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

Fat for man

Most of us just don’t know how to eat fat anymore because we don’t practice it. Eating fat is a basic human act that makes a human healthy. It is satiating and nourishing. It gives energy to act. It replenishes building blocks of the body’s cells. It encourages the body to use fat as energy. This includes the brain.

When you eat fat, there is a feeling of satisfaction, pleasure, and rightness that is different from eating carbohydrates or dry protein. Protein is dry when there isn’t much fat on it. Fat triggers something different in the body, a feeling of abundance and satiety that puts a man at ease. And then, unlike the effect of swallowing a large amount of simpler carbohydrates, the general good feeling is sustained. Energy remains high. The mind is still clear.

Eating fat, though, can be difficult to figure out if you have been avoiding it according to conventional (last fifty or so years) dietary guidelines. This is most notably the food pyramid endorsed by our U.S. government. Fat is the very tip top of that pyramid, a hilariously small corner shared with sugar. When I followed that pyramid, I ate the equivalent of half a loaf of whole wheat bread, two skinless chicken breasts, two salads, and a bowl of whole wheat pasta per day. Because I would still be hungry at night, I usually also had two or three bowls of ice cream, pie, or other dessert after dinner.

I loved to cook, so don’t get me wrong, I would fix up some gourmet meals with these basic “macros” (I cringe at this word). What is the hunger though that persists after all this food? It’s probably a deficit in nutrition. What could I be missing? Well, what did I lunge for but sweet, fatty foods like ice cream? I was craving fat, and when you buy fatty desserts at a store, they’re usually saturated with sugar.

Fat has more calories by mass than other foods. So you’ll see that adding some butter to your rice or stew or veggies will make you fuller. Eating good quality meat with all of the fat will bring you more satiety than will chopping off and discarding the fat. So the amount of food, the actual bulk, that you eat may be reduced eventually. Don’t worry that you aren’t getting enough food to fuel the demands of your exercise, work, and other duties. Go by feel. Don’t waste food. Start small, adding fat like coconut oil, avocados, grass fed butter, and beef, pork, and fish fat to your usual meals. Or go big and learn the hard way like I did, that I no longer needed as much food when more of it was fat.

You can eat at more convenient times of the day, too, with more fat in your diet. After a time of eating breakfasts with more fat and less carbohydrates, you might find that you have better focus and more energy. The morning is a great time to have fat blended in coffee or tea, as fat does not trigger a large insulin response like carbs and protein do. The insulin response is what causes fuzziness. Eating fat in the morning is a great way to have food without breaking energy.

Eventually, you might feel fine without a solid breakfast, or any food for that matter. Just as mornings are quiet in nature, your belly and digestive system can also be quiet. Just hold off on eating for a few hours, maybe until lunch, and you’ll see that avoiding the sugar, carbs, low quality protein, and the vegetable oils in most “break-fast” items will open up a wellspring of energy in the morning. Work hard if you do find the focus, and eat when you need to eat. This is the true breaking of the fast.

Recognize the body’s need for fat. There’s a reason it tastes so good, feels so awesome, and makes you healthier. We came into existence as a species with fat as a food. Our giant brains are made mostly of fat. When you’re hungry, tired, achy, dry, grouchy, moody, and in a slump, stop from eating candy, snacks, and desserts. Hit up that grass fed butter. Eat real food and let good fat be a substantial portion of it. If you finish dinner and are still looking for snacks, think about how much fat was in that dinner. Find more.

Live powerfully.

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.

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

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

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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

No More Protein Shakes: How to Eat Like a Human and Still Be Strong

My Brilliant Friends,

Last March I hit a squat of 370 lb. and a deadlift of 391 lb. without protein shakes. That’s a squat of 2.2x my body weight of 168 lb. That may seem like a lot, but I’m a normal guy and I just learned to do a few things right.

My strength results came after a year of effective eating paired with progression strength training. I was able to take the 5×5 powerlifting system much further than most people, because I adopted an unusual nutritional philosophy. If your primary focus is getting strong and lean, you don’t have to go the route of whey protein and chicken breast. Also, the prescription of six meals a day is overkill.

In fact, I ate less food and skipped the protein shakes for a 65 lb. increase in my squat. I did two things with food that changed everything: I started the day with healthy fats, and ate carbs at night. These simple adjustments took my strength to a new level. It wasn’t easy to change my habits, but the results came fast.

Effective Eating

By changing when I ate certain foods, I effected greater focus and strength output during training sessions and physical activities. My energy level multiplied, and my strength surpassed my expectations.

Carbohydrates at Night

This sounds crazy to some of you, because most people say that carbs at night make you fat. That’s conventional wisdom. Here’s my secret: I usually only eat carbs at night, and never in the morning. Why?

Think of your energy on a scale of zero to five, five being razor-focused and kicking ass, zero being non-functional and getting your ass kicked. Then think of your hunger on a scale of zero to five, zero being starved and five being completely satiated. My perceived energy and hunger levels after eating carbs for breakfast:

With the effects shown above, it didn’t make sense for me to eat carbs first thing in the morning. I may have felt lively as I was eating, but by the time I was ready to get work done my focus was crashing. Soon after that my stomach would grumble, and then I would get moody and just want people out of my way so I could hurry up and eat again. It didn’t work for me.

