Healthy Aging Begins and Ends in the Gut – Dr. Steven Gundry #604
Do You Want to Live to Be 100?
Who wouldn’t want to live to be 100-years-old? Apparently, that’s not as common a sentiment as one might think.
Bulletproof recently conducted a survey to find out more about what people think of their health and lifestyle choices. The respondents included people who are already Bulletproof customers and people from the general population. Read on for the surprising results.
Forever young
More than 70% of the people who follow the Bulletproof philosophy say they want to live to be 100 or more. By contrast, less than 40% of respondents from the general population want to live to be that old.
This gap is profound. One of the possible reasons Bulletproofers aspire to live to a ripe old age is that Bulletproof empowers people to not only think it is possible to live longer, but to think it is possible to spend your senior years living well.
By contrast, perhaps the general population perceives living beyond the age of 70 or 80 as a miserable existence, and they don’t want to spend decades trapped there.
Fewer doctor visits
A related finding from the survey is that people who follow the Bulletproof philosophy say they don’t see their doctor as often as the respondents from the general population say they do.
This is somewhat unexpected because the Bulletproofers who responded to the survey (generally age 45-64) skewed older than the respondents from the general population (which included a number of people 25-34), and the older people get, the more medical attention they typically need. Moreover, given that Bulletproof people say they want to live longer, it seems they would want to see their doctor to help them stay healthier.
But people who follow the Bulletproof lifestyle are able to defy their chronological age, meaning the number of birthdays they’ve had. Instead, they focus on how old their bodies appear to be, and are able to reverse their biological age.
Bulletproofers who aim to live longer don’t see this as an idle wish. While 70% of the general population says they want to lose weight, it’s significant that people who follow Bulletproof are much more likely to be taking active steps to do so. Following the roadmap to a Bulletproof Diet is the best way to start.
No matter what the reason, our research shows that Bulletproof empowers people to want to live longer and better lives.
Revenge of the Beans: How Lectins Suck Your Energy And Make You Weak
As you scan the Bulletproof Diet Roadmap, you’ll notice that lentils and beans, as well as some other foods like tomatoes and potatoes, are out of the green zone. There’s a reason.
This is one area where the Bulletproof Diet does not match other diets that deify all plant foods. People often ask why they should avoid things like legumes and nightshades. Here’s the science behind why some vegetables are great for you and why others knock you down.
Instantly download the Bulletproof Diet Roadmap, along with other guides and recipes here.
Lectins 101: Why lentils, tomatoes, and potatoes make you weak
Some Bulletproof Diet recommendations are based on the presence of lectin in foods. Be sure to realize that lectin is not the same as leptin, the hormone that controls whether you’re fat, or lecithin, a type of fat found in eggs, sunflowers, or soy.
Lectins matter to the performance level of everyone, but they are particularly important if you have a thyroid condition, or if you have any kind of arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, cystitis, or even if you are simply 100 pounds overweight (like I was). This is because lectins are tied directly to inflammation and autoimmune reactions in your body.
Lectins are a form of protein found in nearly all plants and animals.They bind to the sugar molecules called polysaccharides that cover the surface of most cells in your body.
There are countless varieties of lectins in nature, and we have used them for more than 100 years in medical testing laboratories because they stick to red blood cells very effectively.
Why plants contain lectins
Plants evolved to reproduce. They actually have no interest in being a food source for you, or even for insects or fungi. Since they are not good at running away, plants developed natural pesticides and repellents to protect themselves and their seeds from hungry animals. Since the cells in your body use lectins as one way to communicate between each other, plants evolved to create their own lectin to “hack” the human cell communication by disrupting it. Eventually, humans and animals make the connection between eating the plant and feeling off, and get discouraged from eating the plant. Does this make plants the original biohackers?
The Evil That Beans Do
Take kidney beans, for example. Only a few raw kidney beans can kill you because the naturally occurring lectins will bind to the sugar coating on your red blood cells, which makes them stick together until you get abnormal clotting.
Perhaps you’ve heard of ricin, the extremely toxic poison featured in the Breaking Bad TV series. Vanishingly small doses will kill you, yet it is derived from the lowly castor bean. At the hospital, doctors test your blood type based on how your blood reacts to different types of lectins. And inexperienced cooks learn how lectins cause bloody vomiting.
The toxicity of lectins is known to food safety experts, but you never hear about it in popular nutrition circles. It’s no surprise that the top 8 food allergens contain higher amounts of lectins, including:
- Dairy
- Eggs
- Wheat
- Soy
- Peanuts
- Tree nuts
- Fish
- Shellfish
In fact, about 20% of all cases of rheumatoid arthritis are caused by lectins in the nightshade family. Common nightshades include tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and bell peppers. There are perhaps 100 additional less common foods like goji berries in that family, all of which contain lectins. “Superfood” goji berries anyone? Think again.
