Tag: butter coffee

Eating more fat and skipping breakfast

Brilliant friends,

What do I do when I get hungry after drinking butter coffee? I eat.

The more I ate good fats from grass fed animals, the more I was able to use fat as an energy source and building block. At first, I noticed that a little bit of butter tasted delicious and made me feel great. When I ate more the next time, I found that I became very full. The next time I ate even more, I wasn’t able to use all of it efficiently. It was obvious that some of the fat had been excreted. I dialed back a bit, and over time I found that I could eat more fat and use it efficiently.

There are many factors within the body that allow you to digest and metabolize fat, like stomach acid strength and gall bladder function. Different fats are used differently by the body as well. Some saturated fats are used to build cell membranes, others are used for energy by way of the liver, and very small chain fats, like C-8 fatty acid, are easily converted into ketones and used by the brain as fuel.

If you normally do not eat much fat, you’ll find that eating just a little bit can bring a deeply satisfying feeling. The fullness, or satiety, from good fat is stronger and lasts longer than the fullness from sugar and other carbohydrates. It is possible to be full without feeling cravings, when you eat enough fat. Once you clearly distinguished the two phenomena, you’re likely to never miss the strangeness of still wanting to eat after having eaten a large meal that did not have enough good fat.

Butter coffee in the morning has been a wonderful way for me to eat enough good fat each day. Every day, I blend grass fed butter, MCT (C-8) oil, and cacao powder with my freshly brewed coffee. Six years ago, my first real cup of butter coffee had two tablespoons of butter, as prescribed by the “bulletproof” Dave Asprey. Today, I have about four tablespoons in the morning, in about three cups of coffee. This has been the same for about three years.

If you are making butter coffee as a part of your daily routine, you can Increase the amount of butter if you feel hungrier than usual that morning. This will be affected by the previous day’s activities and your own body adapting to fat digestion. The more butter, the creamier your coffee will be. Don’t hesitate to try a little more to see how you feel.

This is also a way to delay a first meal and still have a lot of nutrition in the morning. When I first started drinking butter coffee, I was still eating a full breakfast along with it. Over time I added more butter to my coffee, and ate less breakfast. Eventually, I let go of breakfast. I now usually eat lunch a little past 12 p.m. These were natural progressions, nothing force or scheduled. Figure out your needs and adjust to them, until you find a groove where you are energized, satiated, and feeling positive.

This will be different for everyone. You’re probably not going to have the same experience as I did with eating more fats, and the next person you talk to who is doing the same will have a different way altogether. Look for signs of change in how you feel, look, and think. Use the feedback to make small changes.

Live powerfully,

Steve

Butter coffee every day, intermittent fasting, and all diets lead to one

I still drink butter coffee every morning. I mean like literally every single morning. It’s just another part of my day, as much as the sun coming up. Well sometimes more so, on days when I get up at 4 a.m. to make a 6 a.m. training session. Coffee steam rises before the sun.

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If I haven’t said this before, I’ve got to say, I just love drinking my butter coffee. I’m forever grateful to my friend Dan for introducing me to the concept one sunny morning at the gym, after a great 5×5 powerlifting session. And of course I’m grateful to Dave Asprey, the Bulletproof Executive for developing and marketing it to the Westside of the world. I guess I could go on to thank the Himalayan people of Tibet and Nepal for really harnessing the power of mountain yak butter and tea and inspiring Asprey.

I think some things need to be clarified about butter coffee drinkers, ketogenic diets, and intermittent fasting. First of all, when I drink butter coffee, it’s not the only thing I eat the whole day. I have one and sometimes two solid meals, usually large, generally involving rice, meat, and veggies. I love to cook. I make whole meals with my wife every day for dinner.

Secondly, butter coffee when done right is not a nutritionally deficient meal substitute as critics hail it to be. Grass fed cow butter is superfood. It has vitamins, minerals, and multiple types of fats that are essential to the human diet. Actually, I can’t think of a more nutritious meal than butter coffee, although I don’t normally call it a meal. It’s packed with energy and is satiating like no other food.

Naturally, I must make the third point that butter coffee is not everything. It doesn’t have all the nutrients needed to sustain  recovery and energy. It has a lot. Not all. And we’re back to the first clarification, that butter coffee is not the only thing I have as food.

Nor do I encourage anyone to drink only butter coffee and eat nothing else. Which brings me to ketogenic diets, high fat diets, and the intermittent fasting craze. Look. When I first started intermittent fasting, I didn’t even know that it had a name. I would drink my butter coffee without any carbs or protein, exercise, and wait until late in the day to eat. Sometimes because I was busy at work and didn’t want to lose focus, I would go until dinner time without eating anything.

My energy was tremendous, my focus lasted for so long, it was awesome. But i did it because it worked. It just so happened to happen that way, and when the internet started to break out with the words “intermittent fasting” everywhere I was just as confused as the all-American big breakfast eaters.

Sincerely, though, I don’t have anything against any one diet or another. I do have a thing about doing things that work. If it works for you, great. If it doesn’t, just let it go and find something that does.

I believe that all diets lead to one: the one that works for you. That sounds evasive, I know, but really each person is going to need to figure out what works for the long run. Do I really want to jump from diet to diet for the rest of my life? If I’m eating food, and I’m feeling good, and I have energy when I need it, and I’ve been doing this from age 25 and I do it to age 50, why would I suddenly change it all with the next fad diet that comes hopping my way?

Who’s got more authority over my wellness, me or the Diet-Creators out there? I’m going to vote for me.

Really, all diets lead to one. If you do what’s right for you, you’re going to figure it out. You have the discernment to realize when something is not working for you. If intermittent fasting is upgrading your life, then keep going with it. If you can’t make it through the morning with just butter coffee, find something else that works for you.

At some point, you have got to take an plain look at what you are eating and figure whether it’s building you or hurting you. All diets lead to one. No single food is going to cover all your bases. You need variety and you also need some level of consistency. Eat the things you know make you feel healthy and strong and clear minded. Eat less of the things you know don’t make you feel that way.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m doing enough. I like to reference this phrase every once in a while: Little by little, every day, I get better in every way.

Live powerfully,

Steve

Strength goals, taking breaks, and less sleep days

It was a beautiful morning in Los Gatos. It’s cooled down quite a bit from last weekend’s bake, and the bird songs are sharp through the cool sky. The sun is just glowing.

Did that sound like a radio station?

