“The Bulletproof Diet” Take aways

I listened to Dave Asprey on Rachel Hollis’ podcast. He sounded interesting, so I got out all of his books from the library. After looking through them all, I realized that I was not willing to make huge longterm changes for our family, but that I did like some of the principles he was saying, and he had some good points.

So I will take some of his ideas, and leave some, and if they work well for our family, maybe we will take the next step of doing more.

So his big thing is bulletproof coffee. He went to Tibet and had yak butter tea and it was great, so he dissected it and figured out why and now sells it and makes a bunch of money.

Since coming back to the USA, we’ve had digestional issues as a family, probablt stemming from dairy and or grains. So many people who are gluten-free are able to eat bread freely in Brazil: the process is different in the USA. So we knew we’d probably need to go dairy and grain light (not free) to get adjusted.

In Brazil I’d found that my body liked intermittent fasting, and I enjoyed replacing a meal with a fresh coconut. I also found that my body really responded well to more healthy fats. Fresh coconut isn’t an option in Indiana, but Dave’s idea about having a high fat drink for breakfast (meaning you intermittent fast until lunch), sounded good.

I don’t like coffee, so I tried his non-caffinated option. My version is a tablespoon of grass-fed butter, teaspoon of coconut oil, some natural vanilla flavoring, and a heeping tablespoon of vanilla (or chocolate) whey powder in a cup of hot water and blended. It sounds horrible. It is absolutely delicious, and I’ve done it for most of the month so far. I don’t even think about eating lunch until around 11:30.

For us, we set up a regular lunch that Caid can bring to work, and I can food prep. We do chicken and broccoli, with other veggies/light carbs like tortilla chips or rice. Then for dinner we’ve been doing a lot of breakfast for dinner (eggs and turkey bacon) or baked veggies (sweet potatoes and brussel sprouds have been favs).

My biggest bummer was finding out that dried fruit is basically the same as candy. I’d turned to dried fruit when I couldn’t get as much fresh fruit in the USA. Also, fruit is normally better to digest in the evenings, so I’ve been doing a smoothie: frozen berries, coconut milk, and honey.

If you’ve read the bulletproof diet, you know most of this is NOT what he says. But it was a good balance for our family. I normally have some other “normal” things on hand for the girls, such as string cheese and turkey lunchmeat. But we are taking baby steps, and this has been a good balance for us.

Lastly, this basic idea has helped me a lot: I did a Rachel Hollis online health conference, and one lady (forgot her name!) shared about ADDING things to our plate instead of taking away. That’s the mindset change I needed and wanted. Here is what’s worked for us:

1. Start with Protein (where I used to start with carbs)

   (We like Chicken, Turkey bacon or lunchmeat, Salmon, Fish, Veggie burgers)

2. Add Healthy Fats

   (We like Hummas, Avocado, Olives, Eggs, Beans/chickpeas)

3. Make it Fiber friendly

   (We like Rice, Quinoa, Sweet Potato, Tortilla chips, Everything Bagel)

4. Fill up with lots of Veggies

   (We like Carrots, Cucumber, Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts, Asparagus)

5. Have Snacks around

   (We like Apples, Peanut butter, Tangerines, Almonds, Dark Chocolate, Fizzy water, Frozen berry smoothies)

6. Try out a high-fat breakfast that lets you intermittent fast (fasting from 7pm-11am)

   (We like grass-fed butter, coconut oil, vanilla flavor, whey protein powder in hot water, blended)