Hardcore Ifasting 562k1o

THE WORKDAY DIET Intermittent Fasting

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10/9/2013 2:27:12 PM

Fitness industry insider James Grage went from lean to shredded by synching his professional schedule with his eating program. By Mike Carlson

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In his best-selling business strategy book “Good to Great,” author Jim Collins describes on-the-bubble companies like giant flywheels slowly spinning toward success. It takes a massive effort, he describes, to get the heavy monoliths to roll faster, but once they start picking up momentum there is no stopping them. What was once a slow trudge through the mud suddenly becomes a selfpropelled sprint to the finish line. This is a pretty good description of the transformation of James Grage: from lean and athletic to absolutely chiseled. Grage is co-founder and vice president of BPI SPORTS, the popular supplement company that created weight-room go-to products like 1MR, B4 and BLOX. Grage has been fit his whole life. He was a successful amateur bodybuilder in the ’90s, and even after he suffered a near-fatal car accident that broke almost every major bone in his body, he was able to rebuild himself and return to competition. He retired his posing trunks and spent a decade in the fitness industry before helping create BPI SPORTS in 2009. Now, BPI is an industry leader and Grage is emerging from the trenches where he spent five years helping build the company. “I want to be a better ambassador for the brand. I spent the last five years growing the brand, and the last thing I had time for was a

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photo shoot,” he says. “When we first started the company, it was OK not to have a face attached to it. We were a small hardcore company and that was our image. Now that we are bigger, it is important that our customers can relate to who we are, what we represent, and what we believe in.” When the opportunity arose for Grage to enter the public eye on the cover of Hardcore magazine, he took it even though he knew the time frame left him only half as long as he needed to get in coverworthy shape. “I usually average about 8% body fat yearround, but I had lost a little ground over the past month and had gone up to almost 10%. It was bad timing since I needed to get down to 6 or 7% in two weeks,” says Grage. “It usually takes me a minimum of four weeks to get in shape, doing it the way I have always done it.”

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Intermittent Fasting

Most of my whole-food protein came from either chicken, fish or eggs. If you season it right, it doesn’t taste like bland diet food.

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Protein shakes were an important part of my nutrition plan. I prefer a Whey protein blend that is low in fat and sugars.

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HOW TO MASTER INTERMITTENT FASTING A transformation like the one Grage undertook is decidedly more difficult than the typical one: the hairy, unwashed, obese guy who changes into a cleaned-up, tan, not-quite-obese guy. After all, when someone never lifts weights and eats like a billy goat that just got his medical marijuana card, improvements come easy. But when you’ve spent years eating several small, high-protein/lowfat meals a day, and you’ve been hitting the weight room at least five days a week, change can be much harder to initiate. So Grage decided to try something new: intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is the consistent use of 16–24-hour periods of zero caloric intake. Over the last few years, intermittent fasting has exploded into the mainstream fitness consciousness. A slew of books, websites and magazine articles have been praising the effectiveness of the dietary strategy, which was once relegated to monastic obscurity. Adherents of intermittent fasting report decreases in body-fat levels, surges in growth-hormone release, improved markers of cardiovascular health, decreased muscle inflammation, and even a renewed appreciation for the smell and taste of food. A study published last year in the journal Nutrition and Metabolism showed that subjects who underwent an intermittent fasting–style diet enjoyed significant protection from coronary heart disease. Intermittent fasting has become especially popular with dieters who have been unsuccessful at losing body fat by following conventional wisdom, such as cutting back on calories, reducing fat and consuming more whole grains.

MAINTAINING MUSCLE WHILE SHREDDING Intermittent fasting can be performed in a number of ways. Grage put his own spin on a popular version, which is a daily 16-hour fast in which eating is kept to a strict eight-hour window. For Grage, the discipline of foregoing food wasn’t nearly as difficult as the mental stress he experienced at not feeding his lean body mass for 16 hours.

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This Intermittent Fasting program was able to shed fat in half the time it normally takes me.