The same was true for strength training. I would get an energy crash just as I got to the gym, and it sucked. Suddenly the motivation I was feeling an hour before disappeared, and I would have a sober time getting warmed up and lifting. I would be tired during my training session and unfocused, and this often led to small injuries from bad form and overworking myself.

So if I didn’t eat carbs in the morning, what did I eat?

Fat in the Morning

Two years ago, my gym buddy introduced me to BULLETPROOF® Coffee. It’s a strange recipe consisting of grass fed butter, MCT oil, and coffee, from the Silicon Valley biohacker named Dave Asprey, at The Bulletproof Executive. From the first time I drank this butter coffee concoction in the mornings, I met incredible results: my energy level shot through the roof, it was sustained throughout the day without any other food, and I was rock-steady focused.

Using the same scale of zero to five from our carb-heavy breakfast graph, here are my perceived energy and hunger levels on nothing but good fats in the morning:

I found that I could go eight to twelve hour days without lunch. And I was not crawling, either. I managed staff of a busy call center, I was reading, writing, and meditating, and I took pride in doing these things with focus and attention.

So I flipped my eating. I had carbs only toward the end of the day, and only good fats in the morning. This gave me access to unparalleled energy from morning to night, and allowed me to restore my need for energy without interfering with activities during the day. For dinner, I went all out. I ate multiple servings of rice if I felt the hunger, and I had fruits and desserts. Then, I would relax and go to bed feeling good. The best part was, in the morning, I was not fat.

Sure, this is my own perception of energy and hunger. There are obviously a lot of complex things going on with hormones, catabolism and anabolism, and I’m not going to say that I have measured or understand all of those mechanisms. I do know that fat works better for me than carbs by orders of magnitude in the morning.

That’s it. These are my two most effective principles of food timing, around which all other eating falls into place. Carbs at night, fats in the morning.

Starting with Fat for Strength Training

The most amazing thing was that starting with fat was optimal for strength training too. I was scared at first that I would faint during my training because I wasn’t eating any carbohydrates. When you have 200 lb. on your back you don’t want to lose consciousness. But guess what? Not only did I stay conscious, I was more focused and had more power output than if I had eaten carbs. A quick list of benefits of training with fat as fuel:

No heavy “digestion” slump that is typical after eating carbs, so I’m able to start my first exercise as quickly as 15 to 30 minutes after having butter coffee.
Absolutely razor focused during sessions. Able to control every minutiae of form at the bottom of the heaviest squats.
More presence and control during exercises means less fear with peak weights on my back.
Far less of crazy “beast mode” and just blindly tearing through exercises.
No injuries from squatting 3x per week for 30+ weeks on the 5×5 progression strength training program.

Here’s what a training day looks like for me:

Normally I have two cups of butter coffee first thing in the morning.
Before training sessions, I add a tablespoon of collagen powder to my coffee along with the butter and MCT oil. This gives my body the building blocks for joint and connective tissue repair.
When I don’t train, I omit the collagen, since it makes me hungry within about four hours. On training days, since I was going to eat after my session anyway, hunger was okay.
I usually read, write, meditate, stool, and then hit the gym about an hour or two after finishing my coffee.
After training, I usually eat white rice mixed with grass fed butter, meat, and dark green veggies like kale, broccoli, or spinach. This is usually leftovers from the night before. If I don’t have any leftovers I make eggs and bacon.

Observe your energy and focus levels in the morning. Do you eat breakfast, and if so, what does that look like? Note how long it takes for you to start to feel hungry. Pay attention to these two factors at lunch time. Did you train or exercise one or two days before? Take note of these baseline factors and your levels of energy and hunger. Then try adding good fats to your morning, and take note of any differences.

Brilliantly Effective Foods

Now for the actual foods that worked the greatest wonders for me: meat and fats from grass fed or wild animals, leafy veggies, rice, and more. Let’s start with the healthy fats.

Butter Coffee

I discovered the power of fat in my diet soon after that fateful day that my training buddy suggested I try Bulletproof Coffee. This drink serves as an amazing energy source from fats, and is unparalleled as fuel for a strength training session. See my butter coffee recipe for amazing taste and texture tips. From the Bulletproof Executive website I started my journey of learning that fats give me more energy for longer periods of time than carbs. I started by having a small cup of butter coffee with my breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and avocado, and eventually found that the beverage alone gave me enough energy for my training sessions.

Quick breakdown of butter coffee as the ultimate natural fuel:

The grass fed butter provides vitamins, saturated fats, Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats, and Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA). It is very filling too.
Medium chain triglyceride (MCT) oil consists of C-8 and C-10 fatty acids that pass easily from the gut to the brain and rest of the body for quickly usable energy in the form of ketones.
The coffee, of course, has flavonoids and antioxidants that enhance focus and drive during training and intense mental activities.

This drink is clean-burning rocket fuel that gives me maximal focus, endurance, and strength output. For my recipe and links to get ingredients for yourself, see my post on how to Hack Your Butter Coffee.