I didn’t get good sleep last night. Could be the new mattress we got, with the strong odor of plastic exuding from it. Or it might have been too much water drunk before bed.

Training today will be the usual. 100 swings and 10 getups with the 24kg. But it will also be different. I’m going to time myself. I’m not expecting to hit these numbers today, but ultimately I want to do the swings in five minutes and the getups in ten minutes, with a minute rest in between.

Energy is pretty good, my body feels a bit tight from suboptimal rest, but otherwise I am all here. Since I am using light weight in kettlebell training, I’m not as strict about resting 100% every day. Usually I get full rest by day three. It hasn’t been a detriment to my health so far.

Dinner last night was pork belly with lettuce wraps and white rice, Korean style. Used sesame oil and Himalayan salt as a dip, and Korean red pepper paste and fermented bean paste as another dip. Got all my vitamin C, magnesium, and kelp in as usual.

Eliminated (pooped) fully. Remember to eliminate, exercise, eat (Dan John).

This morning I’m having my usual grass fed butter coffee. Grass fed unsalted butter, C-8 MCT oil, chocolate powder, vanilla beans, cacao butter, creatine monohydrate. Sounds like a lot of stuff but I’ve got it all down to a routine, so it’s no big deal. In the interest of budget I’ve been using Colombian coffee beans from a local grocery store. Clean enough, no jitters or headache in the last several months of drinking it.

Wish me luck on the time trial.

Goals and Periodic Training

Last night I spent some time calendaring my goals. I mapped out a very general plan for the next year and a half, till January 2020. If you haven’t done this, try it. You see a clear picture of how long a specific exercise program is going to take. You also realize time is finite, and you can’t do it all. It’s okay, and I think I’ve been changing my approach to exercise.

Dan John (whom, you may have noticed, I have recently been studying and quoting a lot) says any serious athlete has months of training and months of no training each year. They also have years of intense strength training, and years of honing skills with less strength training. On and off periods.

For me, and anyone else in normal occupations and domestic life, the long breaks from training are just as important. As a matter of fact, maybe even more so because I don’t think about time off in a serious way. Training breaks give you time to relax, to scale back from maximum strength and to give room to develop skills. To paraphrase Dan, depravity leads to increase in performance.

I’ve noticed through my life that I unintentionally had very long periods of “inactivity” in between times of intense sports or weightlifting. After rugby season ended in college, I just stopped everything. No gym, no running, no nothing. I got busy with school, for one, and had a girlfriend who later became my wife, so maybe I was distracted by life’s bigger priorities. Same with powerlifting in 2014 to 2015. That was probably the most intense training program I’ve ever put myself through. Once I got done with the meet in March, I couldn’t get myself back to the gym for weeks.

So I’m going to intentionally build in long periods of “rest”. No weights, just light movement practices and maybe team sports here and there. I’m talking months here. If that sounds crazy to you, I’m with you. But I really want to explore this concept of loosening up for a while, and testing whether performance does increase in other ways. I’ll use sports and short runs as a measure of performance.

Takeaways

Spread your training goals over months, and create big down times in between. On a day to day scale, “exercise, eat, eliminate”. Enjoy the bird song.

Live powerfully,

Steve

Russian Style General Strength Training

Edited November 29, 2020

If you are looking for serious long term strength training that you can do every day, with minimal equipment, in less than thirty minutes, take a look at Kettlebell Simple & Sinister.

Simple & Sinister is a strength endurance program of 100 kettlebell swings and 10 getups every day. It is meant to condition a person to always be ready for life, and to “store energy in the body rather than exhaust it” (Kettlebell Simple & Sinister). By training day after day, you adapt to a higher level of strength and endurance. You start with a small weight, develop solid form, and progress to the next weight. Rest days are fewer because the weight is relatively small.

Unlike powerlifting, kettlebell training does not aim for the highest possible weight lifted. Rather, it focuses on total body acceleration, and stable coordination of all parts of your body. It won’t directly add tons of weight to your barbell max. There is, however, ample evidence that there is unexpected improvement in bigger lifts.

The grass is always greener on the other side. If you don’t believe it, go to a park and find the greenest patch of grass and sit. Then look around and see if there’s greener. I assure you there is.

Powerlifting taught me that training every day was not healthy. When I was squatting twice my bodyweight for sets of five, I needed at least a day of rest, if not three, for any benefit. So naturally I doubted the S&S protocol of daily training.

However, swings and getups were filling gaps in my powerlifting training. For one, I built all-around shoulder stability in connection with the rest of my body. I also balanced the strength between the two sides of my body. These can easily be overlooked in basic powerlifting exercises if you have significant strength imbalances. Back to the issue of daily training.

At first I was constantly sore, and it was certainly difficult to train every day. I would wake up to find my whole body tight and achy. Rather than decide not to train at that moment, I would put off the judgment call. Instead, I went through my morning routine. I drank butter coffee and journaled, basically enjoying life as I woke up. When training time came, I felt better and went for it.

As of this writing, it’s been about two and half months since starting kettlebell training with the 16kg. My recovery time is shortening. I’ve managed to take just one day off in the last eight weeks. I’m doing all sets now with the 24kg, and my swings and getups are getting stronger. My callouses are smooth and my mind feels sharp. I look forward to training most days. Just like Tsatsouline says in Kettlebell Simple & Sinister, the exercise has become a “recharge” instead of a “workout”.

After the initial struggle, I started to look forward to the training. S&S is remarkably effortless compared to other strength programs.

Edit: It’s now three and a half years from the time I started kettlebell training. After becoming comfortable with the 32kg for all sets, and introducing the 40kg to getups, I am now alternating kettlebell days with barbell days. Rest days are still few and far between, as it feels better to train than not to. 11-29-20

First, the only equipment needed is the kettlebell. No gym, no shoes, no machines, no bars nor weight plates. S&S prescribes a starting 8kg for average strength women and 16kg for average strength men. Even with a 300+ lb squat, I found that the 16kg was more than enough load to teach me the movements.

Second, the exercise leaves me with plenty of energy for the rest of my day. I gradually adapted to the training, and became more efficient in the movements. It will be different for everyone, but the soreness stopped after several weeks. Even when I did feel sore, it was slight and bearable and frankly, felt good.

Finally, it’s convenient and accessible. The kettlebell sits at your doorstep where you left it the previous morning. You have no excuse for not training. This saves time and eliminates the ill effects of sitting in your car on the way to the gym.

