The 5-Day Fasting Challenge

By Elliott Hulse CSCS CHEK-HLC3

1. Introduction

2. Pre Fast Protocol

3. 5 Day Fasting Challenge Template

4. Strength Training During A Fast

5. Fasting Supplements
 1. INTRODUCTION

If you're reading this, you're probably interested in ​prolonged fasting​, you just don't know how
to go about it or you need some courage, encouragement, and maybe some support and that's
great. If you're watching this far and you're wondering why the hell would anybody want to fast
for 10 days, five days, two days, or five days like we're going to be doing, I would invite you to
take a look at some of the previous videos I've made, but specifically on my Elliot Hulse channel
watch the video that I did. It was a interview with Cole Robinson, the Snake Diet wizard, and the
whole video is about prolonged fasting.

I give you all of my experience and all of my knowledge and many of my resources in terms of
prolonged fasting. And then for the remainder of the video I'm interviewing and speaking with
prolong fasting expert Cole Robinson.

And so all the information that you would need to know about why you would want to fast, the
benefits of fasting, which are myriad, you can go to that video. ​Here is a link where you can go
watch that video.

What this five day fasting challenge really is all about?

It is a bridge to prolonged fasting. So we're not actually going to be fasting for five days.
Meaning you're not going to not eat for five days, but you're going to use the next five days to
prepare yourself for prolonged fasting, by building up slowly.

That's what I think actually would be the best idea for you. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday is the set of days that we're going to be practicing this bridge to prolonged
fasting. Whether or not you actually get into prolonged fasting, meaning literally not eating,
fasting for three, five, 10, 20 days, or longer, 21 days, 40 days, whatever it is that you want to
do.

This is also beneficial in and out itself. So you may not want to get into prolonged fasting, but
every once in a while you might want to really reset your metabolism, reset your hormones, get
into autophagy. So a lot of cleansing, detox, tremendous benefits. Mental, physical,
metaphysical, emotional, ​all the benefits of fasting you can do with just this little five day
fasting protocol.​ So I think it's pretty cool. You could use it as standalone or you could use it as
bridge to prolonged fasting like I said before.

And the way I'm setting this up is so that you would be encouraged, motivated, and inspired to
take it a little bit further. The purpose of this section is just to kind of set you up with what's to
come.

Here is what you will find in the following sections of this report.
In section number two​ ​we're going to be talking about the pre-fasting protocol. ​We don't
want to just jump into fasting. You don't want to go from eating ice cream, french fries, pizza and
guzzling beer to the next day saying, "That's it, I'm fasting." That's dumb. Not because eating all
that stuff is "bad" for you. But it is. But because you're going to feel really, really, really bad
when you fast.

So what we want to do with this pre-fasting protocol is we want to set ourselves up so that when
we do fast, we're feeling good while we're fasting. And there are some keys to allowing yourself
to go into that fast in the most resourceful way possible and so that you feel good. We want to
set you up to win. We don't want you to go into your fast feeling shitty and really battling the
demons. We want to get you set up, set straight so that you can do it right.

In section number three I will share the actual 5 day template with you. ​ Like I said, we're
not actually fasting for five days, not this time around. This is to set you up, but over the course
of that five days, we're going to be using what I like to describe as NOMAD, UMAD, and you
may have heard of OMADs.

OMAD is pretty popular. People know what that means. One meal a day. O-M-A-D, that's what it
stands for. A lot of people don't know, because I made it up. There are Nomads and Nomads
mean no meal a day, right? So you've got an OMAD, you got a Nomad, you got a You Mad and
You Mad is basically multi-day fasting. And so we're going to use a combination of that, OMAD,
Nomad, You Mad during this five day fasting template. That's video number three.
In section number four, we’ll discuss STRENGTH TRAINING during your fast. ​I got a little
bit of a dilemma, but it's actually just a challenge. It's an opportunity, and that is I've decided that
I'm going to compete again in Strongman and I'm starting with the Strength Camp Challenge
that's happening in August.

So I got exactly 10 weeks to prepare for that. I haven't competed in over five years. So this is
kind of like a coming out of retirement for me. But if you don't know about it and you want to get
involved with Strength Camp Challenge and even train along with me because I'll be recording
all my workouts. Or just to participate, in other words come and hang out with us, enjoy the
festivities. All the information you need is ​on this website​.

In this section I will talk to you about some training principles that you want to follow while you're
fasting.

Finally, section number five is about supplements.​ There are some mandatory supplements
which if you watched the prolonged fasting video, you know about drinking your “snake juice”.
Magnesium, potassium, sodium. You want to get that in your water. You want to be drinking
that, especially if you're training. Those are mandatory, there's some mandatory supplements.

There are some optional supplements that I'm going to be using this time around. It's called
micro fasting. I'll tell you a little bit about it. I've actually made ​videos in the past about it.

I've updated some of the micro fasting protocols and supplements and the way I go about it. So
I'll be teaching you all of that in the supplement section, and also by the end of the series if you
hang out up until the end.

By the end of this book I'll also give you some support on how you can go about true prolonged
fasting once you get through this five day fasting challenge, which is really a bridge to prolonged
fasting. So I hope that is of interest to you. I hope this book will spark some interest, inspiration
and gets your wanting to prolong fast along with me for five days.
 2. PRE-FASTING PROTOCOL

In the previous section I gave you an outline of what's going on, why we're doing it, and how to
go about it. In this section we're going to begin the process with the pre-fasting protocol. ​So this
is about everything you need to know to prepare yourself a few days ahead, three, five
days ahead, for the fasting challenge.

Like I said in the previous video, you don't want to just jump right into the fasting. And also, you
want to prepare yourself to bring to account the results of your fasting, and you want to do that
by assessing yourself ahead of time. So there are a few things that you're going to need to know
that I want to share with you in this video that's going to get you there.

So the very first thing you want to do a few days before your fast is to get some
measurements.

