Weekend 1: Lean Gains Cheating : How Longganisa Ruined my Fasting

After 3 successful days of being strict to the no food after 4,  low fat high protein diet, it was this weekend that I had to “cheat” 

Moist, juicy, spicy, tasty, pieces of longganisa matched with tomatoes and onion appeared right before the dinner table last Saturday courtesy of my grandparents who cooked an ilocos inspired meal.

As much as I want to reject the meal, it was hard not to because I wouldnt want to waste their efforts, and who can resist a delicious meal? That was around 6:00PM

Good thing that Saturday I went for around 40 minutes of Circuit Training at 360 Timog. So it sorta balances out. But only the calories, since longganisa is full of sodium and fat.

Oh and I also ate Bistek Tagalog on Sunday dinner.

So do cheats on weekend really harmful? I searched the leangains.com website and found out that we can have our occassional cheat days as long as it is still within the macronutrient and calorie count for the day and still follow proper timing the following work weekdays.

Today is the start of another week and so far so good, tomorrow my coach and I will have our weigh-ins and measurements. It’s for the initial assessment; I can’t wait for greater progress in the weeks ahead. I have a short term target of lower body fat and strength gaining until April, but I want to be ripped, really ripped by the end of the year and hope to stay fit until I grow “old” 🙂

Lots of love,
Kat

Intermittent fasting and regular meal patterns: mixing it up

Q:
What’s peoples experience with intermittent fasting on the week days
and a “regular” diet on the weekend or something like that? I think that
would fit my schedule perfectly, especially since i am much more active
on the weekend and play sports/do cardio sometimes multiple times and
very spread out.

A: Eating on regular intervals each day has it’s
benefits. Breaking the pattern may screw a bit with the ghrelin pulse.
Ghrelin is a hunger hormone which rise in anticipation of a meal and is
in tune with your day-to-day meal pattern. This is also part of why you
can go for 16 hrs without getting hungry once you get used to it.

Practically,
this might mean that it could be a bit harder to get back to fasting
when you break the pattern (weekends). On the other hand, I’ve done it
personally many times and I haven’t experienced any problems at all.
Fasting is still very easy after a day of more regularily spaced eating.
It might take several days of a new meal pattern before a new ghrelin
pulse pattern develops, so go ahead and try it.