5 Marathons in 5 Days Completely FASTED! | Alex Mcdonald

when you look at your body's metabolism you effectively have two sources of fuel think of two fuel tanks now everyone's focused on the carbohydrates and filling that fuel tank but the reality is that that's a very very small fuel tank like in terms of calories the most amount of calories um in energy that you can store via your glycogen stores is only about 2,000 calories where even on me like I'm super Lan so like I'm sort of 15% body fat which is I don't have a lot of fat on me whatsoever but even at those those numbers I have close to 100,000 calories of available energy welcome to the plant-free MD podcast with Dr Anthony chaffy where we discuss diet and nutrition and how this affects health and chronic disease and show you how you can use this to optimize your health and happiness both mentally and physically hello everyone thank you for joining another episode of the plant-free MD I your host Dr Anthony chaffy and today I have a very special guest Mr Alex McDonald um Alex just uh well we'll hear from him but Alex just uh performed a very uh interesting feat that the athletes on the carnivore keto World um and the fasting World should be very interested in and uh looking forward to hearing more about it Alex thank you so much for coming on oh it's an absolute pleasure to chat with you Anthony yeah you're welcome and uh you very welcome here and uh we met very briefly at a conference over in Sydney a couple weeks ago um but we were talking earlier about um you know something that you did so if you wouldn't mind can you tell us a bit about yourself and um and and and how you came to carnivore and and what this little event was yeah sure so uh so the starting point is uh I sort of fell into the you know lowb I started lowb ketogenic in our carnivore space about 13 years ago so it was it was quite a long time ago uh and it's for me it was there were a few things you kind of once you learn you can't really unsee or unlearn and so once I got a taste for it it was right I'm going to have to learn more so I started uh 13 years ago um sort of dabbling with uh sort of low cal um and then that's sort of escalated through all my my learnings to kind of um achieve what I did which was late last year which was to be running five marathons in 5 days completely fasted so it was it was quite an aggressive Challenge and look the the the other thing that that um most people think firsthand is look uh that I'm some kind of athlete that this like I'm a runner or I do something so the other bit that does blow people's minds a little bit my first ever Marathon was the first marathon of these five so I had never actually run a marathon before oh there you go yeah yeah nice and so and so by fasted you don't mean that you you know you fasted for the first one then you ate afterwards and then you just didn't eat the next day you went five full days without eating the entire time is that right yeah that's exactly right so picture a fay fast and then each one of those days you back it up with the marathon so it was yeah it was a very extreme example but um look it was kind of where I needed to go and it was a goal that I thought was very attainable given kind of what I'd leared uh and also it was Punchy enough to really capture people's attention and go um look this is something that I didn't think was possible and if you can demonstrate something that is seemingly impossible well I would argue that maybe your model's wrong if you think that this isn't isn't achievable and someone does it so you it makes people ask a lot of questions yeah well and as as you pointed out um in in different posts that that the body has so much more energy Reserves in our fat than we do in our glycogen and carbohydrate stores carbohydrate stores are not they're not meant for long-term energy storage the shortterm and and we replenish it and actually studies and human athletes have shown that that carb fueled athletes drinking sugar water like Gatorade don't replenish their glycogen as fast as a ketogenic fat adapted athlete a carnivore athlete does just from their own bat stor so the you know mechanistically it would make sense biochemically it would make sense but every but because we've just been so inundated with this idea that you have to eat carbs in order to burn carbs you have to have carbs in order to have high-intensity workouts that we we think that that's how it is but that clearly is not the case yeah that's exactly right and that was the piece that um I thought I was I really wanted to well one was to demonstrate that is this a real thing but also to test it out for myself it's it's I'm one of those guys that if I can do it then I know it's real I can put my hand up and say that I've done it so the the way that I describe it um what of of the approach was when you look at your body's metabolism you effectively have uh two sources of fuel now um and I'll speak in layman terms which um is think of two fuel tanks now everyone's focused on the carbohydrates and filling that fuel tank but the reality is that that's a very very small fuel tank like we'll talking calories but um because that's the numer that people understand in in this world so um in terms of calories the most amount of calories um in energy that you can store bya your glycogen stores is only about 2,000 calories where even on me like I'm super length so like I'm sort of 15% body fat which is I don't have a lot of fat on me whatsoever but even at those numbers I have close to 100,000 calories of available energy so the key was right how do I tap into that and if I can tap into that and use that fuel source which most people ignore If you're sort of heavy in the carb world and that's what you're relying on you're only using this really small fuel tank to fuel all of your exercise so the key was you can't just turn up and do what I did you have to put the work in to ensure that your body has become um what's called fat adapted prior to it so you earn the right to be able to tap into those fuel sources yeah and uh that that's the thing that's the analogy that I that I heard someone say once and I I really liked it was was that you have like one of those fuel tankers that go around to to gas stations and things like that and refill um sorry little buddy here Intruder um that uh if you have if you have an oil like a big big petrol tanker that goes around to petrol stations and and refuels uh the stations there you know they' got ,000 50,000 gallons of of fuel there sitting there and um but they're not connected to that they just have their little puny 50 gallon tanks on the side of the on the side of the truck and when they run out of gas they're just sitting there on the side of the side of the road with this 50,000 gallons right next to them going like what the hell do I do you know it's a bit of an irony and we have that too we we eat carbohydrates our insulin goes up we lock block out our ability to access our fat stores and we have 10 times plus the amount of energy available um in our in our fat stores as we do in our glycogen we run out of glycogen and we're just sitting there with all this energy there we can't tap into it you know and so even when someone isn't slender even when they're they're overweight or have excess body fat you get gassed out and you oh I I don't have any energy why is that have you become emaciated all of a sudden you know then then you're just not accessing your energy accessing your fuel tank and that's why I like that analogy of the fuel tanker but I wanted to ask as well you know with those so this your first marathon so how did how did the first marathon go how was that uh your time and and how did they they go did you just start breaking down and dying or how did you feel between between the marathons well you you can imagine look a lot a lot of planning went into this and a lot of it was around like I said getting the diet right beforehand so ensuring that number one am I fat adapted so I um to do so I went um well super strict with my diet so like what does that mean it means zero carbohydrates like not a single carbohydrate for um call I was super strict for about 3 months leading into it um and literally trying to eat as much as I can so just think is kind of not quite line diet but hardcore um sort of carnivore with