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As I transitioned from 16kg to the 24kg kettlebell, I felt much more tired at night and needed more food. So I ate a little more, and kept training every day. The jumps in weight by proportion are much greater than with progression barbell training. I imagine the next transition to 32kg will be even harder. I look forward to that too.

Edit: The transition to 32kg was magnificent. Most exciting was the increase in muscle size, of course. But I had two swing progressions as I did with every weight. First it was incorporating two-handed swings with 32kg, then to one-handed swings once all sets at 32kg were solid. Getup progression was natural and felt great to have that heavy load straight up above me. A little more food, a little more soreness at first on the one-handed progression. 11-29-20

Do some digging in the StrongFirst website to see if this is for you. If you decide to take on the kettlebell, I strongly recommend that you read the book first. I’ve read both the audio and kindle versions hundreds of times. Mind before matter.

Live powerfully.

Steve

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Why I Eat Grass Fed Butter

The Beginning

My life changed at age 26. It started with my disgust at the pain and suffering I experienced on a daily basis. I had aching joints from old injuries, depression, and low energy. I was lifting weights but it was bringing more pain than joy.

I decided to make a change. The first step was a different type of exercise, called progression strength training. Starting from the beginning, with very light weight, I relearned the basic strength movements. The emphasis was placed on training and learning, rather than “working out”, breaking a sweat, or pumping up my muscles.

As I developed better movement, I came upon a nutritional breakthrough. A friend that I had met at the gym introduced me to butter coffee. It was a powerful blend of grass fed butter, medium chain triglyceride (MCT) oil, and clean coffee. Because I was regularly training, I noticed some immediate changes when I started to drink butter coffee.

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My energy and focus was very high. I was on an elevated level of mental clarity not only at the start of training, but throughout the entire session. I was executing movements with much more precision. I could pinpoint problems and work very effectively to solve them. It was no longer necessary to get into “beast mode”, or hyper adrenaline driven states, to lift heavy. I could do a bit of meditative breathing and approach heavy lifts with calm.

I made a lot of changes to my diet. I began to eat fat. Lots of it. From grass fed animals, to wild fish, avocados, and eggs, I tried to obtain the best quality fats and ate as much as I wanted. It really doesn’t take much fat to satiate a person. But it takes more than you’d think, if you haven’t eaten much fat in a while.

My Mood Improved After a Few Weeks

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Six months into a diet based on grass fed beef, grass fed butter, white rice, and green leafy vegetables, my wife and I noticed a significant change in my temperament.

First and foremost, I am different today than I was five years ago. I used to have mood swings. At times throughout the day, I was suddenly angry, sad, or depressed, and felt helpless. Shortly after my friend introduced me to butter coffee, I noticed my mood swings diminish. I felt better, happier, lighter, and more focused – more in control of myself.

The mood swings disappeared. No more food coma. I stopped waking up in anger, because I no longer felt the generalized discomfort of inflammation. I was eating about 80 to 100 grams of grass fed butter and other healthy fats each day.

Grass fed butter is higher in omega-3 fatty acids, including EPA and DHA, than conventional grain fed butter. These two fats have been shown to reduce depression. I believe this was essential in dissolving my recurring bouts of depression and constant feelings of anger.

My Pain Went Away

I had frequent “tension” headaches before, and those stopped. Knee pain went away, walking became a comfortable and enjoyable thing. Back pain went away, and now I spend my mornings making coffee when I wake up instead of pacing off unbearable pain.

The elimination of knee and lower back pain had a great impact on my strength training. I was able to surpass previous plateaus because I wasn’t bothered by aching joints.

It makes sense to me that if fat is used in the development of cells in the body, the right type of fat will build the ideal structure of cell membrane. The wrong type of fat, or damaged fat, will build faulty and dysfunctional cell membranes.

Since nerves are also made of cells, I deduce that eating wholesome fats was largely effective in relieving pain.

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My Hair Turned Black Again

The top of my head had been peppered with gray and white hairs ever since the eighth grade. It was a hard period of life, on the backdrop of puberty. Genetics did not seem to be a factor, because no men in my immediate family had experienced this. Something within my biology was fundamentally affected by the stress I had experienced.

Then at age 26, when I made diet changes, my hair started to darken. At 31, my head of hair is as black as when I was a toddler.

This happened as I ramped up the amount of good fat in my diet.

Hair graying has been linked in the past to vitamin B12 deficiency. One subject was given supplemental B12 and their gray hair colored again. I think a lot of papers used this study as a source to link B12 and hair color.

Part of my diet changes at age 26 included supplementation of B12. But that’s not all to the story.

I also made a lot of other changes to my diet. Primarily, I began to eat fat. Lots of it. From grass fed animals, wild fish, avocados, to eggs, I tried to obtain the best quality fats and ate as much as I wanted. It really doesn’t take much fat to satiate a person. But it takes more than you’d think, if you haven’t eaten much fat in a while.

Hair color is determined by a function of the hair follicle. Hair follicles are made of cells. Cells have membranes which transport chemicals in and out. The proper functioning of the cell membrane will lead to the health of the cell, the follicle, and the hair. Part of this function has been found to be regulated by vitamin B12. Thus, the connection between hair color and this vitamin.

Interestingly enough, animal fats are a good source of B12. So it may be true that B12 has something to do with hair color.

Just supplementing B12 may have some effect on hair color.But I think the idea of only taking pills is limited. Think of the bigger picture.

If follicle cell membranes are made of fat, and if I provide good fats for the building of my cells, then it makes sense to me that my change in diet had some role in my hair color’s return to “normal”.

It was Easier to Retain My Strength and Muscle Mass

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With ample fat in my diet, my body was less and less prone to shed muscle during pauses in my strength training. I used to be a “hardgainer”. It was very hard to maintain muscle mass without daily whey protein shakes, massive amount of bread, pasta, and chicken breast. Even with creatine, I could hardly keep the muscle I made if I stopped going to the gym.

Magazines told me that this was just my body type. I needed to train hard all the time if I wanted to be muscular and fit. Even for a guy with my stamina and energy, that was hard to maintain over the years. I burned out.

When I regularly drank butter coffee in the mornings, my biology seemed to change. I was eating fewer meals – two, sometimes one –  but still gaining strength and muscle. At first it was confusing.

