Intermittent Fasting For Better Muscle Growth & Fat Loss

Is it possible that fasting or intermittent fasting can help you to actually build muscle, not just burn fat? Here’s the science and the link between intermittent fasting and muscle growth while losing body fat.

Today I want to talk about the link between intermittent fasting and actually building muscle.

You see, intermittent fasting is not just about fat loss. Intermittent fasting can actually have some pretty big benefits when it comes to muscle growth as well.

I’m gonna to start this off with a study from the Western Journal of Medicine.

Fasting

What this study found was just after three days of fasting (now mind you this is an extended fast not necessarily just intermittent fasting) there was a 300% to 1,250% increase in human growth hormone.

Another study that was published in the Journal of endocrinology metabolism found there was a five fold increase in human growth hormone after just a short period of fasting.

I’ve referred to human growth hormone in the past when it comes down to fasting, but what I want to do is explain how human growth hormone has an effect when it comes down to muscle growth.

HGH

Human growth hormone is not just a random hormone, it’s a 191 amino chain.

What that means is it operates in the body like a protein, it goes around and it stimulates different growth of different things.

It’s created by the soma trophic cells in the pituitary gland and it creates what are called chondrocytes cells.

What these chondrocytes cells do is they divide inside the cartilage.

You might be wondering what is cartilage you have to do with muscle?

Well cartilage when those cells divide helps stimulate collagen synthesis and collagen production.

Collagen gives our cells structure when it comes down to muscles, it helps the muscle actually develop and have structure.

However, collagen is also going to help you with a lot of other things like tendon strength and everything like that.

You may have noticed that anyone that goes on human growth hormone therapy or any kind of anti-aging therapy usually ends up having better looking skin as well.

That’s simply because they have an increase in collagen production and collagen is gonna help your skin as well but, human growth hormone does something very specific when it comes down to protein.

Human growth hormone decreases protein oxidation.

We have two different things:

1. Protein synthesis
2. Protein oxidation

Protein oxidation is where the excess protein that you’re consuming is getting oxidized and ultimately beomce toxic.

Then we have protein synthesis which is what’s utilized to build muscle.

Human growth hormone decreases the rate of protein oxidation, meaning that more of the protein that you consume is actually utilized by the body to ultimately build muscle.

This is exactly why having a five-fold increase in human growth hormone when you’re fasting can be immensely powerful when it comes to building muscle.

Now let’s talk about beta-hydroxybutyrate.

Beta-Hydroxybutyrate

I talked about beta-hydroxybutyrate a lot when it comes down to ketosis, but I don’t always mention it when it comes down to fasting.

When you go into a fasted state your body produces this ketone body known as beta-hydroxybutyrate.

Beta-hydroxybutyrate does a number of things within the body.

In this particular case I want to talk about a study that took a look at athletes that were already in a ketogenic or fasted state producing beta- hydroxybutyrate and how their muscle levels were affected when they were working out.

What they did is they looked at these athletes, had them work out in a fasted state, measured their beta-hydroxybutyrate levels and then they measured their muscle cells.

What they found was that the presence of beta-hydroxybutyrate increased their muscle cell survival rate, meaning that when they were working out they were not burning up muscle tissue.

Every time you workout you actually do burn up a little bit of muscle so if beta-hydroxybutyrate (which is a result of fasting) helps that muscle survive, that’s a very very good thing.

However, there was one other amazing thing that happened with this beta-hydroxybutyrate.

They found that it increased the ATP function in the mitochondria, meaning that it literally increased the power of the muscle to.

So by not eating and working out, you have an increase in your power in addition to actually being  able to build muscle. That’s pretty amazing!

Now I have to talk about something known as myostatin.

Myostatin

I’ve never talked about this in an article before. This was something totally new that you’re reading.

Myostatin is a limiting factor in building muscle.

If you’ve ever seen those Belgian blue cows before, those are the cows that are completely yoked out of their minds. They look freakish!

They have a genetic variation that allows them to have a myostatin deficiency. This basically means their muscle is able to grow to an extreme amount.

Humans have a high level of myostatin.

Myostatin is stopping our muscles from ultimately growing.

The way that it works is the myostatin affects what is known as the autocrine function of the muscle cell basically inhibiting it from ever being able to differentiate divide or ultimately grow.

So more myostatin equals less muscle, less myostatin equals more muscle.

Myostatin has a very intricate relationship with testosterone.

There was a study that took a look at this as well.

The International Journal of Sports and Health found that test subjects that were exposed to just a small amount of exogenous testosterone ended up having a massive significant decrease in their myostatin levels in various muscles of the body, meaning that it didn’t just take place in one particular area of the body, it was systemic.

A small increase in testosterone equals less myostatin, meaning your body is literally able to put on more muscle than you were genetically able to before testosterone.

Okay that’s great, that’s with testosterone, but now we have to make the link between fasting and testosterone to have this all makes sense.

The European Journal of endocrinology (which I’ve referenced a lot before) did a study and found that fasting increases what’s known as luteinizing hormone.

Luteinizing Hormone

Luteinizing hormone is secreted by the pituitary gland to ultimately allow the latic cells to produce more testosterone.

More luteinizing hormone equals more testosterone. It’s sort of the first step in the equation.

Fasting has a massive increase (180% actually) on testosterone and if we have that increase in testosterone then we have a decrease in myostatin, meaning that we’re able to build more muscle and we’re able to feel a lot better in the process.

You have the combination of the human growth hormone, the myostatin limitation and also of course the beta-hydroxybutyrate that’s preserving muscle.

You essentially have a triple threat when it comes down to being able to build muscle, preserve muscle, but also burn fat in the process.

What’s Next?

What if there was a simple trick that is NOT a diet, that doesn’t involve eating only “healthy” foods, takes just 24 hours, and could help you lose as much a 5-7 pounds in the next 5 days, WITHOUT decreasing your testosterone levels like almost EVERY diet does!

In fact, this particular trick has been shown to help guys lose over 2 pounds while increasing their testosterone by 7.5%  in just 24 hours.

Would you try it? Of course, right?

THIS is the same trick I’ve been using for over TEN years to stay lean while building muscle. And during that time my Testosterone levels have never been below 21 nmol/L. […BTW that’s pretty damned good…]

I’ve been using this trick once or twice a week for years and it has never failed me. In fact, just the other day I lost over 3 lbs, and stripped almost an inch off my waist in just 24 hours!!!

Here it is…

=> 24 Hour Trick You Can Use To Lose 5-7 lbs