What happens when you take a vegetarian and make him Bulletproof by eating meat and avoiding grain?
I like to test potentially beneficial bio-hacks on myself before I recommend or dissuade clients from the idea.
January 1, 2015 was the date I decided to test one of those hacks.
Swapping Out 15 Years Of Diet Programming
For the last 15 years I’ve been eating either a vegetarian, vegan or raw food diet. Most of this time I have felt great, my strength and body fat are appropriate and I have recommended this direction for countless clients over the years.
So why would I change it?
I like to think that I have an open mind to anything new and I am willing to look into hacks that might be better than what I already “know” to be helpful and healthy. That’s what I did 15 years ago when I took the Transformational Institute For Natural Hygiene Course and learned about fasting and eating a raw food diet. After being a S.A.D. (Standard American Diet) eater for all the previous years of my life, this took my health to a new and better level.
What Is The Bulletproof Plan
The Bulletproof (BP) plan is a diet and lifestyle plan that Dave Asprey promotes. Dave has come to be a leader in the Health and Fitness world as well as the creator of “Bio-Hacking” the body for ultimate performance. Many top-performing entrepreneurs, athletes and professionals follow his books, podcasts and recommendations. He has influenced me immensely.
The BP Plan incorporates a high-fat diet, with no processed foods. That means no flour, sugar or dairy. The diet is mostly based upon eating huge amounts of organic vegetables with fats coming from grass-fed beef, wild-caught sockeye salmon, pasture-raised eggs and then more organic lamb and pork if you care to expand. Additionally adding fruit on a limited basis to pre-bedtime only (tough one for me…).
As a vegetarian, as you might imagine, this was a big step for me to take.
My First Meat Meal
The first night, Jan 2, was my first meat meal in 15 years. I used a grass-fed chuck for a rich and hearty stew. It looked and smelled appetizing, but also like it would be a heavy meal. I ate it.
It tasted amazing.
Twenty minutes later, my gut was “surprised.” I felt a severe tightening in my abdominal region and, honestly, it concerned me. Could I digest this meat? Humans, I recalled, aren’t supposed to have the proper digestive enzymes to break down red meat?
I relaxed and 15 minutes later, I felt better.
This was going to be a significant physical and mental change for me as a die-hard vegetarian bio-hacker.
The Next 28 Days – Butter Coffee!
Eating the Bulletproof way means undertaking a hunter-gatherer approach to eating and to lifestyle. But it also means coffee!
With the BP plan, coffee is an integral part of gaining performance and health. What’s special about it is by adding organic ghee or grass-fed butter plus coconut oil to mold-free coffee every morning, you feed your brain it’s preferred energy source – fat!
I’ve drunk very little coffee for most of my life, and had reasons to want to avoid caffeine. I had to let go of those reasons in order to fully test Dave Asprey’s plan.
It turns out BP coffee has enormous benefit to anyone wanting to improve cognitive performance, control food cravings, and generally kick more ass.
It was enlightening to me to learn that caffeine is used in many pharmaceuticals because it has the unique capability to shuttle the desired agent directly to the brain. When this technique is accomplished with high-fat, grass-fed butter, the brain functions at a high level because it uses that fat as fuel instead of trying to get it’s energy from glucose. This is a big topic and I’ll address it in future articles, especially the benefits of ketones and ketosis that this sets up.
Summing it up
The Bulletproof Diet directs you to:
- Use BP coffee each morning for breakfast – no food.
- Eat large amounts of vegetables at each meal (usually there is just one meal around 1pm and another at 6pm, daily).
- Add the beef or salmon to the vegetable dish.
- Dessert of some low-fructose fruit like berries before bed.
This was a major diet change for me. I had my concerns about the fat intake, the animal products and the caffeine, but my research into Dave Asprey’s plan showed enough data that this could be a powerful way to lower inflammation, increase energy and perform better in all aspects of life.
In other words, I’m expecting a lot from this diet.
My 30-Day Results
When I tested my body fat at the start of the test, Jan 1, I was measuring 11.5% and weight of 179.6 lbs. A very typical number for me over the last 5 years.
30 days later, my results are in:
- 9.8% BodyFat
- 169.5 lbs scale weight.
Pretty amazing results for 30 days. I could see real changes in the mirror, but the actual numbers were more dramatic than I expected. (Please remember, this is done without changing my current 20 minute ZeroForce High-Intensity, Slow Motion Workout every week – just the same program you perform with me as one of my clients).
But how did I feel eating all this fat and coffee?
At this point, I can say I am feeling well, and a little surprised to be honest. I will continue to chart my progress in many areas and report back to you in the next DST Newsletter in June.
I hope you are as intrigued as I am where this may lead.
If you’re considering changing your diet (remember, it’s a lifestyle plan – not calorie counting and other limitations), this plan might be worth looking into.
