Fasting in Bodybuilding and Fitness: Benefits, Risks, and How to Practice It

If you've ever wondered whether fasting can help you on your journey as a bodybuilder or athlete, the answer isn't as simple as a "yes" or "no." Intermittent fasting and other forms of dietary restriction have gained popularity in the fitness world, but before incorporating it into your routine, it's crucial to understand its benefits, risks, and the best way to practice it according to your goals.

 

What Is Fasting in Fitness and Bodybuilding?

Fasting, in general terms, is the voluntary abstinence from food for a set period of time. In the world of fitness and bodybuilding, intermittent fasting is the most commonly used method. This involves dividing the day into feeding and fasting windows, with the most common protocols being 16/8 (16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of eating) and 20/4 (20 hours of fasting and 4 hours of eating).
The idea behind fasting is to take advantage of certain metabolic processes that can optimize fat burning, improve insulin sensitivity, and allow for better hormonal regulation.

 

Benefits of Fasting for Bodybuilders and Athletes

When implemented strategically, fasting can offer multiple advantages:

• Fat loss without muscle loss: By reducing the eating window, you can facilitate a caloric deficit without severely affecting muscle mass, as long as your protein intake is adequate.
• Improved insulin sensitivity: This enhances nutrient partitioning, ensuring that the carbohydrates you consume go to the muscles rather than being stored as fat.
• Hormonal optimization: During fasting, growth hormone and norepinephrine levels increase, which can improve fat burning and muscle preservation.
• Greater mental clarity and stable energy: By reducing insulin spikes and allowing the body to use fat as an energy source, you may experience improved focus and less fatigue.
• Simplified eating habits: Reducing the number of meals per day can make diet planning easier, helping to avoid overeating and reducing food-related anxiety.
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Risks and Disadvantages of Fasting for Athletes and Bodybuilders

Fasting isn’t all positive, and its impact can vary depending on your training level and goals:

• Performance loss: If you train intensely and don’t have enough glycogen stores, your performance may suffer.
• Muscle loss: While well-managed fasting doesn’t necessarily lead to muscle breakdown, insufficient protein intake or excessively long fasting periods can compromise muscle gains.
• Difficulty meeting caloric requirements: If you need a high caloric intake to build muscle, a shortened eating window can make it harder to achieve.
• Fatigue and poor recovery: Lack of nutrients at key moments can affect post-workout recovery and daily energy levels.
• Negative hormonal impact in some cases: Especially for athletes with low body fat percentages, prolonged fasting can affect testosterone production and other key hormones for muscle growth.

 

How to Practice Fasting Effectively in Fitness and Bodybuilding

If you decide to try fasting, follow these recommendations to avoid issues and maximize benefits:

• Choose the right protocol: If you're a beginner, start with the 12/12 or 14/10 method and gradually adjust.
• Consume enough protein: Make sure to ingest at least 2g of protein per kg of body weight within your eating window.
• Plan your training: If you train while fasting, focus on lighter sessions or moderate cardio. For intense strength training, consider breaking your fast beforehand.
• Don’t neglect post-workout nutrition: Prioritize protein-rich and complex carbohydrate meals after training to optimize recovery.
• Stay hydrated: During fasting, drink water, black coffee, or unsweetened tea to avoid dehydration.
• Listen to your body: If you experience strength loss, extreme fatigue, or decreased performance, fasting may not be the best option for you.
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Fasting in bodybuilding and fitness can be a useful tool for fat loss and metabolic optimization, but it's neither mandatory nor ideal for everyone. If you choose to incorporate it, do so wisely, ensuring adequate nutrient intake and adapting it to your lifestyle and goals.
Remember, the key to progress will always be consistency in training and proper nutrition. Listen to your body and adjust based on what works best for you! | Follow us on X | WhatsApp | chulucanasgym@gmail.com

 

  

How to make the perfect goal

7 tips from the top scorer Pedro Bautista those never will fail to you.

By ChulucanasGym
Photos by Roberto Saavedra / La República.

pedro Bautista is the most admired and followed soccer player because  he's one of the 2017 season's top goal scorers in the Peruvian Second Division. But, how does he do it? It's not only about having very good muscular reflexes in the legs, or having them well-developed too. There are more playing factors.

That's why  we looked for this Lima-nativeParachique's Defensor La Bocana (Sechura, Peru)forward, who just turned 30 years old, who's 5 feet 9,7 inches, who's 163,1 pounds, and who's recently signed in Nueva Cajamarca, Peru's Unión Comercio first division soccer team, to share us his sport secrets and advising us about. Are you ready? Take note, apply it in your life.

1. enjoy the training:
It's true when Pedro  is preparing for his next match, there are some achieves and tasks to be gotten, those got to be gotten. But if he creates a stressing, agressive environment, the most probable is he feels the training as un uncomfortable duty instead of a nice duty. "It's important working joyful," he affirms. "Things get better that way."

