CrossFit Atlanta Newsletter
News & Fitness Information from CrossFit Atlanta
February 21, 2007 - Vol 1, Issue 3
Intermittent Fasting
There's alot of exciting research and experimentation going on with a new dietary approach called Intermittent Fasting.
35 years ago Dr. Atkins first got in hot water with the medical and nutrition establishment by popularizing the notion that humans as a species had not had time in evolutionary terms to adapt to the higher carbohydrate, grain based diet that came on the scene about 10,000 years ago with the devopment of agriculture. He committed dietary heresy by advocating a lower carb, higher fat diet than the one recommended by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Currently all of the many variations of low carb diet proceed from a similar theoretical foundation in evolutionary biology.
The Paleolithic Diet takes the evolutionary premise to it's logical conclusions by eliminating items not in the diets of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, namely grains, legumes, and dairy.
Intermittent fasting, "IF", goes even further and seeks to mimic not only the content of the caveman's diet, but also the erratic timing of meals in the brave old days before grocery stores. Some folks doing IF eat every other day. Others cram all their daily meals within a 4 to 6 hour window. Both methods are producing some interesting and very positive results in terms of weight control, insulin sensitivity, hormone profiles, lipid profiles, and many other biological health markers. You can read much more about it in one of our favorite publications, The Performance Menu. Issue 6 and Issue 17 have terrific articles on developments in this area. Issue 19 has an article on when Intermittent Fasting is contraindicated, which is medical lingo meaning "when not to do it."