Use Glucosamine to Bind Lectins and Improve Joint Health
Different lectins love different sugars in your body’s cells. One of the reasons wheat is so bad for you is that the lectin in wheat is attracted to glucosamine, the polysaccharide that covers your joints. You can buy glucosamine to help your joint health. It doesn’t work for some people, but for others, it’s magic. I was one of those who had constant knee pain until my mid-twenties, and my knees were always inflamed even after three surgeries. Glucosamine dramatically reduced inflammation and pain. I had not fully embraced a zero-gluten diet, which is the most likely reason it was so helpful for me. The glucosamine in my supplements was binding the lectin in my diet before it reached my joints!
The most effective form of glucosamine for binding lectin from wheat is N-Acetyl-D-glucosamine. It’s not impossible to find in supplements, but if you have read this far, you already know that wheat is simply not food for high-performance humans. I do not use glucosamine regularly today.
Several More Problems with Lectins
If you are still not convinced that you should avoid the more toxic lectins, check out what happens when you add lectins from edible plants, including lima beans and kidney beans, into the diets of rats. Scientists who did this found depressed growth, pancreas enlargement, depressed insulin, and disruption of normal protein, fat, and carbohydrate intermediary metabolism. The researchers hypothesized that it was most likely due to the hormone mimicking actions of lectins (although it may have been also related to enzyme inhibitors found in legumes). Either way, it’s not Bulletproof.
Another anti-nutrient: gliadin in wheat
It’s not just beans, either. Gliadin is a component of wheat gluten that can activate inflammatory proteins, the ones involved in a myriad of acute and chronic inflammatory disorders, including autoimmunity and infectious diseases. High performance people avoid things that make you weak, like autoimmune conditions and rampant inflammation. One more reason to avoid wheat…
Lectins affect hunger and satiety hormones
Then there’s leptin, the hormone that signals when you’re full. When your metabolism breaks, you get resistant to leptin before you get insulin resistant, and both forms of resistance lead to obesity. Guess what? Lectin is associated with leptin resistance.3
GMO foods have higher lectin levels than non-GMO foods
GMO foods are not on the Bulletproof Diet for lots of reasons. One primary reason is that the genes inserted into crops often increase the amount of lectin, and add new lectin to GMO strains. Lectins are one reason that GMO foods are more allergenic than non-GMO foods.
Perhaps most insidious of all is that lectins cause leaky gut. When they damage the lining of your gut, other proteins from food you eat enter your bloodstream and program your immune system to attack other parts of your body. That means you may have cross-reactivity with your nervous system tissue, your heart, your skin, your thyroid, or even your brain.
In an episode of Bulletproof Radio (iTunes), Dr. Steven Gundry, author of “The Plant Paradox” and “The Longevity Paradox,” explains how lectins affecting one system can snowball into another system. He uses the relationship between the thyroid and high cholesterol as an example.
“Lectins are a really good way of blocking thyroid hormone. You may actually end up with a thyroid hormone receptor problem as the cause of your [high] LDL and it’s not the pound of bacon you’re eating every morning,” Gundry says.
I believe that excessive lectins from my careful former raw vegan diet contributed to the large increase in food sensitivities that I experienced as a vegan. There are dozens of former vegans who have written in to the Bulletproof site expressing similar experiences. Lectins are not the sole cause – toxins from mold, another anti-nutrient, also may play a role.
Autoimmune conditions and associated inflammation are tied to IBS, colitis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (I fixed mine by avoiding grains, molds, and many lectins), Crohn’s, fibromyalgia, and chronic fatigue syndrome, in addition to different forms of arthritis. There is even a link to autism and its little brothers, Asperger syndrome and ADHD. It’s no wonder that people with ADHD love the Bulletproof Diet.
I learned a lot of these things when I bought a college level biochem book about 7 years ago, called Plant Lectins (Pusztai, Cambridge University Press, 1991). In it, the authors cite a study from 1980 showing that 30% of fresh and processed foods contain lectins. Lectins from green salads, fruits, spices, seeds, dry cereals and nuts showed lectin activity, and some of them interact with blood serum or saliva and bacteria from the oral cavity. Ever noticed excessive salivation, or extremely thick saliva after a meal? Now you know why.
FAQ: Why is Butter Ok but Dairy is not?
If you are reading carefully, you probably noticed that dairy is high in lectin. However, grass-fed butter, a staple of the Bulletproof Diet, is not! Grain-fed milk is higher in lectin than grass-fed milk. Pasteurized, homogenized milk (the stuff I recommend you avoid) has less SIgA, an immunoglobulin that is present in raw milk. SIgA binds to dangerous lectins. This is why I recommend you consume raw dairy, but only if you tolerate it.
Dealing with Lectins
How do you avoid lectins in your diet?
Eat high-fat, low-carb
Plant-eating animals in the wild favor quick energy in the form of carbohydrates, which is why high-carb vegetables and seeds typically contain high lectin. Going low-carb and high fat automatically shifts you to foods that do not have as high of a lectin content. Also, limit lower carbohydrate high lectin nightshades, and pay attention to your body’s response to them.
