Protocols

I thought I would repurpose this page for an explanation of the protocols I am using in each phase and the reasoning behind it.

I want to talk about what I am doing for myself and also how I have repurposed it with regards giving advice to others.

This will all be big picture stuff.

I woke up on April 1st and jumped on the scales and I was only the 8-9 beers I planned to drink that day away from 125kg’s and I was 35% plus body fat.
I was a decade or more removed from any real structured or meaningful training.
In short, I was too fat, too unfit and closer to my end than I was my beginning.
I have always been a fan of fasting for fat loss as a method of creating a calorie deficit rather than the usual ‘cutting of calories’ to create a deficit.
So, like I said…big picture. You have calories in…as in what you consume and calories out…as in what your body burns just to keep the lights on plus any ‘work’ you do and how many calories it takes to get that work done.
In short, if you are regularly consuming more calories than you are expending you get fatter and vice versa.
Now, there are a huge amount of factors also involved and I couldn’t care less about talking about any of them i.e there are hormonal factors, sex differences, your body composition has an effect etc etc…BUT all that is meaningless in the face of you either washing down snickers bars with 2 litres of coke and our your running a marathon.
Calories In versus Calories Out matter and having arguments about the minutiae is idiotic even if it is fun.
The other completely idiotic thing to do is to argue about the meal timing…this is a new thing to argue about…intermittent fasting and 20:4, 18:6, 16:8, 12:12 and whatever else all that matters at the end of the days is Calories In versus Calories Out matter. You can add this idiocy to the Carnivore vs Paleo vs Vegetarian vs Keto idiocy that goes on…all the matters with regard your fatness is Calories in versus Calories out.
You can have all sorts of arguments about health and well being but that is a whole other argument. All that matters for fatness is Calories In versus Calories Out.
The reason that all diets work in some way shape or form is because they ALL rely on CALORIE RESTRICTION in some capacity and in you getting that calorie restriction while you can remain committed to it. Soup diets work because of calorie restriction as does the grapefruit diet and every other diet because the structure of the diet limits the calories in portion of the equation.
So lets look at this in simple terms…firstly…peoples focus on each individual day is also idiotic in my opinion. I don’t look at days I look at weeks and even a week is a relatively short period of time when it comes to change.
Here are some things that I need you to know and I will use myself as an example.

My BMR or basal metabolic rate is about 2000 calories…that is what it takes to keep the lights on while I am at rest.
Lets also say that I am lightly to moderately active…on the low end of the scale this would mean about 500 additional calories on days I don’t do much and lets say for simplicity up to 1000 calories on the days that I do a bit…that I am active at work and I do some training.
So, lets say 3000 calories a day by way of calories out.
Lets also say that 1kg of fat is equal to 7,700 calories so to burn a kg of fat over a week I would need the equivalent of a 1100 calorie deficit each day.
Now if I am calorie in and calorie out NEUTRAL in that I am 125kg and I am not getting fatter and not getting skinnier and my weight is staying the same that mean that I am essentially getting in and have being burned 3000 calories a day over a weekly cycle…what happens in most cases is that people lose a bit and gain and bit but essentially their weight stays around about the same. This is because over the longer time scale of the week or the month everything even out.
Back to fat loss. When people do a diet…in my experience…most people last 2 to 6 weeks. Now there are lots of reasons why people fail and I think the main reason is usually because they try to change EVERYTHING all at once and it is just unsustainable for most.
This has been way more long winded than I’d hoped but let’s try and wrap this all up.
Fat Loss Strategy 1 – Restrict calories by 550 calories a day either by creating that deficit in your ‘normal’ diet and just eating less or do some completely new diet that you are unaccustomed to and do exactly the same thing with the calories i.e you have a completely different diet that still just results in you eating 550 calories less a day. This gives you a 3850 calorie deficit for the week i.e half a kilogram of fat loss.
Fat Loss Strategy 2 – Eat your normal diet every day except for 2 days where you don’t eat anything at all but have lets say a couple of cups of coffee, milk and cream (equal to lets say 500 calories) and you create a deficit of 5000 calories and increase of 1150 calories over your week long restricted diet and more than the half a kilogram of fat loss.