We want to make sure that what we're doing is yielding some sort of results. We all have
different goals, but it's always nice to see that when our effort is exerted, that there is some
equal but opposite reaction, right? So the very first thing we want to do is get some
measurements and pics. Real simple.

I recommend weighing yourself. ​Just weigh yourself, empty stomach, first thing in the
morning.
I also recommend that you measure your waist. ​Just get a tape measure around the waist at
the belly button. Those are the two measurements that you're going to want to have, your
weight in your waist.

You also want to get pictures. ​Proof's in the pudding. Proof's in the picture. So you could
literally just do a bathroom selfie. Or you get a friend to help you out, say, in front of a wall, and
get a picture of yourself. Front is great, front and side is even better. Try to get everything from
the thighs up. You're going to notice most of the shedding, at least for dudes, happen in the
upper body.

Ladies who are reading this and are getting involved, the legs get kind of fat when you're not
paying attention to what you're eating. And so the benefit will be down below a little bit more for
ladies, and a little bit up high for the guys.

But get your full body, get a picture, get a couple of pictures. That's number one as far as
pre-fasting protocol's concerned.

Number two, get your blood work. ​Now, this is kind of optional, but I suggest that you do it,
especially if this is the first time you're going about fastening.

So see what kind of physiological benefit there is for this fasting protocol by getting your blood
work done. Now, you can go to your doctor and you get a basic blood work done, get
cholesterol and testosterone and you get all that basic stuff done. And then also, you can go to
this website, ​personalabs.com​.

At perrsonalabs.com, you can order all of your own blood work. Personalabs is a website that
allows you to buy the labs. So you can actually purchase the labs, and then it gives you a piece
of paper that you take to Quest Lab, they're in every city in America.

You bring in the piece of paper and then they take your blood and then they send it off. And
then a few days later, you get the answers to all of your tests right on the Personalabs website.
It's pretty cool. And part of the reason why I'm really excited about that is because this has only
been available since about 2014. Prior to 2014, you had to go to a doctor, and he had to get all
your blood work done there. And you couldn't get or receive your own blood work, you'd have to
go back to him and he's going to have to interpret it. But with some of the resources I'm going to
share with you in a moment, you get your own blood work done, you receive the information
about yourself. It's great that they made this law change, because you should be able to test
yourself. Why do I need somebody to test me when I could test myself?

But then you get the results and you don't know what to do with it, right? You don't know what's
going on. So what I am going to offer you is a resource. I'm reading it on Kindle right now, but
it's called ​Ketofast by Dr. Mercola,​ Joseph Mercola. Been a fan of Dr. Joseph Mercola for many,
many years. And it's fun to see that now he's understanding and sharing the benefit of fasting.

Ketofast is a great book, but the reason why I would suggest you get it is because he makes
some suggestions on different labs you're going to want to get done. Different numbers,
markers, that you're going to want to keep track of while you're fasting.

Dr. Mercola suggests these following labs:

Vitamin D

RBC Magnesium

Omega-3 index

Fasting insulin

Serum ferritin,

C-reactive protein.

Homocysteine.

NMR LipoProfile.

So that's it. I highly suggest you go and you read the book, ​Ketofast​, by Dr. Joseph Mercola.

I think its a good idea to test yourself before you fast and then test yourself after you fast. I just
had this blood work done about a week ago, so I've got all my numbers. And then after this five
day fasting protocol, I likely get them all done again and to see where I'm at. And then of course,
like I said, the basic stuff. You know, you want to test your cholesterol and your testosterone,
stuff like that. And I'll be talking more about these kinds of labs and the benefit thereof and what
you're looking for and in follow up videos / reports in weeks to come.

Step Number three is, you got to get into Ketosis.​ You don't necessarily need to get into
Ketosis, but for up to three to five days before you go into the fast, have ketogenic meals. One
of the things we don't want to do is spike insulin right before we go into a fast. And what science
has shown, studies have shown, by jacking up your insulin before you go into a fast.

Well, I mean you're going to feel like sh*t because insulin is high and blood sugar is low. But
there is an increased tendency to burn muscle. Because if insulin's up and then you fast, you're
not eating food, your body will start scavenging, will start catabolizing, eating up your muscle.
So one of the fastest ways to feel shitty and to lose a lot of muscle is to eat high carbohydrate
meals before you fast. So take the next three days right before you go into a fast. Say, if you're
starting a fast on Monday, so you'd do Friday, Saturday, Sunday, ketogenetic meals.

Ketogenetic meals. Now you, you may or may not get into ketosis. Fasting is what gets you into
ketosis faster than anything. And whether or not you get into Ketosis, not a big deal. ​The whole
idea is that you want to control insulin.​ And the faster you get into ketosis, the better,
because the better you'll feel during your fasting your body. We'll be using ketones for energy
and you won't have low blood sugar, or you won't suffer from the bad feelings of low blood
sugar. Getting into ketosis is good, but eating ketogenic meals or low carbohydrate, high fat,
high protein, moderate protein meals, right? So really it's about, like I said, controlling insulin.
Not a lot of sugar, not a lot of starch. Keep those things real low, jack up the protein and
the fat.

And then also I would suggest getting the following tools ahead of time, before you start fasting.
But you can start using them in the pre-fasting protocol to see if you are getting into ketosis. But
you can​ piss on these strips ​and they'll let you know whether or not you're in ketosis. Pee on
that little thing there, and then it's going to give you a number. And based on the number it tells
you... Really, what is tracking is how many ketones is in your piss. And that's kind of an
indication of whether or not you're in ketosis. It's a good idea to have while you're doing the
fasting, it's a good idea to get in the practice of using it in your pre-fasting protocol.

And then also, ​this is a blood ketone reader ​that I use. The cool thing about the blood ketone
reader, which, both of these things can get on Amazon, is that it also tests blood sugar. So
there's sort of an inverse relationship. As blood sugar goes down, ketones go up. So you can
test your blood sugar with this. You could also test ketones in your blood, which is a little bit
more accurate when the ketones are in your blood rather than in the piss. From what I
understand, when you're pissing it out, it just means that there's excess energy, excess ketones,
and your body is getting rid of it. What's in your blood, that's what your body is using. So it
depends on how accurate you want.