Pedro never forgets the camaraderie  into a collective sport, like soccer, is crucial if he wants to get the best results. "I enhjoy with my team mates everyday, , trying to be a family," he says.

  
2 Care yourself:
what all sportman shows in public has to be muchly with decisions he takes privately, and for Pedro Bautista they start from two key decisions: "eating healthy, sleeping on time."

Regarding the first, he ever watches his diet to be correctly balanced according to the sport activity he does, or that he needs to correct for reaching the excellence.

The second is something that people uncare often: sleeping all the hours you need to sleep replaces energy and activates progressively the mechanisms for your body to assimilate what you eat, what you work out. If you keep awake overnight, don't wait for prime results. Remember it's suggested 8-10 hours of deep sleeping to reset you up and getting ready for the next day.

3. Think of the one you love much to:
It seems to be a vain romantic advice but it works  actually, and it works better than any booster. Thinking and get inspired of  the person you love much activates a set of hormones inside your body, like serotonines, those will keep you ever good-humored, and higly motivated  to give your best when you work out, or when you start to play on the field, or when you compete on the stage, or show up what you are made of.

It's better to be focused on the everlasting affection, not short. In Pedro's case, that inspiring love is his son's: "The greatest motivation is my baby and it's who leads me to be a better pro everyday."

And remember - there's ever somebody loving you and loving you good. Give yourself the time to meet that person, to enjoy, to learn sharing the quality of every moment, and to turn that energy in your own motivation.

4. Don't believe you're perfect:
A sin we all use to commit is arrogance, more if you're a sportsman, much more if you're a successful sportsman.

Look! One thing is having self-steeme, another one is boasting. The first one ever means I have pretty clear the concept that I have about myself independently what the others think about me. The second one ever means overacting  my possitive qualities as much as I'm not humble to recognize I also have a bad or awful side either (what I have anyway).

"Everyone never ends  to learn in lifetime and I'm ever ready to learn everyday from my partners or coaches," Pedro repeats.

Ever remember that balance in your life is important, especially when it's about self-ranking and self-demanding.

5. Make a goal  is passing straight to the net:
This tip is 100%  created originally by Pedro and consists in figuring out that the net  of the goalkeeping is another of your team mates who you have to pass the ball straight anyway.

Pedro says he uses it as a psychological self-motivation and it ever works him for scoring a goal (did we mention he's one of the best goal scorers of his league?). "Thinking that way I take out the stress when I stay facing the goalkeeping," he trusts us. "Everything's much easy."

Indeed, poor opposite goalkeeper... but, the soccer is so, isn't it?

6. Stay ripping your body after the workout session:
If you're a top-profile sportsman and your physical assets seem to be in full capability, ever remember not all is perfect because human beings are not totally perfect. Pedro knows it very well: "I try to strenghten  [my body] giving it an extra, and beef up what I lack."

So, once your usual workout session ends, don't miss to give some additional minutes to verify and correct those parts or performance that is below the expected.

Of course, don't fall in vigorexia neither. Talk to your trainer or coach about and define  what to do right there where it's really necessary.

7. Live happy doing what you love to do:
Yeah, it looks like a manthra, and actually it is. Nobody reaches the excellence on the field... if dislikes to do what does! In other words, imagine to do the things you don't like to do - would not be a long, slow suicide?

"I'm very happy because I work in that I love, what's playing soccer," Pedro remembers.  "All the people doing the things they love to have a good performance in what they do," he adds.

Remember that it's not the same accomplishing a uncomforting duty for you than acomplishing a kindly, satisfaying duty for you. Nobody won't tell you how to make a difference if you  don't know yourself, don't be exigent to yourself,  don't test yourself, don't be conscius about the talent you've got.

And when is the best moment to start? Well, right now!

Aerobics at the beach

Having so much free space and the sea in the background, why not moving your body?

By ChulucanasGym

During many time, El Toril Beach in Paita, peru, was abandoned. Adding the belonging contamination of the sand due to the solid residues, the sea in front of it has been suffering from a similar process caused by waste water emission.

The Peruvian authorities took control of the second one and started a surveillance plan that allowed to identify the companies uncontrolling  their emissions to prevent or to penalize just in case. The first one implied a citizen movement  which was joined later by the local authorities, until in the last years many cleaning journeys were hold for letting the space in acceptable conditions, at least for taking a sunbath.

El Toril Beach is attended by sports fans because it's next to Paita City, having the sea right there. People jogging, playing ball, working out someway, even swimming, meet there daily. 

For Perfect Body Gym's senior trainer Félix Oviedo, the beach is an ideal place to get balance within physical and mental health by moving the body. That's why he and his staff chose it as the right stage for  having an aerobics master class, last December 2nd.

