no, I’m not. I’m not cutting peppers in half and filling them with, thanking them. Now I forget that I’m just throw it all in a container, mix it up and eat it.
That’s simple,
Jerred Moon: easy. It’s basically a, an ice age meal. They all, they act like they’re all different, but they’re all the same. They’re all the same. They just meet and some sort of orange vegetable mixed together.
Joe Courtney : So one advice is don’t pre-pack individualized meals. Just have a meat container, a vegetable container, garb, container, different ones, and then whatever you want that day or the night before.
Put it in a container and
Jerred Moon: good to go. And just so we’re clear, I didn’t state it that way, but my advice is the opposite, so, yep.
Joe Courtney : All right. I saw in our notes, I think, I think Kyle said to eat the same thing all the time and I know,
Jerred Moon: Hey everybody that well, we have a little bit of, a little bit of something for everybody here.
All right, Kyle, or actually whoever wants to take it next. Well,
do
Kyle Shrum: I even get to say anything? I mean, because you [00:35:00] know, you guys kind of covered what I was going to say. It’s becoming a trend. no, Hannah is doing multiple things. I alluded to her. Intermittent fasting or her time restricted feeding that she’s doing, but part of the women’s health track, she wasn’t just doing that.
She was also doing carb cycling. and Oh, what was the other thing she was doing?
Jerred Moon: high fat.
Kyle Shrum: Yeah. So there were several different, Oh, County macros, that’s what it was. so she’s Thom restricted feeding. She’s doing carb cycling and she’s counting macros. And so I’m not counting macros. But, and I’m not doing carb cycling, but I do the timer sturdy thing anyway.
So we figured out to meet her numbers, kind of what meals to have on her own or a carb days and our low carb days, you know, you’ve got to switch those things up. And, and so it’s just, it’s been easiest for us to just eat the same thing each week. So like, we have this little, dry erase board. On [00:36:00] the pantry door and it’s just a seven day calendar and we just wrote down what we’re having on Monday and then Tuesday and all those things.
And so on Sunday when I go get groceries, I get what we need for the same meals and we just make the same meals. Every week. Yeah. Because we know that those hit our numbers and we know that they’re failing enough for both of us. and they’re good for the kids. And so we just stick to the same. And that’s just been the simplest thing to help.
And I think that’s the biggest thing is when it comes to meal prep or just nutrition in general. Make it simple, you know what I mean? It doesn’t have to be something like, you don’t have to be like some scientific genius, you know, trying to figure out all these different things. Just make things simple, you know what I mean?
when it comes to eating. And so we, we made it simple, but we made it hit her numbers and she has the same thing for lunches at school every day. And then we had the same thing. Like, I know what we’re having for dinner tonight. I know what we’re having for dinner on Friday, you know, because it’s the same [00:37:00] thing we had last week.
So, very simple, just keep it that way and ate the same thing. Also, I like, I do like Joe’s plan though of just kinda makes me imagine things to spice things up a little bit. So if that’s more your speed and you ha and it works for you. Didn’t do it that way, but the eight and the same thing every week, it’s not the same thing every day, but it’s the same menu every week.
so like every Tuesday I know what we’re having and things like that. That’s just the simplest thing for us. And it’s one less thing that I have to think about. One less thing that I have to decide. You know, we set that menu a few weeks ago and it’s just when I have to go get groceries, I know what I have to get, and when it’s time to make the meal.
for dinner time that night, I know what I’m making. I don’t have to think about that. So. Okay.
Ashley Hicks: So I think the biggest takeaway for people listening is everybody is doing something a little bit different, right? So you have to pick and do what works best for you. What is going [00:38:00] to fit your schedule, whether, you know, if you have a big family or if it’s just maybe just you or maybe just you and your spouse.
and you have to go from there. So what. I like to do is I like to write things down. For some reason, if I write something down, it sticks with me. So every Sunday is my day. I like to plan out the week and I’ll write out what we’re having. Now. I don’t have the same meals every single week, kind of like.
Kyle, I kind of mix it up a little bit like Joe, so I will, whether it’s looking at stuff online, I’ll go through and I’ll say, okay, Monday I’m going to have honey mustard chicken size with zucchini. And then the next day I’ll say, okay, I’m going to have, you know, a healthy chicken, broccoli fried rice kind of thing.
And then, and just so on and so forth. another great thing to use our cookbooks, I know Joe is used, A few against the grain. Am I right in saying that.
Joe Courtney : Yeah. And welfare is also really good one. There’s also a crockpot one [00:39:00] or a couple of Crock-Pot ones you can get.
Ashley Hicks: Yeah, so cookbooks are great resources right now.
Again, no affiliation, but I just really like Cassie joy and her whole fed and fit stuff. I decided to buy her a cook once. Eat all week book, and it’s kind of what you said, Jared, like you eat the same. Meet pretty much all week long. You’re just having different variations of it. So one night might be kind of more Mexican theme and the next night might be Asian or you know, barbecue, whatever it is.
