Bullet Proof Coffee - food or drink?

#1

Hello all,

Sorry, if this is a stupid question, but is BPC considered a drink or food? I say it is a drink, but I have read otherwise and I am unsure if I can incorporate it as “breakfast” without breaking my 18/6 fast?

Thanks for your help! :slight_smile:

(Allie) #2

Most people treat it as a meal replacement, that, I believe, is how it is intended to be used.

#3

All drinks can be considered a type of food, though they are commonly separated (both situations are just a matter of language).

If you drink something, it is a drink.

However, drinks can break your fast. BPC contains energy and can possibly cause a bit of an insulin reaction, however small, so it could break a strict fast.

On the other hand, many would consider this still sticking to a “fat fast”, as BPC is mostly or all fat, where a majority of the benefits of a fast are maintained due to the very low insulin secretion when consuming fat.

If you want to be on a full, strict fast though, you shouldn’t have anything that has calories in it, pretty much, and some would suggest nothing but water to avoid possible other confounding things, but you can find the level that works for you. You should see at least some, if not a lot, of the benefits in various kinds of fasts anyway, and I’m not sure it’s well studied yet how much a difference a fat fast vs. a water fast vs. a coffee fast, etc makes.

(jilliangordona) #4

Anything with a good amount of calories will break a fast. Granted, I need coffee with cream for a while before I could really do IF each day… but the only true acceptable drinks when fasting is black coffee, water, and tea.

#5

I am not following a specific fast like water only, or fat or coffee or whatever. I do 18/6 as it comes natural to me. I drink tea during the time but don’t eat. I only learned about this being a type of fast when I started keto.

So if BCP breaks a fast, then my next question would be: Could BCP be drank on a night if I used decaf?

(jilliangordona) #6

I don’t see why not. Can I ask why you’re doing BPC? The stuff is like crack to me… but I’ve gotten rid of it since BPC is pretty void of calories.

If you’re using it to get more fat, I would keep on going! Drink extra for me because i miss them! Lol

#7

I try to increase my fat intake without increasing my protein intake. I have noticed that I probably don’t eat enough fat, however I can’t think of any other way to increase my fat. I don’t like the idea of adding butter to everything I eat :wink: .

(John) #8

As the others have said it’s both, but i’m not sure it matters really, fasting is a spectrum not a switch, if you consume 200 calories you are back to ‘fasted’ once you’ve burned it.

#9

Sorry John, I can’t follow… what do you mean with fasting being a spectrum not a switch?

#10

I’m not sure how accurate that is, but if there is some research behind it I haven’t heard of, that would be pretty interesting.

(jilliangordona) #11

I struggle with that too… I’ve somehow evolved to the point of loving eating little slices of Kerrygold on its own… lol.

I’ve also started to include a rough calculation of the amount of fat I am burning from my body from fasting in my macros. As long as my protein stays down within the range I want, this has really helped with my fat loss since I am including fat from the stores instead of my plate!

#12

How do you know how much fat you are burning during fasting? Sorry, I still have so much to learn… :pensive:

(jilliangordona) #13

No worries… sometimes I think I am obsessive with my research lol, I only started doing this recently. I use the calculator from the dudes. http://blog.2keto.com/why-fasting-is-easier-for-some-people/

You just have to play around with it. Maybe just keep your protein low and remove BPC and see what happens? You can try it for two weeks or so and then if there is no difference you can add it back in. My bet would be you may start losing more weight though.

(John) #14

Not sure what you mean, when you stop eating you are fasting. Some of the benefits of fasting take a while to start, so longer is generally “better” but you don’t get bonus points or anything, you just get the benefits for longer.

Here is some info from Fung, I had a piece from his book but I have loaned it so don’t have it to copy from. If you eat 200 calories you are in the ‘Fed State’ and when it is gone you are in the ‘Fasted State’.

Edit to be more clear, by spectrum, and reading the link above, you will see insulin is the primary driver between the 2 states. Eating fat will do almost nothing to your insulin and you will keep getting the benefits of fasting, only the calories you ate will be burned instead of stored fat or protein. Eating protein spikes it more so it can bring you out of the state further, and eating carbs really spikes it. Once the insulin goes down though you are back in a fasted state.
This is why there is a lot of argument about fasts though, many people say zero calorie, a lot of people do ‘fat fasts’ which should keep you in the fasted state, it depends on whether you think calories break a fast or insulin does. Around here most are in the latter camp.

#15

Thanks John, what I did not understand about your posting was the spectrum vs switch bit, if you could elaborate a bit further please?

#16

Thanks very much, Legacy! I will have a look at this now! :slight_smile:

#17

So, that link says fasting is a switch, not a spectrum, and also is more about hormones than calories.

Other than that, when you stop eating you are technically fasting, but that does not mean you are immediately in a fasted state either, and it can take even longer than just burning off what you just ate to get into a fully fasted state or start using much of the fat you have (you have some amount of glycogen stores in your muscles that can be used, for instance. There isn’t as much energy stored there and it won’t last as long as with your fat stores, but it will last perhaps up to 12-16 hours depending on how full it is and other factors). This is why most fasting information really talks about fasts, or at least autophagy which may or may not be the primary goal of a fast, as starting around 12-14 hours after last food consumption (sometimes longer, but not likely if you are already keto). To be fair though, some research has been done which considers less than 500 calories a day to be a “fasted day”, and I believe some benefits were seen that way, but I don’t think it’s clear that such yielded the same benefits as 0.

Fat does seem to have a different effect, but as mentioned before it’s not really clear whether there is a significant difference between a fat fast and a water fast, for instance, and there is an extent that fat can cause a small amount of insulin secretion.

#19

Thanks for the info, djindy and John, and especially for your patience! This fasting is slowly but surely becoming a bit clearer.

(Clare) #20

I suppose it depends on why you’re fasting.

I use a BPC on weekday mornings instead of breakfast.
I’m a morning hungry person and always have been and I walk the dog and then take exercise before work. I’ve tried going without and it just doesn’t work for me - I get hungry by ten am and end up taking in more calories overall. A BPC puts the lid on all of that for me till around 1pm. This means my time for ingesting carbs and protein is kept within about an 8 hour window.

If you’re sticking to a fatty drink with no carbs and no protein then you should still be getting the benefits of autophagy - which is your body scouring cells for protein. And, assuming you don’t go mad with the butter, there’s probably a lot less calories in a BPC than in a proper breakfast.

If it’s for insulin control, I think a BPC will be ok. You might have a small response but it will only be small.

If it’s purely for calorie restriction then you may want to see if a black coffee alone will hold you.

Experiment and see!

As for whether it’s food or drink - it’s kind of like a third thing isn’t it? It’s the Eliza Doolittle of fasting.

#21

Thanks very much Clare, I have had a BPC this morning, and so far I don’t feel hungry :wink: . As you said, I will experiment and see if BPC is suitable respectively beneficial for me. Thanks again!