I noticed that I could go to the gym after two weeks of inactivity and still pick up from where I had left off in terms of weights. Maintenance of muscle and strength was much easier.

At 168 lbs. body weight, I was stronger than I had ever been in my life up to that point. From the time I began strength training with only butter coffee to sustain me, I had so much energy and focus that I didn’t injure myself once during training.

I was eating fewer meals, feeling more satiated, less hungry, and became stronger. I felt that I was on to something.

My Brain Regenerated

I had two minor concussions. The first in high school football, when I took a big hit to the facemask from a lineman. The second in college rugby, during a tackle drill. This second time was more severe, and I temporarily forgot the names of people close to me. By the time college was over, I had poor short term memory.

Over the years, things got worse. I would forget what my girlfriend said the previous day, and get into arguments about it. I had trouble keeping appointments and staying on top of finances. It was frustrating. I knew something was wrong with me, but I didn’t think there was a way to snap out of it.

Then I started eating good fats. As my mood improved with my changed diet, so did my memory.

I could think more clearly, but I was also remembering things better. I felt much better about seeing friends, because I could remember what we had talked about previously. The fights over conflicting accounts faded with my girlfriend. I was able to remember to pay bills.

My mind also grew in capacity. I was able to learn things as if it were grade school again. I listened to podcasts, read books, and researched things online like never before. It was a renaissance, and I couldn’t get enough. I had forgotten how much I loved to learn, and my mind was starving. So I fed it.

The brain is the center of the nervous system. And the nervous system, including the brain, is made mostly of fat. Myelin, the white sheath over the neurons, and the stuff that makes the brain look grey and white, is fat. The electrical currents that pass between neurons, the brain, and the rest of the body are conducted along nerves that are encased by the fatty composition of myelin.

If there is a low supply of fat from food, where else would the body obtain the fat needed to produce myelin? It makes sense then that eating good fats supplies good building blocks for the conductivity of nerves. And the brain is the major nervous organ.

With this logic, I believe that eating lots of good fats has helped me to regenerate my brain.

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Why This Matters

Why does this matter? This ongoing experience tells me that a change in food changed my body. And if that’s the case, you might benefit as well.

Every person is unique. This is not just a nice thing to say to you to make you feel special. It’s truth. If you do not have the energy you want, the focus you need, the body composition that feels right, and a mind that is functioning, it is well worth your time to investigate. You need to try things, test them for positive and negative effects, and make decisions about food. This is the only way to know.

I emphasize that fats are building blocks of the body’s cells. This is important because cell membranes engage with signal molecules. It amazed me, but didn’t surprise me, to learn that the molecules which engage with cell membranes include hormones.

Insulin, steroids like cortisol, sex hormones, and ghrelin, which creates hunger feelings, are some of many hormones that are signals to make the body function well. A functional body is able to maintain balance of its internal environment. Temperature, body size, fat, bone, and muscle composition, and salt are a few things that hormones help to balance.

Now, when a person is well balanced, with a normal body, responsive hormonal production, sensible appetite, and in possession of sex hormones in the right amounts, you might think that person is pretty comfortable. They wouldn’t be too cold, or too hot, or hungry just after a meal, or overweight, or cranky.

However, if the opposite were true, and a person has an imbalanced body, hormones in excessive or limited amounts, and dysfunctional regulation of all the systems in the body, you might think they would not be very comfortable.

I believe I am a good person. I want to be happy, I want my family and my friends to be happy, and I want my neighbors and the world in general to be happy. I want to help someone if I can. I have passions for creating beautiful things, and I like to work hard and do my best. I think almost all people are like me. Very few want to destroy life and cause pain.

I also believe that people are not able to think clearly, act in accordance with their values, and make wholesome decisions if they are fundamentally uncomfortable. I think it’s really hard to build a life that you want if your body is out of whack. It’s difficult to put in sustained, good work toward a steady goal when you are constantly hungry, unreasonably emotional, and have no energy.

And I think that fundamentally, what a person eats provides the building blocks for their destiny. Yes, a few are incredibly strong and able to overcome sub-optimal bodily function. These few have built amazing lives despite poor diets and disagreeable bodies.

But most people have a lot of trouble with health. Most people are suffering because they don’t have good building blocks to make a body that functions well.

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A body that functions well supports a mind that operates well. A mind that operates well manifests a soul that means well. For me, lots of good fats provided an overhaul of my health. There are many other things I incorporated besides fats. But I believe through logical thinking that good fats are the central element of the diet that brings wellness in my body, mind, and soul.

Here are examples of good fats and other foods that I eat to build wellness. Research, try, test, decide.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Butter Coffee Dip

No, not something for dunking your donut.

The Dip. This is the term used by Seth Godin to describe the valley of hardship you must cross to reach the promised land of whatever endeavor you start. Every good result, beneficial enterprise, and upgrade in life involves some form of a dip. I’ll use the word plainly, without emphasis, moving forward.

Stop: This article is not for the sensitive or faint of heart. It’s meant to help you determine whether you’ve got the resources to be able to adapt to fat using butter coffee. There’s a bit of explicit and abrasive content here. And it’s long. It’s meant to challenge you. If you’re ready for it, please proceed. Otherwise save yourself some grief and leave this page – hopefully for another day.

The dip that I describe here is the barrier to using butter coffee for fuel. It involves the challenge that lies between you and proper fat utilization for energy and wellness. If you want to be ketogenic, or be able to primarily utilize fats for energy, you will come to this dip and be forced to reckon with your current metabolic tendencies. Butter coffee is an excellent gateway tool to optimal fat metabolism if you love coffee.

The rewards are great. If you have ever fasted, or had to skip breakfast to do something first thing in the morning, you may have felt a type of euphoria before finally eating. High focus, light mood, ease of effort, and creative outpour. Some people fast regularly for these benefits.

There is a way to access this “mode of operation”, let’s call it, without the hunger. There is a way to have it for a long period of time. Every day. And for the rest of your life. Once you get past the dip.

For some this will be easy. My own adaptation was fairly simple, as well as that of other people I’ve spoken to. Anecdotally, these “lucky” people are under 40, have no major health issues like obesity, diabetes, hypertension, or organ dysfunction, and are physically active or relatively fit. You may not agree with the term lucky if you are within this group. Regardless, these are attributes I have seen that make the dip shorter or less troublesome.