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“I thought I might lose lean muscle mass,” says Grage. “I am so used to the bodybuilding-style diet—eating protein every three hours—I was afraid I’d get too thin.” Therein lies the magic of intermittent fasting. The relatively short duration of the fast leads to very little muscle loss and sets in motion a hormonal chain of events that not only burns fat, but also protects and even promotes muscle mass. Approximately 16–24 hours into a fasted state, the body experiences a massive surge in growth-hormone release. Human growth hormone helps build muscles, accelerate metabolic rate, speed recovery time, and is also known to spare muscle tissue during periods of fasting. A study presented at the annual scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology in New Orleans showed that during 24-hour fasting periods, human growth hormone increased an average of 1,300% in women, and nearly 2,000% in men.

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Grage would switch between the stairmill and the rower (two of the most grueling cardio machines inexistence).

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Sparing muscle might be the reason why some people respond better to intermittent fasting than conventional caloric restriction. A study conducted by the Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition at the University of Illinois at Chicago examined the weight-loss results in subjects who either underwent daily caloric restriction, such as in a traditional diet, and those who performed intermittent fasting. At the end of the study, both groups experienced similar decreases in body weight and fat mass, but the intermittent fasting groups retained more of their muscle. Grage transitioned into intermittent fasting the right way. First of all, he scheduled his 16-hour fast to best suit his lifestyle. All fasting periods will include the eight-hour sleep cycle, so the variety often boils down to how long can someone go in the morning without eating. (Those who tend to skip breakfast anyway find that fasting from 8 PM until noon works well.) Grage is a breakfast eater, and decided to schedule his fasts from 5 PM to 9 AM. That meant all of his meals would happen at the BPI SPORTS office and any noshing at home was forbidden. This all-or-nothing line of demarcation eliminated a couple of Grage’s dietary demons. “It kept me from poking around the kitchen and snacking at night,” he says. “Besides, I’m the kind of guy who, if I have half of a cookie, I am going to have 10 cookies.” The second factor in Grage’s favor was that he was already acclimated to the type of macronutrient ratio that works the best with intermittent fasting, which is a high-protein, low-carb and moderate-fat diet. Grage gave himself a bit more leeway on his carb intake since he tends to have a large calorie output, and in the past he has not done well on ultra-low-carb diets.

“I get dumb when I don’t have any carbs,” he says. “I have to be able to concentrate at work and be there for my kids. That is really hard for me with no carbs. I get most of my carbohydrates from vegetables, but I will eat some oatmeal and a little bit of rice.” HASSLE-FREE FASTING During his intermittent fast, Grage would get out of bed at 5:45 AM to help get his 6-yearold son ready for school. He would immediately drink 20 oz of water and take a capsule of BPI’s once-a-day thermogenic, called B4. Not surprisingly, caffeine and fasting are a great combination. One study, published in the American Journal of Physiology, showed that the metabolic rates of fasting subjects are significantly increased when exposed to epinephrine, a chemical that is triggered in the body when caffeine is ingested. After dropping his son off at school, Grage would be at the BPI gym, the 3,700 square-foot weight room that is attached to the BPI offices, by 7:45. At this point, Grage is almost 15 hours into this fast, and his body is starting to flood his system with natural human growth hormone. Intermittent fasting adherents like to hit the weight room at this point in the fasting cycle to reap the anabolic benefit of this hormonal milieu. Grage, however, has never enjoyed lifting weights when he’s hungry. After several hours without eating, he feels that the quality of his lifting—the loads he moves and the intensity he brings—suffers too much. Instead, he opts for 40 minutes of intense cardio each morning. He still gets an extra payoff from his fast. A study by Belgium researchers found that subjects who performed cardio in a fasted state experienced greater levels of fat oxidation than those who had eaten a meal prior to exercising.

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After a quick shower, he would begin his workday and his eating day, which brought it’s own set of challenges. Grage had until 5 p.m. to eat all of his daily calories, which are substantial considering he trains twice a day. “It is hard to cram all of your meals of the day into an eighthour window,” he says. “I have to rely heavily on protein shakes.” At 2:30 PM, he’d head back into the BPI gym for a strengthtraining session. From 3:15 to 5 PM he would fit in a postworkout protein shake, a whole food snack and then dinner. A higher ratio of protein and fat typically makes the 16-hour fats a little more bearable since those macronutrients help boost satiety and keep blood sugar stable. Since Grage was on a strict two-week deadline, he decided not to let his fat intake get too high. “No amount of protein and fat is going to keep you satisfied for 16 hours, so I figured I would make my last meal of the day super-clean,” says Grage. No one diets in a vacuum, and things ittedly got difficult when other people entered Grage’s fasting bubble. There were times when Annik, Grage’s wife, would cook in the evening and the smells emanating from the kitchen were face-meltingly tempting. Even the food his son and his little friends ate began to acquire a new allure. “The kids had some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches the other day that looked very tasty,” he laughs.