The whole point is, you want to eat ketogenic meals and get into ketosis, or close to it,
before you fast so you'll feel better, you'll get better results.

Finally, there is inspiration via education.​ So this video series is really not about educating
you on fasting. I've done that in previous videos, I did that with my interviews. This video series
is about inspiring you and giving you some instruction on how to go about prolonged fasting. But
in the meantime, I know if you're anything like me, if you're anything like me, the ego needs a
little bit of validation, a little bit of support.

If you're going to go about doing this and kind of questioning, why am I doing this? Or is this the
right thing to do? Or is this bullshit? Or especially when you're fastening and the demons, I call
them demons, but those negative thoughts start chirping in your ear. “​I can't, do it, this is
terrible, I'm going to lose my mind, I'm going to starve to death, I'm going to lose all my gains​”
and all that bullshit.

It's going to happen.

Prolonged fasting, and this process is great for the body. But I really am excited about the
mental benefits of it, because it really forces you to stop being a pussy. Toughen up, get past
your emotional dependency on food, and be a big boy. And one of the things that will support
you, because it's going to be challenging, are reading some really good books or consuming
some content that educate you on fasting. Over the past year, I've been devouring tons of
resources on fasting. I'm going give you a few right now.

Of course, Ketofast by Joseph Mercola. Good Book. I would say that that one is secondary to
The Complete Guide To Fasting​ by Jason Fung. That's number one. If you're not going to get
any other book, get The Complete Guide To Fasting by Jason Fung. It's basically everything
you'll need to know. I've read it about five times. Everything you'll need to know about why
you're fasting, how to fast. This guy, he heals diabetes patients with fastening. They come to his
clinic and they'll fast for, like, two weeks straight, be healed of diabetes, it's crazy. So read the
inspirational stories and follow the guidelines in that. A lot of what I'm sharing with you, I've
pulled from multiple different resources, so you'll see a lot of what I'm talking about in these
books.

Another book that I would suggest reading, although I don't agree with everything he says... is
Arnold Ehret, Rational Fasting,​ is a book written in, like, the 1920s. And you can see it here,
right there. And he recommends prolonged fasting, and I love what he talks about in terms of
fasting and all he teaches with fasting. But then he suggests you become a fruitarian, and I'm
not ready for that And I don't think it's a good idea. I think Arnold Ehret was brilliant, he was a
genius, I love his work. I am not becoming a fruitarian. But everything else in the book is great.

Metabolic Autophagy​ is also a great book written by one of my favorite YouTubers, Siim Land.
Shout out, Siim. And I would highly recommend getting a copy of his book. It's pretty
comprehensive. I mean, he goes from soup to nuts in terms of what you need to know and how
to go about practicing intermittent fasting.

And so I think that should hold you over. Those are a few books that are going to prepare you.
It's a part of the pre-fasting protocol. Prepare your mind. I think it's just as important to prepare
your mind as it is to prepare your body. So there we have it. Getting all your measurements,
getting all your blood work, getting into Ketosis, and getting inspired.
 3. FIVE-DAY FASTING CHALLENGE PROTOCOL

Welcome to the third section on how to practice, how to prepare for a Five Fay Fasting
challenge. ​In this section we're going to go over the actual fasting template,​ or when you
feast and when you fast during these five days.

I mentioned in a previous section that we're not going to just jump right into a five day fast,
although you can. But this is a process to slowly build you up to the capacity for prolonged
fasting. This is sort of a get the ball rolling, get your feet wet, get a little experience, get off of the
addiction to consumption, always stuffing our face with foods, and also to build some discipline.

Lets jump right into it and I’ll explain what you guys are going to do over the course of the next
five days, and I'll sort of interject some of my other ideas that may support it. ​So, we're going to
begin on a Monday. So have your last ketogenic, or high fat/protein, low carb meal on
Sunday.

I typically have my last meal, which is usually a protein shake with coconut milk, that's just what
I love, about 8:00PM. So I'm going to kind of use that as an example, but you may stop eating
on Sunday at 6:00 PM, it really doesn't matter. But be definitive, choose an endpoint. Say
Sunday night, after you had a wonderful day on Sunday and then, say 6:00 PM, 8:00 PM,
whatever it is, you cut off, eat no more food, you can drink water only before bed.
And then it begins, because on Monday you're going to practice your very first NOMAD.

NOMAD means NO Meal A Day. This very first NOMAD will be monumental for you in your life.
Particularly if you're American, you live in a affluent country, most people have not gone to bed
their entire lives without skipping a meal, without having a meal. This is going to break a lot of
fear in you, and that's why I begin with just this one NOMAD.

And I want to pause for a moment, and I want to point out the significance of the achievement of
going to bed hungry. Now mind you, there are millions of children all over the planet go to bed
hungry every night. You can handle one night. Don't even think about the other four days, just
think about this one opportunity you have to transcend that repetitive, addictive, consumptive
behavior of constantly stuffing your face.

I think it is the root of many of our evils. You know, they say that love of money is the root of all
evil? Well money is a means by which we consume, and I think it's the consumption that is
really the root of all of our evils, and I think that food, constantly eating does a number of things.

Number one, it keeps us emotionally addicted to consumption, because when you eat you feel
good, you feel satiated. It fills sort of an emotional hole that grew there when you were a child,
when you were a baby and you were whining, and you were crying, or you were unsatisfied.
And the first thing your mommy would do is she'd stuff a bottle in your mouth, and all of a
sudden you're all good again. So any kind of discomfort, we never give ourselves an opportunity
to go through discomfort, because since we were babies we've been getting clogged, stuck shut
with consumption. Eating. And you see it, you know? You see it with babies, and you see it with
the adults.