Choose white over brown
The next best thing is to mechanically remove the parts of the food that have the most lectin in them. This is why, throughout history, the higher economic classes would choose white rice over brown rice and white flour over whole wheat. This is also one reason why white rice is ranked higher than brown rice on the Bulletproof Diet. Who needs extra fiber when it’s wrapped in lectin?
Cooking, fermenting, and soaking
Historically, people have used a variety of techniques to try to reduce these food toxins. Cooking sometimes helps, but some lectins are made stronger in the presence of heat. Dry heat doesn’t work very well to break down lectins, which is why baking with “gluten free” garbanzo bean flour is a bad idea. The best cooking method to destroy lectins is pressure-cooking.
You could also try fermenting. The only problem is that when you allow bacteria to breakdown proteins, including lectins, you get the creation of histamine, which triggers allergies. Oops. Still, it’s better to allow bacteria to digest the lectin than it is to allow it in your body. This is why, if you must eat soy, you should stick with fermented soy like miso, tempeh, tamari, and natto. But the histamine and phytoestrogens in soy, fermented or not, should keep you away if you read this blog! As far as I can tell, no one has ever written about how soaking to reduce lectins can increase histamine, and improper fermentation techniques can cause the formation of mold toxins.
Then there’s soaking and rinsing. Your grandmother probably soaked beans overnight, then rinsed and boiled them again, possibly with baking soda. She might have done this so you, her lovely grandchild, would have less intestinal gas, but the reason for this effect was that she was removing some lectins.
Conclusion
One of the reasons people rely on the Bulletproof Diet Roadmap is because you don’t need to know any of the details in this blog post in order to take advantage of them. This knowledge is built in so that if you are choosing foods in the green zone, you are automatically choosing to eat less lectin.
That said, biohackers like me want to understand how and why things work. So now you know!
How to make your coffee bulletproof and your morning too
Bulletproof Coffee is not your average latte.It’s a high-performance drink that has a massive impact on your energy and cognitive function. Bulletproof Coffee has helped everyone from driven CEOs to professional athletes to busy parents increase their energy so they can do more of what fulfills them.
Looking to buy Bulletproof Coffee? Purchase it here.
What is Bulletproof Coffee?
- It all starts with the beans. Brew 1 cup (8-12 ounces) of coffee using filtered water with 2 ½ heaping tablespoons of freshly ground Bulletproof Coffee Beans. Use a French Press for ease of use and to preserve beneficial coffee oils that paper filters keep out.
- Add 1 teaspoon to 2 tablespoons of Brain Octane Oil. You’ll learn much more about Brain Octane Oil below, but keep in mind that this stuff is powerful. Start with 1 teaspoon per cup and work your way up to 1-2 tablespoons over several days.
- Add 1-2 tablespoons of grass-fed, unsalted butter or 1-2 teaspoons of Grass-Fed Ghee (for those who can’t tolerate dairy). You read that right. It says butter. Don’t worry. This mixture also makes the creamiest, most delicious cup of coffee you’ve ever had. Oh, and make sure your butter is unsalted. Salty coffee is gross.
- Mix it all in a blender for 20-30 seconds until it looks like a foamy latte.
Scroll Down to Watch the How-To Video
Or, try these convenient Bulletproof Coffee hacks:
- Grab a ready-to-go Bulletproof Coffee Cold Brew, or
- Toss a packet of Instamix creamer in your coffee — no blender required. Each Instamix packet contains grass-fed butter and Brain Octane Oil in powdered form, for easy, on-the-go Bulletproof Coffee.
Drink Bulletproof Coffee instead of eating breakfast
Starting your day with cereal, granola, oatmeal, toast, fruit, or another carb-heavy breakfast staple spikes your blood sugar. You’ll get a quick burst of energy, but by mid-morning your blood sugar will crash, and you’ll be hungry, tired, and unfocused.
Starting your day with Bulletproof Coffee, on the other hand, gives you three things:
- Suppressed hunger. Brain Octane Oil balances ghrelin and CCK, your hunger hormones, keeping you full until lunch.
- Steady lasting energy. The saturated fat in grass-fed butter slows the absorption of caffeine, which gives you even energy for several hours instead of a caffeine spike and crash. No jitters, either.
- Mental clarity. Brain Octane rapidly converts to ketones, a type of molecule that your brain uses more efficiently than carbs or sugar. Pair ketones with the slowly releasing caffeine and you can literally feel your brain turning on.
Ditch the carb-heavy breakfast. Start your day with fat for fuel. You’ll be sharp and alert straight through until lunch.
How does it work?
Turns out there is some powerful science behind the benefits of coffee, butter, and Brain Octane Oil. Let’s dive in:
Bulletproof Beans boost energy and brain function
Coffee doesn’t just taste good. It’s packed with essential nutrients like B vitamins, potassium, and manganese.[1] Coffee has loads of antioxidants, which reduce your risk of chronic degenerative diseases and keep your brain sharp.[2] Other health benefits of coffee include:
- A sharper brain: Bioflavonoids in coffee can actually make you smarter by intensifying neuronal firing in the brain. This means your brain cells will communicate faster so thoughts come more quickly and you’ll have better recall. Coffee can also protect your brain as you age.