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Contagious Results

SEPTEMBER 6th, 2013

SEPTEMBER 20th, 2013

2 WEEK INTERMITTENT FASTING RESULTS: BEFORE

AFTER

WEIGHT: 176LBS BODYFAT 10%

WEIGHT: 170LBS BODYFAT 7%

FINE-TUNING THE PROGRAM FOR ULTIMATE SUCCESS At the end of the two weeks, the experiment could not be called anything less than a success. Grage went from approximately 10% body fat to close to 7%. He started with a lean and cut midsection, and two weeks later he could strike a match off his serratus muscles. The eating program jived perfectly with his work commitment as well. He was able to fuel himself and be productive during the workweek, rather than wallowing in hunger-pang-filled misery or trapped in a mental fog of carb depletion. The one obstacle Grage found with intermittent fasting was timing his food, fasting, training and family. “Next time, I’d consider trying a different window where I could sit down and have dinner with the family. But what I like about the 9-to-5 fast is that it worked with my cardio and weight-training plan,” he says. “I don’t like to sacrifice time away from my family by training in the evening. And doing my cardio in a fasted state really accelerated the process. Besides, if I did cardio in the morning and then had to wait until noon to eat, I would want to kill someone.”

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One solution he is considering is an alternative intermittent fasting program, which follows a 5-1-1 protocol that calls for eating a very clean diet with slightly reduced calories for five days a week. The sixth day is a 24-hour fast, and the last day is a food free-for-all. The seventh-day binge helps keep hormones such as leptin from telling the body that it is in famine mode and needs to conserve calories and fat reserves. Grage plans to keep his 16/8 intermittent fasting plan in his back pocket, though. While it might not work perfectly with his multifaceted lifestyle, he feels it is the perfect short-term program to tune up for a wedding, vacation, reunion or the occasional photo shoot. It is a quick fix that only works for a physique that is already very lean. However, maintaining “good” so that “great” is only two weeks away doesn’t seem to be a problem for Grage. “I don’t give myself an out and say, ‘I’m almost 40. It is OK to look a little flabbier.’ I want to look just as good as I did when I was 24,” he says. “I just have to make some adjustments as to how I do it. My expectations are just as high as they have ever been.”

BPI has become one of the fastestgrowing sport supplement companies in the world. From its quiet launch in 2009 the company has experienced exponential growth. In 2012 they received the Rising Star of the Year award from GNC. Twelve months later they captured the coveted Brand of the Year title. From the outside, the company’s supernova success looks like it happened overnight, but that is not the case. “It has been baby steps, mistakes, adjustments, corrections, well thought-out decision, and a lot of sweating the small stuff,” says James Grage, Co-Founder and Vice President of BPI Sports. Early in their evolution, BPI became know for their pre-workout supplement 1MR, which still has a cult-like following. But unlike so many companies who become one-SKU wonders, BPI has successfully diversified their offerings, which now include testosterone-boosters, anabolic activators, and a slew of carefully-tailored fat-burners. Grage and the BPI executive team keep one thought in the forefront of their minds when it comes to growing their company: Produce products that help people. That mantra has been the star they have navigated by since their very first days. Not one for self-congratulations, Grage its to swelling with pride when he sees the of the BPI team living the fitness lifestyle their company promotes. They keep the break room stocked with supplements and have a 3,700 square foot training facility right there at BPI Headquarters. “We have hired a lot of people who have never worked out,” says Grage. “For about the first year they stand back and watch other people train. Then one day you start seeing them in the gym. Then they are in the break room making a protein shake. Pretty soon they are showing up to work with their own container of chicken and brown rice. I think that is so cool. The lifestyle we promote is completely contagious around here.”

