Introduction
Starve the Animal, Feed the Beast
Imagine yourself in the following situation: Youre completely alone in the savannah, you havent eaten anything for days now, your body bears many scars and its starting to get dark. In the distance you hear the roars of predators and beasts. You can feel your heart racing, pounding in your chest, and your blood vessels pumping faster than ever before.
Despite all of that, youre not delusional nor very hungry. You wouldnt say no to a juicy delicious steak but at the same time it doesnt feel like youre starving. The adrenaline surging through your veins has given you the eyesight of a hawk, the suppleness of a leopard and the strength of a bear. Youre simply aware of everything that goes on around you every scent in the air, every footprint in the dirt, every sound of cracking branches puts makes you more alert. Your mind is sharper than ever before and your muscles are tense, poised for immediate action.
Thats exactly what happens when youre in hostile environments and under dreadful circumstances. You dont want to die, and the only way to do so is to become the fittest one around the apex predator itself.
Such survival scenarios were a part of our aboriginal hunter-gatherer past. Back then, food wasnt abundant and people had to fight for their right to eat every single day. It wasnt a constant struggle, but incredibly exerting nonetheless. Uncertainty was hiding behind every corner and they had to be prepared for anything. They didnt know when or where their meals would come from. Hunters didnt have breakfast lunch and dinner. We tend to take this affluence for granted. Once you go out of food, youll realize how fortunate its presence actually is.
Whats more, hunger is one of the main motivators of our actions. If we want to continue living, then we have to eat. In situations of life and death, our body and mind are willing to do whatever it takes to survive. At those times, we can go further beyond what we thought was possible and expand upon our current limitations. Its sink or swim.
Intermittent fasting is a means of getting in touch with our inner hunter-gatherer. In todays society were surrounded by food everywhere we go. When you look at the condition the majority of the population is in, then you can see the importance of this abstention. Civilization has brought about its own diseases, which are obesity, diabetes and cancer. The affluence of food has made the average contemporary person overweight, ill, exhausted and slothful.
My name is Siim Land a holistic health practitioner, a fitness expert and an author. Ive been doing some form of intermittent fasting every single day ever since 2012. Its one of the foundational eating strategies I have in my nutritional arsenal. Having perfected this craft, Ive managed to improve my health beyond wellness, burn all excess body fat down to single digits, build lean muscle mass very easily, get stronger both physically and mentally, change my relationship with food for the better and make myself more productive. If you follow this protocol, then the same can happen with you.
Between these pages lies a much STRONGER, HEALTHIER, SMARTER and HAPPIER version of yourself. Intermittent fasting is extremely effective and easy to do. It doesnt even feel like a diet or anything, because it isnt one. For me, the greatest benefits have nothing to do with body composition, but more with how amazing it makes me feel. Its more of a lifestyle - a way of living that enables you to shed fat and build the physique of an aesthetic Greek god or goddess.
Intermittent fasting is as much a mental practice, as it is an eating protocol. By taming your mind and starving your mindless animal, youll be able to feed your inner beast and unleash your primal instinct. If youre capable of voluntarily abstain from consuming food, then youre showing very high levels of self-mastery. This will make you better as a human being in everything you do.
In this book Im going to share with you how to:
- Start intermittent fasting as a sustainable lifestyle.
- Burn all excess body fat down to single digits.
- Build lean muscle mass without putting on fat.
- Never get hungry or feel like youre starving.
- Trigger your lean and mean genes that make you stronger.
- Release the most powerful anabolic hormones within your body.
- Give your hormones steroid-like effects.
- Find your primal instinct and unleash it.
- Eat delicious food and as much of it as you like.
- Feel like Superhuman.
If youre eating something right now, then as Arnold Schwarzenegger would put it: PUT THAT COOKIE DOWN! NOW!
Lets starve the animal and feed the beast. Lets fast and feast!
Chapter I
The Annals of Intermittent Fasting
The eating patterns of our hunter-gatherer ancestors were highly unpredictable. Quite frankly, they were completely random. Sometimes they had a whole lot when one of them speared a woolly mammoth, a 10 feet tall beast that weighed about 6 tons. At other times they had absolutely nothing when there was a drought, famine or wildfires. Whatever the case might have been, they were always in between fasting and feasting. They did both of them intermittently. This cycle wasnt deliberate but created by the scarcity of food in their environment.
Do you know how to catch fish? What mushrooms are safe to eat? When is the best time to collect nuts and seeds? Are you brave and strong enough to hunt mammoths or wrestle with a bear? Probably not.
When youre in an evolutionarily unforgiving environment, then you cant take any chances. Every opportunity you miss can determine your survival. Thats why you have to be constantly on your toes and ready to immediately jump into action. For the Paleolithic hunter-gatherer it wasnt a problem to go from 0 to 100 real quick , in fact, at an instant. Even in the modern world there are some societies who practice foraging.