re: Intermittent Fasting- anyone do it?

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I've been doing it for few weeks and IF seems to be working for me pretty well and i've been taking bcaa

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Supplementing BCAAs

Some recommend sipping on branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) during their fasting period to better preserve muscle. While this technique would definitely help with preserving and building muscle, it is technically putting you in a fed state. In other words, you're not truly fasting. As you know, amino acids combine to form protein. There are 20 aminos that are used as the building blocks of protein. These include the nine essential amino acids leucine, isoleucine, valine, tryptophan, threonine, phenylalanine, methionine, lysine and histidine, as well as the 11 nonessential amino acids arginine, serine, cysteine, glycine, proline, alanine, tyrosine, aspartic acid, asparagine, glutamic acid and glutamine.

If you consume just one of these amino acids, you're essentially consuming protein and therefore are technically not fasting. The BCAA leucine poses a special problem with IF. Here's why: The brain uses blood leucine levels as an indicator of how fed the body is. So if you're sipping on BCAAs, the leucine is signaling the brain that you're currently well fed. Although no work has been done on this issue during fasting, it's easy to project that if the brain senses you're fed, the benefits that come from fasting may be compromised. My suggestion is to avoid BCAAs and any of the 20 proteinogenic amino acids (those used in the building of proteins) until you're in your feeding period.

Amino acids that aren't proteinogenic can be consumed during fasting. I'm talking about amino acids like beta-alanine, betaine, D-aspartic acid and, even though they're not amino acids (but some people classify them as such), carnitine and creatine. These are fine to sip on during the day, especially if you're training in a fasted state.

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