Hardcore Ifasting

7/24/2019 Hardcore Ifasting

1/9

THEWORKDAY

DIETIntermittent

Fasting


2/9

Fitness industry insider

James Grage went fromlean to shredded by

synching his professional

schedule with his

eating program.

By Mike Carlson


3/9

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

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 cover-

worthy shape.

I usually average about 8% body fat year-

round, 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.

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 self-

propelled sprint to the finish line.


4/9

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 youve spent years eating

several small, high-protein/low-

fat meals a day, and youve 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: intermittentfasting. Intermittent fasting is the

consistent use of 1624-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 fastingreport 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 fastingstyle diet

enjoyed significant protection fromcoronary 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 wasnt nearly as difficult as

the mental stress he experienced at

not feeding his lean body mass for

16 hours.

ThisIntermittent

Fastingprogram

was able toshed fat inhalf the timeit normallytakes me.

I thought I might lose lean

muscle mass, says Grage. I am

so used to the bodybuilding-style

dieteating protein every three

hoursI was afraid Id 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

1624 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.

Intermittent

Fasting

Most of my whole-food protein came from eitherchicken, fish or eggs. If you season it right, it doesnt

taste like bland diet food.

Protein shakes werean important part of mynutrition plan. I prefer aWhey protein blend that is

low in fat and sugars.


5/9

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 scheduledhis 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 mealswould happen at the BPI SPORTS

office and any noshing at home

was forbidden. This all-or-nothing

line of demarcation eliminated a

couple of Grages dietary demons.

It kept me from poking around

the kitchen and snacking at

night, he says. Besides, Im the

kind of guy who, if I have half of

a cookie, I am going to have 10

cookies.

The second factor in Gragesfavor 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 dont 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-year-

old son ready for school. He

would immediately drink 20 oz of

water and take a capsule of BPIs

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 hoursinto 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 hes hungry. After several

hours without eating, he feels

that the quality of his liftingtheloads he moves and the intensity

he bringssuffers 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.

Grage would switch between thestairmill and the rower (two of the mostgrueling cardio machines inexistence).


6/9

After a quick shower, he would

begin his workday and his eating

day, which brought its 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 eight-

hour window, he says. I have to

rely heavily on protein shakes.

At 2:30 PM, hed head back

into the BPI gym for a strength-

training 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 admittedly got difficult

when other people entered Grages

fasting bubble. There were times

when Annik, Grages 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.


7/9

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, Id consider trying a

different window where I could sitdown 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 dont

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.

BPI has become one of the fastest-

growing 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 companys 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. Thatmantra has been the star they have

navigated by since their very first days.

Not one for self-congratulations, Grage

admits to swelling with pride when he sees

the members 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. Forabout 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.

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 alreadyvery lean. However, maintaining good

so that great is only two weeks away

doesnt seem to be a problem for Grage.

I dont give myself an out and say,

Im 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.

2 WEEK INTERMITTENT FASTING RESULTS:

SEPTEMBER 6th, 2013 SEPTEMBER 20th, 2013

BEFORE AFTER

WEIGHT: 176LBSBODYFAT 10%

WEIGHT: 170LBSBODYFAT 7%

ContagiousResults


8/9

The Nutrition Plan

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 bodys 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 supportive spouse on board

definitely makes things a lot easier, he says.

Eight Hours of Eating

5:45 AM1 capsule of B4 (once-a-daythermogenic that regulates adiposetissue)20 ounces of water

7:45 AM40 minutes of intense

cardio intervals

9:00 AMBreakfast (immediatelyafter cardio)30 grams of whey proteinpowder4 egg whites with 2whole eggs1 scoop BLOX (aminoacid formula designed toboost strength, recovery,and muscle mass)

1 scoop Gluta Alkaline(promotes musclerecovery and endurance)1 scoop Beta Alkaline(encourages muscles

fullness and pump)

10:30 AMMid-Morning SnackProtein Pancakes (scoop of protein, cupoatmeal, 3 egg whites,1whole egg, cinnamon)1 scoop BLOX mixed with

my water

12:00 PMLunch6 pieces tuna sashimi1 avocado roll

1:30-2:00 PMAfternoon Snack grilled chicken breast sliced avocado

2:30 PMPre-workout Supplements(30 minutes before training)1 scoop BLOX1 scoop Beta Alkaline1 scoop Leucine Agma pH(promote anabolic activityand nitric oxide synthase)1 capsule of B4

9:30-10:00 PMApproximately 35 minutesbefore bed1 serving Nite-Burn (non-stimulant fat-loss supplementthat promotes relaxationand enhances overnight

metabolism performance)20 ounces of water

5 PMDinner (last meal of the day)1 grilled chicken breast or 6 ounces tilapia1 cup mixed vegetables1 serving Keto XT (non-stimulant weight-lossformula for evening-time fat-burning)

AfternoonSnack grilledchickenbreast

slicedavocado

3:30 PMPost-workout (20 minutesafter workout)30 g of whey protein mixedwith 1 packet of KashiOatmeal1 scoop of BLOX3-4 capsules CreatineAlkaline (bolsters muscle sizeand strength)

1 scoop of Beta Alkaline1-2 scoops Gluta Alkaline


9/9

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. Its probably safe

to say that his post-workout

showers added up to more

time than most people spend

in the gym every week.

It wasnt 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 wasnt a half hour on

the recumbent bike while he

watched Matt Lauer. Grage

would switch between the

stairmill and the rower (twoof 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

The Training PlanIntermittent Workouts

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 hed do an extra

15 minutes of ab work, and on

the weekend hed knock offsome sets of push-ups, sit-ups

and medicine ball exercises.

When the weather cooperated

hed 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, Gragewould fit in short bouts ofactivity wherever he could.

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