Saturday, December 20, 2014

"Bulletproof Coffee" - Take 1...

So, since I can't seem to keep this blog updated consistently, I've decided to make a bit of New Year's Resolution with it and update it with all sorts of crap in the coming months... (I give this about 3 months tops before I lose momentum and it ends up in the stack of my other old New Year's resolutions... hanging out there with "Run More", "Be Nicer", "Don't Make Fun of People", etc...)
    So rest assured that within the next week there's gonna be my totally unbiased list of top albums of 2014... But till then... Let me tell you about the time I made Bulletproof coffee... (uh... that time being 3 days ago)...

    It'd be nice to say that I came across the whole Bulletproof Coffee thing on my own, searching for something to make my body work more effectively and improve it's performance - as if I scoured the internet or went on my own journey to Nepal to see a bunch of Sherpas ingesting their ethnic variation of it. But no.
    I read about it in Men's Journal....

    Obviously, I'm not some fitness fanatic. Or nutritional nazi. I drink a bit more than I should. I sometimes eat horrible food, (rarely I might add).  But I'm not without the vague interest of self-improvement. Thus, this article mentioned the possibility of this coffee giving me more energy (God knows I need that) and increase my IQ (I definitely need that)... So what the hell, I'll give it a shot.
     All you apparently need is brewed coffee, coconut oil, and grass-fed butter. 
     Luckily, two of those ingredients are easy to find. The grass-fed butter required some quick internet searching while in the "Organic" section of Fred Meyer... (Mainly, I was too damn cheap to head over to New Seasons or Whole Foods, and I didn't have any of my hipster friends to lead the way in this journey)...
     But nonetheless, I found some "probably" grass-fed butter from New Zealand that should work... 
    Now, I know what you're thinking... "Dude... You're putting butter and coconut oil in coffee. Weird. Sounds like some sort of self-help fad." And yes. It smacks of an Atkins/grapefruit/South Beach diet fad from over the years. BUT.... 
     When I work 12 hour shifts, I tend to skip a morning meal and drink coffee before work anyway... And usually end my day only having had a lunch somewhere between 11:30am-2:00pm... So, an early morning alternative with some (possible) nutrient adjunct and (possibly) increased energy, is at least worth a try in my book.
     Here's a quick breakdown of how it went...

0645: Well.... I pulled my ass out of bed, and before I woke the kids up for school I started the coffee a-brewing...
      Roughly 2 tablespoons of "grass-fed" butter... Unsalted, (by the way)... If you want it to get really weird, I suppose you could try it with salted butter... But I wouldn't suggest it.
      Then, I toss roughly 1 teaspoon of coconut oil in there as well... (these all went into my wife's Magic Bullet for ease of blending purposes)....
      The coffee's done, so I pour that into the ol' Magic Bullet there, and blend the hell out of it because I'm not too keen on having chunks of butter in a morning beverage.
      Surprisingly, it blends pretty well and and has a cool layering effect when viewed in a cup...

     It doesn't look half bad... So, I toss this so-called "bulletproof coffee" into a mug and at long last.... give it a try....
     Honestly, it's not that bad.... In fact, it's quite  good.... Kind of like a latte, in a fashion. So taste-wise... I can handle it and it's no big deal.

0830: I head to the gym... Run a couple miles...(which I probably would have done anyway)...

0940:   I head to Music Millennium to pick up some new music... I'm not hungry...yet.... (Oh, I should mention that this Bulletproof Coffee is to be used in place of eating a huge, carb-heavy breakfast.... Did I leave that out? Oops..)

1200: Alright, by about noon I'm getting hungry, but not ravenous... So, I have a normal lunch and spend most of the day not being energized, but somehow I don't feel as tired as I normally do in the late afternoon, (where I would usually just drink another couple cups of coffee)....

2032:  Alright... So, Bulletproof Coffee didn't change my life significantly... I'm still tired by the end of the day, but not completely exhausted.
     So maybe there's a bit to this crazy concoction...

Final Verdict: Okay. So it might not be a cure-all for making my body work better, but I did find it helpful for energy when used in place of a breakfast.  Thus, I'm going to give this a secondary experiment over the next  days that I work 12 hour shifts and see if there is a noticeable difference in my energy level throughout the day....
        It warrants further investigation... But on the other hand, it actually tastes pretty good. Just simply a variation on the ol' creamer added to your coffee. I guess those crazy Sherpas might be on to something.... But as far as the "life-changing" qualities go.... I'll get back to you in 5-6 days... I'll either increase my productivity... Or... Gain 50 pounds from all this butter.. The sky's the limit!