uh some you know eggs mixed in all that sort of stuff as well um so super super super strict on that and then once I was confident that I was fat adapted then it was like right let's get to the start line so Marathon number one again I've never done a marathon so my objective from from the outset was simply cover the distance because um uh like the pace will be whatever the pace needs to be and I and intentionally I wanted to run at a pace slow enough that I could manage my call it fat burn or my energy burn during during the race or each of those marathons so I didn't want to run super fast because the other issue was look I didn't want to pull a hamstring or do sort of some muscle injury and have something else that's not fuel related that would mean that I have to tap out so I I was very very conservative in my Approach and so what I did was I thought forget the clock forget the time I'm going to monitor just my heart rate and I'm going to run try and run at a very specific heart rate or below if I'm doing that then I can control sort of how I feel so Marathon number one all of that started pretty well um like it was um I was running a a course which was very flat around the Riata Center out in in Sydney where they had the um Olympic rowing event um and the uh yeah we started off a good pace and kind of um heart rate was all kind of pretty good until sort of I started getting niggly pains in sort of joints and and the rest because I'm not a runner so that was the bit that I was that really got me um so that meant look the last part of that sort of first marathon was pretty painful and I thought right this is for quite a experience here because getting through um Marathon number one I did it it about uh I think it was about 5 and a half hours was the time that I did but running to a heart rate of about 140 um and then by the end I thought right I've done my first marathon and this is this is real like this is this is this is hurting so it wasn't an energy issue it was more the pain because I hadn't earned the right to be able to run so i' done a lot of training but to do that sort of volume um like you're talking years to actually earn the right to for all the niggly bits to uh to um because it's kind of like your weakest point will you'll find out once you do that sort of volume you can kind of get away with it with short distances but uh in my case yeah it snuck up on me really quickly so um Marathon number one once I got it done the other thing I need to add too during it was during September so that's um coming into um it's like early spring here so normally it's not all that hot but it was a heat wave during that entire week so um Marathon number one it was uh 33° here was kind of average temperature during that day so it was it was super hot so um that was a kind of an additional challenge so and the and the forecast was it's going to get hotter and it certainly did [Laughter] so um so how was your recovery you know in between in between races because sometimes people run marathons and they they're getting swollen joints they're not walking properly for a week they just like swollen ankles they get rabdom myis they get all these other sorts of problems what was your what was your recovery like between uh marathons and U and did that continue to get more difficult as you went or how did that go yeah so there there's there's two parts to recovery actually there's a couple of elements I would say one is um in terms of like muscle soreness and I'll talk about like um like my big muscles I think my quads my cares Etc where I've done sort of events before and I say events like running or just any sort of exercise or first time at the gym they hurt like hell and you know you can't walk up the stairs and all of that sort of stuff um this time around I had none of that zero like zero muscle soreness call it those big muscles the bit that did get me was my joints so um because my running Style not great and I was putting pressure on certain parts and and there were parts of me that were weak where they need to be strong and so other um my body was compensating so in terms of the recovery um I had no issues with like those big muscles the joint pain particularly in my hip and the first one was really really really sore um and the other my other plan was look rest and is going to be a big part of this and sleep is going to be really important so try and come home you know hydrate it's not as I'm eating I need to plan around that and try and get to bed as early as I could because I need to the sooner I get to bed the longer I can I can um obviously rest because uh I've got a start line the next day like I can't push that out so um so what I found was yeah day one was okay it was pretty like not sore but it was I knew what I was in for with the pain in my um my sort of hip and and knees uh and that was the part that mentally was like right I'm just going to have to push through and just sort of ignore that um and then as as we went through each day and I can run through each Marathon that definitely became more of a more of an issue I should say yeah yeah so how did your your times go did you try to keep them sort of at this at a similar Pace or as you sort of got more and more used to them did you ramp it up a bit Yeah so Marathon one like I said was running to the heart rate and that was it was pretty comfortable and it was a reasonable Pace like it was um to give you an idea of what is like it was a pace where I'm moving quickly but I could have comfortably have a conversation so that's how I describe it so literally people were ringing me I was on the phone like with the and you know because I'm running by myself as not as I've got a army of people running around me in chat or atmosphere was like it's a long time so um uh so um the uh sorry I just lost my train of thought there so um just remind me again what was the question there we were talking about yeah so it's like how did it go did you start ramping up your oh yeah time of course yeah so Marathon number one was okay Marathon number two I was in like super pain so because of my hip and and knee so it was like right today's strategy just get through like survive so it was like one foot in front of the other just sort of get going so Marathon one I didn't listen to any music marathon 2 I did because I needed distraction because it was like right how do I just get through this so um that was uh and TimeWise I think I was about 40 minutes slower than I was the the marathon before um but again each of those was like right for the extra minute and the extra pain of pushing that extra um Pace per kilometer um it it'll cost me you know 10 or 20 minutes over a 5 to six hour run which at the end of the day was like and look there's no one with a stopwatch that really matters so um so I definitely got slower for the second and the third um uh and each day had its own challenge too so where the heat was increasing we got up to I think 38 39° which um can you could probably convert that to Fahrenheit better than I can but it's upper 90s yeah upper 9s yeah so it's it's seriously hot so um that was an additional challenge that was very slow uh but what is in interesting speed wise the my second fastest of all my marathons was my final Marathon so um which I think speaks a lot to because the nayay will say oh hang on like you know you were um one either did you do it or didn't you do it and you know what pace did you go and and maybe it didn't have the energy it just pushing through but I've got the data cuz I tracked absolutely everything that um yeah definitively my last race was fast the second fastest of all of them the first one was fresh so I think five marathons here I think was a pretty strong finish and I was very proud of that yeah and the and the and so you we were talking about this you know before we came on but uh but the fifth one was that was what you know the first four was just you know you you were just doing the distance but the fifth one was was like the full-on Sydney marathon is that correct yeah that's right so ideally I would make each of the five marathons like an official event but there's just nowhere in the world that hosts five marathons back to back like So the plan was um I could pick the final Marathon being the official Sydney Marathon because you know it's obviously