So we're going to talk in this video a little bit about intermittent fasting for athletes. And so the most important thing that I can tell you, if you're an athletic person is that you're probably a little bit more in tune with your body then then even most people are. So listen to your body. Everybody is very individual. There's no hard and fast rules for intermittent fasting or anything else. So you have to really listen to your body and give your body what it needs.

So when I'm talking about an athlete, I'm talking about someone who works out regularly. You're probably working out five days a week, you may do some, some competition like you do some five K's or 10 K's occasionally. Maybe taking some classes. That's the kind of athletics I'm talking about. There are a whole nother set of recommendations as far as if we're talking about more endurance or extreme or competitive athletes and now we're talking about people who are involved in you know, in heavy duty competition like CrossFit, or you know marathons, people who are who are more extreme endurance athletes. So there's for that with regard to to those people, if you're an extreme endurance athlete, you're going to need a little bit more one on one nutritional coaching to make sure that all of your your nutritional needs are being met.

But I'm talking right now about the the everyday more more athletic person, not the couch potato, okay, the person who is who's working out an hour a day on a pretty regular basis. So one of the things and I put a lot of this in that in the handout is talking about how intermittent fasting can help your athletic performance. Part of it is because of the the extra hormones that are being generated by the fasting, the human growth hormone and the adrenaline. So these can help you recover faster. Build Muscle you can give you a more intense workout because of because of being extra adrenalin intermittent fasting lowers inflammation in your body. And then the cognitive improvement, be able to build the focus and mental function can also help in your workouts because you can have quicker reaction times and be a little bit more focused on what you're doing.

So those are all benefits to athletic people for intermittent fasting. You want to make sure that you're getting enough protein. Generally your protein should be one gram of protein for every one every kilogram. Use double check myself on what we want to do there. one gram of protein per kilogram of lean body mass, unless of course there are special circumstances like you're, you're pregnant or breastfeeding or again, if you're Competitive or endurance athlete. So and then the most important thing for for athletic people to know is, is to talk about how fat burning works.

So we talked in the in the weight loss class, about the, how we get to two fat burning by becoming more balanced with our insulin. And we're able to then start to burn our fat stores. And so what happens is, is there's a process where our body doesn't like directly burn the fat. What happens is, is it creates these energy mock molecules called ketones, and those are created from the processing of the store dietary fat. And so then our body can use the ketones for energy and so you've, I'm sure you've heard is really big thing right now is ketosis. And so ketosis is when you Your body is in the system of making ketones on a regular basis and in them burning them, and our brains in particular, they actually really like ketones on our brain takes about 20% Our brains are huge, they take 20% of our total calories.

And so the brains do actually really like ketones and prefer them over glucose. So very good for brain function. So there's um, and you don't have to necessarily go super super low carb to get into the process of making these ketones and becoming fat adapted and so what I'm calling is fat adapted is the ability to run your body on on ketones and burn that fat. So intermittent fasting is a great way of training your body to do that during your your longer periods of fasting. So again, it is important to not eat too many carbs because if you're if you're trying to get a poor diet and it really glucose heavy diet and and jacking up your insulin levels, that's it Intermittent Fasting is going to do a lot of good because like I've told you before, it doesn't correct all sins, it's not a fix all, it's not a magic bullet.

So you still have to have a pretty healthy balanced diet a little bit higher and fat, medium protein, lower and carb. But again, you don't have to go super, super low carb in order to become fat adapted. And as a matter of fact, you can get to a point where you can have, you know, several feasts, you know, maybe one big feast a week where you actually eat a lot more carbs and your body will be able to process that and then go back into into the fat burning mode. It becomes very resilient when you're treating it correctly. So one book that I really would I would like to if you want to learn more about becoming fat adapted and ketones and it also talks a little bit about intermittent fasting is this book called fat for fuel by Dr. mercola. So I highly recommend this.

This is a great book has a lot of really good information. You might want to give this a try and see anything else on on being fat adapted. Oh, so I did talk in the handout about how you can kind of know if you're, if you're fat adapted, and again, it's not. There's there's other than if you were testing if you're in ketosis, and you're testing for ketone bodies, but you don't really you don't really have to do that. Because with intermittent fasting, if you're still having a small number of carbs, you're not going to be in ketosis all the time. So some of the ways that you can know if your fat adapted is one if you can go three or four hours in between meals and not be starving.

And that's because your body is burning the fat, you're not spiking your glucose and insulin levels and so you're not getting those hunger signals. Because obviously, what happens again, is you have too much glucose it shoots in a bunch of insulin takes down the glucose and then our vices Oh wait, now I'm hungry anymore. So when you level out and You're not getting those big spikes and drops, and you're you're burning, you're able to burn fat. That is when you can go for longer periods and you don't get you don't get hungry. So if you're if you're going three to four hours without eating, you're not getting those those hunger pains. If you have steady even energy throughout the day, again, you're not getting the spikes and drops if you can exercise without carb loading and if you've gotten past the part in your in your intermittent fasting transition where you're no longer you don't have any like brain fuzziness or anything, you've started to get that clarity, and you're feeling pretty mentally strong.

So those are some of the ways to know if you've if you've become fat adapted, you're starting to burn the fat. And again as I said it during the weight loss class, it can. It can take some time It depends honestly on on how insulin resistant you are and how your metabolism is. It could take some people could become fat adapted in just two to four weeks and some people might take a couple of months for your body to adjust and for things to get regulated. Honestly, for me, it took me about three months for my body to adjust and for me to start burning, burning the fat, so everybody's different. You need to listen to your body, you need to do what's best for you.

And if you are doing some extreme exercise and you have, you know, some sort of a competition, then you need to eat, okay, you need to break your fast you need to not do the fasting that day, and give yourself the energy that you need. So just pay attention to yourself, potentially your body and do what you need for you. If you have any questions again, send me a message and we'll talk again next week.