- A happier outlook: There’s some evidence that a couple of cups of coffee a day can improve your mood and sense of alertness.[3]
- Better physical performance and less fat: Caffeine can boost your physical endurance so your workouts seem easier.
But none of these benefits mean much if you’re drinking the wrong coffee.
Just like the food you put into your body, the quality of your coffee matters. Certified Clean Coffee Beans give you the mental edge and energy you need to thrive. Crappy coffee can sap your energy and hurt your performance.
Since it’s hard to tell exactly how your beans are grown, stored, and processed (even if they’re organic), we decided to grow and process our own coffee. Here’s how our beans are different:
- Location. Bulletproof Certified Clean Coffee is from high-elevation, Rainforest Alliance certified, single-origin coffee estates in Guatemala and Colombia.
- Quality. Bulletproof Beans are held to stringent quality standards with special sourcing and processing methods that minimize mold and other toxin contamination. This means you can drink cup after cup without worrying about toxic crap in your coffee.
- Taste. Bulletproof Beans are super high-quality Arabica beans, which have a smooth, bold flavor. They’re also less likely to grow mold.
Grass-fed butter adds high-quality fats and nutrients
Healthy fat will sustain your energy for hours, balance hormones, and boost cognitive function. With butter, you’re not only getting essential fatty acids and other nutrients, it helps make the creamiest cup of coffee you’ll ever have.
The kind of butter you add to your Bulletproof Coffee is important! Grass-fed cows are healthier than factory-farmed or grain-fed cows, and the butter they produce reflects their good health.
- Grass-fed butter is higher in essential nutrients. Your body craves good fats for hormone balance and brain health. But good quality, grass-fed butter also contains omega-3 fatty acids, beta-carotene, fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K, CLA (a fatty acid with powerful fat-loss benefits), and antioxidants.
- Butter is good for your brain and your digestion. Grass-fed butter is high in butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid that can both prevent and decrease inflammation. High levels of inflammation link to everything from depression to cancer, so the less inflammation the better!
Brain Octane Oil provides clean energy with no crash
Brain Octane is a staple of the Bulletproof Diet and a key ingredient in Bulletproof Coffee. It’s important because it raises fat-burning, brain-fueling molecules in your body called ketones. Brain Octane is a key ingredient for several reasons:
- Purity. Brain Octane is a purified form of medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) derived from 100% pure coconut oil. It’s then triple-distilled through earthen clay, so there are no solvent residues.
- Quality. Brain Octane is 100% American-made and held to Bulletproof’s strict quality standards.
- Taste. Brain Octane is also flavorless, odorless, and easy on your stomach, unlike some other MCT oils, which can give you what Bulletproof followers affectionately refer to as “disaster pants.” (See image below for a visual explanation.)
Different types of fats have different jobs. And because of Brain Octane’s molecular structure, it helps you to curb your hunger, lose fat, and kick your brain into a higher gear more than generic MCT oil. It’s more than 4 times as effective as plain coconut oil at raising your ketone levels, aka helping your body to run off of fat instead of sugar. This is what gives you clean-burning energy with no crash for hours at at time. Brain Octane can also help you:
- Suppress hunger. Brain Octane suppresses ghrelin, the hormone responsible for making you feel hungry. It also enhances CCK, the hormone that makes you feel full. The result is that you feel satisfied for hours on even a small amount of Brain Octane.[7
- Lose weight. Ketones also boost your metabolic rate, decrease the amount of fat you store, and burn the fat you already have.[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]
- Think faster. Brain Octane turns into ketones in minutes. Those ketones provide your brain with almost immediate access to energy. You’ll feel your brain turn on and brain fog disappear in favor of crisp, quick thought. Try it, you’ll feel it!
- Work out harder. Bulletproof Coffee with Brain Octane makes an excellent fuel for your workout. Fueling with sugar and other simple carbs can lower your testosterone, which cuts into muscle building, among other things (think: sex drive and energy). Brain Octane gives you clean energy without sapping your testosterone and other sex hormones. The caffeine in coffee will give you a nice boost in the gym, too, so you’ll feel supercharged for your day and your workout.[18]
This is why Bulletproof Coffee works so well. When you drink a cup of it, you’re full for hours and those distracting food cravings vanish. Meanwhile, burning fat becomes effortless.
For a comprehensive look at Brain Octane Oil, check out this definitive guide.
Why does it need to be that exact recipe?
Not all buttered coffee is created equal.
To get the real benefits of Bulletproof Coffee you have to use Bulletproof ingredients. There’s no decent substitute for mold-free coffee or Brain Octane Oil. Using instant coffee and coconut oil won’t cut it.
Don’t add sugar, either. Sugar, even in natural forms like honey or maple syrup, will affect your blood sugar levels and keep you from burning fat.
Read More: The Bulletproof Coffee Recipe (and also some approved additions).
