Oh good grief - Bullet proof coffee

#1

It just dawned on me that coffee with coconut oil in it is the perfect way to go about IF. If you feel hungry in the mornings but want to wait until noon or 1 PM before eating - then the way to go about it is to have a BPC to bide the time, suppress the hunger, and be able to wait a few more hours. Now why did that take so long to grasp? I never really understood what a BPC was good for. NOW I do, and wanted to pass it on for those who might be slow in getting it like me.

#2

I still don’t get it but people are different I guess.
If I am hungry, I obviously eat right away… And I find an oily coffee gross. Butter making foamy isn’t so horrible but not good either…
Coffee with HWC is the good thing and a tiny amount is enough!
I just don’t consider that real fasting but it still can help people, temporarily or permanently. (I just enjoy HWC, I could drink black coffee or water while I am perfectly satiated until mid-afternoon and don’t even have an appetite yet. It’s surely way more useful for others.)

(Bob M) #3

I always found that BPC was good. I used butter and coconut oil.

I did the same, I used it when I didn’t think I could fast until later in the day, back a few years ago. It helped with a transition to fasting longer.

Now, having tried a very high saturated fat diet, I wonder if one reason BPC works for some is the increase in saturated fat?

I stopped drinking BPC once I figured out that I could fast the day away. I haven’t had one in years. I also thought that adding fat would stop weight loss, and went lower fat, higher protein. Now, I’m not sure that’s the case, as I’ve been adding tons of saturated fat to my diet and experiencing decreased hunger. It’s now unclear to me what’s going on. I think the issue, though, is not the amount of fat, but the type of fat. PUFAs as in chicken, pork, avocados, oils, etc. are bad in my opinion, whereas saturated fats are good.

#4

@ctviggen
There are days when I was just not hungry at all in the mornings and only ate at maybe 2pm or even later. So I guess thats why I thought IF comes on it own. I never thought it would actually take EFFORT, but with a BPC I can manage it! A revelation!

#5

That’s fine if you like doing it, but the reality is if you drink a coffee with a couple hundred calories from fat you are NOT fasting anymore. You can get away with some sneaking in of stuff here and there but a BPC ends a fast dead in it’s tracks regardless of fasting reason. If you’re just fasting for weight loss and autophagy isn’t a thing you’re going for that’s fine and you’ll still get the benefits from the food restriction but a BPC is a real breakfast all day long, just a liquid one.

I just had my breakfast which today was 4 egg whites, 1 whole egg, spinach, chicken, and a coffee with a splash of HC. Very much a real meal. A BPC has more calories (and fat, your fuel source) than that whole meal. Not trying to split hairs but I think people get the wrong idea when they’re new to this stuff and think they’re doing IF when in reality they’re not at all then go around bashing it when it doesn’t work for them. Again, not bashing, do what works for YOU I’m 100% for that, my plan is very much tweaked at this point from mainstream keto, but all my advise (here) is based on the keto people will be doing, not what I’m doing.

#6

@lfod14
A teaspoon of coconut oil has 41 calories.
It seems that a teaspoon of coconut oil does not create insulin secretion. And anything that does not create insulin secretion is safe for fasting. Dr Berry explains that pretty well in his YouTube clips. He says what is fine and what is not during a fast, and I think that white doing IF it is a good helper to bide the time needed to get that 18/6 window. But like you said - to each his own.

(Pete A) #7

Whether one is still fasting while adding calories and fat to coffee is debatable, I find coffee without anything added, an appetite suppressant. Before Keto I drank 2 cups in the morning, now I drink about 6 cups a day. That wasn’t planned, it just happened.

I’m not complaining!

