FAST TO GO FASTER?

Intermittent fasting continues to be hyped by celebs, influencers and even some sportspeople, but is it an effective strategy for cyclists? Anita Bean investigates  

- Anita Bean

If you’ve ever thought about losing weight and getting leaner, chances are you have been tempted to try intermittent fasting. Advocates claim it can make you lose weight, prevent disease and help you live longer. Its huge popularity has been driven – at least in part – by influencers and celebrities including Rich Roll, Hugh Jackman, Elon Musk and Jennifer Aniston, all of whom attribute their chiselled physiques to the dietary regime. Gary Lineker recently revealed that he follows a one-meal-a-day diet to keep his weight similar to when he played professional football. But intermittent fasting has also gained a following among cyclists. It is reputed that Bradley Wiggins used fasted training rides to shed weight and improve his body’s ability to burn fat before he won the 2012 Tour de France.

Intermittent fasting is a diet, or a style of eating, whereby you don’t eat for an extended period of time, consolidating all of your meals within a specified eating window. There are several types of intermittent fasting, but the most popular is time-restricted eating (TRE), where you consume all your calories in a prescribed eight-hour (or shorter) window – a much smaller time frame than many people are used to. A popular split is 16:8 where you eat within an eight-hour window and fast for 16 hours. Another variation is the 5:2 diet, which involves eating normally for five days each week and ‘fasting’ on the remaining two days. On each of the two ‘fast’ days, you would typically eat between 500 and 600kcal. There’s also alternate-day fasting where you fast every other day, keeping your calories under 25% of your usual intake; not eating at all on a rest day; setting an early evening cut-off, after which eating is prohibited; or simply skipping breakfast.