Three meals a day. A lot of people, they wake up in the morning, they don't have their meal or
that coffee, they don't have their meal or their coffee, they are "hangry". Which is just another
way of describing being weak. When you're hangry that's because you are experiencing the
weakness of demons, of addiction leaving your body. Keep that in mind.

So you get to face yourself, you get to face your demons, you get to face your weaknesses,
your inner beta. Stop being a bitch. You don't get a meal, you don't eat, momma's not coming to
put her titty in your mouth. Get over it. Lunch time's going to pass, you may start having little
headaches. Might start feeling low blood sugar. These things are legit, I understand they're
there, but you can handle it.

And so begins the path of soul regeneration, right? Because you've got to battle those
"demons", I call them demons, you've got to battle that inner dialogue that keeps you stuck and
constantly needing and being dependent on. So you get to be a big boy.

So there's a lot of that that's going to be going on. A lot of it is mental, and I know I'm a broken
record here but I really and truly believe that that's just as important as what's happening
physically. ​Now, what's happening physically, you ought to know, is that you are going
through a detoxification process.​ At least that's part of it.

If you did as I said and you ate mostly ketogenic, high fat/high protein, moderate protein, low
carb, which is the key, the days before, you won't have that low blood sugar sort of wooziness
that people get when their insulin is high but then the blood sugar has all been scavenged, it's
all gone, and then the body ... insulin almost acts like, like it's starts seeking shit for energy. It's
a energy up-taker in the body. And if the sugar's not there because your fasting, so it's like
insulin is like the drug addict in you, "I need, I need," and then the sugar is like the, "Ah, I get
what I want." Well there aint going to be no fucking sugar. Keep your insulin low, you won't have
such a big problem.

But for a lot of people their consumption has just been chronic for so many years that even after
a few days of eating ketogenic you're going to go into this first NOMAD, insulin still may be kind
of high, and so you're dealing with that. That's a part of the reason why you might feel kind of
shitty. But then the other thing that happens is when you stop consuming you stop digesting.
Digestion requires a lot of fricking energy from the body. It is energy intense, and so you take in
a lot of food, but you're using a lot of energy to burn that food up. When you stop consuming,
stop taking in food, your vital resources, the energy in your body, if you will, can then be
diverted to other tasks.

And right at the top of that task list, after trying to get the food out of your body, is to
detoxify your body from all of the garbage. ​From the consumption. And even if you're eating
a "normal" diet, your body then begins a detoxification process that will make you start feeling
kind of shitty.

Now there are a lot of people that, they question whether this detox is really happening or not.
You can do your own research, and you can decide whether or not. It makes perfect sense to
me, to me it rings as logical, it makes sense. We do consume constantly, and we do consume a
lot of things that our body wants to get rid of, that's why we've got so many liver problems and
shit of that nature.

Here's a really good analogy I heard. If you want to fix a road, there's a road, road out in front of
my house, look at this fucking road, and it's all in shambles, you want to fix that road. You want
to bring that road back to life. You want to bring that road back to its strongest self, that pothole
ridden, fucked up road, you've got to stop traffic. First thing you got to do. You can't have cars
coming back and forth while you're trying to fix the potholes.

Well your body works the same way. When your body wants to go back to repairing, and
detoxification is just a word that sort of precedes repairing, you've got to get rid of the shit, right?
You're going to fix this road, you've got to sweep off all of the broken pieces and get them out of
the way. All these broken pieces of concrete, you've got to get them out of the way, that way
repair can begin. Well same thing in your body, you can't keep eating food. Traffic, you've got to
stop the traffic, your body can then, "Okay, phew." All this medication that you had been taking,
pesticides, herbicides, fungicides in the food, so on and so forth. Pollution, plastics, all that shit.

Your body then is like, "Okay, whew, let's get rid of some of this shit since there's no more
traffic. We've got to start cleaning up." And then, a few days later, which we're not going to even
talk about right now, then the repair process begins. That's what they call autophagy, and stem
cell ... apparently fasting stimulates stem cell activity, production, shit like that.

So you're going to be battling during this first 36 hours, that's why I'm spending some
time on it.​ Those emotional demons of consumption and addiction, and physiologically you're
going to be going through sort of a detox process. If you've been taking medication for decades.
That's synthetic, it's unnatural, it's stuff that the body will store in the body fat, it'll store in your
tissue, some of it gets stored in the brain, and when you start going into this fasting process it
can take a very long time for your body to get rid of a lot of the toxins.

I used to have amalgam fillings. They're all white now, but if you guys remember some of my old
videos, I'd be shouting and you would see the metal in my teeth, the toxic heavy metals, those
get stored in the body too. And so we are being bombarded with toxins from everywhere. And
some people it's going to take longer than others, some people are going to suffer a lot longer
than others.

And, you know, this is all about being tough. This is all about stop being a baby, man up, do
what's right, what's good for your body and your soul. But at the same time I'm going to make
sort of a caveat: that ​if you get into this process, and you're detoxing hard, and you feel
horrible, the way to modulate that is by eating once again. ​Eating doesn't make you feel
better, at least physiologically, eating does not make you feel good physiologically. Emotionally,
yes, that's why we like sugar, and candies, and cakes, and yummy things like that, treats. It's
emotional that makes you feel good.

When you eat during a fasting process and you're starting to feel better because you eat, it's
merely because you're stopping the detox process. So you're detoxing: you're purging, you're
feeling like shit, your breath is getting bad, these are some of the symptoms, your breath might
start getting bad, and then you eat, you take in some food and then the detox process stops. So
the guys fixing the road, they were fixing the road and it was kind of painful, they stopped fixing
the road. So you just basically stopping the detox process. Understand that. I learned this from
Arnold Erik, that good nourishing food is not what makes you feel good. What feels good is
having a clean, healthy, vibrant, vital body that's pure. That's what nice, that's what feels good,
that's our natural state. That's coming home to ourselves. The food just stops you from getting
there, so just know, that's all, just know. You just need to know.

