Originally Posted by
wolfchild
I said this before and I am going to say it again. The weight loss which you get form intermittent fasting or any calorie restricted diet will never be 100% fat loss, it's both muscle and fat that you're losing and probably more muscle than fat... It is just impossible for human body to only loose fat without losing some muscle, especially on calorie restricted diet or through fasting. I don't doubt health benefits of fasting, but it all depends on what your main goals are. If your goal is to build and retain lean muscle tissue and increase athletic performance, then fasting isn't ideal... The thing is that you can still be healthy without starving yourself by eating a normal balanced diet and following a good exercise program.
Agreed on the first part, not so sure on the second part.
In terms of achieving an equal calorie deficit what is your opinion on retaining fitness and muscle mass in terms of "normal diet" and IF? Be as scientific as you'd like. I would really like to have this conversation, preferably backed by studies. It is pretty much a consensus that losing weight while raising FTP is difficult to impossible. The goal is usually to maintain FTP while losing weight resulting in an increase in W/Kg. Physiologically, things are going on during IF and especially fasted training that can maybe overcome this hurdle with proper nutrition periodization
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26741119