Additions like coconut oil or coconut cream won’t give you the energy that Brain Octane will. Here’s why each ingredient is so important:
Why cheap coffee makes you weak
The wrong coffee can sap you of your energy and actually make your brain slower. Source the best beans you can. You can do this by choosing beans that are:
- Single origin
- Small batch
- From high elevations
- Arabica beans (they’re less moldy!)
- Rainforest Certified
- Tested for mycotoxins and mold
Bulletproof Coffee Beans meet all of these standards.
Why you should use grass-fed butter
Grass-fed is the key. This is where the nutrients are. It’s also what gives the coffee its creamy consistency. And for those of you with a lactose or casein intolerance, try ghee, which has most of the casein and lactose removed.
Non-grass-fed butter simply does not contain the nutritional punch of grass-fed butter. Period.
Why coconut oil just won’t cut it
Brain Octane is four times as effective as coconut oil at raising ketones, those fat-burning, brain-boosting molecules in your body. Throwing coconut oil in your coffee won’t give the same effects.
Brain Octane is composed of a special type of medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) derived from coconut oil. But all MCTs are not created equal. There are four different strains of MCTs and they each do different things, not all of them good.
You can read more about how MCTs work vs. Brain Octane Oil here.
That’s why a cup of coffee made with crappy butter and coconut oil won’t keep you full for more than an hour or two, but a true Bulletproof Coffee made with mold-free beans, grass-fed butter, and Brain Octane Oil gives you steady energy for an entire morning.
Coffee is a powerful health food
Fat and coffee are the two most controversial foods in the Western world. But evidence is mounting that coffee and certain fats are not only good for your brain in the short-term (making you sharper and helping to balance your hormones), but also in the long-term, helping to protect against disease and curb inflammation.
Bulletproof Coffee doesn’t give you the jitters
Bulletproof Coffee allows you to get all the energy-boosting benefits of caffeine, but without the typical crash and jitters. How is this possible?
Moldy coffee beans are associated with brain fog and jitters. So, the difference between Bulletproof Coffee and other beans is the quality. Our beans undergo a stringent quality control process, so they don’t contain the mold toxins and pesticides that can tank your energy and focus.
You may want to rethink breakfast
Bulletproof Coffee is breakfast – but without the insulin spike and crash that fruit, smoothies, cereal, or bread products cause. And because of all those healthy fats from grass-fed butter and Brain Octane, you feel full and energized for hours.
Bulletproof Coffee in the morning is best paired with the nutrition principles outlined in the Bulletproof Diet. You can download the basic guidelines here.
You won’t crash with Bulletproof Coffee
Bulletproof Coffee contains targeted types of fat that keep you feeling full and alert for hours. When your blood sugar and hunger hormones are balanced, sugar and carb cravings disappear and your energy will skyrocket.
When your brain is running on fat instead of sugar, you have more focus and won’t experience the drops in energy that come with a high-carb diet. Your metabolism will switch into fat-burning mode, which frees you from sudden energy crashes and brain fog.
Fat doesn’t make you fat
It turns out that science doesn’t support low-fat claims at all. Unfortunately, after 60 years of low-fat propaganda, the “fat makes you fat” rhetoric is so ingrained in our collective psyche that many people still fear fat, even though study after study shows that fat is harmless.[19] In fact, eating more fat is the single most powerful way to hack your cravings, turn on your brain, lose weight, and balance your hormones. Fat isn’t just good for you; it’s essential. Here are just a few reasons fat is your friend:
- Fat won’t mess with your blood sugar levels like sugar or carbohydrates. It’s actually too many carbohydrates that lead to unbalanced blood sugar and fluctuating hormones, which ultimately leads to fat storage.
- Fat slows the absorption of carbohydrates, which keeps blood sugar levels under control. Balanced blood sugar is the key to lowering stress hormones and inflammation.
- Fat makes you feel fuller longer. Try upping the healthy fats in your diet. You’ll actually eat less.
- Quality fats often contain fat-soluble vitamins like vitamins A, D, E, and K. Eating fat alongside other nutrient-dense foods will increase the fat-soluble nutrients you absorb from them, too.
Butter isn’t bad for you
It might take your body a week or two to fully turn on its fat digestion systems when you make the switch to healthy fats in the morning, but you’ll feel the boost in energy and cognitive function right away.
If at first it is a little too rich, try using less butter initially then build up to the amount you like. Taking a betaine HCl or digestive enzyme supplement with your coffee will also help your body digest the butter.
Grass-fed butter is much healthier than other butter. Starting your day with grass-fed butter will give you lots of energy and it will give your body healthy fats that it will use to make cell membranes and hormones.
You don’t have to like coffee
You don’t have to use coffee to get the boundless energy and focus of butter and Brain Octane. In fact, the first time Dave experienced the benefits of a buttered beverage, it was in tea.
You can make just about any hot beverage into a creamy, frothy version of itself by adding butter and Brain Octane to your hot liquid in a blender. Hot chocolate, tea, and turmeric tea are just a few options.