You're going to do this NOMAD on Monday, and then OMAD on Tuesday, which means
you're going to have one meal on Tuesday.​ So it's not even that bad. And the reason why,
because this is like a taste, you know? This is just to get you going. NOMAD, wow, you went to
bed, congratulations. Clap for you. But then you get the break, you get to break the fast, you get
to feed the addiction, just a little bit, with a OMAD day on Tuesday.

And so with that I say two to four hour eating window. ​You could do a legit OMAD, one
meal, which is okay, which is great, which is amazing if you can do that. If you're the type that
you want to get those calories in, that's fine, especially you know, you haven't eaten for almost
two days and you think you're going to lose your gains. Well then give yourself two to four hour
eating window.

So we'll say, for example, oftentimes I'll break fasts at 6:00, and eat to 8:00. So you went the
whole overnight, and you went most of the day on Tuesday, wait till you get to the evening time,
and then you break fast for two to four hours. And then when you stop you stop. Just like the
Sunday before, when it's time to stop, you stop.

And then you gear up to do the big boy dance all over again. And that means ​NOMAD on
Wednesday, NOMAD on Thursday, OMAD on Friday evening. ​Gonna relish Friday, thank
God it's Friday, right? I would say keep it clean, but then so there's your 70 hours. And then so
what we've got here is five days. Five days. Write it down.

I can't stress enough, it's about breaking addiction, breaking the mental beta, the inner bitch.
Getting tough, and then pushing yourself a little bit. And then treating yourself on Friday, alright?
And once again, this is all a process to help prepare you for prolonged fasting. I'm going to talk
in another video a little bit more about the non-caloric beverages only.

This is a water fast, I didn't specify that, but it is a water fast​. In subsequent videos and
maybe challenges we'll throw some dry fasting in there, but for right now I think it's important for
us just to get the ball rolling on this. And with that, you'll only be drinking non-caloric beverages:
so that's water, black coffee, bubbly water, gas water, that's what the Europeans call it, like
Perrier.

And then of course, I'll mention in the supplement section, the salts that you want to put in your
water specially if you're going to be training.
 4. STRENGTH TRAINING DURING A FAST

In this section I'm going to give you all my training principles associated with lifting during a fast.
What are the principles associated with getting under the barbell, maintaining strength while you
are at least embarking on this five day fasting challenge, because it depends, it changes.

You can be doing typical OMAD fasting and there's a different way to train or you could be doing
prolonged fasting, like I did for 10 days, some of our friends did up to 20 days, 40 days. You're
going to approach it differently based on what your fasting template and goals are. These are
specific to what we'll be engaging in, which is our five day fasting challenge.

I'm just going to go over some of the principles. I​'m not going to give you a program to
follow. Whatever program you're following, you're just going to modify it during the fast if you
feel it necessary. A lot of it is subjective, so you going to have to kind of feel around.

I'm going to give you a warning not to overdo it during the fast.​ The only reason I can give
you that warning is because I'm an extremist and when I was first starting my fast thing, when I
did the 10 day fast, I was beating the shit out of myself doing like three workouts a day. I started
digging ditches in my backyard to plant bamboo. Yeah, I wanted to see how much punishment I
could take and it hit me. It hit me pretty hard.
I was happy I did it. I was willing to sacrifice. I really just wanted to break myself down. But that's
not necessarily the case for you. So, I would warn you that if you don't want to break yourself
down, follow these principles and be mindful with yourself. Be Subjective. Trust yourself.

See, a part of what is going to happen to you for you when you begin fasting is your sensitivity
to self, it increases, heightens. You become more intuitive, more in touch with your own body.
While constantly clogging with food, we're detached from quite a bit of the intelligence that
would be available to us if the body was free.

And so, you'll be able to listen to yourself a little bit better. A lot of people... a lot of young men
come to me for a myriad of different reasons including, what is my path in life, Elliott? What do I
do in life? How do I find my purpose? Well, I can tell you one thing, that if you start fasting, you
start to get out of your own way.

The peace, the stillness, the solitude, the silence it's associated with fasting will open you up to
be led by God, your higher self, your soul if you will. You'll begin to trust yourself better, trust
your intuition and trust your judgment when you go about training during these five days.

Principle number one. We're not trying to make gains while we're fasting.​ I think that's the
first thing that we need to get out of our heads. Of course a good reason why many of us are
here for the physical benefits of it, but a part of our addiction, at least guys that are hanging
around with me, is our addiction to physicality.

Our addiction to muscle, addiction to gains, addiction to strength. I love it! Well, we want to set
that aside for a season, set aside for a little while. Let that be less important than the
development of your character, your soul, the virtue of steadfastness and detachment.

What we want to do is at least maintain some strength, and that's a lot of fun to do also. It's cool
because you maintain strength, but it's fun. It's fun. It's fun to lift. We like to lift. But you want to
stimulate the central nervous system and not kill the muscle. What does that mean?

That means that we're not pumping with high reps and short rest intervals and doing drop sets
and rest-pauses and all that shit that we know breaks us the fuck down and builds muscle. We
ain't, we're not doing that during these five days. I would suggest you don't do it because you're
going to break down and you're not going to build back up right away especially in this stage of
the process.

Now, this goes beyond the scope of this video, but apparently science has shown that fasting
also stimulates growth hormone and is muscle sparing. So we've got that to look forward to. In
the meantime, we're just getting the ball rolling and we want to treat ourselves well.
We don't want to pump, we want to just stimulate. We just want to stimulate the nervous system.
Let the brain talk to the body a little bit about what it can fucking do. Bang! And the way we'll do
that... I kind of got these out of order, but I'm going to start right here with number two.

So the way we kind of do that is with high intensity. ​ High intensity means heavyweight.
Intensity is weight. You go to a lot of fitness gyms and they'll have their high intensity classes
where they're bouncing around with little weights on those blocks. That's not intensity. That's
usually a lot of volume and density. They get it mixed up. Intensity is heavy!