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The Nutrition Plan Eight Hours of Eating

How do you fit 24 hours of calories into a single workday? It takes dedication and a lot of Tupperware, says James Grage. One missed meal can make a 16-hour Intermittent Fast unbearable, not to mention wreak havoc on a body’s anabolic environment. Except for his sushi lunch, Grage would bring all his own food to the BPI office, ensuring he had a steady supply of clean calories. The daily preparation was daunting, but Grage was fortunate enough to have some help in that way. “Having a ive spouse on board definitely makes things a lot easier,” he says. 5:45 AM 9:30-10:00 PM

Approximately 35 minutes before bed 1 serving Nite-Burn (nonstimulant fat-loss supplement that promotes relaxation and enhances overnight metabolism performance) 20 ounces of water

1 capsule of B4 (once-a-day thermogenic that regulates adipose tissue) 20 ounces of water

7:45 AM

40 minutes of intense cardio intervals

5 PM

Dinner (last meal of the day) 1 grilled chicken breast or 6 ounces tilapia 1 cup mixed vegetables 1 serving Keto XT (non-stimulant weight-loss formula for evening-time fat-burning)

9:00 AM

Breakfast (immediately after cardio) 30 grams of whey protein powder 4 egg whites with 2 whole eggs 1 scoop BLOX (amino acid formula designed to boost strength, recovery, and muscle mass) 1 scoop Gluta Alkaline (promotes muscle recovery and endurance) 1 scoop Beta Alkaline (encourages muscles fullness and pump)

Afternoon Snack ¾ grilled chicken breast ½ sliced avocado

3:30 PM

Post-workout (20 minutes after workout) 30 g of whey protein mixed with 1 packet of Kashi Oatmeal 1 scoop of BLOX 3-4 capsules Creatine Alkaline (bolsters muscle size and strength) 1 scoop of Beta Alkaline 1-2 scoops Gluta Alkaline

2:30 PM

Pre-workout Supplements (30 minutes before training) 1 scoop BLOX 1 scoop Beta Alkaline 1 scoop Leucine Agma pH (promote anabolic activity and nitric oxide synthase) 1 capsule of B4

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10:30 AM

Mid-Morning Snack Protein Pancakes (½ scoop of protein, ½ cup oatmeal, 3 egg whites,1 whole egg, cinnamon) 1 scoop BLOX mixed with my water

1:30-2:00 PM

Afternoon Snack ¾ grilled chicken breast ½ sliced avocado

12:00 PM

Lunch 6 pieces tuna sashimi 1 avocado roll

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The Training Plan Intermittent Workouts During the two weeks of his Intermittent Fasting experiment, James Grage did double gym sessions Monday through Friday and then a bout of cardio each day of the weekend. It’s probably safe to say that his post-workout showers added up to more time than most people spend in the gym every week. It wasn’t just the frequency of his workouts that helped Grage get cover-model lean; it was his intensity. In fact, each training session was only about 40 minutes long. But for those 40 minutes Grage worked like an animal. For example, his morning cardio wasn’t a half hour on the recumbent bike while he watched Matt Lauer. Grage would switch between the stairmill and the rower (two of the most grueling cardio machines inexistence) and sprinkle in the elliptical as well. Suffering from self-diagnosed “exercise ADD” he would move between machines every 10 to

15 minutes, keeping his pace and attention-level high. His afternoon weight training followed a traditional body part split (Monday: chest/ abs; Tuesday: back/traps; Wednesday: legs; Thurs: shoulders/calves/abs; Friday: biceps/triceps.) His goal was to maintain muscle mass and burn fat, so his reps never dipped below 10 per set and his rest periods were very short. Often he would employ a form of active rest and jump rope between sets or sneak in some added abdominal exercises. Just like pennies in a piggy bank add up to a fortune, Grage would fit in short bouts of activity wherever he could. Twice a week he’d do an extra 15 minutes of ab work, and on the weekend he’d knock off some sets of push-ups, sit-ups and medicine ball exercises. When the weather cooperated he’d leave his car in the garage and take his road bike on the 24-mile round trip to work.

Just like pennies in a piggy bank add up to a fortune, Grage would fit in short bouts of activity wherever he could.

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