Where Bulletproof Coffee began
Dave Asprey was a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur when his health really started to take a hit. He was obese, weighing in at almost 300 pounds. He was also chronically tired, and his brain function was starting to suffer.
For years, he tried restricting calories and working out every day. Nothing helped. By the time he was 30, Dave’s doctors told him he was at strong risk for a stroke or heart attack — not at some indeterminate time in the future, but soon.
Dave got the idea for Bulletproof Coffee after a trek in Tibet in 2004. At 18,000 above sea level and -10°F, his energy was plummeting – until he staggered into a guest house and a local handed him a creamy cup of yak butter tea.
The butter-infused drink is a necessity for the people in Tibet, who live and work in such rugged, high-altitude terrain. The drink instantly rejuvenated Dave. It was like a flip was switched on in his brain and body.
The biohacker in him wondered why the tea made him feel so good, and he embarked on years of research into why the yak butter turned his brain on. Eventually, Dave substituted tea for mold-free coffee, and yak butter for regular old grass-fed cow’s butter. Brain Octane Oil was the final missing piece. Together, those three ingredients gave Dave the abundant energy and effortless mental clarity he felt in that hut in Tibet. That’s how Bulletproof Coffee was born.
Make Bulletproof Coffee a part of your day
The best way to figure out if Bulletproof Coffee works for you is to try it. Here’s how you can incorporate Bulletproof Coffee into your day for boundless energy and focus:
- Buy some Upgraded Bulletproof Beans; grass-fed, unsalted butter or ghee; and Brain Octane Oil. (Or, opt for ready-to-drink Bulletproof Cold Brew.)
- Replace your usual breakfast with a Bulletproof Coffee for about a week. It may take your body a while to adapt to burning fat for energy instead of sugar and carbohydrates.
- Eat your lunch and dinner as usual or just eat when you’re hungry.
- For maximum results, stay in the “green” zone of the Bulletproof Diet.
- Enjoy fat loss, muscle gain, and better performance overall.
I want to hear about your experience with Bulletproof Coffee. But first, you need the ingredients. Get started with Bulletproof Coffee, then learn more about the Bulletproof Diet and how to supercharge your weight loss.
REFERENCES
The Complete Bulletproof Diet & Fasting Roadmap
What is the Bulletproof Diet?
So many diets create an all-or-nothing mentality that makes you feel deprived when you follow it and guilty when you “mess up.” These diets aren’t sustainable and lead to binging, crashing, and just giving up.
The Bulletproof Diet isn’t like that. It’s a realistic approach to eating nutrient-dense fats, protein, and tons of organic vegetables to increase fat burning and send energy levels through the roof.
The Bulletproof Diet will help you:
- Lose weight without calorie-counting or weighing food
- Boost energy and willpower
- Increase cognitive function as well as physical and mental performance
- Increase nutrient stores and strengthen immune function
What can you eat? The Dave Asprey Diet and Fasting Roadmap makes it easy.
If you are new or unfamiliar with the Bulletproof diet, or you’re looking for an easy reference to the best foods for your body, This one-page guide will help you:
- Easily navigate all aspects of the Bulletproof Diet on a single page
- Get bonus tips on meal timing and fasting protocol
- Fasting tips and a fasting schedule for 12,14,18hr fasts, as well as OMAD.
Using The Dave Asprey Diet and Fasting
Roadmap
The Diet Roadmap offers a number of food options on a spectrum of green (eat as much as you want!) to yellow (limit these foods) to red (these should be avoided, but it’s not the end of the world if you eat them).
It’s simple to use:
- Eat the stuff in the green zone
- No calorie counting. No measuring. Eat until you’re satisfied.
- Feel your brain, body, and hormones re-awaken, effortlessly lose weight, and gain muscle with little exercise.
The Roadmap also includes details about:
- When to eat
- Exactly what foods and beverages to include
- How much to eat, including recommended serving sizes
Enter your email to download Dave’s Diet and Fasting Roadmap.
We won’t spam you.
Signs of Low Testosterone and How Testosterone Replacement Therapy Helps
- You might think testosterone is for muscles and the bedroom. The reality is, almost everyone can benefit from testosterone replacement at some point in their lives.
- By your mid-forties, there’s a good chance your testosterone levels dropped low enough that some of your body functions aren’t working properly, and you need some.
- Learn the difference between testosterone cream, gel, testosterone injections and pellets, and what labs you’ll need to monitor to keep your estrogen in check.
- Read on to find out how to get your groove back, not just in the gym and the bedroom, but in life.
You might think testosterone replacement is for meatheads who want to lift all day and eat all day, with the endgame of looking like a balloon animal. The reality is, almost everyone can benefit from testosterone replacement at some point in their lives. By your mid-forties, there’s a good chance your levels dropped low enough that some of your body functions aren’t working properly, and you need some.
Testosterone isn’t just for muscles and the bedroom. Low testosterone levels affect your memory, bone density, heart health and more. Testosterone is a big factor in your mood, too. My older friends on the board of the anti-aging nonprofit I run call the effects of low testosterone “cranky old man syndrome.” The movie “Grumpy Old Men” parodies what happens when you get older and your testosterone tanks.
