Does Intermittent Fasting Improve Results in the Gym? | Educational Video | Layne Norton PhD

There has been much debate over the years regarding intermittent fasting (IF) & whether or not you can build muscle on an IF based nutrition program. A new study (PMID: 40108888) added to the conversation by examining obese adults undergoing IF, Resistance Training (RT), Intermittent fasting + Resistance training (IF+RT) or control group on changes in body weight, body composition, & mood profiles over 8 weeks.

The study found that the IF & IF+RT groups lost weight whereas the control group & the RT group did not lose weight. Interestingly however, the IF group did not lose fat mass relative to the control group & the majority of the weight they lost was from lean body mass (LBM). Contrarily, the RT group gained LBM & lost fat mass but their weight stayed the same while the IF+RT group lost the most fat mass & did not lose LBM, but also did not gain any LBM

This is not the first study to demonstrate reductions in LBM during IF relative to continuous meal feeding as quite a few studies have demonstrated this, especially with more extreme forms of fasting like alternate day fasting or shorter fasting windows (PMIDs: 39408357, 32270927, & 32986097)

While the group doing IF+RT didn’t lose any LBM, they also did not gain LBM compared to the group doing RT only indicating that RT mitigated the negative effects of IF on LBM but the other way to look at it is that IF dampened the anabolic response of RT

Take home: I think you can build muscle on IF by doing RT but if your goal is to gain a lot of muscle, IF is likely suboptimal for that goal. But if your goal is to lose fat & IF helps you adhere to a fat loss diet consistently, it is still a useful tool. To mitigate any negative effects of IF on LBM I recommend performing regular RT, placing your RT session during your feeding window, & aiming for multiple protein feedings during that window to hit your overall total daily protein goal

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