For five years, I trained 3-4 times a day, about five days a week, all while fasting for 16 hours a day.
Although I no longer compete in MMA, I still maintain a daily workout routine and live a very active lifestyle. In addition to my workouts, I walk for two hours each day and coach hockey, which involves skating 3-4 hours daily. I continue to fast for 16 hours a day.
When I first started intermittent fasting, I used to feel weak until I ate. One day, I realized that I felt significantly better after just one bite of food. This made me wonder—how could I feel that much better after just one bite when I hadn’t even absorbed the nutrients yet? I also noticed that I would get hungry at the same time every day.
That’s when it clicked—I wasn’t actually hungry; my body was just following a schedule. It's similar to how my dog knows exactly when it’s time to eat at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. without ever looking at a clock. And, of course, he’s a bit of a pain when the clocks go back an hour!
From my experience, that feeling of weakness or the belief that you can’t perform physically without eating is due to the body being trained over years to expect food at specific times. Breaking that rhythm is the hard part.
If you're interested in learning more about intermittent fasting, I recommend The Complete Guide to Fasting by Dr. Jason Fung. It's a solid resource that explains the science behind fasting, covering 16-hour fasts, 24-hour fasts, 48-hour fasts, and even week-long fasts. It’s a quick and easy read, and the audiobook is equally breezy.
