Tag: intermittent fasting

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