a big event and a great way to finish uh and then I backfilled the four marathons prior to that which was literally me um like running around my circuit so um and I even designed the circuit to be like a figure eight sort of couple of Loops because it meant at the middle of that Junction I could park my car and top up on water and supplies or if I you know needed to change shoes or something I could do so and I wasn't sort of too far away so I was very much a oneman band uh running around that for that those first four marathons um but running in the official Marathon at the end was was absolutely brilliant so um because of the atmosphere and uh like you got to tell you there's a few mental games that go along in your head um but being able to stand at that start line on that fifth marathon and know that I've done 170 colomet to earn the right to be at that start line against everyone else here like that was like a bit of a mental Edge that I was like right I kind of felt like a bit of a beast mode tapped into beast mode a little bit there to go okay this is cool the um it's going to be hard but you know that's I've been through hard already so this is just an easy way to cruise home yeah hey everyone really happy to announce a new sponsor for the show and for everybody down in Australia Stockman Stakes who are delivering high quality grass-fed and finished pasture raised beef and other meats flash frozen and vacuum sealed to ad door something that I've been enjoying a lot of myself recently as well they also have a great range of specialty items such as high fat keto mints and carnivore beef and organs mints with liver kidneys and beef heart as well so use code chaffy today for free order of beef mints or another specialty gift along with your order at Stockman steaks.com DOA and I'll see you over there thanks guys so did that that uh what what sort of possessed you to do something like this how did that how did that cross your mind well to explain that I need to you need to step into my shoes okay and um so let's let's jump back to when I start started sort of learning about or um sort of the low carb world and and maybe sort of um peeling back the layers around what people understand to be what is you know the dietary guidelines and what mainstream nutrition is all about and once you pierce that it's like hang on you can't unsee and it's a whole different world so um when I first started I went right I got a taste for this and I went look I'm going to do this for a month we'll see how we feel and then you know I'll go hardcore for a month and if I feel okay I'll find some Middle Ground sort of back a little bit I did it for a month and I felt amazing it was like my entire life I've been hung over every day when I got up and all of a sudden now I wasn't I was like it was that it was like night and day different so way back then I was kind of late 20s then um I was like right I was telling everyone about I was like guys you got to learn like do this and this is early days like this is like early like 20 2011 and um so and there's two kind of if you picture of spectrum at one of the spectrum a lot of my friends are actually doctors so um and they're very close friends of mine so I would talk to them and say hey guys you got to look into this this is really amazing and the feedback was was almost universally look I've got a med degree like I know I know medicine like there's nothing that you could tell me about nutrition that I wouldn't already know so I'm not even going to look at it so there was that so I got dismissed because I don't have a medical degree which I was like right I just want to have the conversation but you I couldn't even get there the other side was like the call the average person that doesn't really care about the science behind it they just kind of go right what's the shortcut for me to be healthy and if I talk anything sciency to them um their eyes glaze over pretty quickly and it's you know it doesn't really land so um where I'm going with this is so what I thought was look I've learned a lot of things here if I can put this into practice and do something that is that aggressive well or that much of a of a challenge that most people would think it's impossible so when I was planning this and I told everyone beforehand they're like you're going to die like it is not possible to do what you are going to do and I'm like godam yeah exactly and they're like no you're you're a lunatic and may be a lunatic but but I was pretty confident because of my experience I've told everyone look I've had energy levels through the roof forever and they're like yeah whatever you just that's kind of just you I'm like no it's a real thing so I picked this for a couple of reasons which was um make it aggressive enough that that people cannot argue that it didn't happen like or that you know this energy res um I tapped into just didn't exist because I had to get the energy from somewhere hence the fasting element like so you can't say at all that I got my energy from anything other than food um and uh it also in terms of call coming back to my Spectrum the the doctors now when you do something like this that they think is impossible they ask the question well hang on why and it may be the seed for them to go maybe I should look into this because you've done something that I thought was impossible so it it kind kind of ticks that box at that end and at the other end which is like the everyday person they go hang on this is cool like I didn't even think that was possible like You' blown my mind we doing something that I just really didn't think could ever be done how did you do that and then that leads into a conversation around well this is what I did I cut carbohydrates I did this and people like okay I get it I'd love to try that so it was a way for me to bring all of my experience together um and really sort of capture both ends of that sort of um that Spectrum um and it's been a really useful tool because people genuinely want to know like more about it and and learn about it um and I've since had you know a lot of messages from people saying thank you look you've inspired me to um to I've been wanting to do this for a while but I haven't had the courage to do so and look now I'm going to have a crack and I'm going to do something so doesn't need to be marathons it can be whatever but that's not my like I'm not a marathon runner it could be five Iron Man's it could be anything well absolutely but it could be um like just pick whatever you enjoy doing but know that um uh that hopefully What I've Done has been um kind of that you know Line in the Sand or just the that sort of stake of the territory to go right hang on if this guy's done it what else can we do what don't what else don't we know and how can we push it um so yeah that I sort of doveet tales into look this is my contribution hopefully to kind of um see where else we can take it I'd love other people to do sort of similar things and uh and really push the envelope because um I think if enough people do that it gets enough attention to go well this we need to do this like we need to look into this I should say yeah definitely it is it is funny um you know the Hubris in the in any any profession of experts they just say well that's my field and so I know everything I I I can tell you for a fact that we don't we don't learn any of this stuff in medical school we don't learn nutrition to any degree it's um whatever your preconceived notions are on on nutrition that's that's now I'm a doctor so this is what this is real now and so you know we just it's just the same old things oh you're not supposed to eat F and you're not supposed to lot you're supposed to eat fruits and vegetables yes I'm a doctor and that's what you're supposed to do was that taught you in medical school no of course it wasn't but that uh that just sort of solidifies there your own your own prejudices um and so and and the thing is too is that in a lot of areas around the world it is changing there are postgraduate um degrees in medicine outside of the US now but a lot of them they're you know they're just going straight out of high school and they're not taking or inorganic chemistry a year of inorganic a year of organic chemistry a year of biochemistry those are all required classes um for pre for Premed in