We want to lift heavy, we want to lift with low volume, right?​ What does low volume mean?
Low volume is like two to four sets, maybe five sets of two to four, five reps. Anything more than
five, tire volume. You're starting to get into bodybuilding volume, starting to get into endurance
volume. We want to lift with heavy weights, we want to keep the volume low. So threes, fives,
doubles. And then high frequency. Because you're not beating the shit out of your muscle,
you're going to recover a little bit quicker.

You can do every other day the same; same muscles, same body parts. What I actually suggest
is full body. Going full body, say, we're doing the five days. When you want to lift Monday,
Wednesday, Friday, do a full body, choose your favorite compound movements... if you're doing
it every day, say every other day training and you're using the compound movements and you're
following my suggestion to go high intensity, low volume, you can alternate.

This is very beautiful. This is a great way to train and maintain strength, alternate between grind
and go workouts. So, it's a little bit of a bonus. I want to go into this very briefly for you here. The
difference between a grind and a go workout. They both stimulate the same sort of muscle fiber,
but just in a different way.

Grinding is about choosing a perceived heavy weight, or giving your body the perception that a
weight is heavy by squeezing real tight and creating that irritation. Squeezing tight and going
slow. Say for example I'm doing, let's say I'm doing a bench press here, right? Normally you
know we're doing on rack.

Well, with the grind method,​ you're going unrack and then you're going to squeeze your hands
as tight as you can, and you're going to try to maintain that squeezing of the hands. Squeezing
of the hands is the healing of the land. It's all about squeezing of the hand with a lot of the
exercise here.

Squeeze your hands as tight as you can like you want to break that barbell or you want to
disintegrate in your palms, and you're going to maintain that tension while you come all the way
down, about three, two, one. Pause but maintain the tension, and then three, two, one.
You can even go up to four seconds like I'm doing right now, and then squeeze. Dude, if you
can bench press 315 and you do that with like 205, it's going to feel heavy as fuck. If you're
doing three to four reps and you're going that slow, that's the grind baby.

Let's talk about the go. ​Just choose your exercises. Choose two compound movements
wisely. Give yourself this opportunity. It's just five fucking days. You're going to go back to doing
Lean Hybrid Muscle or 531, whatever you're doing after that, go [inaudible 00:08:49], go right
back to doing it.

But here with fasting. it's kind of a pattern interrupt. For that, give yourself the permission to
change things up a little bit. And then go. What does go mean? So grind, think about it, grind,
go! Go is about moving weights quickly. All right. You don't need to go very heavy, think
dynamic method in the Westside Conjugate Training, right? They take the bands. That's it.
Right.

You could use bands, you don't need to use bands, but the whole idea is just to choose a weight
that you can move quickly. I like medicine balls. You could do some medicine ball work.

Again, a lot of people get confused, and because you're not going very heavy, they think that it
turns into conditioning. And so they're doing like a hundred reps with the medicine ball. That's
not what this is about, bro. It's about stimulating the nervous system, not killing the muscle.

Then finally, avoid failure.​ There's a myriad of really good reasons why we want to avoid
failure, but particularly during this five day process, you don't want to train to fail, it's not
necessary. And I'll invite you all just to have the mindset that this is a pattern interrupt. We're
giving up some things for a while while we do this and it's a good idea. It's a good idea to
change things up for a little bit. Give your body new stimulus. So, be prepared for that.

These are just principles. Like I said, you could probably still follow your same program, just
modify it a little bit for the five days and we start on Monday.
 5. FASTING SUPPLEMENTS

Here in this final section I'm going to talk about the use of supplements.

There are mandatory supplements, and there are optional supplements.​ So, there are the
ones that I suggest you use and don't skip out on, otherwise you're going to suffer, and there
are other ones that might optimize and support your journey, especially if you're going to be
lifting during this five day challenge.

Now, very first thing I want to begin with is water because we are water fasting and that means
you will be consuming water, you will be drinking water. But, you don't want to drink just any
water, you want to drink with, what my friend Cole Robinson calls, snake juice.

Snake juice is basically water with salts. Now, I've been putting salt in my water for over two
decades now, just because I like the way it taste and how it satisfies my thirst, quenches my
thirst, better than Gatorade with all that sugar, and dye and shit.

But, Cole has gotten real specific about exactly how many milligrams and what types of salts to
put in your water, which I think is really cool and here is ​a link to one of his videos where he tells
you all about the snake juice.
But, what I'm going to do right now, I'll tell you how I use the snake juice and how I recommend
you use the snake juice while you're going through your fast.

On the topic of water, one of the misconceptions, one of my strongly long-held beliefs about
water was that we needed to be drinking lots, and lots and lots of it, all the time. And I
remember there was a point where I was drinking six liters of water a day, I was just guzzling
this shit. And if I didn't have it, I would start feeling bad. I would become very sensitive to not
having six liters of fricking water every day.

And when I began fasting, I began wanting less water, and then I began learning that we don't
need nearly as much water as we thought we needed, or at least I was taught that I needed.
And now, I don't drink nearly as much water and when I do drink water, it's strategic.

And so, what I mean by that is while I'm fasting, I keep my water limited to just two of these liter
and a half bottles. You probably notice this is about the size of a large Evian or a large bottle.
They're about a liter and a half, so two of these makes three liters of water.

So, I basically cut my water in half and I didn't dehydrate, dry up, and die and turn to dust. In
fact, I feel great. I feel a lot better, drinking just two of these a day. Now, I drink two of these
days, no matter what.

That is when the snake juice becomes mandatory. If you're doing OMAD or if you skip a meal,
which, a lot of times, that's how people get started with the 16/8 or the 18/6. It's not as important
because you're probably getting a lot of the salts in the food that you're eating. But, if you're
going 2, 3, 4, 10, 40 days without food, you're going to want to make sure that your water is
potent with potassium and sea salt.

So, here's what I do. For each one and a half liter bottle of water like this and sometimes I'll do
one in the morning, and then one in the evening, and then dry fast throughout the day. You don't
have to do that.

