This week in the group coaching program, Midlife Muscles & Macros, we covered 3 lifestyle practices for anti-aging and longevity.

One of them was Circadian-Based Intermittent Fasting, which is fasting around your sleep cycle.

Intermittent Fasting (IF) has been popular for some time now. The problem is, like with all fad diets and popular trends, people don’t understand the reasons and research behind them, end up taking them to the extreme, and don’t apply them correctly.

IF is definitely one of those things.

Frequently, I see women hear that a 12 hour overnight fast can support weight loss, so they think that more is better and fast for 20 hours instead.

This ends up backfiring and they often end up overeating/binging as a result, or not being able to build the muscle they need to build to change their body composition, and see the opposite of the results they’re looking for.

Here’s the deal on IF…

Research shows that intermittent fasting slows the aging process in mammals and can:

• reduce inflammation in the body and slow the aging process in mammals as it turns off the anti-longevity gene – mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), and turns on the longevity gene – sirtuin (SIRT1); and
• promote weight loss

Other benefits of IF include:

• Gives your body a break from digestion
• Lowers blood sugar, regulates insulin, and other related hormones like leptin and ghrelin
• Promotes autophagy because your body is not focused on breaking down nutrients and dispensing them, but rather on collecting the “trash” and taking it out, i.e. cellular regeneration.

In addition, if you’re a fan of fasted exercise first thing in the morning, studies show that when you exercise intensely, for 5-30 minutes while still fasting, you are most likely to reset the anti-longevity gene.

5-30 minutes of fasted high intensity exercise can also boost growth hormone and the irisin hormone, which helps you to build more muscle, promotes fat loss, and regulates blood sugar.

The minimum effective dose of intermittent fasting required to reap the anti-aging and fat loss benefits, is 12-16 hours, 1-2x per week.

The best way to incorporate it into your day, is around your sleep cycle.

That means that all you have to do is wait to eat breakfast until at least 12 hours after you ate your last meal the night before.

Personally, I engage in Circadian-Based Intermittent Fasting daily for 12-14 hours.

This fits my lifestyle because I like to lift fasted.

However, I’ve found that 14-15 hours is my max tolerance for fasting.

So, if I’m feeling hungry close to my lift session, and it’s been a 12 hour fast, I will have a little pre-lift, high protein snack and then get after it.

The next session of Midlife Muscles & Macros starts in September.

Sign up below to get on the waitlist and get $500 off the cost of enrollment!