Save Money on Ineffective Lunches

Having my coffee blended with grass fed butter every morning makes sense micro-economically. I eat no breakfast other than butter coffee. This saves me time on food prep and cleaning (blender, table knife, and measuring spoons). Because it’s so filling, I don’t eat lunch, unless I trained the day before.

Looking at a very low end of $10 per restaurant lunch in Los Angeles, that is saving me more than $40 per week. This alone makes up for the weekly cost of my butter coffee, which for me includes 1.5 cups of grass fed butter per week (less than $5), 10 tbps. of Brain Octane oil ($5.49), and 30 g of coffee ($0.54) as a baseline. I do add other elements to enhance flavor and performance, so I’m spending about $11 a week. Not taking dinner into account, and excluding the cost of breakfast that I no longer eat, I am 3-4 times more food-cost-efficient from morning to evening than I used to be. Take my previous cost of breakfast, which usually consisted of two to three eggs, bacon, and toast, I am at least 5x more food cost-efficient than I was three years ago.

This isn’t to say you’ll be able to go a whole day with just butter coffee from day one, two, three, or even day seven. It took a few weeks for me to get to a state of metabolism where I could effectively use fat alone for energy. You may need to try it a few times and see how it works for you, in addition to your regular meals. I eventually got more accustomed to the calorie profile of fats and need less food for the same amount of energy. I suggest adding it to what you already do, and adjust as you go.

The usual exception to no lunches is after strength training sessions or some physical activity the day before. For the next day, and sometimes two days later, I feel hungry midday. If I want to make time for lunch on these days I might have a salad with some wild salmon and sweet potatoes, with dressing made from MCT oil and vinegar. If I don’t eat lunch, it takes about a day longer for me to recover from training. However, my focus isn’t affected during the day.

Kill 1 p.m. Meetings and End the Day on Fire

Not only am I more efficient, I am more effective. Having butter coffee in the morning without carbs gives me razor focus that is sustained for hours and hours. I can focus on tasks and interact effectively with people as late as 10 or 11 p.m. I’m definitely not 100% at the end of the day, but I’m rarely “hangry”, moody, or in any sort of an energy crisis.

I feel great from the start of my morning through lunch hour, when most people need to go get something to eat. It saves me time, energy, and attention when I can continue on with a task and not have to stand in line for a $15 sandwich and soda. I also don’t have a post-lunch crash, because I just don’t have lunch. While others are nodding off during one o’clock meetings, I’m driven and focused.

Yes, I do have some crazy days when I am up early in the morning, skip lunch even though I trained the day before, and don’t eat dinner until 11 or 12 p.m. It doesn’t make me the happiest human on earth, but I can operate just fine. I can do this effectively because of the good fats that I eat to start my day, and butter coffee is the perfect vehicle for this nutrition.

Grass Fed Butter

I use Kerrygold grass fed butter in just about everything I eat. It makes up the bulk of my morning energy source in butter coffee. Butter is also great when melted into almost anything, especially rice. I like to do the classic slab of butter on top of steak, and it’s also great when melted onto steamed or sauteed veggies. Broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, bok choy, spinach, collard greens, you name it, I’ve tried grass fed butter with all of them and they pass my “Damn, that’s good” taste test.

Cooking with grass fed butter:

I use butter for cooking everything from eggs to beef stew to fish to chicken curry. It’s a little more delicate than regular grain fed butter, and smokes at a lower temperature.

Melt it at a very low temperature, not enough to fizzle into a brown mess.
If you need to cook at slightly higher temperatures for larger meat chunks or to get that grilled effect, first heat coconut oil, pork, or beef fat, then add the butter on top. This blends the smoking points of the two fats and you get a higher smoking point from the butter than you normally would by itself.
When possible, it’s better to steam food like rice or veggies first, then add butter later to melt.
Add spices like garlic, shallots, or jalapeno to the butter and let brown a bit before adding meat or veggies. Gives depth to your dish.

Grass Fed Ground Beef

Some of the long term benefits I am seeing from eating grass fed beef:

Fuller recovery after training
Better sleep
Improved mood
More flexible joints and muscles
Better skin, hair and nails
No smelly burps or room-filling gas that come with normal grain fed beef

Ground beef is the most practical form for cooking:

Break it up in butter in a large saucepan and add broccoli, kale, or other veggie
Form into meatballs with cumin, chipotle, minced onion.
Make into a sauce for rice pasta dishes

My trusted source of grass fed beef is Alderspring Ranch in Idaho.

Wild Caught Fish

Best alternative to grass fed beef, full of vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats. My favorite fish:

Salmon
Cod
Red Snapper
Pike mackerel
Sardines (most are wild caught!)

Easy and fast to cook:

In a pan, low heat, with grass fed butter
In a spicy soup base
Baked, seasoned with plenty of sea salt, maybe some dill

I get Alaskan Wild By Nature Copper River sockeye salmon, who are partnered with Alderspring Ranch.