America so we we have to take all these sorts of things so you know in in other other countries I mean they don't even take biochemistry you know so it's just like excuse me I'm the expert and it's like h no you're not you haven't even taken biochemistry you literally know nothing about the subject so you know the the arrogance to say you know I know everything there is to know when you haven't even taken biochemistry is a bit is a bit maddening but did did any of them come around since you since you performed this this yeah I would say some have come around like it's it's very slow like no one ever says look um and I'm not talking about all doctors I'm not bash doctor it's more just to be able to have um uh the challeng is to get someone to go hang on everything I've learned cuz I've put a lot of time and effort into what I have learned and and for someone to come along and say no I just don't think all of that's quite right takes a very um uh a c a high degree of humility I have to say to kind of swallow your own ego and go okay let me just give this a bit of a look um so over the time because I've been doing this for so long um I started in my early 20s when everyone looks fit and now I'm kind of early 40s and everyone doesn't look fit and um I'm in better shape now than what I was when I was in my 20s so the the other side of that is well look the results do speak for themselves to a degree there like um um to the point where it's that obvious it's not as though to say like I'm a super athlete or anything I'm absolutely not I'm just kind of the normal guy but um when everyone else is blowing out with the big massive D dad bods and all that sort of thing it's people come back and go hang on remind me again what you do because you kind of don't what happened to us didn't happen to you over that decade so maybe we should look into it a little bit yeah yeah well that's good and you know I think I think that doing these things is a good mechanism for turning some heads and saying and make people think like okay you know maybe there's a bit more to this and sometimes you need that sometimes you need a bit of a spectacle to sort of shock people awake and and then hopefully they are curious and some people will just dismiss it and be like ah it's a fluke whatever and um and there there's always those people around but um yeah with this particular challenge I was very deliberate about um uh how it convey the message because um it could kind of easily be dismissed out of hand just going well this is just another crazy guy that's looking to get clicks and you know it's kind of that um uh just trying to do something to get attention that certainly not wasn't my goal so um I I do recommend people go to my website um ketom marathons. comom because on there I do spell out kind of the all of my methodology around what I'm doing but also the the team of of um doctors and professionals that were helping me so I lent into them um to get their um to to make sure that I was doing it the right way um but also to get their um sort of lean into their credibility too to say look this isn't just me going off doing something that I think is crazy it's um there's a very clear methodology that I'm I'm employing um so um yeah because a big part of it is when you do something like this it's like it's just quackery and it's dismissed and you're not even going to look into it I just need to create that that little wedge to go maybe I'm going to look into it because if these guys are involved or there is enough here that I need to go I can't dismiss it then kind of that's job done as as far as I see yeah good well you know when more people are doing these sorts of things I think that just five days not eating the whole time that's very much a proof of concept people do study biochemistry you understand that this is this is perfectly normal and um and and then more and more athletes and and professional athletes playing high impact high exertional high energy sports like rugby and soccer and things like that um you know we're just running all the time or or track cathlon all these sorts of things you know people are just just using tons and tons of energy and then they go on this and they just get massive improvements you know at first it was sort of you know one or two here and there I mean I was I've never felt better in my entire life you know so I I know that this works because you know I I understand the biochemistry and I've seen it firsthand and I I just felt night and day difference it like you said it was like you're hung over every day of your life and now you're not and it's just it's just amazing and those five years it was like this this little bright patch of my life life of like just feeling like a God and and then it just went away and I didn't know what the hell happened it was like why why why why isn't that here announced back and now I'm you know I'm in my 40s as well in my bloody mid 40s and um and I feel I feel like I you know like I was I'm 22 again I feel better now at 44 than I did at 27 playing professional rug absolutely yeah I'm amazing yeah it's uh yeah it's one of those things it's like um uh look and part of where I started this was it wasn't because I got into the science it was um I read a book by a guy by the name of art dainy it was called the New Evolution diet it was a was a long time ago now and I read it he was very much around the evolutionary model nothing not too much sciencey but the bit that got me it's kind of I always look for the exception of the rule because that's where the little nuggets lie like what are they doing differently that really works um and he was a guy at the time he was in his 60s but he he had the body of like a 30-year-old someone half his age and his blood markers were the same and everything so as a 60-year-old he was like playing you know touch rugby with his um his grandkids and not like he like first picked in the team I was like I want to be that guy like I want to be just kind of you know sitting on the sidelines watching I want to be like in my later years still being active and and fully living my life so that was the piece that was like right if I can start that now and get on that path um then my life you know is I can live life to the fullest all the way to the end like that's that's a huge part of it yeah yeah absolutely so are you going to be doing more marathons now or is that is that enough misery for one look I don't know I look I don't have any plans to um like I said I've never run a marathon before like I'd love someone to do what I did that's an actual athlete that has you know some ability here that they could tap into like I'm just your ordinary guy that's never run a marathon that did this so um so look would I run a marathon again uh you know never say never um and look the it it was super hard but um it was without doubt the most um satisfying thing that I've ever done I'm certainly very proud of what I did uh and like Crossing that Finish Line like which was the official City Marathon finish line was the most amazing feeling after sort of 5 days of um like you're not you're in the hurt Zone while you're running but um there's all that period in between you can't make time go faster so a 5-day period is a really long time to be sort of committed to this one sort of um Endeavor so having done that the sense of accomplishment was huge so uh it might be one of those things I'll be chasing that again forever like in some other form so whether it be marathons or something uh it was the most amazing feeling so I'm not going to strike it out but also I like to test myself so um it's like well what else can I do like where else can I take this um so uh yeah some of the the feedback I get is look why don't you try to do a fast Marathon to compare so that may be an option but again I'm not a runner so I don't really know what what that means but um but uh yeah I I'll definitely do something but I don't know what that'll be just yet yeah so what's your normal training schedule like what were you doing before this uh so before this definitely not running so my running beforehand was I did some like 10 years prior uh but my training now is uh purely calisthenics so think like body weights push-ups pull-ups that sort of thing um and I do it regularly but not much like people like I don't go to a