Looking at you, too, ladies. Testosterone plays a role in your heart, your bones, your memory, and your energy, and bringing your levels to normal won’t make you grow a beard.
Testosterone supplementation has a reputation for giving women manly features and giving men acne, anger, and sex problems. That’s because people misuse it. Medically supervised testosterone replacement is completely different from juicing on steroids. More on that in a bit.
When you do it right, testosterone replacement helps you burn fat, build muscle, and helps maintain normal sexual function. Testosterone in normal ranges makes you a happier, calmer person, too. According to a study of 83,000 older men who underwent testosterone replacement therapy, normal testosterone ranges reduce your risk of death from all causes.
Keep reading to find out when you need testosterone replacement and how to do it correctly.
What are the signs of low testosterone?
When I was 26, I was off-kilter, head to toe. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move without pain, and I had body fat that wouldn’t budge despite doing everything by the book. When I was ready to figure out why my body didn’t work, I went to anti-aging doctor for a complete workup.
After some testing, I found that that my testosterone levels were lower than my post-menopausal mom’s, and that’s why I couldn’t lose weight and felt so tired and achy all the time. My free testosterone (the kind that your body can use) was low, and what I did have was bound to sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), which means your cells can’t use it and it’s on its way out of the body.
On top of that, I have the gene that predisposes me to converting everything to estrogen, so the free testosterone I did have was converting to estrogen quickly. I had a lot of extra weight and man boobs, and since fat cells make estrogen, my estrogen levels compounded over time.
A lot of people with low testosterone might know they feel like garbage, but wouldn’t even think the symptoms call for a trip to the doctor. If you’re tired, you think you need to go to bed earlier. If you’re achy, you suspect it’s part of getting older. If you do end up making an appointment, the doctor may or may not think to test your testosterone levels if you have just a few low-level signs of low testosterone.
You may not have any noticeable symptoms, you may have one or two, or you could check off the whole list. Here are some of the symptoms of low testosterone.
Signs of low testosterone in men
- Weight gain
- Gynecomastia (man boobs)
- Erectile dysfunction
- Decreased sex drive
- Changes in sperm count or infertility
- Fatigue
- Difficulty concentrating, brain fog
- Memory problems
- Reduced strength and muscle mass
- Depression, anxiety
- Aches and pains
- Bone density changes
- Changes in cardiovascular disease risk markers
- Listlessness, decreased motivation
- Anger, agitation, irritability
Signs of low testosterone in women
- Weight gain
- Fatigue
- Reduced strength, endurance, muscle tone
- Dry skin
- Thinning skin
- Painful intercourse
- Decreased or absent sex drive
- Loss of muscle tone in arms and legs
- Difficulty concentrating, brain fog
- Memory problems
- Depression, anxiety
- Listlessness, decreased motivation
- Bone density changes
Those are common signs for a lot of conditions. See why it’s so easy to miss? This is one of those times to ask for the lab tests you want.
Does testosterone replacement therapy work?
If you get some baseline bloodwork taken, then start the correct amount of testosterone, then test again, you’ll find that your numbers respond within a matter of days. You feel it, too. Right off the bat, I noticed my mental clarity came back, I had more energy than I’d had in years, and I wasn’t senselessly angry anymore. Even though I never had problems in the bedroom, bringing my testosterone up … ahem … put some extra air in my tires.
Then, there are the benefits you don’t feel right away. You don’t necessarily notice your bones getting stronger or your heart attack risk going down, but it’s happening. Not long after I started testosterone replacement, we started talking about having kids, and testosterone helps the swimmers get their swim on.
Women notice an enormous difference with only a small percentage of the dose men take. Most commonly, women report that it brought their zest back, not just in the bedroom, but in life. The things you can’t measure are the ones that are most impactful, like positive changes in mood, motivation, concentration, and more. Especially when crossing into peri-menopause and menopause and hormonal shifts affect so much of everyday life, testosterone helps women feel like themselves again.
Here’s how to get started.
Get your testosterone testing, along with other measures
Before you start, you’ll want to consult with a doctor and get some lab work done. You might have to shop around for doctors before you find one who can effectively advise on testosterone replacement therapy. Hormone specialist Dr. Mark Gordon explains in an episode of the The Human Upgrade podcast, “Unfortunately, conventional medical thinking is that if you have a range of a hormone between 10 and 90, if you come in at 11, you’re normal. That’s not normal if you have symptoms.”
Find someone who will treat your symptoms, using your numbers as a guide, not as the the be-all end-all.
Your doctor can order you testing for sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), total testosterone, free testosterone, estradiol, and other estrogen metabolites. Since you’re getting poked anyway, you should spring for an advanced thyroid panel as well. Your thyroid controls energy metabolism, hormone and energy levels, so you’ll want to see how it’s doing. Your functional medicine doctor will probably want to repeat these tests at some point after you’ve started testosterone.
Topical testosterone, injections, or testosterone pellets?