I have seen others struggle with the dip more than I have. Much more. The type of person I have seen struggle to maintain ketosis are over 40, have some health issues like obesity, diabetes, or metabolic dysfunctions, and generally are not as lean or muscular as the first group. However, I have seen a few examples of people in this category of mine who made it through the dip, regularly drink butter coffee, and enjoy the benefits of ketosis.

Many people I’ve talked to, in both categories, had decided to discontinue their efforts toward ketosis because the struggles did not justify the goal. There are definitely people of the first category who did not make it through the dip.

Don’t take this as a scientific grouping of people who will and won’t benefit from fat adaptation or butter coffee. Argue all you want about this. This is my narrow, limited experience with people. Whatever your current physiology and life circumstance, I believe you have the chance to enter a new realm of wellness. And I believe it is most likely through a transition of diet that relies on carbohydrates to one that is more strongly based on fats.

I will apply an insight from a field outside of medicine and health to the task of overcoming the dip here. I heard this from a conversation between Tony Robbins, master life coach, and Tim Ferriss, the human guinea pig. It is an insight from a plastic surgeon, one who’s created more attractive looks for women by minuscule adjustments to their faces. This surgeon lives by the practice that a mere two millimeters of adjustment can make all the difference. Most people are just within one or two tiny millimeters from being irresistibly beautiful.

Take this with a grain of sea salt. I know the general feel about plastic surgery, and I understand how this comes off. However, I look at the core lesson. A tiny distance separates me from accomplishing things I feel are impossible.

This can be expanded to wellness. The idea that for most people, the prize of a healthy body and mind awaits just a few more steps from where they’ve stopped. Just a couple of tiny steps from the point of utter pain, suffering, or misery. I believe that for most of humanity, for most of the endeavors that have been attempted, this is true. Wellness on an individual level is not exempt. Here, I address a very small endeavor that has slipped past many because of the tiny adjustments that need to be made before reaching the rewards.

Before you fully enjoy the benefits of butter coffee and other good fat in your diet, you will come to a few barriers to pass. They were well worth my time and effort to overcome, and so I share this with you. I urge you to read these elements of the dip that I encountered in the past five years to adjust myself to this superior energy source. I welcome you to join me in enjoyment of ketosis, higher focus, and overall improved wellness. But only after accepting the reality of what you must surpass to get here.

First

You will need to move through the fear that grips most people.

  • It’s partly the fear of eating fat. Simple. Although you might eat animal fat already, the social mores against butter, lard, and other forms of fat are strong. People around you will stare, ask hard questions, and flat out make fun of you. I’m talking about people you work with, play with, and love. By starting this experiment of wellness, you are entering a world of fat consumption. You will be harassed. You must embrace this to proceed through to the other side. My most effective quote for dealing with this: “Fuck’em all”. In gentler terms, I didn’t deal. I simply looked ahead and kept moving.
  • There’s also the fear of taking control. You are tackling this big aspect of your life called wellness. If you are afraid of actively making changes to improve your wellness, you are not alone. It sucks to try something you thought was good for you and find it was a waste of time, money, and attention. It’s also embarrassing when your friends and family find out and they tell you that you shouldn’t have done that. So, you’ll need to accept this fear and move through it. You will need to accept responsibility for your wellness. Whether you suffer or not is in large part a result of your own daily doing. To be well, you must decide to do. Know that it only seems harder to be healthy. The reality is that it takes just as much effort to eat candy as it does to eat grass fed butter. You put either in your mouth and swallow. Eaten. The hard part is all the intangible stuff surrounding the butter. Fear. Accept and move through it. As a hack to get there faster, may I suggest meditation.

Second

You will need to adapt to fat. This means your body will need to physiologically learn to effectively absorb nutrition from fat. This takes several days to weeks for some people, maybe more if you are not in the habit of eating a lot of fat. Keep your regular meals at first. Have just a cup of this coffee beverage with breakfast, or an hour before training. Eat “normally” otherwise. Feel it out.

  • Do you feel dizzy? This is a sign that you had too much MCT oil and your brain is in overdrive. Reduce MCT oil.
  • Is your stool wetter or more sour than usual? This is a sign that you are not able to digest as much as you ate. Reduce butter until stool is solid and smooth.
  • Did you get “cold diarrhea”? This is the classic sign of too much MCT oil for your system. Your body is trying to rid itself of excess nutrition. You aren’t ready for however much you took. Reduce MCT oil.
  • Did you get hungry within the next few hours of drinking the coffee? This is a sign that you are not able to optimally utilize fat for energy. Eat other food with the coffee, enough to satiate, not to the point that you are bursting and too full. Adjust the amount of food as hunger levels change through time. Balance the amount of butter in your coffee with the amount of food you eat. More butter, less other food.
  • UNLESS you went through a lot of stress the previous day. If you trained strength or exercised, if you had an emotionally difficult episode like a high stakes meeting or a fight, if you did not sleep enough, or if you had some other taxing situation the previous day, you naturally need more nutrition the next morning. Go with your gut feeling in the morning – literally. If you are hungrier than usual, add more butter than usual. Test the degree and duration of satiety.
  • Did your cravings come back? Distinguish cravings from hunger. Cravings are mostly in the mind, but they stem from a lack of significant nutrients. There’s an interaction between brain and gut that tells you you’re hungry or full. This goes back to amount of butter, adapting to fat utilization, and slowly replacing “food” with good fats. Slowly reduce the instinct to reach for sugary, starchy, processed, “fake” foods. No candy, ever. Seek instead “real” foods, incorporating good fats, green leafy veggies, and rice over bread into your meals. Cravings only grow as much as you feed them. Remember, address your brain.

Third

You will spend a lot of time making this every day. It also takes a long time to clean up. One of the greatest hurdles in making butter coffee is making butter coffee. It usually takes me a full 15 to 20 minutes to finish making mine. This includes heating the water, adding all the ingredients, blending, and pouring it out. You will have to make time. This means that other things will get pushed or omitted from your start-of-day schedule. If it’s Candy Crush, good riddance. If it’s meditation, perhaps you’ll want to plan more carefully. Also, don’t forget cleaning time. You’ll have a dirty and greasy blender, knife, measuring spoons, and coffee-making gear to reckon with. If you don’t tolerate dirty dishes in the sink all day, you will have to figure in the cleaning time.

