Changes
• By Mauricio Wolff • Photo by Javier Allegue Barros
And here we are... a slightly different experiment... it's called Protein pacing.
We saw this on a Thomas Delauer video, where he talks about a recent, highly controlled study comparing two weight loss approaches over 8 weeks:
Group 1: Heart-healthy caloric restriction diet.
Group 2: Intermittent fasting with “protein pacing.”
Both groups consumed the same total calories (isocaloric), but the fasting group used a unique protocol:
1–2 days per week of aggressive fasting (36 or 60 hours), but allowed a 400-calorie protein snack during fasting days.
On non-fasting days, participants ate four meals per day, each with 20–40g protein, and a macro split of 35% protein, 35% carbs, 30% fat (about 1,800 calories/day).
Both groups lost weight and visceral fat, but the fasting/protein pacing group saw:
8.2 kg weight loss (vs. 5 kg in caloric restriction)
8.5% body fat decrease (vs. 4.3%)
23% abdominal fat reduction (vs. 15.8%)
33% visceral fat reduction (vs. 14%)
5.7% increase in fat-free mass ratio (vs. 3%)
17% decrease in hunger (vs. 1% increase)
The results are interesting, so... why not try it out? 😉
Protein what?
Protein pacing.
Spacing protein intake evenly across 4 meals per day (20–40g per meal).
Used in combination with intermittent fasting (1–2 days per week of extended fasting, with a small protein snack allowed on fasting days).
On non-fasting days, maintain a balanced macro split and calorie control.
The idea, which is a bit weird, is that fasting 36h but with a small amount of protein snack changes the fasting process yelding better results. Why or how? Unclear. But seems like good fun.
Are those studies legit?
Looks like it. In case you want to check it out, or for my own future references, here they are:
But do you need to cut calories?
Not really. We're very active and already eat well (for our standards). But we've been talking about doing fasting again, this has a different fasting component (with 400g snack), and to be honest, we like doing this kinda experiment and see the results.
And now what?
So, first thing I did was to create a meal plan with the main aspects. 1800 calories a day, % of macros, 4 meals, 400g snack during fasting.
The elected foods: Meat (stake and ground beef), Fish (salmon), Chicken, Blueberries, Honey, Salt, Eggs, Carrots, Pumpkin, Zucchini, Greek yogurt, Dates, Cheese (Boerenkaas or Geitenkaas). Things that are not included in the list: sparkling water (San Pelegrino), tea and Black coffee.
12 items. We're people with simple taste. 😁
| Meal | Time | Foods | Calories |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | Morning | 3 eggs + 30g cheese + 150g blueberries + 5ml honey + salt | 450 |
| Lunch | Midday | 115g ground beef + 150g carrots + 125ml yogurt + 2 dates | 450 |
| Snack | Afternoon | 140g salmon + 150g zucchini + 75g blueberries + 5ml honey | 450 |
| Dinner | Evening | 15g chicken + 150g carrots + 125ml yogurt + 3 dates + 30g cheese | 450 |
If you'd like to see the weekly menu and shopping list, here it is.
How is it going so far?
Well... we just started (we as in Karin and I). Yesterday was the first day, and today we're doing the fasting (because tomorrow we'll travel to Maastricht and weekend probably we'll eat with Natya & João).
So far so good, went to the gym, today is cardio, so I just went up 90 flights of stairs in 30 minutes, and we're slowing down a bit and having tea and doing our things.
We'll do this for a week and see how it feels. Because we haven't changed what we were eating, I think it's going to be easy. I'd say piece a cake, but cake is not on the list. Then we'll go from there.