#8

Once I got used to the bullet proof coffee, and learned how to make it properly- nice and foamy - I started doing all kinds of coffee-like drinks when I was in a hurry, or if didn’t feel like eating a whole meal, but needed something to get through the day. It snowballed from there.
Here are a few that I enjoy:
The Liquid Chicken Latte
1-2 raw eggs
hot coffee
blast with immersion blender
add HWC, butter, coconut oil - any or all of these
with or without a little sugar free sweetener

Pumpkin spiced coffee drink
Hot coffee
Pumpkin spice - sprinkle enough to fit your tastes
Sweetened or unsweetened
HWC
I prefer to blast with immersion blender.

Variations on that pumpkin spiced one:
The texture of this one is similar to a fruit smoothie. I used plain pumpkin puree, and basically - it comes out tasting like pumpkin pie and a cup of coffee- just all mixed together.
1/3 c pumpkin puree
1-2 eggs
sweetener - use sparingly
pumpkin spice
pinch of salt
HWC
Hot coffee
Blast away with the immersion blender. Back in my Atkins days, this drink got me through many a holiday without partaking of pastries and desserts. Very filling.

You can add more fat to any of these. They can be refrigerated, and enjoyed cold. Sky’s the limit.
Obviously, these are not for fasting, as they contain protein and a bit of carbs with the pumpkin.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #9

Lean people who have trouble fasting, but who want the benefits of autophagy, etc., can find a bit of fat in the morning to be a help, even if it isn’t “real” fasting.

The term “fasting” gets bandied about in various ways, such as an “egg fast” or a “bacon fast,” but to me, actual fasting involves taking in no food, only drinking water as needed.

Saturated and monounsaturated both have their uses. Monounsaturated fat is used primarily for energy, whereas saturated fat has many other uses, including regulating cholesterol. (Saturated fat is the main way to raise HDL; Dr. Phinney says that the drugs tested so far to do that have all had unacceptable side effects.)

#10

Yeah- there are different kinds of fasting.
What more can I say without starting some kind of argument?

(Doug) #11

:slightly_smiling_face: You did mention Intermittent Fasting - I think you’re good. That little bit of coconut oil (or butter or cream) isn’t going to make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. Being concerned with insulin secretion is a good thing, and it sure doesn’t seem like that’s much of a worry - I don’t know whether it’s exactly zero, but I can’t see how it would be much at all, if any.

Longer fasts aiming at increased autophagy - then I think cream is a no-no since it’s ~3% protein and ~3% carbohydrates. Butter has a little bit of protein in it, like <1%, and an infinitesimal amount of carbs. Ghee - clarified butter - still has a really small amount of protein in it, like 0.3%. But coconut oil is all fat.

Even for longer fasts, I wonder if eating a little fat makes a meaningful difference - since we’re using fat to start with. I guess it comes down to whether it being in the stomach and then the small intestine activates things - hormone secretions, etc., that are counter-productive when fasting.

But as for coconut oil when Intermittent Fasting - sounds pretty good to me.

#12

Agreed, to each his own. But to split hairs (for possibly new people), a tsp of coconut oil in coffee isn’t a BPC, it’s a tsp of coconut oil in coffee. A BPC typically has 1-2 TBSP of coconut oil and typically 2 TBSP grass fed butter in it which is a very different thing.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #13

It’s my understanding that the off on switch for autophagy is protein. If you’re fasting you’re burning your own fat for energy. Adding more fat will slow the use of your own body fat but doesn’t have a significant effect on autophagy or basically your body consuming and using recycled proteins. In fact autophagy is a normal bodily function for everyone regardless of fasting otherwise what’s your body doing with all the dead and broken cells? Fasting increases autophagy greatly of course, but it’s a part of our normal biological function.

#14

I’m sure that’s running on the whole thing with the leucine shutting down the fast, which it does, but in my experience from a ton of fasting over the years is fat wrecked my results just as much as protein did. I could still definitely get descent results with some stuff in there, but it was night and day compared to a “true” fast. I’m definitely not for the low protein anymore, did too much damage to me following that advise for about a year straight.

(Doug) #15

It’s the strongest one, to be sure. Yet carbs do it too - raising insulin and decreasing glucagon, and reducing AMPK (and keeping the body in an overall anabolic state for a longer time, versus a catabolic/tearing down/autophagic state - at least in rats).