Fourth

You will need to adjust and test the ingredients of butter coffee to suit you. You must find the best possible quality of ingredients within your means. Cleanliness of the coffee, source of butter and MCT oil, and quality of water are examples of components that affect your wellness. Do not disregard any symptom, do not diminish the value of any single ingredient, and pay attention to adjustments that you make.

Obtaining quality ingredients is one of the most difficult things in the dip. It is both “expensive” and hard to find some of these things, depending on where you live and how much money you can use. But know that this cost can undermine the cost of breakfast, going out for lunch, snacks and candies, and “healthcare” from complications related to your body running primarily on sugar.

Do your best. Compromise on ingredient quality only with full expectation of compromised results. The beginning is often exciting, with the heightened capabilities you feel from the first cup. The dip will require you to make adjustments and will stop most people from getting past the initial highs.

  • Did you get the jitters or a headache? Low coffee bean quality, cheap stuff, and blends are more likely to contain mold contamination, be overcooked, or not fresh. Coffee is a naturally enhancing food. There are a lot of qualities that aren’t identified. Much of the benefits from coffee are lost through these subpar characteristics.
    • Aim for single source or single estate or single origin. This means the beans are grown and processed in one place. The time and attention to the beans is more focused and you will get cleaner product.
    • Dark roasts risk overcooking the beans. If you “like” uber smoky coffee, carefully examine your symptoms. Overcooking coffee can damage the fats and the beneficial elements within the beans. Big name brands usually are careless about this process. Look for brands who pay attention to the roasting process, who talk about it and highlight it.
  • Did you get acne? I am prone to acne. Any bad fats I eat result in different types of acne. Some cause the small bumpy skin on my forehead, others cause large zits deep in the skin, and still others cause the smaller white fat pustules. Now, assuming you are avoiding fried foods from outside home, sugar, and vegetable or subpar animal fats, check your ingredients for the following:
    • Butter. Is it really grass fed cow butter? Research and get a clear answer. Grain fed cows produce fat that is not clean. You might as well be eating margarine. If you cannot find a clear answer, ditch and move on. I would avoid it altogether if I get noticeable acne.
    • MCT oil. Where are the coconuts or palm oil from? Thailand is usually the best source from my experience. The processing also matters, and some companies do not have control over that. Does the product you are using have that level of quality guarantee?
    • Powders. Chocolate, vanilla, cacao butter, cinnamon, collagen. Whatever it is, is it sourced from identifiable places? Or blended from multiple locations? Remember that blends involve extra storage and shipping times, unaccountable processes, and reduced integrity.
  • Is your coffee flat or greasy? Follow the instructions I laid out, verbatim, for making the beverage. Check your timing, making sure to keep things hot and blending fast and long enough for good emulsification.

Fifth

You will need to find the goldilocks amounts of nutrition, the golden timing, and fine tune the quality of your results.
  • Hunger will come sooner or later. The more fat-adapted you are, as they say, the more energy you can obtain from butter coffee and the longer you can perform without eating. Adjust amounts of butter to see how much you need for proper energy. You don’t want to be faint later in the day, and you don’t want to physically deteriorate. I can last ten or more hours on butter coffee if I must. Ideally, I eat around hour eight. Remember, I have been doing this for years. My body is adapted. In the beginning, and for a very long time, you will not be. Prepare to experiment!
  • Find the ideal time for this drink. I like to have my coffee first thing in the morning. Sometimes I can sit all morning and work and drink all my coffee within a couple hours. Other days I have to go somewhere far and will sip while I drive, over a longer period of time. Lately I’ve had to walk the dogs at my mom’s place, and I find that doing this first thing (yes, before my coffee) is most beneficial for every creature. It hasn’t killed me. I have plenty of energy first thing in the morning without any nutrition added, so I am sticking to this schedule. You are different from me. Find your ideal timing for coffee.

Sixth

You can’t avoid discipline. There is no way around this in the dip. You simply must stick to your goal. You must regularly work to make butter coffee right for you and to become fat adapted. Let me end this long article with a long quote by Jim Collins from his excellent book, Great By Choice:

“Discipline, in essence, is consistency of action – consistency with values, consistency with long-term goals, consistency with performance standards, consistency of method, consistency over time. Discipline is not the same as regimentation. Discipline is not the same as measurement. Discipline is not the same as hierarchical obedience or adherence to bureaucratic rules. True discipline requires the independence of mind to reject pressures to conform in ways incompatible with values, performance standards, and long-term aspirations… the only legitimate form of discipline is self-discipline, having the inner will to do whatever it takes to create a great outcome, no matter how difficult.”

I told you it was long. Now make a decision.

Live powerfully,

Steve

If you need more information or guidance from my experience, please contact me by email. I have limited availability for consultation. If you have questions or comments for other readers, please leave them in the comment section of this post.

 

 

Collins, Jim. Great By Choice (2011)

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

Pumpkin Eggnog Butter Coffee

Horizons ripen to gold and burgundy as summer breathes its last breath. In this regal setting mornings and evenings lengthen. The hottest part of the day is squeezed down to a short hour. The cooling air makes dogs lift their heads higher. New scents drift past and the year turns a page.

I get this revived feeling of adventure in the autumn. It’s a time of preparation, planning for the cold ahead. A reality check after summer’s dreamy heat. It’s easier to work hard when it’s no longer so hot. There’s lots of possibility in the atmosphere. Lots of planning to close the year, and excitement to start a new one.

I’m going to try something new with my butter coffee recipe. It’s fall and there’s a big fat craze over Starbucks’ pumpkin spice latte. It’s a tasty treat for sure. I remember cold days in college that were warmed up by this beverage. Full credit to Starbucks for the feels, but not for the nutritional value.

Let me show you how to make it for the autumn morning: a drink that’s fat burning, high focus and high energy, and gives you that cozy feeling of leaves turning red.

I need to give you a disclaimer first: I haven’t tried it yet. The only reason is I need to do a bit of shopping for some ingredients. I know, this is different. I never throw things your way that I haven’t tried and loved first.

However, based on my experience with, and research into, all of these ingredients, I am certain they won’t fudge my morning dietary values –  focus and long lasting energy. Here goes.

Pumpkin eggnog butter coffee: the no sugar morning fat burner beverage for fall.