Dark Green Leafy Veggies

These are super healthy and make me feel great the next morning. My favorites:

Spinach
Kale
Chinese Broccoli
Broccoli
Brussel Sprouts
Bok Choi

I have found these to be simple to cook and the easiest to find at farmer markets. It’s hard to go wrong with them if you use a few simple rules:

Minimal cooking
Proper flavoring
Variation

Minimal Cooking

Most green leafy veggies don’t need much heat to be edible. You can sauté kale slightly in butter over low heat for just a couple of minutes, and cover to steam for another minute or two, and it’s done. You want it to still be green and fresh looking when you eat it. The trick with veggies that have thick stems and delicate leaves is to start cooking the stems and add the leafy parts later.

Flavoring Veggies

Super easy with combinations of herbs, spices, and acids. For European and American-style dishes try:

Lemon or apple cider vinegar
Black pepper
Cumin
Chipotle
Jalapeno

For Asian-style dishes try:

Soy sauce
Rice wine vinegar
Sake
Green onion
White pepper
Sesame oil
Shiitake

Most of these veggies go supremely well with ground beef. I usually start with the beef, adding the veggies while the beef is still a bit pink to avoid overcooking it. Salt it to taste, don’t be afraid of salt. Spinach can be blanched, rinsed, and mixed with soy sauce, sesame oil, and green onions for an amazing dish that is popular with Koreans. Try it with rice and fish.

Vary what you eat day to day

Of course, you will eventually find the few things that make the most sense to you and taste the best. This makes it easy to rotate recipes so you don’t get sick of any one food.

Soft-Boiled Eggs

Boiled eggs, what a lost art. Having a stock of soft-boiled eggs is great for quick meals. The secret is to use a steamer. If you do it in this order exactly, I promise you the eggs will be delicious.

Set up a steamer in a large pot. Add water to just below the bottom of the steamer.
Get the water boiling.
Set a timer for 7 minutes for liquid yolk, 8 minutes for firm but golden yolk.
Add as many eggs as reasonably fits without stacking (try stacking them, why not).
Start timer.
When timer goes off, turn off heat.
Fill pot with cold water, drain. Don’t worry, the eggs won’t crack. The miracle of natural architecture.
Repeat. The second time, leave the eggs for a few minutes to cool down.

Rice

White rice mixed with some brown and black rice cooked in a steamer is my main source of carbohydrates at night. I love melting in grass fed butter after cooking the rice and mixing it together. It’s a great way to get more healthy fat and it tastes amazing. Rice is clean-burning fuel for me, doesn’t have any gluten and other harmful proteins found in wheat, and is always my go to.

I usually cook a bunch, store what I don’t eat in tupperware, and reheat over the stove with a little water in the pot when I need it. Simple, delicious, and effective.

Japanese Sweet Potatoes

Second to rice, I’ve found that Japanese sweet potatoes are an awesome source of easily digestible carbs. I don’t get food coma after eating these, even if it’s midday. Steam a few for 20-30 minutes, until super soft, and eat them when they’re cooled to room temperature. I eat the peel and all. Store leftovers in the fridge after cooling.

Supplements

My supplementation is based on the BULLETPROOF DIET™ created by Dave Asprey and this supplements page. These are the things I take daily.

Vitamin D

1000 IU per 25 lb. body weight, which means 7000 IU for me in the morning. If I know I’m going to be outdoors I take less. Genetic function, calcium distribution, hormone formation.

Vitamin C

6000 mg daily. Antioxidant, supports immune function. I take more if I feel an infection coming on.

Vitamin K2

2,000 mcg daily for calcium distribution to bones and away from arteries.

Methyl B12

5000 mcg daily for brain cell and nerve tissue repair and support in conjunction with methyl folate.

Methyl Folate

800 mcg daily for cardiovascular function and neurological health in conjunction with B12.

Magnesium

600 mg nightly for relaxation, enzyme function, muscle function, and calcium balance.

Iodine (Kelp)

1000 mg nightly for thyroid function, immune function, brain protection.

Avoid Non-Effective Foods

Yes, we all have splurges every once in a while. But for a routine diet, when the aim is to focus, maintain good mood, create a healthy body, and gain strength, some foods are not effective for me. Here are the foods I avoid and why:

Wheat, bread and pasta

Joint pain, brain fog and headache, energy crash, lowered immune system function.

Sugar

Energy crash, cavities, feeds “bad” gut bacteria, organs don’t feel good.

Dairy

Acne, gas, brain fog.

Vegetable Oils

Oxidation, inflammation, and fat gain. Canola, seed oils, even olive oil can be harmful if cooked.

Damaged fats

From overcooking or reuse for deep-frying: Similar to vegetable oils.

A lot of these are my kryptonite. They are tempting and addictive, especially when I’m stressed and tired and don’t have good food prepared. I have “relapses”, when I splurge on bread or sweets or fried foods. The results are always the same, and I eat knowing the consequences.

The best way for me to avoid non-effective foods is to stock up on good foods, have a solid routine for meal prep, and embrace the benefits of effective eating. This only starts with one good food or eating habit at a time, so start with small, effective steps. Observe your results, and keep using the stuff that works.

To powerful living,

Steve

An Introduction

Deadlift391 — Getting a down signal from the ref at the 2014 USPA National Championships in Irvine, California. I pulled a 391 lb. dead lift at 168 lb. body weight. Started the day with 2 cups of butter coffee.