During three hours, around 40 people summoned to learn with trainers coming from  cities around Paita.  "What we wanted was the people to take the stress away, burning fat, and enjoying the beach," Oviedo commented to ChulucanasGym.

Doing aerobics outdoors is not new but funny indeed. And it's not new because the humankind, inclusive since before it evolved such,  was in constant movement and needed agility and stamina  for moving around and getting everything  it required.

Essentially, the aerobic exercise consists into a series of moderate-impact moves with high repetitions, what inside the body, uses the oxygen to decompose the fat among the muscles, having it as fuel.

As a result, the internal and external tone of the tissues improves, heart beating regulates, cognitive capability increases, aging slows down in every level. and in a country with high levels of violence, it reduces  the stress  and  raises the wellbeing sensation.

By definition, running, biking, swimming, walking, and even doing home chores vigorously, are types of aerobic exercise. What is done at a gym class is spotting  the work on certain muscular groups, or along the body, controlling sequence and repetitions.

For the people trying to lose weight, the aerobic exercise is ideal because of the same in-muscle fat elimination process, what is good news for the ones ripping them, what means staying lean, that improves aesthetics. Remember you could have volume, but if it has no defined shape, won't look like well.

It's good to enlarge the fact of improving the heart beating in a big part because it makes the existent vessels wider, what reduces the heart work inclusive when you rest. Also, it holds away  the LDL-cholesterol (the bad one) and triglicerides, very related to hypertension.

Plus, it makes the vascularization more efficient, allowing  the blod to reach the parts of your body  where it made so difficult before.

If the exercise in general puts the body under  a constant renovation process, the aerobics are notable because  allows to regenerate the neurones,  your nervous cells.  And that is the explanation of improving  your cognitive levels, adding of course habits like reading , the academic study, and the memory games even.

And if this seems little, it decreases the adrenaline levels,  the stress-related hormone, increasing endorphines instead, the hormones  those give us the sensation of satisfaction.

Don't forget the aerobics improve the breathing, what increases stamina, so it allows to support the physical work for better.

If we add to all this the fact of practicing it outdoors, preferently natural, we see the benefit multiplies, and that is the intention of Félix Oviedo and  the Perfect Body staff who got involved into the beach activity.

"This is the sixth time we already do aerobics at the beach," he adds.

If you want to know when his next activity will take, you can follow him on his Facebook fanpage.

Finally, you must know that the World Health Organization recommends at least  30 minutes of daily physical activity someway, or 15 minutes per day  in intense mode at least, and before attending an aerobics class,  visit your most reliable cardiologist for determining your perfect time and rythm for you by an effort test.

So, let's go to the beach for working out?

Why you should fall in love of physical culture

As Luis Rodríguez told it to ChulucanasGym

I realized a little time ago many things about the physical culture, things I didn’t know absolutely there were. That’s why the history is important. I’m currently attending to an International Federation of Fitness and Bodybuilding, the IFBB, course for improving myself as a personal trainer. The IFBB is in over 160 countries, including Peru.

Among the coaches illustrating us with their lessons, is Jorge Montero, an expert in millennial physical culture. I should call this subject as History of Physical Culture, that goes back to the 15^th century with the Marcet Rouet’s French School, when the first training center with barbells made of cannon balls was created, and other apparel that we continue to use today, and one of the things I ever confirm in classes is that nothing has been invented about physical culture. There was everything, already.

Now, to my criterion, the physical culture represents a move. The human body is designed to move, to be active, and it’s something to be fundamental in our lives. And a thought comes to my mind from the Father of Physical Culture, Hipolito Triat, that “you have to grow the body and the spirit as well, at the same time, because both are driving, like two horses, to the man” And I ever have it in mind.

For me, the physical culture turned in something fundamental. I do bodybuilding since I was 15 years old. I did mainly because I didn’t feel well being too thin. I was 110 pounds, I was skinny. I have ever fought with my weight. I’m ektomorphe somatotype, badly complicated to gain muscular mass. But I fell in love of the results, of forgetting everything for 45 minutes. It’s because just training demands you much brain capability: you connect through breathing, pushing, pulling. You have no mind for anything else!

It’s already currently a part of my life. I don’t know what I would do not doing physical activity, because I’m not only a weight-lover but everything about physical activity: running, trail, swimming, climbing, extreme sports, obstacles circuit (InkaChallenge, SpartaRace). I like adrenalin and the satisfaction of reaching goals. I think the life’s about that.

Amazing Benefits

• Anti-aging: I’m 32 years old  but I look like 25. Well, that’s what they say me and  I believe so. Honestly, I feel that age.
• Inmuniiefficience: Doo you know how many times I get sick through the year? How many times I get cold? Once or twice at the most.
• More sexual power: My testosterone levels are ever high due to the power workout. This means more vigor, more cardio-vascular exercise when I make love.
• Exfoliation: My skin is ever clean because when we sweat, we release toxins, and we regenerate tissue later.
• Happiness: Due to endorphins, serotonins, and other hormones of happiness and pleasure. Surely, all this ggoes combined to agood feeding because it’s the perfect balance.

