You’ve probably heard me talk about fasting before (I just wrote a whole book on it).It has an amazing array of health benefits, from weight loss to mental clarity and a whole lot more. It’s also free and easy to do. Fasting is one of the best tools you can use to improve your wellbeing. 

You don’t need anything special to start intermittent fasting. It works great on its own. But if you want to supercharge your fast to get more benefits in less time, there’s a simple thing you can add to the mix: a full-spectrum mineral supplement. 

Let’s take a look at how minerals make fasting even more effective, and why the right mineral supplement will help you make more progress toward your health goals with every fast. 

Your Body Needs Minerals During a Fast

One of the best parts of fasting is that it puts you into ketosis—a metabolic state in which you’re burning fat for fuel instead of carbs. 

Being in ketosis comes with all kinds of benefits. It speeds up weight loss[*], suppresses hunger[*], stabilizes blood sugar[*], enhances brain function[*], and slows down aging[*]. Basically, when you switch into fat-burning mode—usually around hour 14 of a fast—your body kicks into higher gear. 

But maintaining that higher gear requires more raw materials than usual. Being in ketosis during a fast uses up a lot of nutrients. Specifically, fasting burns through your mineral stores at a rapid rate. 

There are a few reasons fasting uses up so many minerals. 

The first is water loss. Your cells use water to store carbohydrates as energy, in the form of glycogen. As you use up your glycogen stores during a fast you release the associated water, which is why when you fast , it’s common to lose several pounds of water weight[*]. But that water contains large amounts of sodium, potassium, calcium, and other minerals, and if you don’t replenish the minerals you lose, you can run into problems like headaches and sudden fatigue that can make fasting difficult[*]. 

Fasting increases mineral demand in other ways too. One major benefit of fasting is that it makes your mitochondria (the power plants of your cells) more efficient—that is, they produce energy at a higher rate, especially in your brain[*][*], which is why fasting is so good for mental clarity and increased energy levels. However, your mitochondria use large amounts of minerals as essential cofactors to make energy[*], and when they turn up the dial on energy production during a fast, they pull a lot of minerals from your body’s reserves. 

How Minerals Make Fasting Even More Effective

Basically, every time you fast, you’re making a big withdrawal from your mineral bank account. The resulting benefits are great—but if your mineral stores run out, fasting becomes a lot harder. 

If you’ve done a long fast, you’ve probably felt what happens when your mineral reserves run low. Sudden fatigue, brain fog, hunger, and food cravings are all signs that you’re short on minerals. Your body wants to keep running at a higher gear but it needs more raw materials to do so. 

That’s where a good mineral supplement comes in. If you replenish your minerals during a fast, you give your body what it needs to keep going—which lets you fast longer and get closer to your health goals with every fast you do. 

I want to be clear: fasting alone is great, and you don’t need minerals to do it. You can replenish your minerals with food during feasting days and everything will be fine. 

But if you want to take your fasts to the next level, minerals are key. They’ll supercharge your fasting so you get more benefits in less time (and the fasts will feel easier, too!). 

Choose the Right Mineral Supplement

A lot of people take individual minerals, each in a different pill—separate bottles of magnesium, calcium, zinc, and so on. 

The problem is that, like so many things in life, minerals rely on balance. Your body uses a lot of different minerals at different rates. You want to make sure they’re all topped up, and that you don’t have too much (or too little) of any one mineral. 

Taking megadoses of single minerals can correct deficiencies in the short term, but in the long term, it can create new imbalances, which actually causes more problems than it solves. 

That’s why I take humic and fulvic substances. They’re natural complexes derived from humate, one of the most bioavailable and mineral-dense substances in nature. Humate forms when plants break down in the soil over thousands of years, leaving behind all their essential minerals and phytonutrients. 

When you purify humate, you get humic and fulvic substances, which contain the full spectrum of essential minerals your body needs to function, in ideal ratios, and all in a highly bioavailable liquid form. 

You can take humic and fulvic substances and replenish all your mineral stores at once. The liquid form means your cells absorb the minerals within minutes, which makes them especially good for fasting. You can just take a shot of humic and fulvic substances and instantly refill your minerals, allowing you to fast longer and access more benefits. 

My favorite humic and fulvic substances are from BEAM Minerals. They’re third-party tested for purity and are almost 100% bioavailable. Plus they taste like water, which makes them a lot more pleasant than most of the humic and fulvic supplements on the market. I take a shot of minerals when I’m doing an especially long fast and they give me an instant boost in energy and clarity.

Try adding minerals to your next fast. You’ll be amazed by how much easier they make fasting (and how quickly you see the results you want).