Start Your Day With A Healthy Beverage… Coffee!

I carry Bulletproof coffee for sale in the office (beans and ground; regular and decaf; and K Cups), along with many other Upgraded Self items, including Glutathione, Collagen, Upgraded Brain, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa powder, and more, so you don’t have to order online and wait for shipping. Just ask if you want something!

Surprised? Coffee isn’t necessarily bad for you; in fact it can be quite good, if you start with the right ingredients, and avoid excess. Promise me that you’ll read my caveats, but here’s the bottom line: One delicious cup in the morning? You have my blessing! Coffee is a source of antioxidants and may help combat insulin resistance and many diseases, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

I don’t mean pure caffeine, as found in energy drinks. Isolate caffeine and you have a toxin. And I don’t mean those syrup-laden, gut-wrenching, over-sized flavored beverages. All coffee is not the same. The one I drink has been grown and processed to reduce toxins that are usually a part of processing, including oxidized oils, pesticides, and mycotoxins from mold (mold itself is usually destroyed in roasting).
Shop Bulletproof

If you’re not going Bulletproof, go organic, as coffee is a heavily sprayed crop. But honestly, I still can’t tolerate the best organic coffee and I thrive on one cup of Bulletproof each morning. Many of my clients find the same thing.

Okay, here are the caveats:

1. Coffee has about an 8 hour half life. That means that if you have a normal cup of coffee, say about 100 mg of caffeine is what you ingest. 8 hours later, half of that, or 50 mg, is still in your system. Four hours after that, you still have 25mg circulating. So afternoon java can seriously mess with your night’s sleep. Switch to green tea after breakfast. It has less caffeine, a gentler metabolic uptake and drop, EGCG to help burn fat, and theanine for calming. I also have a healthy single serving herbal energy formula* (only 2mg caffeine) that you can use, if you need it, to get through a mid-afternoon slump. Of course, if you’re eating right for you, balancing your meals, and getting enough sleep, your energy should stay consistent through the day!

2. Women metabolize coffee more slowly than men, so an even longer half life for us. Hormonal issues and birth control pills can make it worse, contributing to bad periods and cystic breasts. A good detox program with liver support usually helps clear this up, and rebalance hormones. Food sensitivities and a diet high in sugars also contribute.

3. Coffee blocks adenosine, which is essential for sound sleep. Like removing the brake pedal from your car, it keeps adrenaline circulating, often resulting in feelings of stress, anxiety, and eventual adrenal burnout. Adrenaline, like cortisol, breaks the body down; not a good thing. We want to do everything we can to keep our body in a state of healthy building and repair.

4. Coffee exacerbates reflux/GERD, although rarely the cause. The cause is more likely to be a combination of food sensitivities and chronic low grade infections. Many of my clients find that using Bulletproof eliminates this reaction.

5. Have breakfast too, especially if you are a woman. Fasting tends to raise cortisol much more in women than in men. We need nourishment as well as energy.

6. Caffeine withdrawal starts within 12-24 hours, so that craving you feel for your morning cup may be the beginnings of that. Keep it to one cup a day, in the morning, and you shouldn’t run into trouble. If you’re used to having more, try switching to green tea initially – and get more sleep! Don’t just mask it with caffeine. Your body is trying to tell you something!

How to Make the Most Healthful Cup of Coffee

Use sweet pastured butter (not salted! yuck!) and *MCT or *Brain Octane for a creamy, frothy, energizing and fat-burning drink to kickstart your mornings. The healthy fats are nourishing, and help eliminate the crash that usually leads to a cycle of more coffee and junk snacking. Pastured butter is anti-inflammatory, and contains Omega 3, Beta Carotene, CLA (great for metabolism), as well as Vitamins A, D, E and K, along with Butyrate, beneficial for cognitive function and gut health. I’ve written about the vast benefits of MCT and coconut oil previously. Sweeten? Use *xylitol, whole leaf liquid *stevia, erythritol or monkfruit.  As for butter, Kerrygold, from pastured cows in Ireland, is available at ShopRite and many other supermarkets – yay! (It’s not perfect, but it’s very, very good.) Get the cultured sweet form if you can find it. I occasionally indulge in one from Germany that is 100% grass fed and cultured, but it is definitely more expensive than KerryGold, which I buy on sale and store in the freezer.

If you are extremely sensitive to dairy, use pastured ghee instead of butter. Butter has almost no protein from dairy left, but ghee has absolutely none, just the fat. And if it’s from pastured cows, that’s healthy fat!

Grind your beans fresh. It makes such a difference. Keep unused coffee in an airtight glass canister, in the dark (NOT in the freezer). And save the used grinds for your garden: roses and many other flowers thrive on it.

While your coffee is brewing, put 1 Tablespoon of sweet pastured butter and 1-2 Tablespoons of MCT or Coconut Oil in your blender. I also add my Vitamins D and K, since they’re fat soluble, and that’s a great way to amp absoption. Add brewed coffee, blend for about 20 seconds, then serve. Best. Coffee. Ever!

p.s. want to add a bit of protein to your morning drink? Try 2 Tablespoons of *Upgraded Collagen or Collagelatin powder. It’s tasteless and won’t change the texture either. Collagen is heat-stable but not blender-stable, so stir it in after your coffee is poured.

*’d items are available from my office
I used to recommend using full fat organic coconut milk from cans for coffee and tea, but I could never find one that tasted good and was BPA free. Pastured butter or pastured ghee is a much better choice!

I love to add a little cocoa butter* to the mix, or a 1/2 teaspoon of Upgraded Self’s vanilla*. You can also use another organic cocoa or vanilla, but…. like the coffee these can have mycotoxins, so make yours Bulletproof!