When you start the conversation with your doctor, you’ll want to know the pros and cons of each testosterone delivery method.
Testosterone Cream and Gel
Testosterone cream absorbs well when you apply it to your armpits, but there are some downsides. A lot of men have hair in the way, so they will shave their underarm hair so they can get as much onto the skin as possible. With or without hair, testosterone cream gives you greasy armpits, which is annoying, and you stain your shirts.
Worse yet, if you get testosterone on your sheets, your pillow, or your clothing, and someone else touches it, they’ll get a dose. Even hugging while you have testosterone cream on can be a problem. This is particularly dangerous if you have babies, kids, or a pregnant person in the house — you don’t want to mess with their hormones.
There’s a better route. In men, testosterone cream and gel absorb better on the thin skin of the testes, which side-steps the greasy armpit problem. It’s better than putting it on your pits, but that’s only the 2nd best place to put it. To get the most out of your testosterone cream, migrate a little further back. Applying testosterone cream to the perineum and even a little further back than that (yes, there — keep it external!) will give you maximum absorption without putting the people who live with you at risk.
The cream is pretty mild, but if you put the gel near a mucus membrane, it’ll burn for a few minutes. Your skin absorbs the gel better than it absorbs cream, though.
Women can apply to the underarms too, but the vulva is the best place to apply testosterone cream. Gel will burn down there, though. The Human Upgrade podcast guest Dr. Tami Meraglia calls it “scream cream” because it gives you your mojo back.
Testosterone Injections
Injecting yourself with testosterone can take some getting used to at first. I was pretty scared the first time I injected myself — it took me about an hour to work up the courage, and once I finally jabbed myself with the needle I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t hurt at all. You use a small insulin needle, so you barely feel it. Usually, you give yourself a shot twice a week.
With injections, I didn’t have to worry about accidentally dosing my kids. But after a while, traveling with vials and needles got to be too much, and I opted for the pellet instead.
Testosterone Pellets
The testosterone pellet is the most convenient method of delivery available. A doctor slides a time-release pellet under your skin, and you don’t have to think about testosterone at all for 4-5 months. You feel it going in, no doubt, and afterward the area feels sore for a few days, like someone pinched you. After that, you don’t even notice it’s there.
What are healthy testosterone levels?
You can keep your testosterone levels where they are when you’re 30-35 (around 750-800, even up to 1000), well into old age, which can be a century or two if you do it right. When you go over that, you end up too muscular, you get zits, you’re aggressive, and you’re preoccupied with sex. Remember how moody, horny, and distracted you were as a teenager? Too much testosterone brings that all back, and that’s way too much work.
To make sure your levels don’t go through the roof, and to make sure you don’t throw your other hormones off, you should be mindful of three things.
- Get the right dose. Don’t get your testosterone advice (or the vials themselves) at the gym. Work with a functional medicine doctor who knows how to supplement testosterone for longevity and overall health. Dr. Tami does extensive testing to determine the precise, low, effective dose. “My male patients are anywhere from 100 to 250 milligrams. My female patients are on like 0.5 to 3, maybe up to 5 milligrams as a big dose for a woman.”
- Cycle testosterone. Testosterone isn’t something you take constantly for years and years and years. Typically, you’ll cycle 6 weeks on, 1-2 weeks off. If you don’t cycle off, you could end up with testosterone off the charts (horny, pimply teenager syndrome) or you could end up with benign testicular atrophy (small ball syndrome — it’s cosmetic, but guys aren’t too thrilled when it happens).
- Monitor your estrogen and other hormones. You’ll want to test your estrogen metabolites and other hormones frequently to make sure you’re not converting to estrogen too quickly, and to make sure your follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) isn’t dropping. Your functional medicine doctor can prescribe countermeasures like Clomid and Arimidex, and you can take calcium d-glucarate, which metabolizes estrogen almost as well as prescription Tamoxifen, without the nasty side effects. Work with your doc on this one, because you need these in the right amounts for proper brain function.
After replacing my testosterone, I went off of that and modafinil for two years while I was writing “The Bulletproof Diet.” Eating that way allowed me to stay off of modafinil, and I kept my testosterone levels up but it was a ton of work to keep it there. I decided that life was better with testosterone replacement. Keep in mind, replacement levels of testosterone and performance-enhancing drugs shouldn’t be lumped into the same category — they’re not even on the same planet.
It is absolutely criminal that organizations prevent male and female athletes over 40 from taking replacement levels of testosterone. To prevent cheating, anti-doping measures actually put people at risk for cognitive problems, mood imbalances, brittle bones, heart attack, and more. You read that right — failing to bring your levels to normal increases your risk of dangerous things like heart attacks, which is all well and good for the anti-doping police, because it might make you throw the ball harder or ride your bike faster. Seems legit.
Diabetic athletes supplement insulin (also a hormone) to function like a normal human, and that’s no different from men and women with low testosterone needing to replace it to function as a normal human. Feeling good and reducing your risk of other diseases is your birthright, and normalizing hormones that are off is simply doing the right thing for your biology.
