Intermittent Fasting – Seasonal Strategies

I’m currently reading an evolutionary biology book that got me thinking about how to incorporate seasonal strategies into my Intermittent Fasting.  In my zeal to get lean, I may have missed something important.

Photo by Lord Jim

If you are new to Intermittent Fasting, you can read some of my earlier posts on the topic.  The quick overview is that mankind did not evolve in an environment where food was available 100% of the time.  Our bodies were designed to go through periods of feast and famine.  From a hormonal standpoint this equates to growth and repair.  Living an entire life in growth mode has the side effects of obesity and cancer.  Intermittent Fasting brings back the randomness in food intake that mimics our evolution.

I’ve now been doing some form of Intermittent Fasting for two years.  I started with a single 20-22 hour fast once a week.  Then on occasion, I would add a second day or half-day.   In February of this year I switched to the daily 16/8 method. Both methods are probably equally effective, but neither addresses seasons.

During the summer months there is more daylight and food is more abundant.  This is when the paleolithic man went through the growth and reproductive phase.   During the summer is when excess carbohydrate consumption was stored as body fat for the winter.  The winter months had less daylight and food was scare.   This is when the body favored repair.  With artificial lighting and endless amounts of food, modern man is always in summer mode.

You can probably guess where I am going with this post.  I am going to alter my Intermittent Fasting strategy based upon the season.  Now that we are entering summer, I will decrease my fasting until fall.  During the depths of winter, I’ll incorporate a greater fasting period.  It should also be noted that I am already lean.  An obese person, who has treated their body to a lifetime of summer mode feasting, should continue Intermittent Fasting until ideal weight is within reach.

Note this table is a work in progress.  I fully expect to tweak the numbers as needed.

Although I got lean doing two years of Intermittent Fasting, the downside is that I limited some of my anabolic (growth) potential.  I did lose some strength in 2009.  Hopefully, this course correction will help me regain some of my losses this summer.

It should be noted that modern man sits in his cave eating all winter long and then emerges into the sunlight with a desire to get lean for the beach.  This is backwards from our evolutionary history.  Man should enter the cave with a little excess weight, rest during the winter and emerge the following spring lean.