And the best part about that is all of those things you can measure out. if you want to go. Strict and individualized, and it’s kind of what Joe said, you have a protein in the fridge, you have a carbohydrate in the fridge, and then you’ve got all your veggies, so you kind of just all throw it in together.
So, he wrote that book,
Jerred Moon: Joe,
Joe Courtney : I should just throw it together.
Kyle Shrum: That’s the title. Just throw it together. Just throw it together. Joe. Courtney.
Ashley Hicks: But anyways, so I hope this helps for any of our [00:40:00] listeners, and maybe if you need any more ideas, you can always feel free to hit us up.
Joe Courtney : My GoTo that I eat all the time, especially when Liz is gone, or chicken dies, I’ll cook like eight of them at a time, a two per meal, eat two per meal.
I have some broccoli roasts, roast some broccoli, sometimes cauliflower, but you know, cauliflower starts to stink after two days. So I kind of just ban cauliflower from my ass. yeah, those are my super easy ones.
Jerred Moon: Hmm. And then Chipola
Joe Courtney : fully fantastical.
Jerred Moon: When I, when I did that vegan experiment, I just, that was my lunch every day was a vegan burrito and I just ordered like seven of them.
At a time and then I would go pick them up and then freeze them and eat them. But what, what’s wrong with that
Joe Courtney : freezing fast food to
Jerred Moon: know you, you, you unfreeze it.
Joe Courtney : Well, no, you’re not going to eat it frozen, but freeze it.
Jerred Moon: Well, yeah. [00:41:00] Well the first one’s the best cause that one you eat hot and then the others have to throw out. So yeah, it gets worse as each time you eat it. But anyway, that was actually the most cost effective meal prep I think I’ve ever done because it has to be the vegan version cause they charge a lot more for me in a Chipotle burrito.
But if you do the vegan version, the, it was very cheap. Like it’s cheaper than you can get. It’s probably pretty on par with like no prepping your own stuff like I was doing like buying the meat and everything else and doing it. Yeah. Really close to that, but cheaper than a done for you service, like ice age meals or whatever that the cost per meal.
so just something to throw in there if you want to meatless lunch for some reason. Have you seen their lifestyle
Ashley Hicks: stuff now? They’ve got like a Quito bowl. They’ve got a double protein bowl, and then they break it all down in macros for you too, if you want it like that.
Joe Courtney : Think they’ve always done that.
They’d probably just have it listed out now. Well, like you could always get double meat or you could just, you know, get cards.
[00:42:00] Ashley Hicks: Right. But I think you would have to say it yourself right now. You can just say, I want the high protein ball. Nobody’s
Kyle Shrum: capitalizing.
Joe Courtney : They got those buzz words and kind of close the words on the menu.
Jerred Moon: Yeah. And I live really close to Tripoli, so I don’t go there. Near as much as I probably should. But yeah, that’s, that’s all I got. I’m trying to think. There’s anything else. Meal prep. Sometimes I think, you know, we can take things for granted. We do them for so long. did with what you’re eating. I think that that’s really important.
We’ve really talked about like how to, how to prep, but as much a crap as I give CrossFit the best. Definition of what you should eat, I’m going to pull it up, is Greg Glassman fitness in 100 words. so this is like truly what I believe. Let’s see if it’s on here. Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar.
Keep intake to levels that will support exercise, but not body fat. [00:43:00] That’s it. Like that. I can’t, I dunno. He kind of nailed it in my opinion. and I think, like, like I said, that’s why I think there’s a lot of good that comes from CrossFit and not the only part I ever actually attack is the high intensity every day portion.
but like I said, having taken their certifications and whatnot, they come from a very strong learning base. And I think that that definition of what you should eat, is almost perfect in my opinion. So it’s, if you guys are ever confused about it, one more time. Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar.
Keep intake levels to levels that will support exercise and not body fat. I think that last little line is like huge. It’s like how much should I eat? Well, just enough to support what you’re doing, but not more than that. It’s like. Oh, all right. So yeah, you can’t, can’t even argue it. So that’s really good.
that, that’s all I have. I, we can get into the workout, which is Patriot crowd favorite cause going, breathe it.
[00:44:00] Kyle Shrum: So Patriot. Really, really simple. Maybe the simplest meet yourself Saturday we have,
Jerred Moon: it’s why do you know the backstory on it? You got to start with the backstory. Okay, so Tim, I wasn’t going to do it because
Kyle Shrum: I wasn’t gonna do it cause I can’t pronounce his last name.
I don’t know.
Jerred Moon: YALI.
Kyle Shrum: YALI. Right. So it comes from former new England Patriot September YALI. Say I messed it up.
Jerred Moon: Just keep,
Kyle Shrum: he was on the better humanology podcast back in the day, and this was it for that podcast. We always had the guests, throw out a fitness challenge. So this was his fitness challenge.
So we just made it into, I met yourself Saturday. And so this is his fitness challenge to you and. Our fitness challenge to you, which is 100 clean and jerks at 135 pounds and a hundred pull-ups for time. you can partition the reps however you want. [00:45:00] Totally up to you. Also, we have the, obviously we have different levels here at garage gym athletes, so the 135 pounds is going to be four.