How should you motivate?

First, think of health andwellbeing words, then, ask how I want to live my old age. We just discussed about that topic in clases, and it’s the fact that the society links the old age term to multiple factors those downgrade our life quality (motor weakness, sarcopenia, and a infinity of deplorable conditions for the human being). So it was currently proved that that all these old-age typical conditions can be eliminated, to reach an age, like 60 years old, active. And believe me, I have seen it and lived it: gentlemen in their 60s lifting the same weight than me. I see them and I see myself later. They’re my pride.

People must think of that, not of losing weight for the summer and forgetting it further. Think of how you want to end your days. And please, that nobody comes to me with the excuse that there’s no time. The day is 24 hours -8 hours sleeping = 16, -8 hours of worktime = 8 hours, and only 45 minutes are enough to train.

Currently there are thousand ways to workout: parks, home professional personal trainers, which must be health generators instead of aesthetics. So, get motivated. Take the first step. That’s how you start, and when you do once, and you realize it’s a spirit matter rather than anything, you’re going to fall in love of the physical culture. And I leavetake with an amazing thought which confirms everything what I say: “You have to strengthen the body health because the dominion of the spirit depends on it.” (Plato: Republic, 597B)

Workout with Luis Rodríguez – Look for him asLR Fit Plan.

Care your skin – 6 practical tips

We forget about it many times, but the ones of us who do bodybuilding or fitness  have the skin like our main work tool. Although the changes we experience because of the training begin since a very microscopical level, like the cellular (what stimulates the muscular growth), the fact is the effects are visible in our shape. How are we caring it?

 

If you think this is a females issue, we warn you’re wrong. . Maybe, the male skin is what requires most care because of the same modifications what it’s submitted to.

 

1. Learn it deeply – Oily, dry, or neutral? As incredible as it seems, many of us ignore what type of skin we have. The oily skin shines all the time, its pores are so expanded that they hold much ddirt, it uses to appear acne or shins, it has a rough texture. The dry skin has a soft texture but it’s too tense that it gets to crack, its appearance is opaque with almost invisible pores. Consider the ideal pH (acidity/alkalinity index) goes from 4.7 to 5.75. Are you in that range?  You should know it. A dermatologist can solve your doubts, so it’s time to appoint someone.
2. Eat healthy – although some trendy food or product appear each certain time, the true is that eating balanced is the better for your skin to keep healthy. However, there is natural food that optimizes it: carrot, potato, pumpkin, mango, peach, papaya, kiwi, bell pepper, red fruits, watercress, pomegranate fruit, olive oil, nuts, derry, eggs, and blue fishes. Do you realize?
3. Take a mindful bath – It seems an obvious suggestion but many of us think the personal cleanliness is only the act of keeping clean. Not exclusively. The bath time is perfect to relax and meet again yourself and  your physical assets. Add who wwork out,  sweat more than the average people, so we have to be more meticulous with that so-personal moment, especially if we talk about commissures (armpits, crotch, amid buttocks) or very hairy zones where the sweat can promote the bacteries to flourish. The bad smell? Precizely, the bacteries cause it. Use proper products according to your skin type or the conditions it can develop. Do you remember the dermatologist? He also can guide you.
4. ever moisturize it – Drinking water or consuming food rich in it is a practical and natural way  to guarantee elasticity to the skin as well as promoting its regeneration at ccellular level. The use of creams or products is a choice of external use, but the aloe vera natural gel have proven to be a much better choice, especially if you use to do mechanical or chemical hair removal.
5. Manage the stress – How are you dealing with your daily life? If your skin becomes red, starts to itch, appears hives or acne, they might be warning signals. As well as you train physically, train mentally to face the daily problems, one each time, understanding you’re bigger than them. Thus, you can accept they exist but also you can have them under control, and better if you can solve them. Meditating, talking to a true friend, granting you moments to do nothing, or to do some of your hobbies are going to help much, and your skin is going to thank you too.
6. Ever enjoy it – Never consider your skin like the clothes you wear but like a key feature of your identity. Find moments through the day to connect with it, feeling good with it. When you self-compensate, your own skin projects it. It’s not magic but pure biochemistry:  the hormones we naturally flow when we work out, they do that part of the job. Another way to stimulate them aside the physical training? Yes. Ever smile even when there’s no motivation. Good humor makes wonders.

 

If you want to learn more or if you want to take your particular case, contact us to our Twitter account, WhatsApp, or chulucanasgym@gmail.com

  

When musculation becomes unhealthy