What’s the hardest thing about starting a college diet to lose weight (or get shredded)?
Is it the bland food you have to eat?
Is it the hunger cravings that pop up around the 2nd or 3rd week?
Is it the meal planning that ruins your Sunday?
Is it all of the above? Probably.
I know that deciding to change your nutrition for the purpose of transforming your body usually isn’t completely effortless…
But today I’m presenting you with an incredibly powerful tool that I’ve been using for the last 6 years to shred down to 8% body fat and stay there while routinely gorging on my favorite foods.
Here’s How You Can Eat a Lot and Still Get Shredded on Your College Diet
What is Intermittent Fasting?
Arguably, intermittent fasting hasn’t been around all that long. (Probably 15 years or so).
(Compared to other dieting strategies, that’s still a short period of time.)
However, one personal trainer in the online fitness community, Martin Berkhan of Lean Gains, had an important role in increasing the awareness of intermittent fasting.
He made the idea of simplifying your diet for the purpose of gaining lean muscle popular when he started posting pictures of himself gorging on 3000+ calorie cheesecakes and still looking leaner than a mofo.
He drew interest and everyone wanted to know…
“How the hell can he do that?”
Well… keep reading…
It’s Not a Diet. It’s a Protocol.
One of the misconceptions of intermittent fasting is that it’s actually a diet, but it’s not.
See, a diet has rules about:
- What you eat
- How much you can eat
Instead, intermittent fasting is actually a dieting protocol.
The difference is that a protocol has a set of rules that state:
- When you can eat
- What frequency you can eat
Whether you realize it or not, you’re already eating according to a specific diet protocol right now (the 3-meals a day protocol).
Let me keep going and it’ll all make sense…
It’s Not Magic, but it Is a College Diet Tool.
There are fitness guys out there who will try to convince you that intermittent fasting is as magic as fairy dust and will get you shredded overnight.
Unfortunately, I can’t make any promises like that.
A lot of research has been done on the subject and while some of it looks positive on the surface (1, 2, 3), I promise you that there’s still plenty more to study.
What I CAN promise you is that intermittent fasting will make your diet so much simpler, and for a busy full-time college student that’s as good as the dankest meme you can find.
The Reasons You Should Do Intermittent Fasting
OK, so you know now that intermittent fasting is some sort of dieting tool (but not magic)…
So, the question is… what the hell will this actually do for you?
Intermittent Fasting Makes Meal Prep Simpler
The reason your meal-prepping is going to be simpler is because you’ll actually have fewer meals to worry about.
Imagine waking up and having a quick cup of coffee or a diet soda instead of having to grab the box of cereal and hope that you have some milk left from the day before.
Or maybe you’re the type of person that stops at Micky D’s on the way to class…
… wouldn’t it be nice to actually get to class on time instead cursing at the car in front of you in the drive-thru?
Intermittent fasting allows you the flexibility to skip an entire meal without disrupting your dieting progress.
You Can Eat Giant Ass Meals and Lose Weight Easily
This is the primary reason I do intermittent fasting.
The crux of the protocol is taking your calories for the day and spreading them over only 1-2 meals.
This allows you some major flexibility in how much you get to eat at one time.
On average, I consume 1200 to 1800 calories in a single meal every single night.
It’s the bomb-diggity and I don’t think I’ll ever go back to another way of eating.
You Get to Eat More High Fat and High Carb Foods
One of the problems with eating smaller meals throughout the day is the fact that you typically allocate a balanced proportion of your macro nutrients in each meal.
For example, a typical bodybuilder college diet might encourage you to eat 5-6 evenly-spaced meals throughout the day with each meal containing…
- 40 g of protein
- 12 g of fat
- 70 g or carbs
(This is assuming you calculated your macros and decided to split them up in equal portions across all your meals.)
Well, that might leave you with a bland meal of chicken breast, rice, and maybe some avocado for the fats.
I mean, there’s not a lot of flexibility in just 12 g of fat.
But the beauty of intermittent fasting is you get to take a whole mess of calories and fit in much fattier foods (and still meet your daily macronutrients for building muscle).
This is how I can shred down to 8% body fat and still eat:
- Cake
- Ice cream
- Mac & cheese
- Cookies
- Ramen noodles
- Sushi
- Hibachi chicken
- Chicken tenders
The list goes on and on…
It helps if you plan on drinking with your buddies on weekends.
The point is when you have more calories to work with in a single meal, you get to dip into more fat and carbs at the same time, making the number of foods that fit into your diet much larger.
But still, that doesn’t mean that everyone should do it…
How to Get Shredded as a Full-Time College Student
Download the Shredded Student Checklist and learn how to get a defined six pack while balancing a hectic school schedule and/or job.
Who Should Do Intermittent Fasting?
I’m a huge fan of the protocol, but I still recognize that it’s a tool very specific for certain circumstances in your college diet.
In many cases, it’ll be a like an answer from heaven.
But there’s still one cause where it isn’t ideal and could cause some intestinal discomfort…
Use Intermittent Fasting if You Have a Busy Schedule
Right off the bat, this is a good diet plan for college students because it simplifies your life.