I use a form of Celtic Sea Salt. I'll either use Celtic Sea Salt, which I've have been using
for years, or I'll do a Pink Himalayan sea salt. And with regard to the salt, I'll just put a
quarter of a teaspoon in here. ​All right, so I got a little measurer, quarter of teaspoon in one,
quarter of teaspoon in the other. Boom, I'm done with my salt.

Potassium, which by the way, when I first started fasting, I was only using salt. I was getting
cramps and I figured that was just a part of the deal. I didn't realize that not having enough
potassium would cause cramps. I was doing a kickboxing, Muay Thai and shit, and I was getting
super cramps.
And then, I found out about the potassium, and the magnesium and what it does for the body.
And so, what I also do is I put half a teaspoon,​ if you're following along with me, half a
teaspoon of potassium chloride.

I also like the way it tastes. I don't know why, something weird about me. I like the way the salt
tastes. I like the way the potassium tastes. It almost makes my water tastes like sweat. And for
some reason, I'm highly satiated by that sweaty taste in my water. So, I got a little bit of that in
there.

And then, finally, the first two, it depends on who you ask, you might watch Cole's video and
he'll say something different. It's just been my experience and this is my idea that the first two
are mandatory. First, you need that sodium, you need that potassium.

If you remember in biology class, the sodium-potassium pump. Anybody remember what the
sodium-potassium pump is? It helps your brain work and it's part of the nervous system that
helps the synapse. So, your brain, the brain cells, the neurons, they have neurotransmitters in
between them, they're not actually touching.

They got neurotransmitters, and you need minerals and you need support, so that those
neurotransmitters can jump the synapse. So, basically, it makes your nervous system, or
electrical system, that much quicker when you use these things. When you slow down or you
stop using these things, the brain slows down. You're not as quick, and then, of course, the
cramping comes in.

Let me finish up with you on the three that I find necessary. The first two, super necessary.
Third one, Epsom salt. This is food-grade Epsom salt, and with the Epsom salt, which is
magnesium, I'll do also the quarter teaspoon.

Speaker 1:
So, these two salts, Epsom salt, sea salt, quarter teaspoon. Potassium, half a teaspoon, in one
of these. You do that twice, you're good. You can also put baking soda, which Cole
recommends. I don't like it.

You got sodium, potassium, magnesium, check out​ the snake juice recipe​ here. That's going to
be very helpful to you.

Now, let's move on to the, I want to say nonessential because I didn't start fasting with this,
Fasting Fuel. I'm going to tell you about in a moment. I didn't start fasting with it, but when I got
into the fasting, I was approached by my friend, KC Craichy, who you might remember from
some of my old YouTube videos when I used to talk about Living Fuel and Living Fuel is a green
supplement that I've been using, going on three decades.
I've been using it forever, since before my first daughter was born. I don't say three decades,
two decades. My daughter's 15, I started using about a year or so. She's 14, I started using it
about 15 years ago, so it's a great supplement. I love the supplement.

When I started fasting many years ago, KC showed me how to formulate, what he called a
micro fuel for a micro fast, where basically you're taking in micronutrients while you're fasting. I
did this, like I said, many years ago. In fact, I have ​another YouTube video​, from 2014, where I
went through and showed you, basically, what I'm going to show you today anyway, with regard
to micro fasting.

So, let me tell you a little bit more about why you might want to micro fast. So, first of all, when
you're fasting, you don't need any nutrients. You don't need nutrients at all, for nothing. Well,
maybe for something, but you don't need to ingest them. You don't need them because you're
burning up all the nutrients in the body fat that you've been holding on to for decades.

So, I was talking to a friend the other day, and she was like, where do I get the food? What do I
do when I don't eat? I didn't grab her, but I showed her on me and I was like, look, check all that
out. You see all that, that's hanging around your waistline, and flipping and flopping underneath
your fucking arm? You know what that is?

Food. Food you ain't eat yet, food that you put in your mouth and your body was like, whoa, way
too much going on here right now, anyway, and we've got to store this shit somewhere, so there
it goes in your fucking arm pit, around your ass and around your belly button, if you're a dude.

So, you got plenty of food, got plenty of food hanging out, waiting there. Here is an analogy
used by Dr. Fung. I'll get into this for a moment, but I really like this analogy, Dr. Jason Fung,
who is a fasting expert. I recommend one of his books, The Complete Guide to Fasting, just a
few days ago, I suggest you get it.

So, he likens the liver, which is an energy storage organ within the body in a way, and the liver,
the muscle and the body fat. Anyway, I'm probably getting this all wrong, but when we eat food
and we don't use it, the body puts it away in the deep freezer, take that food and put it away in
the deep freezer. Think about the deep freezer, deep freezer is where you have excess food,
but it's not as easy to get to as the refrigerator.

So, when you eat food, and your body going to use it right away or you use it soon, it stores it in
the muscle as glycogen and in the liver as glycogen. Basically, we're talking about sugar energy
and when you're ready to use it, your body will take it out of the liver, it'll take it out of the
muscle, you'll use it up.

But then, when you're all out of it completely, oh, the refrigerator's bare. The muscle and liver is
bare, refrigerator's bare. There's nothing in the refrigerator, you open it up and you just see that
little box of baking soda.
You got to go to the deep freezer and that's what your body fat is. So, your body then says,
okay, well, there's nothing here, I haven't eaten in days, let's go to the deep freezer and get out
some of that old meatloaf. And so, that's when it starts tapping into your body fat. Your body fat
is like that deep freezer.

And so, all that food that's in there, is what's going to nourish you while you're fasting. As long
as you get the water, as long as you get the salts, don't worry about the macronutrients,
micronutrients and things of that nature. The whole point, a big part of the point of doing this, is
to tap into that deep freezer and get rid of some of that.