Many have delved into the world of body building, and have experienced shortcomings from pain, exhaustion, and mental fatigue.

To the select few who realize this is not acceptable, I welcome you to join me in being strong, clear minded, and living a life of quality.

My story began with a change in the way I looked at training and exercise. I played football and rugby through high school and college, and was ripped, athletic, and fast most of my life. I had done the workouts for team sports, the men’s magazine lifting programs, and was a dedicated gym rat with a three day a week work out schedule. I looked good and was happy with that for a while, but later this didn’t satisfy me. I was tired of feeling sore, feeling aches from previous sports injuries, and not really knowing if I was any stronger than a week or month prior. I also had a hard time keeping on muscle. If I didn’t go to the gym every other day, I would see pounds of weight drop and strength decline. I tried changing sets and reps and exercise programs to keep my body guessing, as this was supposed to encourage growth. This was a lot to maintain and I had a hard time doing so.

I started looking for a training program that focused on real strength. This led me to powerlifting and a progression philosophy. I adopted a 5×5 training method from Stronglifts.com that focused on incremental strength gains, not drastic program switches. The five powerlifting exercises remained exactly the same, and only the weight increased with each and every training session. I started from the very beginning, lifting only the bar on some exercises.

I not only felt better from the decreased stress on my body, but I also saw a steady increase in my strength. Lifting lighter weights gave me the luxury of refining my form in the squat, deadlift, and other exercises. I achieved a 370 lb. squat and 391 lb. dead lift after one year of training this way, at 168 lb. body weight. However, the training wasn’t the only factor to my increased potential. Food was the other part of it. In fact, without the changes in my diet that I had serendipitously come upon shortly after starting this training, I would not have progressed to this level so quickly if at all.

Three months into my training, I met a buddy at the gym who just so happened to have started the same training philosophy as I had, at almost the same time. We talked about our common satisfaction with the progression training, and about putting ego aside to learn proper form at lower weights. At the end of that training session, he mentioned, almost in passing, something called BULLETPROOF® Coffee. It was coffee with grass fed butter and MCT oil blended together. This sounded strange to me, and I was instantly fascinated by the way he described the high level of focus he got from it. I went home and tried it, and never turned back.

With the first few cups of the butter coffee that I tried, I was amazed by the mental clarity and brain energy that it gave me. Plus it was delicious. It changed the game for me at my job, as an overnight shift lead at a call center. I was sharper and more resilient to fatigue than my coworkers by multiple factors. I had always been an avid coffee drinker and used coffee as a key technology for enhancing my training sessions and overall performance as a human. Naturally, I wanted to know what it would be like to do strength training after drinking some of this power fluid.

I started to drink the concoction before strength training sessions, and again I never turned back. The energy it gave me was different from that of traditional nutrition like carbs. Unlike carbs, the good fats provided me with a sustained high level of energy and mental focus. It lasted through the entire training session without any sort of energy crash. I was so focused that I could control myself better, like not drinking water between sets, breathing calmly under the bar, and paying absolute attention to form during my heaviest lifts. I was regularly in a flow state, and I tapped into the predator mode of mind and body that was only attainable with such nutrition as quality fat.

This was my intro to the world of eating good fat. I slowly added grass fed butter and MCT oil into everything I ate. This pushed carbs to the back end of my days, as I did not need it for energy in the morning. Eating more fat and learning the potential negative effects of gluten significantly reduced the amount of bread and pasta that I ate. I started to experience better and more stable mood, and more consistent body fat levels. My joint pain from previous injuries faded. I no longer had to pace my kitchen ten minutes after waking to shake off the debilitating lower back pain.

Being satiated with true nutrition freed me from cravings, mood swings, and exhaustion. Before I discovered good fats and progression training, I would work, work out, crash into exhausted sleep, and awake demon-possessed with rage, pain, and frustration. These states of misery used to be normal life for me. The people I loved hated waking me up. I believe what is stated by the research that connects wheat to inflammation, and thus joint pain and brain impairment. When I started to avoid wheat, I noticed these incredible improvements in my body and my mind. This transformed the way I looked at eating and I started to learn what foods I really did and didn’t need. I tested my diet changes against my strength training, and was surprised that even without tons of bread, expensive and gas-producing protein shakes, and pounds of chicken breast every week, I was getting stronger and clearer than ever.

With changes like these I felt the best and strongest I have ever felt in my life, and I plan on being even more so. You want just as much as I do to be clear minded and strong. You want to be the best person you can be, making the sharpest decisions and acting in accordance with your values. Intelligent and resilient people like you and me can daily engage our potential to become the brilliant beasts that we are. I welcome you to join me on this path to discovering what it means to be more fully human. I am not perfect, but I am better.

To powerful living,

Steve

Make Butter Coffee

My Brilliant Friends,

Have I told you about butter coffee? Creamy, smooth, and delicious, it gives me immense energy and focus. I first started having this concoction with breakfast, and found that it helped me in strength training. Eventually, I just had more butter with it and didn’t eat breakfast at all. I now go the entire day without any other meal, until dinner.