gym I don't do anything I don't do any sprinting or stuff like that I probably should I'd like to but um it's it's I'm not a gym heavy guy um I'll do with my calisthenics uh I'll do it a few times a week but a lot of that is kind of stretching and Mobility so it's like for me it's functional um and the thing I like about calisthenics is um you can build ability but you don't look like you're super jacked like it's not as though you're building muscle for muscle sake it's functional so it means I can lift and Pull and push and look be much stronger than what anyone would guess that I am just by looking at my physique so I kind of like that stealth element to it there's um uh and that's the bit that I that that I like but it also plays into my longevity card which is look if I can still move and get my body into positions that that I can as a as a young person could um that's only going to Bod well for for me in my later years so do the work now or because you're going to pay for it at some point so I'd rather earn it yeah yeah definitely yeah um so after all that you didn't eat for five days yeah what was your what was your reward celebratory meal yeah well great question like in my mind I actually went to my butcher before I did this and I bought the biggest steak I possibly could like it was a kilo and a half Tom hook thing and I was like this is great I'm going to absolutely tear this apart when I finish um the I was not hungry I finished and I literally was not hungry at all so people are like oh the fasting part the fasting through this five days was the easiest thing of all of it like I did not think about food um the only time I thought about food was when I was um like I journaled everything so like what was my my Hunger score today so um you know I dropped down a number for that but yeah I'd be lying if I said I didn't think about Hunger but I kind it's kind of like if I say don't think about an elephant well you're going to think about an elephant right so when I'm having to document how hungry I am well it's there but um definitely not hungry at all and the fasting was super easy so my final meal sorry my meal after it all was ended up being like two hamburger patties and about three eggs and I couldn't finish it like and for me that's like uh that would be wouldn't even be an entree like that would be like a side dish so it probably took 3 days for me to my um metabolism to kick back into gear on my Hunger I should say because I just uh it was I just wasn't hungry like I just didn't need it I could have kept going yeah isn't that interesting because I I I I experienced the same thing so when I when I was first doing this in my 20s I was just not eating enough because I I didn't understand that my Hunger signals were going to be dampened and I didn't realize that that hunger wasn't that I I wasn't going to experience that same sense of hunger that I normally did which is really more of a starvation signal that you're getting pathologically from raised insulin lowering blood sugar and blocked leptin and upregulated gin and so we think oh my God I'm starving but that that just we just think of that as hunger that's just normal hunger and then you don't feel that and so for days on end I wouldn't be hungry and it would be three four days sometimes that I wouldn't eat and I wouldn't be hungry but I would just be like okay well this is this is ridiculous I haven't eaten in four days and I've been doing a lot of work was I was playing I was I was in university and I was playing rugby for the University team and I was also playing for the you know the the Premiership team in Seattle and so I was I was just chalk full of of school and then and then working out for the rest of the day I just wasn't eating for days at a time but I just wasn't hungry and I just never I never really figured that out I couldn't figure out why I wasn't hungry but then eventually when I was just it was just too much it was after you know a year year and a half two years just really just grinding myself down it was finally I started getting actually worse or um how hard I was working out because I just wasn't eating enough and then eventually just said okay Al I have to eat I don't it doesn't matter I'm just not hungry but I just have to eat no matter what because I clearly need the energy and uh that helped and I I felt started feeling a lot better after that but when I um when I came back to this that I was very conscious about not undereating so I just made it a point to sort of eat every day and then I all of a sudden I had a steak and I was just like it's not enjoying this it's not tasting good like what's going on and then I realized and then I stopped and I I felt great the next day and I realized okay that that's what hunger is that's how you that's how you test your hunger signals it's taste if it tastes good your body's telling you you want it uh and then when it stops tasting good that's when your body's saying you're fine and that's that's why I relay that to other people because I you know fig that out on myself and um and I didn't think that you needed to fast unless your body was telling you not to eat and um but I tried it I just wanted to sort of experience it and see what it was like and the first day I wasn't eating my body was just like oh hey what's uh what's going on where's the Steak and the next day I didn't even really think about it and so the next day I sort of did four days and and you know on on the day that I was supposed to be eating I I just sort of felt I was like I didn't even really feel like eating I sort of feel like not eating actually but I didn't want to get back into that old slump where I did before where I just wasn't eating at all and so I was just like okay well I said I was going to start eating today so I'm going to get back to eating today and and I did but it was the same thing I I just had no appetite it didn't even taste great I I sort of had a bit but I had like quarter half of what I would normally have and it was just kind of like yeah that's sort of all I wanted and uh and then it sort of yeah it took a few days before before I was back eating to the same amount very interesting yeah that I mean that was my experience and look even now because you know I've been eating this way very similar to yourself for for a very long time um it's so liberating just eating to hunger like there are some days where I'll eat a lot and people look at my plate and just go my God like where is they going it's a meal for four people but um and there's other days where I just I don't eat and um the I was thinking about it most people I would say um if I would describe what feeling of satiated is like I think there's a there's a belief that feeling full all the time means like you feel bloated and your stomach feels full and it's heavy um my realization is sociation is um I get to dinner and go have I eaten today or was that yesterday I can't remember like it's not even on my radar of I need to go and find some food now it's like I I genuinely like don't remember if I ate it or not today because there was no signal to tell me to do it I was just going about my day or my normal business and um I wasn't sort of rigid to a clock of it's you know midday or 1:00 I need to have lunch it's like you know what at 6:00 I pretty I haven't eaten today yet and I still don't feel hungry like to me that's satiation it's not that feeling of being full all the time hey guys just want to take a second to thank our sponsor at carnivore bar I don't promote any products because honestly all you need to be healthy is to just eat meat for those times that you're out hiking road tripping or stuck at work and you want nutritious snack that is just meat fat and salt if you want it the carnivore bar is a great option so I like this product not because it's just pure meat but also because I want the carnivore Market to thrive as well and the more we support meat only products the more meat only products there will be available in the mainstream so if this sounds like something you'd like to get behind check it out using my discount code Anthony to get 10% off which also applies to subscriptions giving you 25% off total all right thanks guys yeah definitely and I I I routinely don't eat breakfast um unless I you know I I I have relearned my Hunger signal so