Every once in a while, with a deep freezer, what do you got to do? You got to defrost it. You got
to open it up and let all the frost out. Well, that's what we're doing. We're getting all the junk
food, and all the shit that you hadn't digested yet, and the over frosting in your fat and we're
burning it up.

But, when I began prolonged fasting again, this year, I was re-approached by my friend, KC,
because he's smart. He knows what he's talking about, knows what he's doing and he cares
about me. And he says, Elliott, I got to tell you, you're missing out on something here. You might
want to try the micro fasting once again, during your next fast.

So, after my 10 day fast where it was nothing, just water, snake juice, a few weeks later, right up
until my birthday actually, and what I'm about to tell you, helped me drop the last few pounds,
and also help my workouts and I'll get into that in a moment.
I micro fasted. I micro fasted for five days. Now, a little bit more about why you might want to
micro fast, before I tell you how to micro fast. What do you think about that? That way you can
decide if you want to listen or not.

So, what I found, what I've read, what has been shared with me is this, is that the best time to
take in some amino acids and micronutrients, meaning that they are not macronutrients
because they don't have calories. They're the broke down versions of proteins and fats.

To take it during your workout, will help fuel your workout while you're fasting. So, it's almost like
you're giving yourself a boost of energy, and your body's going to use up those amino acids,
and it's going to use up some of the fatty acids, and it's going to help kind of satiate and support
you. And also some of the greens, some of the stuff, I'll talk about. Satiate, supports you in your
workout and a little bit in your recovery.

Once again, it's a bonus, it's optional. And then, there are those who have critiques against it,
very valid critiques, and I understand that amino acids can also boost insulin. This has been
shown, this may be true. This may be a reason why you want to stay away from it.
And then, also that, I think it's leucine, which is one of the amino acids, also stimulates mTOR
and mTOR, I liken onto protein's version of insulin. You know how sugar does the insulin. I know
I'm wrong here, but the way it helps me think about it. So, it is a building stimulate. It helps build.
You want leucine, you want it, want to build up your fucking muscle.

But, when you're fasting, you're wanting to, literally, you're forcing yourself into a catabolic state.
So, you don't want to take in too much building stuff and there is some evidence, some
research, some studies, some people that say that by stimulating mTOR too much, you get
cancer.

Because if you think about cancer, it's a building. Cancer is a building problem. Your cells are
going out, going crazy, building, and that we want to stop that process by eliminating things that
stimulate mTOR, that building process, and it's good for people with cancer, but it's good for
everyone who's cleansing.

So, again, that's why it's optional. There's a lot of different things, there's a lot of different ideas
and I'm sure I'm going to get a lot of different comments. Not saying you're right, he's wrong, or
anybody like that. But, if you want to try it out because I will be. Give it a go.

Now, because I'm going to be Strongman training, beginning tomorrow, and I'm fasting,
beginning tomorrow, and I've made the commitment to do both, I do have to compromise a little
bit and I will be using some micro shake, so micro fasting.

So, let me tell you a little bit more about what that is, and how you can set it up, and make it and
do it if you want to, with me, if you want.
So, the first thing is I use a scoop, so I'll get a little shaker bottle, half-size shaker bottle. I'll put
two scoops of ​Living Fuel Aminos​, I'll put links down below if you're interested in using Living
Fuel Aminos. I love Living Fuel products.

Then, also take about 5 to 10 of these ​Omega-3s​. And again, there are calories here, so I'm not
legitimately fasting if I take this. You are fasting, you're going to get tremendous fasting results,
but it's still there are calories there, so it's never legitimate fast while you're taking this. But it's
up to you, and also, because they're fatty acids, they don't stimulate insulin. So, you could stay
deep in ketosis, taking this.

Most of you watching this, don't need to do the micro fasting. Just sharing with you what I'm
doing. So, don't get freaked out, like you need to get this stuff. In fact, I would suggest that you
go through this first five days without it. I also will add MCT, do two scoops of this.

And then, here's something pretty cool and I want to share with you, if you're into into Greens
and stuff. So, when I first did the micro fasting many years ago, KC had me put a little bit of
Living Fuel in and Living Fuel has all kinds of magical greens, herbs, shit like that. And it also
had a lot of vegetables and in fact, I was starting to get a little gut irritated from the vegetables I
think, in the Living Fuel.

But, he created something where he's got the green supplement, but without the vegetables,
just the herbs, the adaptogens and things like that. But, he calls it pet fuel because he was
giving it to his dog.

So, if you want, you can put some pet fuel, which is, honestly, I mean, I've been using it, it's fine.
It's just greens. It's just green supplement. I put two little scoops of that and we're good. I even
like the way it smells, I like the way that, maybe I'm a dog on the inside.

And so, I like that, but this time around, starting tomorrow, when I micro fast, I'm going to be
using ​Man Greens​. But, it was sent to me by a friend, Chad Howse. You guys might know him
and I want to try it instead of the pet fuel because it's Man Greens, it's for men. And so, he says
it's clinically effective formula for men, to help men increase energy and libido, boost
testosterone while lowering cholesterol and does not contain estrogenic ingredients that
dominate most green supplements.

And so, he's got maca root, beet root, moringa powder, spinach, ashwagandha, tumeric, horny
goat weed, some other shit. So, once again, for me, it's an experiment. I'm going to be using it.
I'll let you know how I like it. If you watch my live streams, you'll find out. And then, also I'll put a
link down below if you want to try it also too, you want to try that Man Greens. Not sissy greens,
not lady greens, Man Greens. So, that's it, y'all.

I'm excited to do this with you guys. It's something I need also. I was going to do it anyway, but
I'm getting so many questions and feedback from you guys, I decided why don't we just do it
together, and so it's going to be great for everyone involved, great for the world. We're breaking
out of the conditioning, we're breaking the matrix, and it begins with breaking the addiction to
consumption, overeating food. Done.
 Are you ready to take fasting to the next level?
Make fasting a regular part of your life with my​ Rational Fasting book and video course​.

Click here to get started.

-Elliott Hulse