When I drink this concoction, I get mental clarity, sustained focus, and a predator state of mind and body that is unparalleled by energy from any other food. If I haven’t made it for you already, I’ll show you how so you can experience it for yourself.

At first, your body will need to learn to effectively absorb nutrition from fat. This takes several days to weeks for some people, especially if you are not in the habit of eating a lot of fat. Most self-described healthy eaters do not eat much fat. Keep your regular meals at first and just have this coffee with breakfast or an hour before training. You want to feel it out and do what works best for you.

Basic Butter Coffee Recipe

Ingredients

30-35 grams of coffee beans for two cups of single source coffee
Two tablespoons grass fed butter
One teaspoon high quality MCT oil

Method

Boil water (or start brewing if using the basic coffee machine)
Throw the butter and MCT oil into a large blender
Brew the coffee and add it to the blender
Hold down the top of the blender lid with a dish towel and blend on high for 20 seconds

That’s it.

Of course to make it even better, here are things to consider:

Get The Best Ingredients

The quality of your ingredients lends to the flavor, level of energy, and creativity you will get from your cup.

Single Source Coffee for Clarity

Single source coffee beans are grown, harvested, and processed on one estate or farm. All other beans, sometimes called blends, are mixtures of beans from two or more estates. Single source beans come without the added time of storage and transportation. Coffee is vulnerable to mycotoxins, which can cause headaches and jitters. Mycotoxins are inevitable, but through good practice and minimal exposure to the environment they can be suppressed. The less time from harvest to your cup the better. I didn’t know how much of a difference this would make until I gave single source coffee a try. I noticed significantly better results. Even when I was tired, I had calm mental clarity from it, not just a jittery buzz. No crash in energy, and no headache. Now I always look for coffee that lets me be even-keeled and fierce. There are two types I drink primarily, but you can find others if you look for them.

I found a great tasting single origin coffee in a local store. I really enjoyed the flavor of this light roast. It was from Alto Mayo Estate, a single coffee farm in a mountain region of Peru. The coffee smelled amazing, roasty and smooth. I had great results from this coffee every day, feeling clear minded, focused, and strong when I drank it. If you have a quality grocery store nearby, find a single source coffee with the roast intensity that you enjoy most.

The key to finding good coffee anywhere is to verify that it says “single origin”,”single source”, or”single estate”. I don’t pay attention to the phrases Fair Trade, Shade Grown, and Certified Organic. While they do hold social value, they also warrant a higher price tag. Whatever you choose to buy, drink it and test it yourself for absolutely positive symptoms. Do not assume it’s good based on the label or the price. The whole point is to find something that allows you to accomplish greatness.

With that being said, some blends may be okay if they are from the same roaster. If you know the beans are roasted at the same facility and are blended there, they may be as good as single source. But again, try the coffee and make sure it brings you mental clarity and sustained focus.

Grass Fed Butter: Nourish Your Soul, Body, and Mind

Grass fed cow butter is the key to creating the smooth frothiness of your concoction. It’s important that the butter is from grass fed cows. Cows that are 100% or almost completely fed on grass are healthier and happier beasts. Butter from such beasts makes me a happier beast. The ultra nutritious elements like healthy saturated fat, CLA, omega-3 fat, butyric acid, vitamin K2, vitamin E, and beta carotene are elevated in cows that eat grass only. There are two types I tried, and both are excellent.

KerryGoldSilver — Get Kerrygold Unsalted Butter

The most reliable brand that I get from Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods is Kerrygold Unsalted Butter. It’s an awesome Irish butter that comes in one-cup bars. If you don’t have a store nearby, you can get in online. It’s a little more than the store price, but it is worth it if you can’t get it anywhere else. I get a box of 20 at a time and stock them in my freezer.

My other go-to butter is harder to find on the west coast of the U.S., but it can be found in some other countries more easily. I love Anchor Unsalted Butter from New Zealand grass fed cows.

On a recent trip to Asia I was stoked to find Anchor butter from a Jakarta store. I had never used it before, but it was surprisingly good in my coffee. The subtle flavor and smooth texture pair well with the cacao and vanilla I use.

The Best Quality MCT Oil

MCT turns the light switch on in my head. Medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) are fatty acid chains of 8 and 10 carbons in length. C-8 and C-10 fats absorb through the gut into the bloodstream to the brain fast, where they can be utilized as energy in the form of ketones.

Ketones have been found in research to be more efficient brain fuel than glucose, and I feel the difference. When my brain has this fuel source, I have more clarity, better mental function, longer sustained focus, and no crash. It also brings my body into a fat-burning mode. This has been shown to help regulate body weight, and it’s certainly proven true for me. MCT oil is usually derived from coconut and palm kernel oil, and there can be a very slight coconut scent to it.

There are several different brands out there, and the quality of the MCT oil is determined by purification and processing. Purification affects the concentration of C-8 and C-10 versus other types of fat that are not MCT. Processing includes how the coconuts are stored and pressed, and where they are from.

My go-to bottle is BULLETPROOF® Upgraded Brain Octane Oil. It is the most concentrated version of MCT oil out there. It consists only of C-8 fatty acids.

