As part of the Bulletproof Diet, which I’ve been following for the past few years, intermittent fasting has become a big part of my life.Bulletproof Coffee has been an important part of my fast.

Intermittent fasting with Bulletproof Coffee

There are many forms of intermittent fasting with the most popular one being the 5:2 diet, where you restrict calories to 600 a day, for 2 days per week.  Other forms of intermittent fasting include:

• taking a 24-hour break from eating
• eating one large meal every night
• having one cheat day followed by a 36 hour fast.
• I’ve tried each one of these and they are all fine as long as they are one-off events. But, in my opinion, these aren’t sustainable. I end up hungry, grumpy and irritable.
• What I have found works well for me is eating my meals within a 6 to 8 hour window each day. So, I aim to have my lunch after 2pm and my evening meal before 8pm. Some days this may deviate a little, but generally I will fast for at least 16 hours, most days of the week.

Intermittent Fasting has many benefits:

• Intermittent fasting helps to reset your body by burning fat for fuel (ketosis) and turning off your hunger hormone (ghrelin).
• Reduces insulin sensitivity, which makes it easier to burn fat for fuel. [1]
• Fasting helps in better heart health, by reducing the risk of cancer and increases longevity by repairing genes. This is accomplished through a process called autophagy, which cleans out the rubbish that has accumulated in your cells. [2]
• Lowers triglyceride levels
• Reduces oxidative stress, which leads towards many chronic diseases. [3]
• Inhibits the mTOR pathway as mTOR activation contributes to a large number of diseases including, depression, type 2 diabetes, cancer and neurodegeneration [4]
• Burns ketones for fuel rather than glucose. This makes you feel awesome as your brain loves ketones.
• Take 10 mins to search on Google for the benefits of fasting and how it’s helping people to live longer and recover from illnesses. As I’m not a medical doctor, I can’t recommend intermittent fasting to prevent and treat diseases. But do a quick search and make up your own mind.

The secret to fasting from 8pm to 2pm the next day …

A Bulletproof Coffee in the morning,  provides you enough energy to see you through to lunchtime, without breaking the fast.

My daily routine is:

07:00 – Drink Bulletproof Coffee – this doesn’t take you out of ketosis and breaks the fast.

14:00 – Break my fast with a healthy lunch. Usually, salad with moderate protein and lots of avocado and very low carb.

20:00 – Evening meal which contains high healthy fat, moderate protein and some carbs.

One day in the  week, I break the fast, cut back on proteins and increase my consumption of healthy carbs.

How to make Bulletproof Coffee:

Ingredients:

• 250ml of good quality coffee
• One tablespoon of unsalted Kerry Gold Grass fed butter
• One tablespoon of Bulletproof Brain Octane Oil

Method: Blend every ingredient together for 20-30 seconds until you get a nice froth

I have written a more detailed post on how to make a Bulletproof Coffee – you can find it here

[1] – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15640462

[2] – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/

[3] – http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095528630400261X

[4] – http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867412003510