Wake up with a Fat Black!

Wake up with a Fat Black!

Claire Aslangul - Monday, May 13, 2013

I guess the first thing I should do is explain what a fat black is. A fat black is either a long black or espresso coffee with butter and/or coconut oil in it. It is also known as bulletproof coffee.

I think most people's reaction to the notion of putting butter in coffee is; why? It doesn't seem like the sort of combination that would excite the taste-buds, but you would be surprised at how good it is. But it is not just about the flavour, the fat black has some amazing health benefits too.

Fat blacks are great for your brain!

There are two ways that brain cells are energised. The first is to "burn" glucose, This is the most common way in our society as we have such a sugar and carbohydrate based diet. Glucose easily crosses the blood-brain barrier and when blood sugars are high it is the simplest way for cells to become energised. The second way brain cells are energised is by a process called ketosis. Ketosis tends to get a bit of a bad wrap, but let me explain why it is great for your brain. There is a process called myelination, which is where a fatty coating is created around brain and nerve cells. This coating allows for better communication between cells and is vital for complex brain function. Myelination is obviously supercharged when you are a kid and particularly in your frontal lobe (learning centre) during teen years. But it can continue through out your life. This myelination process ONLY occurs under ketosis! Ketosis will only occur if insulin is low.

Fat blacks super-drive ketosis in the brain. The caffeine picks up the good fats out of the butter and coconut oil, drags the across the blood-brain barrier and force feeds them to the brain cells. Instant myelination! This helps you to comprehend things better, increases cognition, increases coordination, reaction times, problem solving and enhances feelings of well being. Lack of myelination can cause diseases like multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, ADD/ADHD, epilepsy and autism spectrum disorders. Fat Black = Brain Food!

Fat blacks are perfect for weight optimisation.

If you are overweight, kick starting this ketosis thing trains your body into using its excessive fats stores as fuel. This occurs through helping to resensitise cells to leptin and through encouraging cells to use fats as an energy source without converting them into glucose first. This means efficient fat burning without over stimulating your thyroid and increasing your stress levels.

Fat Blacks make you go faster and longer!

When you train both your brain and your other cells to work under fat-burning ketosis, it increases your VO2 max! You cells actually use up less oxygen and produce greater output. It also means not hitting the wall, your body is attuned to using its fat stores as fuel straight away. You almost never run out of energy as you carry a few kilos, you glycogen stores are a maximum of about 500gms. Not only can this improve sporting performance, but also increases your life span by reducing the amount of oxidative stress within your body's cells. (Leptin for Laymen 3, ROS)

Fat Blacks make you sexy!

Ok, maybe that is a little bit of a stretch, but they do really help to balance out your sex hormones. You see all of your steriodal hormones, including your sex hormones are made of something called pregnenolone. When you have a fat black, which contains a lot of the ingredients to make pregnenolone, it steers it towards making more of the the good stuff, sex hormones. In the morning if you introduce sweet stuff, which includes milky coffee without sugar (milk contains lactose), you steer your hormones towards making cortisol (stress hormone) and insulin. It steals the building blocks from your sex hormones which should be peaking at that time of the day. (This is covered in the Leptin for Laymen 4 video). Having a fat black leaves pregnenolone free to become awesome sex hormones. This in turn also increases your life expectancy.

But I don't drink/like coffee.

Try it with tea!

Personally, I wouldn't start my day any other way. In my day to day life, I have noticed an increase in being able to grasp complex concepts, I have loads more energy and now run all obstacle races with only fat blacks in my stomach and still have plenty of energy at the end.