Bulletproof Brain Octane Oil — BULLETPROOF® Brain Octane Oil

NOTE: This fuel is intense! I recommend using the regular MCT oil first. It will help to make a smoother transition to this different energy source.

Bulletproof XCT Oil I used to have this regularly in my coffee before I tried Brain Octane oil. It has both C-8 and C-10 fatty acids. This is a good starting point if you haven’t tried MCT oil. It isn’t as intense as Brain Octane, and I think it would be the best choice for learning the effects of MCT oil on yourself before venturing into the more intense version. Flavor is slightly more coconuty than the following Viva Labs oil that I also have used. This is a very clean product that I can rely on for top performance.

Viva Labs Non-GMO, Gluten Free MCT Coconut Oil, 32 fl oz A great quality MCT oil I’ve been using, with great results. Tastes clean, no bitterness, light coconut fragrance.

Coconut Oil

I have used high quality coconut oil before in my coffee, when I ran out of MCT oil. Coconut oil will add a lot of flavor, but in my opinion it’s overbearing. Also, it is not a sufficient substitute for MCT oil. There is only a very small percentage of C-8 and C-10 fats in coconut oil, contrary to common belief. The majority of advertised “MCT” oil here is C-12, which actually does not act like the shorter chains in energy utilization.

With that being said, if this is your only source of MCT, it will still provide you with some benefits of fat-based brain energy. And I’ve talked to some friends who really love it. Plus it’s delicious for cooking chicken curry dishes. Maybe I’ll post on that later. If you’re getting all of your MCT from coconut oil, use four tbsp or more. As a flavor or C-12 supplement, use one or two tbsp.

Flavor and Creativity

These next few ingredients are what make my butter coffee taste so good, compared to ones you find here and there in shops and cafes. I add these elements every time I make my concoctions, and have had the most amazing conversations with friends, breakthroughs in strength training, and mental performance after having it.

Vanilla

This is my favorite hack for butter coffee. Vanilla bean has amazing flavor and also has flavonoids that enhance creativity. I add this without fail to my coffee concoction every morning.

Check out the vanilla I use, which is from a Madagascar vanilla bean. It has an unforgettable fragrance and takes my mornings to the next level. I use about 1/4 of a teaspoon. Keep it sealed in the freezer for maximum flavor retention.
Kiva Vanilla Bean Powder, Gourmet Madagascar Bourbon (Pesticide-Free, RAW and Vegan), 3 Ounce

Cacao Butter

Second only to vanilla bean, cacao butter is another flavor and nutrient must-have for me. It’s the pure fat of cacao beans and this is what they use to make white chocolate. Cacao butter gives a rich, gourmet scent and flavor to the coffee. It has the concentrated elements of chocolate that enhance your creativity and brain power.

The one I use every morning is Terrasoul Superfoods Organic Cacao Butter, 1 Lb – Raw. It is made from cold-pressed Peruvian cacao beans.

Chocolate Powder

I add chocolate powder to my butter coffee to make it rich and dark. Good chocolate, like good coffee, has flavonoids and antioxidants that enhance brain and performance. Gauge the flavor, it can be rich and quite bitter. Start with about a teaspoon or less.

Viva Labs – The BEST Tasting Certified Organic Cacao Powder, 1 LB This is the pure cacao powder I’m using right now. Has a mellow profile without the bitterness of other pure chocolates.

Xylitol

My coffee has no sweetener, but my wife likes hers a bit sweet. This stuff of nature is the perfect solution if you want to be in ketosis yet want that rich sweetness in your coffee. This will not trigger your insulin response, unlike sugar. And it tastes naturally sweet, unlike stevia.

Xyla North American Hardwood Xylitol. The best type, pictured here, is made from North American birch trees. The cheaper brands are made from Chinese GMO corn. I recommend using one to two teaspoons per cup to start. It has about the same sweetness as regular cane sugar.

Building Blocks and Fuel

These ingredients can be added as needed for the different types of activities you do on any given day. Add these one at a time and observe whether you benefit from them.

Grass Fed Collagen

Collagen is one of the building block of your tendons, skin, and hair. It is needed for repair of tissue after training, and makes your skin more vibrant when you provide yourself with enough. Unlike whey protein, which caused gas and bloating, collagen has been problem-free for my digestion. For these reasons it is great for strength training, tissue repair, and skin and hair boost.

BULLETPROOF® Upgraded Collagen Protein Super fine-grade and from grass fed cows. It’s processed with enzymes rather than heat, which prevents damage of the proteins. I generally only add collagen on the day of, and up to three days after, a training session.

Collagen does make me hungry after about four hours, which causes a slight decrease in focus. This is because protein triggers an insulin response. With protein, you will get similar, but not as drastic, effects as when you eat carbs. After strength training, this isn’t a problem, since I will eat anyways. But on normal days without training, I forgo the protein in the morning.

My wife, on the other hand, has it every morning in her butter coffee. She simply feels better and more energetic with some protein. Use at least one tablespoon.

