Bulletproof Coffee: Teach Your Body to Burn Fat (and Get Out of Cooking in the Morning!)

There are a few misconceptions about the standard practice of starting your day with a big breakfast; an excerpt from this article from author and nutrition coach John Kiefer explains what happens hormonally in the morning, and how immediately eating upon waking can actually counteract fat loss/body composition efforts:

"Here’s what happens with your hormones around 7 AM. Your cortisol levels elevate naturally through the night[1-9], eventually peaking[2, 9-14]. Of course, the common misperception is that cortisol is catabolic, and without food, your body will start to eat its own muscle. This is incorrect. When something is catabolic, this only describes the process of material being broken down for energy. When cortisol acts without elevated insulin levels—without being constantly elevated the way it is during chronic stress—it triggers the breakdown of triglycerides into free-fatty acids (FFAs) for metabolization, and triggers lipolysis[1, 2, 14-28]. In the morning, cortisol actually accelerates fat burning.

Your body’s main hunger control hormone is ghrelin[32]. It’s released in a pulsatile manner throughout the night, and it peaks when you wake[29-31]. This incites hunger, but ghrelin also potently stimulates the release of growth hormone[33-44]. As this happens, and growth hormone levels increase, your body releases more fat to be burned as fuel[45-49] and decreases the destruction of protein for use as fuel[50]. When you don’t eat carbs at breakfast (or more specifically, don’t spike insulin levels), your growth hormone levels peak approximately two hours after you wake up[51].

Your body starts each day as a fat-burning machine, and the key to simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain (you read that right!!!) is to avoid screwing that up. Even when you’re exercising, your body will burn far higher levels of fat than normal on an empty stomach[52, 53]. This also causes the upregulation of enzymes crucial for burning fat, allowing fat to be metabolized faster[54].

Let’s say you eat a breakfast containing 30 grams or more of carbs. Your insulin levels raise with the rise in blood sugar, and this starts you on a downward spiral. This early-morning release of insulin vastly reduces fat burning for the remainder of the day[55], which is big problem because your morning cortisol levels remain high. As a result, this insulin release causes new empty fat cells to be created [56-64], and it lowers your levels of ghrelin and growth hormone[29-31, 51]. In other words, by eating breakfast, you’re essentially wreaking havoc on all the positive things that happen when you wake up."

I very much recommend reading the article, and if you're interested, the studies that are referenced in them. John Kiefer is probably the most well-studied authority on nutrient timing in the industry currently, and his articles are usually a goldmine of references.

This is becoming more common practice to replace a big, carb-based breakfast with either nothing, or a protein/fat-based meal (in fact, Charles Poliquin, the most innovative name in strength and conditioning, has been advocating a 'meat and nut' breakfast for years to decrease insulin spikes early in the day).

There's an even better strategy than meat and nuts, however.

I've been getting clients (as well as myself) to replace breakfasts with:

A good big cup of coffee (12-16 oz)

1 T MCT (medium chain triglyceride) oil, or 1 T coconut oil

1-1.5T Grass fed unsalted butter

- All blended on HIGH until creamy.

(It needs to be blasted on high in the blender. Too low and it will retain a “greasy” feeling.)

THIS is Bulletproof Coffee, as made popular by Dave Asprey (https://www.bulletproofexec.com/bulletproof-coffee-recipe/)

MCT's are a fast-digesting fat that are easily accessible by the brain as energy. In spite of being digested and rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream as energy, they do not affect insulin levels, provide a great deal of satiety, and the influx of fats in the morning will actually coax the metabolism to have a preference towards lipolysis (breaking down fat) as its energy go-to. This way, you're not interfering with any of the hormonal goodness that you experience as soon as you wake up,

The added benefit of doing this with coffee is that coffee contains compounds calling cholinomimetics, which can suppress the action of the hormone ghrelin and regulate your hunger levels over several hours.

You need fat to burn fat. Think about it: you need your body to become efficient at using fat for fuel, if you want it to use up your body fat stores, right?

How can it learn to preferentially use FAT as fuel, instead of carbs and sugars, if you’re not eating (drinking!) enough fat?

Here’s another, Whole30-approved, version which is DELISH. My 5 year old daughter wants a “tiny cup” every morning.

16 oz coffee

2/3 T MCT oil

1/2 T raw cacao butter

1.5 scoops Vital Proteins coffee creamer

- Blend on high until creamed

(On mornings you have zero time or only have access to a drive-thru, just get a large coffee with 4 creams and call that breakfast.)

The whole glorious fat-burning symphony grinds to a shrieking halt when carbs are added to breakfast. Start your day with what you want your body to burn: FAT.

Add'l source: My good friend, the man behind https://www.snackjacked.com