Our competitor level, that’s quite a bit of weight and especially for that many reps. but so up to 135 pounds would be from 95 pounds to 135. It would be competitor established would be 65 to 95 pounds, and recruit would be anything under 65. But again, you can partition the reps however you want. You can do whatever form of pull-ups you want.
Keeping is allowed. You can do them strict if you want. All those things, but just get after it. You also have a 30 minute time cap, so, and there is the extra credit, right? Yeah. Extra credit in the video. In the, in the YouTube video, there’s the extra credit. Since September, his number was 62. we challenge you to a 62 calorie [00:46:00] row or bike.
After the 30 minute time cap. So once you’re done with the workout, you want to do extra credit and really be a beast. 62 calories. Yeah, that’s all. That’s extra credit. Optional,
Jerred Moon: don’t you’ve been lost the extra credit, but yeah, it’s there. It’s hidden. Hidden like a gym. All right. Ashley, what tips do you have.
Ashley Hicks: So partition these, early, so, and do them in sets that you know that you can complete the entire workout, but also don’t sit and stare at the bar a ton. you have to keep moving. So do them in sets to where you know that they’re attainable as well as pick the weight that you can do on a hundred clean and jerks with, I think I’ve done this with 95 pounds and.
by the end of it, I wish I hadn’t
Jerred Moon: have chosen 95
Ashley Hicks: pounds.
Jerred Moon: So
Ashley Hicks: that’s, that’s, that
Jerred Moon: is, yeah. This one sucks. Every time that I’ve done it, and I, I’d normally try to go 20, 25 sets of that just as fast as I can. And [00:47:00] that is, normally it gets done, but it’s pretty brutal. So I think if I had to give tips to be a little bit smarter, I think.
Your tip is, is great, like just starting with smaller reps and not staring at the bar. But I would also say like, ma, maybe just if you, the only real goal should be to finish under the time cap, not try and get faster time than someone else. So maybe sit down and plan out what you could realistically do with builtin rest.
Now, that might not work out for everybody, but if you were to do, if the pullet bars right next to the. The barbell. If you could do three reps, three reps, rest 30 seconds before you start again, you know, the form’s not going to break down. That’s my only fear with that many clean and jerks is getting really sloppy.
Cause I’ve done this a workout with multiple people. And that’s what I see every time. First, first 20 reps looks great, you know? But then after that, it starts to get a pretty shady and a weird looking [00:48:00] and scary and all that other stuff. So yeah, just try and try and keep your fatigue to a level at which you can still adequately improperly.
Do. Repetitions would be my only thing. So if you can build in some rest in there and still finish, you know, math that out before you start. Not map math it out before you start, but that’s all I got. So this
Joe Courtney : one’s great for me because I can pace and plan this thing out.
Jerred Moon: And you’ve done. So
Joe Courtney : yeah, I have done it.
So I do all of mine. Intense, not 20s so 10 cleaner jerks than 10 pull ups. I also, because they’re clean and jerks, I drop it every time. I don’t lower the bar. Because that is a little bit of fatigue that will take it out of you. So I drop it after reach extension, and if you figure doing 10 and 10 that’s 10 sets of those.
So you have three minutes per 10 and 10 so if you, even if you do a one clean. Yeah, you do one clean and jerk [00:49:00] every 10 seconds. You have just over a minute to do 10 pull ups. Or if you do them a little faster than you can. So if you want to do it every three minutes, 10 and 10 think of it like that. And then you can even go faster as you go.
But start at like a slow 80% pace because once you hit a wall, it’s going to be bad, especially for form wise. But once you hit halfway, if you, if you find yourself in a groove and you just, and you think you’re fine, you can speed up a little bit. But start at a very. Measurable or very okay. Paste in the beginning and go from there.
Jerred Moon: Got anything else to add to that? Kyle, are you good?
Kyle Shrum: No, no, I don’t know what I could add to that. That’s pretty much it.
Jerred Moon: So we’ll wrap this one up. the only thing I’ll say, if you want to support what we’re doing at garage gym athlete as a team, go to garage gym, athlete.com and you know, sign up for one of those free trials.
We have hanging out seven different training tracks to meet your, help you meet your goals. And then if you are one of our. Supporters and [00:50:00] subscribers and you’re following the programming. Don’t forget our about our merchandise store. Now. That one actually doesn’t really support us, cause we donate the profits of that to the special operations warrior foundation.
But it’s really cool, for you to have a banner or a hoodie or a tee shirt or something like that. and as support a good cause in the process. So. Lots of cool stuff going on, a garage gym, athlete.com go check it out and support us if you like what we’re doing, but until next time, thanks for listening to the garage gym athlete podcast.
Do you want to learn more? Go to garage gym, athlete.com you can learn about our training. Let us send you a copy of our book, the garage, the mathlete, or you can even get featured on the garage gym athlete podcast. Thanks for listening.