I do I do know when my body's you'll want some more food and especially when I'm working out I'm you know I'm back in the gym now so I'm um working out more so my body just wants more and so sometimes you in the morning maybe I want something so I'll have some of the leftovers or something like that but generally I don't have breakfast and I'll just just work all day and get home 7 8:00 and and that's when I'll eat or which is more common I'll have U you know interviews like this and uh or consultations online after I finish work at the at the clinic or the hospital and then I'll go until you know 9 10 o'clock and then I'll eat you know so it's um and but it's fine you know I feel completely fine doing that and it's um you I'm not I'm not hungry and starving all day it's It's Perfectly Normal speaking of the the the one thing we did Miss just with my marathons was um the only thing I was consuming was water and uh salt was is a really really big part of it so um if anyone was doing this I definitely wouldn't be doing it without the salt element and the electrolytes like it's it's really um really necessary so um dealing with my doctors beforehand it was um coming up with a strategy of like how much salt do do we need to give you an idea so for me I was taking between and on particularly on the hot days anywhere between sort of six and up to 10 teaspoons of salt a day so that was I'd be having in my water bottles and the rest um and the other interesting thing in that 5 days through the whole thing I did not get a single cramp not one like um not even close like oh I'm feeling a little bit need to move it not even not one so um uh that's probably the other question I get in terms of things that break break down it was none of that whether it was the salt intake or the whatever but whatever I did I managed that really well in terms of um avoiding all cramps but um I was very much of the view overdo the salt because your body will excrete it uh not enough then we have some problems so it was um be very conservative from that that side of things yeah and so and so how much water were you averaging on the day uh so it it really escalated I got one day wrong where I had too much and that was really problematic because my sodium levels dropped um but on average so every night I'd fill up uh call it six uh they're kind of liter liter and a half water bottles like your standard kind of sports drink bottle I'd fill up um so I'd fill that up with water uh three of those uh no four of those I'd have no three of those I'd have with salt like literally just salt poured in it a teaspoon and a half um and then I'd have salt tablets that I'd take with me that I would have the normal water cuz the salt water does make you thirsty on particularly hot days um so on average what would that equate to uh somewhere between I suppose around six laders I suppose um throughout the day um and then i' maybe a little bit more than that I was kind of lost track of my water a little bit because um I get handed a water bottle I was running past like you know some friends or something that I would see so um and when it was 39° like I needed a lot so the interesting thing about that I did have an issue with um on the night before my final Marathon um I had so much swelling in my legs due to the fact of the big error I did make was I took an anti-inflammatory after my second um Marathon uh so I took one that night and the next day now I now learned that anti-inflammatories do or can cause you to um uh retain water and so as I was drinking a lot of this I was swelling up so the night before my final Marathon uh like I said I tracked everything I weighed as much as I did before I started all my five marathons so um so four marathons in and I'm still weighing as much as I did when I started and all of that was water so um on my final Marathon the night before I had to sort of sleep with my legs in the air like to drain out of the the water out of my ankles um uh which wasn't the best way to prepare for Marathon number five I have to say but I also then had to be very careful around not drinking too much I needed to finish that race preferably dehydrated rather than uh having too much water because that could be like lifethreatening life-threateningly bad um so uh yeah very hot Day 26 people went to hospital that day during that Marathon um and uh like I'm I'm running with the Battlers at the back of the pack too and there's a lot of people that are on stretches and the rest while I was running past but I had to go through every water station and just sort of have a tiny sip or just pour water on my head I wasn't drinking at all because my water issue in that last day yeah interesting there was um there's a guy name Charles Washington he' been doing Carnival for 15 years 20 years something like that long time W he was he was sort of at the 12 12 to yeah 12ish year maybe longer when I got back into it six years ago and so he he runs a Facebook group called zeroing in on health that's it's a carnivore group it's a long-standing one and uh it's a really good one you know that and zeroc carb Health are my two favorite ones because they're very strict they don't have around they allow anybody in there but it's just like you need to talk you you talk about things the right way so we don't get a whole bunch of 50,000 opinions on something we just confuse the the hell out of people yeah sure and um and he does marathons um but he he he does them he does them fasted and dry yeah so yeah so he won't drink water the whole day so even even the day so he'll drink water and maybe eat the night before but he won't won't drink water on the day and and you know potentially that's it you know so he not getting uh issues with um salt depletion and and retention and things like that be I never asked him that I I remember him talking about it once years ago and I always meant to ask him about it but um but I just never got around to it that that could be why yeah well my plan was to like call it all those water bottles I'm not drinking all of those during my marathons so I would that would be my daily allowance so a lot of that would be I'd be drinking during my run for the five or six hours but then I've got sort of 10 12 14 hours until my next marathon so it was like right our bodies are designed to do that like you go into deficit and then they'll recharge like everything they need and repair during those those periods so I was very much ta into that so um the so the other question I do get which is um what it also gave me the confidence to do these marathons is um the whole idea of you need to eat before you run or do exercise is just Bonkers because you think about it from evolutionary point of view um you we've been forced like we are animals at our core right and um you we've been forced to move for arguably one of two reasons um you're either being chased by something or you're chasing something to you know to eat it right to catch and and and kill um neither of those things in neither of those situations do you say I need to eat before I do it those so if I'm going to get chased by a lion I'm not going to have something to eat to give me the energy to get away from that lion like I'm just going to go um and likewise if I'm you know if I'm the hunter well I'm it's the hunger that's driving me to move so the whole idea of doing something extra like exceptionally um uh like an exception physical Endeavor when you're faster just makes complete evolutionary sense like that's that's kind of the the state our bodies would have always been in when we're doing something much like this yeah absolutely and quite often you see the opposite you see when animals get the food that they need they they make a hunt they make a kill they eat they don't go then do their workout right they go and sleep for 14 hours you know they rest and digest you go into a different metabolic State you have a lot of your blood going to your digestive tract to to start utilizing and taking advantage of these nutrients that that you've brought in and you know that's that's the wrong time to start you know running a marathon or something yeah yeah yeah so yeah no that's perfectly that's perfectly in keeping with uh you know you know our our biological design or just any animal biological design it doesn't make sense that you need