Ingredients

Recipe

  1. Boil two cups clean water
  2. While water is boiling, add these to a large blender:
  • Kerrygold butter
  • MCT oil
  • Eggs
  • pumpkin flavor extract
  • nutmeg
  • cinnamon
  • xylitol
  1. Water should be hot now. Brew coffee into the blender. If using a French press, pour coffee into blender when ready.
  2. Secure lid on blender, hold down the top with a towel, and blend on highest setting for 20 seconds. Pour out a little at a time between mugs to evenly distribute foam. If you want to share, that is.

The Power of this Beverage

Regular butter coffee, briefly:

  • No sugar means no major insulin response in the morning. Leaves your energy and focus high, making you ready to kick the day in the butt (tiny amount of carbs in xylitol shouldn’t cause insulin response).
  • Good fats from grass fed cows and coconut derived MCT oil give you healthy building blocks and super clean fuel.
  • Clean coffee gives you jitter-free alertness and creativity

Egg Yolks

  • CLA – good fat
  • Vitamins
  • The protein in the yolks will trigger an insulin response, although not nearly as much as sugar or carbs. Test for optimal focus. If you don’t need a killer morning, don’t worry about this.

Nutmeg

  • manganese – helps blood clotting, Ca absorption, blood sugar regulation, and formation of tissue, bone, sex hormones
  • copper
  • magnesium
  • multiple antioxidants and essential oils
  • potassium
  • zinc
  • iron
  • B vitamins
  • Vitamin A and C

Butter coffee is no joke. Use it wisely. Don’t eat too much food while drinking it. You’ll get too full and ruin the effect of razor focus. Some of you may want to eat a little bit. Try eggs, bacon, avocado. Adjust to your needs.

You can have it all at once while reading or journaling in the morning. Or you can sip it over a couple of hours at work. Do what suits you best. The brain fuel should hit in the first few minutes.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

Mercola, Joseph 2016. http://foodfacts.mercola.com/nutmeg.html

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 I link to tools that I have used, found meaningful, and that I believe could benefit my brilliant readers.

Thermos 24 oz. Three Year Review

Brilliant Friends,

This is a three year review of something I really enjoy. I bought this Thermos in 2013.

I have never used it for cold drinks. Only hot. I make coffee blended with butter, MCT oil, and an assortment of powders. This is primarily the drink I keep in it. Other than that, hot coffee.

I wash by hand with a dish soap and vinegar mix, no problem with paint. However, for about six months I used a dishwashing machine with a cheap packet detergent that caused the paint on the bottle to peel. It would come off on my hand as I used it, in little flecks. The product use instructions say not to use cleaner with bleach in it. I think this was my problem. I used a clorox or bleach type dishwasher soap, and when I did the paint was peeling.

The bottle still keeps drinks hot and insulates just as well as the first day I bought it. I sometimes make coffee, pour into bottle and seal, and find it piping hot four hours later.

Damages: The metal part of the body has two deformations. First on the rim. You can see from the photo that it is flattened a bit where I dropped it once while cleaning. The lid still screws on fine and does not leak since the rubber gasket fits lower in the mouth. Second on the outer, upper edge near the front. Not sure when that happened, see below.

The rubber parts are still in tact and functional. The top sealant piece has absolutely no problems. The small, spring-action hinge comes out from its hook every once in a while. I would estimate about once every two months. It’s a simple fix. I place a fingertip on either side of the loose part of the ring, and press into the edge of the cap where the rectilinear hook is located. The ring fits back into place and stays. The cap, with it’s one-hand flip function, still works perfectly. Maybe a fraction of a second slower than brand new. The simple, occasional fix is well worth the longevity of this bottle. Even without the rubber ring secured, I can still open and close fine if it happens in the car and I can’t use both hands to fix it in the moment.

The brand logo has completely worn off. This happened within the last year, and I’m not sure why. Looks kinda cool.

General usage: For two and a half years, I took this to work daily on my commutes. Fits into my Civic cup holder, it’s quite tall but great for easy grabbing. After I quit, I took it with me on a backpacking trip through southeast Asia for three months. I kept it in the top or side of my 48L Osprey pack, both on ground and in flights. I checked my bag in every time, using an airport transporter bag also by Osprey. The damage to the body may have come from these episodes, but I doubt it.

Specific usage: I first used the Thermos in the car while driving. I would pop the lid with one hand and drink while steering with the other. It is pretty heavy, maybe three pounds when full, so I didn’t drink on turns or in complicated traffic. Drink responsibly, right? About two years later, I used it primarily in the office and at home with a mug on the side. So I unscrewed the cap, poured into a mug, and drank from the mug. Meaning I haven’t used the cap for the full three years, just so you know.

Size: It’s a great size for the amount it holds. Fully three cups of coffee. Magnificent.

Handling: It can be quite thick and heavy for a one-handed grip. More like holding a football than a cup. Again, I would guess it weighs about three pounds when full. Get used to the balance, though, and even the daintiest user can be ready to rock and roll.

Style: It’s a sleek, black cylinder. Batman could be carrying this around Gotham without missing a beat. I can’t complain. The only thing I would caution about is in airports and high tension places, like Los Angeles freeways, and especially when you travel overseas. It can look like a weapon, no joke. Be careful when you bust it out to suddenly take a swig, that you aren’t doing it in front of an officer or in a threatening way. I can see how this could lead to alarm. However, I have not had any real issues. Just one funny look from a driver in Los Angeles one time when I lifted it up for a drink.

If you are looking for a lighter alternative, I would suggest the Zojirushi 12 oz. bottle. I also traveled with that, for my wife. Lighter, much easier to hold, just as functional and durable. Keep an eye out for that review.

Thanks for reading and leave a comment if you want to add.

Live powerfully,

Steve

Thermos Stainless King 24 Ounce Drink Bottle, Midnight Blue

Amazon Affiliate Links

Note: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

I link to tools that I have used, found meaningful, and that I believe could benefit my brilliant readers.

Eat Powerfully

My wife and I met with an old friend (by “old” I mean elementary school days) in Hayward for brunch the other day. It was past one in the afternoon and neither of us had eaten. We were all eager to get something to eat, but not suffering from hunger.

In passing, we brought up the fact that both of us often train on empty stomachs. For both of us, it was common that a good workout happened without food for several hours. When I say good workout, I mean a focused, energy-steady, and positivity-surging session of training.

I mentioned to my friend that without eating, I am able to maintain steady focus and get a lot of work done. As long as I have a task at hand, I feel just fine. If I have nothing to do, though, it’s common that I get hungry sooner in the day. He agreed, saying he thought it was the distraction from food that enabled us to drive forward without it.