I actually wrote up an article for Superhero Jacked talking about all the benefits of IF and how it works for individuals with insane schedules that may not get to eat for 8+ hours at a time.
In fact, there’s good research that states that longer fasting periods will do more for your metabolic rate than shorter ones.
So if you’re rushing from class to class and worried about scarfing down a sandwich or a quick chicken breast, intermittent fasting might be for you.
Use Intermittent Fasting if You Have an Insane Appetite
I’m a pretty lean guy, but I’ve surprised my family and and friends on multiple occasions with how much I can eat.
When we go to state and county fairs, I pretty much drop a couple hundred bucks in food and try to turn myself into Michael Klump for the day.
What I’m saying is, I enjoy eating a lot of food at one time and with intermittent fasting, I get to do that on a daily basis.
If you like eating a lot of food at once too… then you’ll probably think intermittent fasting is a godsend.
[Tweet “Here’s how you can eat giant-ass meals and still lose body fat with your #college diet…”]
Use Intermittent Fasting if You Don’t Want to Eat Completely “Clean”
Like I pointed out earlier, using this dieting protocol gives you the ability to fit more traditionally “unclean” foods into your diet without hurting your progress.
Sure, you can tackle a clean diet if you really want to…
I mean, you have to eat 75-80% healthy to see really good results anyway, but the rest of your calories can come from your guilty pleasures like pop tarts or gushers or whatever else the kids are eating these days.
It introduces a lot of flexibility into what you’re allowed to consume is all I’m saying…
Intermittent Fasting isn’t Ideal for a Bulking College Diet (Gaining Weight)
When your goal is to gain weight (aka “bulk), intermittent fasting becomes less helpful.
It’s awesome when you’re trying to lose weight because in order to lose weight, you need to create a caloric deficit.
…and one way to do that is by simply reducing your calories over time.
As you eat fewer and fewer calories, those large meals do a great job of keeping your hunger cravings under control.
But going the opposite way…
As you add more and more calories to your diet in order to gain weight, trying to force down 1500, 2000+ calories in a single meal not only could cause some discomfort, but it might also create some gastrointestinal issues as well.
Granted, this former client of Martin Berkhan claims to love eating 3000 calories in a single meal, but I think the average person might find it to be a challenge.
How to Intermittent Fast
Now that I’ve sold you on how freakin’ awesome intermittent fasting is and how it can simplify your eating habits, let’s go into how the whole thing works so you can start using it.
At the basic level, you’re splitting your day into two distinct periods that have rules on how you can eat…
The Fasted Period Means “No Calories”
According to the basic intermittent fasting definition… the period of the day in which you consume zero calories is called the fasted period.
This is the part of your college diet that sucks (you’ll have good and bad days), but there are a couple things you can do to make it through this period…
1. Keep Yourself Productive
Do your homework, study, workout, go to class, etc.
Whatever it is, make sure it takes your mind off of food and/or eating.
Manage your time, keep yourself productive, and the time will fly by.
2. Consume These Things to Fight Hunger Cravings
- Cold water
- Black coffee
- Diet soda and other caffeine sources
The bitterness in black coffee does a really great job at stifling hunger cravings as well as caffeine.
That’s why I recommend diet soda. I’d also recommend energy drinks because they’re tasty as fuck, but deep down I feel like those will cause me to die earlier (just sayin’).
The Feeding Period is When You Eat
The other part of your day is called the feeding period and this is when you’re allowed to consume the calories you need for the day.
(Angelic music and trumpet fanfare sounds)
Honestly, there are no rules as to how many meals you can have in this period, but I’ll be explaining a beginner’s setup to IF that gives you some guidelines.
The Basic 16/8 Intermittent Fasting Rules
So this is the basic setup for someone who wants to get started with intermittent fasting for the first time in their college diet.
There are a number of different ways to fast and they all have their own benefits that coincide with your lifestyle, but this one is the easiest for a beginner.
The 16/8 setup means your fasted period lasts 16 hours and your feeding period lasts 8 hours.
Reading that you might be thinking…
“16 hours without eating?! How the hell am I supposed to do that?!!”
Chillax. Most of that time you’ll be asleep.
Here are the basic rules…
Don’t Eat Breakfast
When you wake up in the morning, skip breakfast and extend your fast from the night before until lunch.
This is when you’ll want to have some black coffee or diet soda to curb your hunger.
And again… keep yourself busy to make the time pass effortlessly.
Spread the Calories from Breakfast Across Lunch and Dinner
Take those 500 calories or so and spread them between your lunch and dinner.
I enjoy eating 35-40% of my daily calories during lunch and this leaves a nice large dinner for me to gorge on when I get home after working or studying.
After Dinner Don’t Eat Again Until the Next Day
Around 8 PM, stop your feeding period and start your fasting period again.
This fasting period will extend until lunch the next day.
That’s all there is to it.
Do You Plan to Use Intermittent Fasting with Your College Diet?
So that’s intermittent fasting in a nutshell.
It’s a diet protocol that allows you to disperse the calories you would have eaten during breakfast over 2 larger meals later in the day.
It’s great for anyone with a busy schedule or someone who really enjoys eating large meals at once.
So what do you think about intermittent fasting?
Leave a comment below and tell me if you plan on using it with your own fitness goals.