What I have had a number of people over the years do is this:
Week 1 – Just go 24 hours…one single day without eating. Drink as much water as you like, drink as much black coffee or black tea or herbal tea as you feel like you need to and I also usually advice people to use a zero calorie electrolyte replacement…not because they need it but just because they can.
What usually happens is nothing. They spend the entire day just waiting to die, waiting to pass out and nothing happens and after nothing happens I advise them to progress to Week 2.
Week 2 – Just go 48 hours …same as above…only an extra day…same set up as above…only this time I usually advise them if they are a coffee drinker to have some coffee and some thickened cream and add some healthy fats…some organic butter or ghee or flax oil etc etc…just a teaspoon….as it will give you a buzz…caffeine helps with fat loss and the coffee and fats will help with some satiety on day 2. Again…they wait to die or pass out and what inevitably happens as absolutely nothing. You will never guess what happens in week 3.
Week 3 – Same as week 1 and week 2 only you fast for 3 days. What happens is you don’t die, you don’t pass out and what most people find out is that day 2 is the worst…you are never hungrier and it is never harder than it is on day 2 and day 3 isn’t that bad at all. Again, no one has ever died or passed out.
Week 4 – You just fast for 4 days….and to date not a single death and again what is reinforced is that day 2 is the worst and that after day 2 that day 3 and day 4 feel exactly the same.

To date no one that has ever died and every person that followed this protocol has lost body fat over the month because what they have actually have done is remained on their ‘normal’ diet and didn’t have to change anything and just created a deficit of at a minimum 2500 calories a day for all 10 days in the month that they fasted which equates to 25,000 calories or the equivalent of over 3kgs of body fat in the month.

We can discuss this further down the track.

Phase I – April
What I did in Phase I is just a more extreme version of this and I will tell you the reasoning behind it.
I have always found fasting easier than daily calorie restriction and I will give you the short version of why.
When you calorie restrict you are always hungry because you are still getting all the hormonal responses to food…still getting the insulin spikes and crashes and your hunger hormones are still splashing around making you want to eat.
When you fast…you get no insulin spikes and crashes and after about 48 hours your hunger hormones completely down regulate and you don’t actually feel hungry any more. I have fasted multiple times for competition and the longest fast I did was 14 or 15 days from memory to make weight for competition…which I did I think I went from 112kg to 97kg. That is just my way of saying I am mentally and psychologically conditioned to fast…and in saying that I know that day 2 always sucks and then that physiologically everyday after that feels the same…day 13 or day 9 or day 6 all feel exactly the same as day 3.
What also happens in fasting versus calories restriction is that you become ‘fat adapted’ when you fast…you don’t when you calorie restrict and quite the opposite when you calories restrict without dietary change you actually make it really difficult to use fat for energy because while insulin is present…as it is every time you eat something…you can’t use fat for energy. Fasting is the opposite of that…in that there is no insulin response as you are not consuming anything and you just use fat for energy.
In April I used fasting periods of different lengths of 4 days or greater but none longer than 6 and then had re-feeds over single or double day periods that were structured and purposeful (there is a science behind the re-feeds) and then went back to fasting while remaining fat adapted the whole time.
In April I lost around 12kgs of fat at a minimum and all I did was fast and walk a minimum of 45 mins each day.
That was it…on my fasting days I drank coffee, milk and cream in the morning, took an electrolyte supplement around midday and drank as much water as I wanted and had a couple of cups of black tea throughout the day.

Phase II – May
Well, Phase II actually started a little early. It was supposed to start May 1st but I actually started a few days early because the opportunity arose and it just felt right.
May up and until the 7th of June I am going to hit the gym every morning. I will be completing a 3 days cycle.
Day 1
Vertical Pull – 15-20 reps
Horizontal Push – 15-20 reps
Hip Hinge – 15-20 reps

Day 2
Horizontal Pull – 15-20 reps
Vertical Push – 15-20 reps
Quad Dominant – 15-20 reps

Day 3
Core/Truck Work – Linear
Biceps
Core/Trunk Work – Rotational
Triceps
Prehab Work

Now, I am not ‘fixed’ in what I am doing or how I am doing it. For the past few days I have been working day shift and that has meant getting up at 2.30am to get to the gym, get a workout in and get home, shower and get to work for 5.30am. Naturally at 3am in the morning I have the gym to myself so I can do as I like…this morning however it was 6am when I got to the gym and there were actually people there so had to modify my workout.
Also, take it as a given that I walk to and from the gym…which is 25mins each way.
I have just realised that I find my own training log extremely tedious and if I have zero interest in it…I don’t expect anyone else to either.

So, what I will put here is more ‘big picture’ rather than ‘nuance’ and give a general overview of what I am doing as I realise no one will really be interested in the before until the after. I will get jakt first and then circle back to here to show how it was done 🙂