to because that's the thing you know we we need energy so we can go out and get energy food is our energy you know you get up in the morning you get the hitter cortisol go kill something hunt make your kill feed your family procreate that's what that's what we're supposed to do now we have stupid TVs and internet and all this other crap and we and we try to you we try to and no one knows what the meaning their meaning of life is and they're just meaningless and they just don't know it's it's procreating it's having kids it's having a family that's literally the meaning of life in a spiritual religious and biological sense and evolutionary sense it's it it begins and ends right there and um you know you get up in the morning your body gives you a hit of energy and um and then you go you go get you go kill something you go here some energy you go do it so you exert yourself to get your food you go and you work and you hunt and you get you food and then you don't and then you just sit there and you chill out so doing that the other way around oh you have to eat before or else you're in trouble what kind of sense does that make you know people think that you have to eat so that you can work out no you got to work out so you can eat that's that's what what happened yeah and and um you eat now I mean I did this too when that that night that I meat was just tasting it wasn't tasting good and I was like like what the hell's going on here I love steak steak's amazing why am I not enjoying this right now and I just stopped eating but the next day I just I felt amazing and then it dawned on me because I was thinking I was just like I I did just did like six hour workout today I'm going to do six workout tomorrow like I need this right not not realizing that I was I was still you know chubby bastard so like I had more than enough energy to you know to go weeks you know without any problem yeah and um and then the next day I I just felt amazing and it dawned on me it's like okay you're not you're not you know when you go work out you're not you're not burning the energy from the food that you ate yesterday or that morning you're burning the energy that you ate two weeks ago yeah you know and so you know yeah you you just have that in your stomach and that oh now I can use it like no that goes in your in your bank account yeah and then you take out you take a withdrawal you know so we need to we need to sort of think about this correctly and especially for kids growing up coming up being in in in sports because they're just getting fed this nonsense oh you have to eat this 4,000 calorie carbon sugar slushy thing before you go and play a game or do a practice no you don't in fact that's the last thing you want to do yeah there's a whole cultural element here now like here in Australia where I'm sure it's probably around the world but like for kids like carnivals like you know school carnival like you're going to do Run 100 meters and it's like right you need to have a bag of jelly beans at the start line just to make sure you have enough energy to get there it's like this is insane it's a real thing like like everyone packs like moms and dads pack like buy actual lollies to put in their bags to give out to other kids so that everyone has enough energy to get through that day of like these little events it's like it's absolutely insane yeah oh that is that is I mean how did they get there I mean how do you get the energy to get to the starting line it's 100 meters yeah it's not that far yes I think you'll make it put a sandwich on the Finish Line he'll get there you know yeah but I mean how how bad is that that we we've we've diminished the species to such an extent that we're that we think that we need to just suck up on candy IES and chocolate and nonsense just to have the energy to run a lap yes you know at at at the gym you know at the park you know it's like this is we we have fallen so far you know from from taking down woolly mammoths herds of woolly mammoths with Spears and rocks and ropes and fire and things like that pit traps and uh and now you people are just so physically and mentally weak yes they've been enfeebled you know and I I don't think no one did this on purpose to themselves yeah but I think I think it's been done on purpose to us though I think that this is we've just been peppered with this information about no no no that's dangerous oh that's going to hurt you and that's going to be this and we just turned into these just precious little creatures that just can't possibly uh do anything for ourselves or or or you know or put up a fight if if people want to put us in Chains yeah and uh you know I don't I don't think that's an accident I don't think that's by mistake I think you know people are saying no you can't eat meat you got to eat you know grains and plants and soilent green and all these sorts of things and like you know and you're not uh and you're not able to and allowed to just eat what your body's designed to eat and you're told that it's bad for you and then people getting weaker and sicker and they're being told that that's normal that's completely normal that's how that's how it's always been in fact we're the healthiest now that we've ever been and if any believes that you know they need to get their head examined you know but I see people saying this I see people saying this no no no no all these diseases they're just they're it's only they're only going up because of screening I was just like well you don't know how that works then clearly and you clearly have never seen anyone with crohn's disease or also of colitis you're getting 40 BS of bloody diarrhea a day like yeah it was just a screening issue that we didn't catch that yeah it's like if only we had screening you know then we would have been owned like okayy by the way you may have Cron's really do you have bloody diarrhea 40 times a day you know what yeah I think I do I think I might you know I mean this is stupid these are stupid people saying stupid things autism rates one in 10,000 in the 1970s now it's 1 in34 and one in 22 males one in 22 males out of one in 10,000 40 years ago you know that's not screening you know this is we are we are damaging entire generations of people we are destroying their brains and stopping them from developing properly stopping their bodies from developing properly this is this is a criminal act on the largest scale that we've ever seen before and and we are destroying entire generations of people and and I unless we turn this around you know this isn't going to recover very well and people are going to be extremely damaged and and who knows and they make they make me illegal and they and they make it impossible to get for for normal people and only the elites are going to be able to afford it you've got Zuckerberg on an island in you know in in Hawaiian Islands with a massive ranch with whole bunch of wagu cows and uh and a hundred million doll bunker that's going to you know can survive you know nuclear uh fallout you know it's like what does he know that we don't know yeah like why is it that he has a whole bunch of cows he's just like this is enough food to last me forever you know if it comes to it and um and uh you know you're G to wipe out the the the cow you know cattle Supply and things like that now you got these rich people that just happen to have a herd of cows and they're going to take care of themselves and everyone else is going to be screwed um you know I I mentioned soil and green but if people haven't seen that like that's that's that's what we're looking at it's charlon hon movie and is about you know about 50 years in the future this was made like you know was it the 70s or something like that and about the far off distant future of 2022 in New York and um they made everything just completely uh difficult to get you know just normal Commodities or just like they're looking at this as like oh my goodness like no one sees this you can't get it everything is just processed foods is just these little chips and crackers and things like that there these little bars of things that's food now and and the older people are like this isn't what food is you know we used to have eggs and meat you could just buy it at the store like yeah yeah yeah we heard you before you know and um but that's where we're going you