Bulletproof Coffee

Tags

blend, Bulletproof, butter, coconut oil, coffee

I’ve been saying for some time that I drink Bulletproof Coffee. What is Bulletproof Coffee? It is a term invented by Dave Asprey at Bulletproof Exec. It is basically a branded, high fat, low carb coffee.

My morning coffees have consisted of varying portions of whipping cream, butter, coconut oil, and palm oil. They keep me full until the afternoon. My blood sugars are near perfectly stable during this time. Amazing breakfasts.

I’ve been getting off track, all year really. I stopped taking Victoza in September, and since then I’ve gained ten pounds. The once in awhile cheat is now all too regular. My weight is up to 237 which is not good. My lowest in the last decade is 221. I need to reset my diet, get back on a wagon.

I decided to re-examine my coffees. Anecdotal evidence suggests I should see better results. I should not get so hungry at nights. I smelled a problem, so a couple of days ago, I decided to read David Asprey’s site. *whack* I’d never read it before. I just assumed he was doing what I was doing, and any differences were branding efforts — he is trying to make money off of this. I like making money as well as anybody, but let’s be real — it introduces bias. Sometimes fact can become distorted in the name of sales. I was skeptical of his efforts, so I never dived into his site.

Recipe: How to Make Your Coffee Bulletproof®…And Your Morning Too

The first thing I learned is that one should use unsalted butter.

*duh*

Yeah, whenever I use butter, salted, I cannot add more than a teaspoon per cup or it tastes yuck. It can be fixed with cocoa powder, but I don’t always want my coffee turning into an Irish Cream concoction. Easy fix. We have awesome butter in New Brunswick. This is dairy cow paradise. I picked up a pound of unsalted butter.

Dave uses some sort of fat he trademarked as BrainOctane. At the moment, for me, this is nothing more than high priced coconut oil. Fat is fat — yes, I know about different types of fat — and my gut says he cannot improve on nature. Maybe he can, but my wallet says no. I will investigate it though. MCT has been a popular term used in LC forums, but I have never seen the science. I continue to use coconut oil, and I am not hung up on its virginity.

The next difference was the cream. Dave Asprey claims that cream cancels out the antioxidants in the coffee. Possible. I’m not an antioxidant fanatic. I get enough of them in my veggies, herbs, and fruit. If I need cream for my coffee to taste good, I will keep using it. But for my first try, I omitted it. I reckoned I could always add some if I needed it.

Dave also claims the concoction needs to be blended. I suppose he hates the layers of film fats give to coffee. Fine, they never bother me. I don’t have a full-sized blender, but I do have a magic bullet.

Finally, Dave claims coffee beans matter. He claims industrial coffee beans are infected with mold and the toxins from the mold affect our health. Maybe. He does supply some science links. I always buy freshly roasted coffee anyway. It it moldy? Is it dangerous? I’m not sold. Wouldn’t authorities somewhere have raised concerns if this was the case? I don’t know, but I’ll bet Dave would argue they don’t because coffee is such a huge industry. All I want to do is laugh. Accuse with one hand and commit foul with the other? I am not mail-ordering my coffee. I want it fresh and local. Oxygen is a bigger threat to coffee than anything, and industrial coffee, even improved, is more oxidized than my fresh Java Moose coffee.

So I made a batch of BPC, as close as I could get anyway. I French Pressed some coffee, poured some of it into my Magic Bullet where six tablespoons of unsalted butter and a tablespoon of coconut oil waited for it. I blended it until fluffy, then poured both containers into my regular coffee pot (for warmth in my drip maker).

All I can say is wow. Seriously. It tasted fantabulous. The coffee flavour stood out, and the creamy, blended butter and oil made it as smooth as … butter.

The interesting part came at lunch time, 1:30ish in the afternoon. I was not hungry at all, but I wanted more coffee. I made another batch, and I ate a small bowl of Campbell’s beef and veggie soup the wife had made. BG was 5.something.

7:30p.m. I woke from a four hour nap. Not coffee related at all. I hardly slept the night before. My blood sugar read 3.7. I was not hungry.

And then I ate a plate of nachos and fucked up my evening.

*sigh*

At this moment, it’s 2:30 p.m. and I am finishing my second batch of the day. I am not hungry and I feel energetic. I feel clear. My lunchtime BG was 5.2. I am looking forward to my next batch. I am looking forward to getting back on track.

Thanks Dave. I am not a full believer in all you claim, yet, but I do believe in HFLC. Keep up the good work!

One Meal A Day

Tags

butter, coconut oil, editing, firewood, fried, novel, olive oil, onions, weiners, Writing

I tried something new yesterday. I ate only one meal.

I didn’t eat only once, though. I drank two coffees during the day and each contained both whipping cream and coconut oil, significant calories. I had another around 7PM as I sat down to write, and I ate a later snack of raw pineapple and a hunk of cheese.

When I got home around 5PM I felt empty but not famished. Thunder storms threatened, and it’s raining today. I still has some wood to stack, and I wanted to try exercising after a fat-fast — eating just fat, a lesser amount of calories than needed, is called a fat-fast. I wanted to know if I would be able to exercise as well, not that I exercise well, to determine if I was feeding my body sufficiently while exercising. If I wasn’t, I’d expect to feel tired or needing to rest, and I’d expect to feel intense hunger. I never thought about food once, and I never felt the least bit lethargic. I stacked the last hundred or so pieces, covered both rows with tarps, and even walked to my garden and picked some fresh kale.

I then cooked my only meal of the day: four wieners fried with a large Spanish onion in a combination of butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and sunflower oil. I washed it down with water.

My writing later went well. I updated chapter one. I refered to my red-marked manuscript, and went through every note. I also re-read it. I expanded on many sections and re-wrote a few paragraphs. I felt good writing. The basis felt good, and the expanded prose seemed to really add completeness. I felt really comfortable with my writing and my story. I don’t think it was my eating pattern.

Today I’m making lunch my one meal: Maple Leaf Bologna!