Creatine

I add a baseline dose of creatine every morning with my coffee. Without causing huge swelling of muscles, this simple nutrient has allowed me to maintain strength and muscle mass for longer periods of time between training sessions. It is one of the key supplements I use to increase longevity of strength. Creatine also boost brain function.

Now Foods creatine monohydrate This brand has been my go to for years. No side effects, suggesting it is clean and pure. Use 1 teaspoon or 5 grams daily.

METHODS TO MAKE MAGIC

I’m laying this recipe out for first time dabblers in butter coffee. The way you make your coffee will affect how it feels, tastes, and energizes. Even for more veteran practitioners, small hacks can give you a better concoction. To have delicious butter coffee it must be three things: Hot, well-brewed, and well-blended. How you set up the ingredients and the order in which you prepare it can be the difference between a floating oil slick and a creamy concoction of joy.

Prepare Water First

Start a kettle on the stove before anything else, as you will need time to prepare the other ingredients and want the water hot when you’re ready to brew. If you’re using a normal coffee maker, get it all set up with beans and start brewing. Use spring or well water for the best flavor. Water has as much flavor and texture as any other ingredient that goes into coffee. Make your coffee with tap water and you’ll taste the tap.

For the Pour Over technique, prepare about a quarter cup more water than the amount of coffee you plan to make.

Prepare Blender

As the water heats, get all your ingredients into the blender. You will need one that holds at least four cups or one liter, because the liquid will expand like crazy when you blend it. I use the KitchenAid blender, which is not the highest-end thing out there, but works just fine for this purpose:

KitchenAid Blender Tangerine — My faithful blender

Note: The stronger the blender, the finer the foam. You can get an incredibly smooth concoction with the VitaMix Blender.

Brew the Coffee Into the Blender

You can brew your coffee however you choose. If all you have is the classic coffee maker, just use that for now. My all time favorite method of coffee brewing is the Pour Over technique. Coffee tastes the best when I make it this way, but a close second is the French press, and honestly after that it’s just the normal coffee maker.

The Pour Over Technique

The pour over technique requires a kettle with a thin pouring spout, as well as a filter cup and filters. Here is how I brew pour over.

Gear:

Method:

Boil water in the dripper kettle and turn off heat.
Grind coffee beans to slightly finer than medium granularity. Any finer and it will take forever to brew and you will get too much acid. This is how fine you want your grounds for pour over brewing:You can use an electric grinder like the one I have above or a hand grinder if you want to have more evenly ground beans. This takes a lot more time and effort though.
Fold the crimped edge of a paper filter, open up the filter, and place into the ceramic cup.
Wet the filter paper by pouring just enough hot water along the edges of the cup. This gets rid of the flavor of the paper.
Dump the ground coffee into the filter paper.
Starting from the center of the cup, slowly pour water in an outward spiral until you cover all the beans with water. The grounds will start to breathe and expand. Let the gas escape and as the grounds deflate, continue to pour in the same spiral manner until you have poured all the water. The pouring should take about 3-4 minutes total.

Brew directly into the blender to save time and keep your coffee hot. Here’s an honest picture of my set up, dirty dishes and all. I want to give you an idea of how you can brew directly into the blender. Note that with my blender in the dish rack, it allows me to brew at a more comfortable level than if the blender were up on the counter top:

Blend It

Once the coffee is brewed and in your blender with the other ingredients, place the lid on securely and cover the top with a dish towel. Hold down the towel over the lid tight while you blend it on the highest setting for 20 seconds. Depending on the quality of your blender, the coffee may punish you if you don’t hold it down.

Marvel at the creaminess.

Store it

Keep the rest in a thermos and drink it through the morning.

These are my two favorite containers for coffee.

The Thermos is larger and holds a full two cups of coffee, fairly hot through the day.
The Zojirushi is smaller but keeps coffee radioactive hot the entire day.

Dosage

Up the dosage on the butter and MCT oil slightly after a week or two, if you can glean the benefits without having the runs. You can always lower amounts the next time if you don’t feel as good of an effect.

MCT

Don’t change the MCT dosage drastically. Try increasing by a teaspoon each week, making sure to observe the quality of focus. You don’t want to end up dizzy or give yourself digestive issues by taking too much in the beginning.

Butter

If you’re hungrier, add more butter. Try increments of one tablespoon. Use the minimum effective dose.

That is it. Try it in the morning, about an hour before a training session, or before any task that will take a lot of brain or body power. You’ll be restless the first few times if you don’t have a world or two to save.

I had butter coffee as fuel for a 370 lb. squat and 391 lb. deadlift at my first powerlifting meet, a 5k in under 23 minutes with no training, and the LA Downtown Ketchum Stair Climb, which was a stair climb to the top of a 76-story skyscraper, in 19 minutes. These are not Olympic numbers, but I did all this without needing tons of protein or carbs immediately before or after. I hope you find that reasonable amounts of healthy fat as a source of energy puts you on a different level from just pounding protein and carbs.

Let me know in the comments if you try this and how it goes for you! If I’ve made this concoction for you before, let others know how it tasted what it felt like to drink it. I think a lot of people are curious about what butter in coffee would be like, and they will be surprised by how good it can be if done right.

Live powerfully,

Steve

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