know they they found some beef like look at this it's beef oh my God it was this amazing thing they could actually get this and and and that's and that's that's where we're going like people don't get that um oh that will never happen read the goog archipelago you know it happens and it can happen to very advanced societies and very and free societies and um you know and it and it happens all the time you know and it you're sort of having these these nations sort of drop and drop and drop so you know we we people think that it's just people trying to do the right thing oh we're just doing the best we can it's not it's absolutely not you know like oppressive oppressive uh wouldbe dictators have forever or real dictators have since time in Memorial cut off meat supply to the peasant class and the surf class in order to keep them surpressed and docel yes and so you know kept that meat and those and that that food for the elites and uh this is just this is just going right back to how Humanity has or civilization has been for thousands and thousands basically forever um there are people that want to control other people and this is part part of how you do that we've had a good run for last couple hundred years but you know you get uh you get too satisfied you get too comfortable um that can go away and it generally does you know none none of these nations last none of these uh areas of Freedom last all the Greek democracies ended up in tyranny the Roman Republic ended up in a in a tyranny and then collaps completely you know and um you know if we're not careful that'll happen to us too and so you know you just need to you need to protect yourself and you need to protect your family you need to understand what's good for you and um and and and fight for your your right to be healthy and not eat crap the the the I really feel for call it your average person that hasn't spent time or been fortunate enough to to dig into the maybe ask the questions and say right like how does this actually work which not many people do so your average person follows the narrative which as you've explained is it's largely misinformation so they've got the wrong information that they believe is Gospel truth um and the other element is um it's not just information there's an addiction element too as well when you eat these this junk food the the sugar hit all the time it's like right I just need to do this I need to eat all the time because biologically you know that's what happens it's it causes you like kills your society and the rest and it's you're in this forever sort of chasing your tail trying to to get to that next meal so I think it's the combination of those two that um really makes it very difficult for your average person to break out of that cycle and go right how do I kind of get back on the path of of what is true Health um so I'm hoping look even with what I did with my marathons it's like right for the person that goes look I woke up this morning I had breakfast uh look it's 11:00 and I'm starving how on Earth am I going to get through to midday like I ran five marathons in five days completely fasted and it was fine like I reckon you can get through the morning so and that's the starting point it's like people go I can get through the morning and I can get to lunch and I and you know what I feel good you go if I could do that not that it's about trying to not eat all the time it's like oh hang on what what other things can I question here that I thought were gospel truths um because here is an example of something that completely goes against everything I thought was possible so it's it's trying to Buck that Trend a little bit of like this is how Evolution or sorry how Society is going um and fortunately we've got tools like you know love it or hate it social media and you know your platform and the rest that is um able to give people like me just a small chance to have a little bit of a voice and say right like be aware that there are other ways to do things and um hopefully that can you know light light a few you know Sparks or fires or whatever you want to call it in people's um to Minds to kind of get moving moving and and um sort of think about this and get on the right path absolutely well Alex I think it's absolutely amazing what you did and just to just to show that you could and just show people that they can as well um and hopefully this opens up a lot of uh a lot of eyes and people that to know exactly what our bodies are capable of and that what we've been told and what we're being told to to not trust our eyes and just and just you know believe them and and listen to them for the limits of our own being even though we're seeing the exact opposite in real life um so thank you for doing that thank you for just uh you know bucking the trend and just saying hey you know what screw it I'm going for Big Air five days and um and showing that you can absolutely do this you know and you know people say that well those you know could have done those faster or whatever like I said you're not a runner this is what you trained for that's really not the point the point is is that you run a marathon in in five hours or two hours or 200 hours you're still having to run 26 plus miles and um and you did it five days in a row and you have your basal metabolic rate and you have you know to uh to deal with all the other things you're doing in that day and um you know so that's still just it's it's already proving the fact is like you don't you don't need to eat carbs period in fact you don't even need to eat before you do a major event like this or five major events like this yeah yeah because your body more than enough energy so at least and I do say in just so those that say oh look you could have done it faster it's like look more than happy to compare times so show me your five fasted marathon time and then tell me if that's show show me your five five fastest marathons in five days and I'll show you my fastest five marathons in five days I'm sure look hats off to anyone that's going to do it and I'm more than happy to be baen there as well but uh it's uh you know it's you can have a bit of a laugh about all that but at the end of the day it was it was proving a different point yeah exactly yeah well perfect uh well thank you very much for coming on Alex it's it's been an absolute pleasure great to talk to you uh for for the time we had hopefully people uh enjoyed that as much as I did keep please tell us where to find you and um and how toes look at more of your work yeah sure so um I've got a website keto marathon.com and then you can find me on socials on uh across all the platforms uh handle um at keto marathons uh and on X or Twitter it's keto marathons so uh yeah find me all there and um yeah follow me for yeah for for more info but I have documented everything too I got a crazy amount of data so I'm kind of drip feeding that out but uh yeah there's a lot of cool stuff to look at nice well we put those in the uh description and people can can take a look at that and follow you for more Alex thank you so much for coming on I appreciate it oh thank you Anthony I've thoroughly enjoyed it great and thank you everyone for watching hopefully you enjoyed that if you did please do hit the like and leave a leave a comment and share this with anybody who maybe thinks that you do need to eat before running five marathons in five days or anybody else who uh doesn't think that this is something that it's possible to do or you have to have carbs to um to be an athlete which you clearly don't and um and if you're you're new to the channel and you you like what you saw please do SUB hit subscribe to uh find out uh or get a notification when we have more videos coming out which is pretty much every day and twice a week for new content and lives as well so thank you very much we'll see you next time hey guys thank you very much for taking the time out to listen to what I had to say if you like it then please like And subscribe to my YouTube channel and podcast and if you're on YouTube then please hit that little bell and subscribe and that'll let you know anytime I have a new video out which should be every week if not more and if you could share this with your friends that would help me get the word out and let me know that you like what I'm doing thanks again guys