Here is an example of a sample day we follow (note, onion family vegetables should be built in where possible in addition to the foods shown below):
BREAKFAST
1. Big glass of ice water to start off the day when getting out of bed (shoot for 30 oz or so).
2. Buttered (Cultured Cream) Coffee - This would be the target if you really want to start your day off burning fat. Most people are used to having breakfast high in carbs/sugar, so cravings upon waking up are common. If this is the way you've trained your metabolism up to this point, it won't change overnight... however, if you can adapt, having only coffee with cream in the morning will give you a quick boosted response in getting you to your results. Spacing this coffee throughout the morning, as opposed to drinking first thing in the morning, has generally proved to make it a lot easier to go through lunch without any other meal. See the info below the remaining meal recommendations for further explanation on this (and a recipe in the RECIPES section), but this would generally consist of coffee, grass-fed butter and MCT oil.
3. Alternatively, if you’re feeling adrenally fatigued and/or you have time for a meal in the morning, the following items would be key staples:
Pasture-raised chicken eggs
Grass-fed butter or ghee
Avocado
Possibly bacon (uncured, ideally pasture-raised if you can find it)
MCT oil (put a tablespoon in coffee, water, or tea - note you shouldn’t have orange juice or anything with high fructose/carbohydrate levels)
*** Key point though: absolutely no fruit, sugar, or simple carbohydrates in the morning!
SUPPLEMENTS
This will come later, but consists of mostly vitamins and minerals that are tough to get appropriate amounts of with our depleted soils these days. We'll get the basic diet down first and then delve into this more later.
LUNCH
A typical meal consists of grass-fed beef/lamb or wild fish or pasture-raised chicken; steamed chard/spinach/kale/broccoli/cauliflower or asparagus or other low carb vegetables (generally something that doesn't grow underground); grass-fed butter or olive oil or coconut oil; and spice it up with your liking of sea salt, pepper, cayenne, etc.
DINNER
Very similar to lunch. Have the same thing but shoot to add either sweet potato or white (long grain) / brown rice as your carbohydrates of choice, especially after workout days. This is better specifically on workout days to help replenish glycogen stores (otherwise you’ll need more protein to compensate) and aid in repair. Summer squash and zucchinis are also a good side when you have starch. You want to load these up on workout days.
BEFORE SLEEP and also AFTER WORKOUTS:
Whey protein, almond butter, almond milk (and/or coconut milk) in a shake.
MORE DETAILS ON BREAKFAST
Alright, now for some more explanation on breakfast (the most important meal of the day to get right), as this one deserves more explanation:
What to put in your coffee: ideally use grass-fed butter... yes this is just cultured cream... or cream from grass-fed cows. We generally recommend using butter as opposed to regular cream since it’s much easier to get the high-quality product from grass-fed cows. The effects are the same though so long as it’s from a high-quality source. Having this in the morning will give you a quick boosted response in getting you to your results. Note, do not mistake our recommendations for cream to be the artificially enriched mass-manufactured creamers. You want to avoid these at all costs.
Alright wtf is (cultured) cream coffee (i.e. buttered coffee)? It’s coffee with 2-4 tbsp. of grass-fed butter in it (or 1-4 oz of regular, uncultured cream), and1 or 2 tbsp. of MCT oil, i.e., coconut oil extract. Alternatively you can also use coconut oil, which doesn’t have as high a concentration of the fats that get readily converted to ketone energy. This way of drinking coffee is becoming more popular, believe it or not, thanks to bloggers like Robb Wolf and Dave Asprey. There are various forms and names for it; call it what you most prefer.
Grass-fed is going to be a common theme with all of our dairy, butter and meat. This is exceptionally key, as grass-fed meat/butter/dairy has many more vitamins, as well as the right types of fat. Again, if you can’t find this stuff, regular butter is definitely acceptable, but as stated before, butter that says “grass-fed” (or “pasture-raised”) is the target. You can usually find a brand called “Kerrygold” or some other grass-fed cow butter at Whole Foods (see the list of other recommended grocery stores in the RECIPES section; we have no affiliation to either of these companies by the way.
Again, the grass-fed component (and ideally not containing hormones/antibiotics/etc.) is the main reason we recommend butter as opposed to heavy cream, since it’s surprisingly difficult to get high-quality heavy cream. MCT oil can be found at supplement stores or Whole Foods as well. You’re going to want to blend the coffee, butter, and MCT oil together for about a minute. If you don’t have a blender, just mix by hand as well as you possibly can (by the way, there’s a rationale for every part of this process... We’re giving you the basic to-do’s, however the theory behind is summarized in the “Science Behind” sections later on.)
(Cultured) cream coffee (i.e., coffee with butter) is great replacement for the typical breakfast starting off the day. It provides various fat-soluble vitamins, conjugated linoleic acid (linked to decreasing body/belly fat and risk for cancer), and an energy source that won’t spike your blood sugar and leave you hungry before lunchtime. Black coffee alone is also an acceptable way to get the day started if you’re not low on sleep or stressed (i.e. adrenal fatigue). Coffee mobilizes fatty acids for the body to start using fat as a fuel source, particularly effective after a fast from the night of sleep before. The key here is that we’re preventing the commencement of our glucose-based (sugar-based) metabolism, and we’re only allowing our body to use fat as an energy source. This is referred to as a specific type of intermittent fasting. You can sip on the buttered coffee all the way through lunch if you prefer, and this will help stave off food cravings.
If you don’t have time to make coffee, an option is to hit up Starbucks, and ask them to throw a packet of butter in your coffee. If you don’t have time to have coffee at all, you can alternatively just skip breakfast. This is intermittent fasting in its basic form and encourages repair, autophagy (death of bad/mutated cells), and all other kinds of good stuff for longevity. Make sure to stay hydrated with plenty of water if you go this route though.
Now if you’re like most people, you're going to want something in your stomach, especially if starting out you’re used to having breakfast in the morning. The other best option for breakfast in your case (if you don’t have time for cooking and you don’t want to intermittent fast) is going to be a hearty protein shake. You're going to want to buy a low/no-sugar protein shake. With this, mix in coconut and almond milk (grass-fed raw cow milk is a good look if you tolerate dairy as well); MCT oil; cinnamon; nutmeg; grass-fed cow ghee (this is clarified butter that mixes better than normal butter in the protein shake). A note: do not use any sugar (via raw honey or berries or anything like that) in the morning, as you’re trying to train your body to utilize fat for energy. Remember, we’re preventing that crash and that starving sensation most people get by lunch time. We recommend no fruit or sugar in the morning. However, before sleep or after a workout, you can add berries and/or raw honey (this can help sleep and also help to deliver nutrients to muscle cells once glycogen stores are depleted. Again see the “Science Behind” sections).