To this point I think that’s true. And coffee actually induces autophagy :sunglasses::+1::rainbow::clap::star2: (again, at least in rats).

In some of our tissues that’s true. A good bit of our nervous system is made of cells that can’t divide and make new ones. So there needs to be some constant “house cleaning” going on - a low, basal rate of autophagy. When that fails, bad stuff builds up - which is thought to heavily contribute to Alzheimer’s Disease and some other neurological problems. (My opinion is thus that periodic longer fasts are good as a possible preventative measure here, especially if one has a family history/certain genotypes.)

Most of our body has cells that divide and make new ones, with programmed cell death for old, faulty and damaged ones. The body is indeed “always getting rid of or recycling stuff” but that doesn’t directly point to autophagy yet. Some proteins don’t last very long, and they’re mostly handled by proteolysis (though we almost never talk about it). Autophagy comes in later, for the bigger, longer-lived stuff, all the way up to whole cellular organelles.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #16

Not quite, as I understand things. The rest of your post is more how I would put it. Autophagy is an ongoing process, regardless of our diet regime, because all proteins have their lifespan (ranging from seconds to over a decade) and many proteins suffer damage, and any protein that has come to the end of its useful life needs to be dealt with.

The big difference is whether the body is primarily in an anabolic or a catabolic state. Prof. Benjamin Bikman has a couple of lectures on YouTube dealing with this. The determining factor, according to the professor, is the ratio of insulin to glucagon. A low ratio is a sign that the body is primarily catabolic, and autophagy being a catabolic process, it really comes into its own in this state. A high ratio indicates that the body is primarily anabolic, since insulin and insulin-like growth factor are anabolic hormones. As Prof. Bikman states, both anabolism and catabolism are occurring in the body at all times, but their relative preponderance depends on the insulin/glucagon ratio.

The catabolism of unneeded or damaged protein is one of the principal sources of nitrogen when we fast. It is because the rate of autophagy speeds up during fasting that we can get away without consuming protein while we fast. There is a limit, of course, because eventually the ongoing unavoidable loss of nitrogen outstrips the available protein to be autophagised. I believe that under normal circumstances, the body succumbs to starvation somewhere between 40 and 60 days. (Angus Barbieri was a special case, and he was being heavily monitored by his doctors at every step.)

(Full Metal KETO AF) #17

I was under the impression (probably from Dr Fung) that protein consumption or lack of it was the main switch, carbohydrates of course are also a problem but I made the error of not stating what I thought was obvious to the keto community. The biology of it all gets over my head rather quickly! :joy::joy::joy: I’m aware that autophagy has many levels and that some types in particular brain cells take more time fasting to be affected. I think I read on the fifth day or so water fasting. :cowboy_hat_face:

#18

Maybe issues are getting mixed up and all rolled into one? I would say on the one hand we have autophagy - and if this is what you are after- then water fast is the best way to go- maybe 36-48 hours fast and only drinking water (or tea or black coffee?). But if it is more about weight loss than autophagy - and talking IF ( 18/6 or 16/8 or whatever ) then it is major to try to keep insulin production at bay.
And don’t some people do a fat fast? How do they drink their coffee?
As for BPC containing HWC- that is definitely not for me because of the carbs. I use HWC mostly in cooking. Once in a while I make some meat in a paprika cream sauce or cauliflower mac and cheese, but those are quite carby. Personally I would rather drink black coffee and use HWC elsewhere. But that’s just me. I have always had my coffee black anyway- even before keto. For me using coconut oil in it is new.

(Ethan) #19

But what happened to the yolks

#20

Been PSMF’ing during the week last couple weeks. Trying to have a fat loss burst and not loose anymore muscle since the last couple months I’ve been able to add a couple extra lbs of it. So far so good but almost makes ya wanna cry why I’ve got a dozen REAL good super orange yolk’d eggs sitting in my fridge.