Building Muscle On An Intermittent Fasting Diet

Bodybuilding and fasting: Two concepts that generally don’t go together at all.

Pick up any bodybuilding magazine from the last 30 years and you’re guaranteed to find an article promoting the importance of eating every two to three hours to keep your levels of muscle protein topped up and to prevent your hard earned muscle breaking down. You see this so often it has to be true, right?

Well, not necessarily. As amazing as it might sound, you really don’t need to eat every few hours to build muscle.

The idea that frequent eating boosts your metabolism and aids weight loss has been debunked for quite some time, but it seems that bodybuilders are still stubbornly holding on to these beliefs. It’s not surprising really. Seeing as you really do need a high calorie intake to build muscle (usually around 18 calories per pound of body weight) it would make sense to consume all your calories spaced as evenly as possible throughout the day, rather than not eating for the majority of your time, and then trying to squeeze them all into one small window.

But more and more bodybuilders, athletes, and even just general gym goers looking to pack on size, are hopping on the intermittent fasting bandwagon.

Diet plans such as Lean Gains, the Warrior Diet and Eat, Stop, Eat, while all originally designed for fat loss purposes, are quickly gaining popularity among the bodybuilding community, and for good reason too.

It takes far longer than a few hours for muscle tissue to break down, and even if it was that quick, you’d very soon turn it around again by eating another meal. Besides, your body needs to become catabolic and break down muscle tissue in order to go into an anabolic state and rebuild it again. Training is the catalyst for muscle tissue degradation and nutrition is what builds it again.

When you consider whether an intermittent fasting diet could be right for you, there's more to consider than muscle gains alone — no matter how hardcore you are at the gym. Intermittent fasting has also been associated with a number of health benefits, including better blood lipid and cholesterol levels, reduced inflammation and better insulin sensitivity. Clearly however, you might still have some concerns about diving head first into an intermittent fasting plan, which we’ll go through later.

One other interesting aspect is post workout nutrition

Bodybuilders have long been advocates of consuming a meal that is rich in both protein and carbs (or more often, a shake containing these macronutrients) as soon as possible after their training sessions, to kickstart the recovery process. While there may be some truth in the idea that this will help you recover and build muscle, and having a meal so soon after training certainly won’t have any negative effects, it doesn’t appear to be necessary.

In fact, the longer you leave it to eat after a session, the more receptive your body is to the foods you give it. Training and then not eating for a whole day might be taking this concept a little too far, but leaving it two to three hours to consume anything after your workout may not be the worst idea in the world. Nutrient partitioning will be improved, meaning that your body will be able to make better use of the protein and carbs, and put them all towards recovery, rather than storing or simply excreting them.

Before you decide to take the plunge and try fasting, there’s a lot to consider, though. Just skipping meals here and there or deciding not to eat one day is a recipe for disaster. Building muscle while fasting requires careful consideration.

Setting Up Your Fasting Plan For Optimal Muscle Building Results

Have a look at your schedule first, and decide what days and times you’re going to train.

One of the huge benefits of an intermittent fasting diet plan is that it allows you to be flexible. That means that you can reap the benefits of fasting without organizing your life around it, and you don’t have to constantly be worrying about where your next meal is coming from, so make the diet fit your lifestyle, not the other way round.

We’ll set this up in three ways – a plan for those who train in the mornings, a plan for lunchtime trainers and one for people who like evening workouts.

Morning

- Wake and take BCAAs (More on this later)
- Post-Workout – BCAAs/ protein shake
- Mid Morning – BCAAs
- Lunchtime – Biggest meal of the day, containing 50% of your daily calorie allowance and 50% of your daily carb allowance.
- Afternoon – Meal with 25% daily calories.
- Evening – Meal with 25% daily calories

Lunchtime

- Mid Morning - BCAAs
- Late Morning – Meal with 15% daily calories/carbs
- Post-Workout - Biggest meal of the day, containing 50% of your daily calorie allowance and 50% of your daily carb allowance.
- Evening – Meal with 35% daily calories/carbs

Evening

- Mid Morning - BCAAs
- Lunchtime – BCAAs
- Afternoon – Meal with 15% daily calories/carbs
- Pre-Workout - Meal with 35% daily calories/carbs.
- Post-Workout - Biggest meal of the day, containing 50% of your daily calorie allowance and 50% of your daily carb allowance

BCAAs

BCAAs are branched chain amino acids – the building blocks of protein. They digest extremely quickly and have been shown to potentially aid muscle growth and retention. While there’s no absolute need to consume them, doing so could be beneficial and certainly won’t hurt your bulking attempts. They can also help to prevent hunger and cravings, especially when combined with black coffee as a meal replacement.

Calories and Macronutrients

As with any diet, your calorie and macronutrient intakes are what matter more than anything else.

As discussed, 18 calories per pound of body-weight is a good place to start for your daily calorie intake, though you can tweak this depending on how you’ve fared with different diets in the past, and how you’re progressing. A good rule of thumb for lean muscle gain is to add between ¼ and ½ a pound of body-weight per week. If you’re below this, crank those calories up, or take them down a notch if you’re consistently gaining more.

Most of your carbs are targeted around your workout times to give you energy for training and aid recovery. These guidelines aren’t set in stone though, so if you train better eating no carbs beforehand, or prefer to save more calories until the end of the day this is fine, provided you’re hitting your overall daily targets.

Rest Days

On rest days, aim to split your calories evenly over two or three meals, sticking to your normal eating window. (Which should be no more than eight hours.)

Results

You most definitely can build muscle on an intermittent fasting plan, but the main consideration is whether you feel this lifestyle works for you — whether you feel better, healthier, and more energetic on this kind of diet. 

If you can stick to the diet easily and you’re getting bigger and stronger, then carry on. If not, you may find another eating style suits you better.