I don’t think it’s necessary to gloat over the fact that I can go through the day without food. I’m not an ascetic, I eat a lot, especially at night, and I love love love food. But I think it’s important to see what’s going on with each of our own selves in the realm of hunger, satiety, productivity, focus, and overall effectiveness and quality of life.

If we can master the knowledge of our needs and our natural ebbs and flows of energy, we can position ourselves to be effective at the time we are needed and rest ourselves when we are not. We can consume our resources when they are most effective to our minds and bodies, and we can set them aside when they’ll have little to do with the outcomes of life.

I speak to the short and long term for myself in terms of food and eating. On a short term, day to day basis, I’ve reduced my eating to twice a day. I have butter coffee in the morning, and a large dinner at night. As for the long term, I’ve been living with this eating schedule for the past four years without any sign of energy deficit, malnutrition, or chronic illness.

The only significant break from this has been my three and half month long travel this year. There have been differences while I was overseas and backpacking. I’ll get more into this in another post. I want to focus on long term pattern and effects here.

People have asked me if I don’t get stomach problems from eating so much at night. In fact, I’ve never felt better since having fats in the morning and eating all of my food at night. My stool is regular, my energy is regular and full, and my body is well-toned and responsive. As long as I follow this well-fitted pattern of eating and nutrition.

The truth is, I’ve always had digestive issues. Since I was a teenager, I’ve had bad gas and upset stomach much of the time. I remember so many nights out with friends, during deep talks, where I was just dying from the struggle to hold in my farts.

Looking back, and with my present knowledge and experience, most of this had to do with what I ate. So much wheat in the form of bread, pasta, and sweets, bad fats, and milk were among the culprits. I had energy when I did, and I forced energy when I had none. I was often exhausted at night and in the morning.

This unnatural living created a deficit that continues to suck energy from me today. I’ve found the gaping holes and leaks and stopped the flooding, but I’m still getting leaks of energy here and there. Enough with the analogy.

At thirty years, I’m at a sort of turning point. I know what’s good for me. I’ve discovered it. During my mid to late twenties, I went to all ends to capitalize on it. I did everything I could, within my means, to make myself better. I had to with the circumstances I was in, but I also wanted to.

Now I’m at the tail end of this stage of awe at what has been discovered. Many, many other people, including you, have also found out that we’ve been in a matrix version of the truth about nutrition and eating. And you’ve also come to navigate your way through the webs of lies spun around us. Something was not working but everyone was trying to ignore the skips in the beat. The glitches.

The thing about our world, as opposed to that of the Matrix, is that even though we’ve been out in the cold, hard reality, and have found how to light the fire and thrive, the webs continue to spin around us. Just go to the nearest “health foods” or “farmer’s market” store and see how many gluten-free and paleo products line the shelves. They’ve simply taken the spotlight from cereals, which are still the next aisle over, and they’ve become the new idea of healthy eating.

The matrix of this world continues to expand. We’ve definitely torn away the webs at the fringes and made our way out, but it’s more like Harry Potter’s Triwizard Tournament hedge maze. It keeps growing, changing directions, and trying to engulf us.

What to do? Remember that the prize lies within you. I have to keep the focus on me. I have to remember, day to day, and year to year, that the ultimate goal with eating, food, and wellness is my own self. The closer I can get to fulfilling the center of me, the further I stay from the web of the food matrix.

Yes, there is truly good stuff out there. You can find good food. Clean veggies. Happy meat. People who give a damn, who want you to share in the wellness of their products. People who do the high level research to find more of the truth to share with us.

We’ll find it, we’ll invest in it, it will grow, and truth and goodness and thriving will overcome the lies and suffering. We’ll keep guiding each other, and the universe will fill in the gaps.

The key is to stay true to yourself. Seriously, that’s all.

Live powerfully, eat powerfully,

Steve

P.S., a big thanks to my friend for coming out and sharing deep thoughts. If you read this, you know who you are.

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily

How To Keep Butter Coffee Hot

The best butter coffee is hot, creamy, and well blended.

NL 121 Butter Coffee The Brilliant Beast Blog.JPG

To make it hot, you have to blend it when hot. Hot coffee will emulsify better with butter. So it has to be steaming from start to finish. It just won’t turn out well if the coffee cools down by the time you blend in the butter. The key is timing.

I had the chance to cruise up to San Francisco the other day. Sun was shining, the air was crisp, and Gary Vaynerchuk was hammering home some life lessons through the speakers. Best of all, the butter coffee we sipped was creamy, hot, and reviving.

Way back, my first few tries at butter coffee didn’t turn out so well. I was adding all of my ingredients after I brewed the coffee. I had to cut butter, scoop powders, and measure out the MCT oil. Sometimes I would forget the night before to take out a new stick of butter from the freezer to defrost. That meant I had to wait for it to soften up enough to cut.

By the time I was ready to blend, the coffee had cooled quite a bit. I didn’t get nice and hot, smooth butter coffee. It became a lava lamp after a few minutes. Not tasty.

Eventually, I turned the process around. I got all the ingredients into the blender before brewing the coffee. Even better, I took care of the ingredients while the water was boiling. It made all the difference.

When I was done putting in the chocolate powder, vanilla bean, MCT oil, and grass fed butter, the water was hot and ready for brewing. And once the coffee was brewed, I got straight to the blending. It came out steaming, foamy, and satisfying every time.

Pour Over

I use a Hario dripper for pour over brewing. I set the filter cup on top of the opening in my blender lid, so the coffee drips down right into the ingredients. It’s a good way to melt and dissolve everything too. You can go through these detailed steps on brewing butter coffee.

French Press

Using the French press is a little trickier. If it takes a while for you to add all your ingredients, you may want to heat water and brew at the after it’s all ready. I found it was possible to start the water, start adding the ingredients, and then add the hot water to the French press when it was boiled. The last four to five minutes of brewing time were enough to finish up the ingredients.

Coffee Maker

If you’re using a coffee maker, it’s still better to get the ingredients into the blender while it’s brewing. You’ll have enough time before the coffee’s ready, and then pour the brewed coffee into the ingredients to blend.

Whichever way, figure out how to keep your process hot and concise. Cruise through your city with nothing but the best, creamiest, most satisfying butter coffee in your mug. Let me know if you try one of these or another method, and how it goes.

Live powerfully,

Steve

The Brilliant Beast Blog Daily