#20 Alex Hofeldt – Bulletproof Coffee Changed His Life

Alex is quite an interesting man with passions such as science and yoga, Crossfit and bulletproof coffee.

After running a marathon, Alex suffered some crazy health challenges and Bulletproof Coffee helped change his life. There is a link on the right column so you can check out the Brain Octane Oil we mention.

Alex loves to learn, think, and move. Movement, speed, and flow act as the keystones that motivate him.

He is a science teacher and has a great podcast: Beautiful Dust Specks which you can find at http://beautifuldustspecks.com/

SHOW NOTES

• Highs School Science teacher for 10 years
• 34 years old
• Registered yoga instructor for 3 to 4 years
• Crossfit instructor for 6 years
• I always kind of master of nothing.
• Through the science background, I always like going into little bits of everything.
• I’ve always been into working out and every once in awhile I take yoga class.
  And then somebody randomly told me about crossfit.
• And I looked in the internet and I saw some dudes and dudettes with some six pack and I’m like, “Okay, I’d like to look like that” and then I found a gym right down the street and I went, I was terrified and it really was awesome.
  It fills the huge whole for me.
• It was competitive, it was exciting, and it worked. It was just cruising along, but then I realized the more competitive I get into it, the more I realize it was mobility.
• Crossfit just kind of slowly turned in to learning more about mobility. Learning more about what I can and can’t do to improve in the gym.
• And then I found Kelly Starrett. He runs mobilitywod.com.
  He is kind of my Internet guru.
• The more I learn about it, the more I just went.
• Being a science geek and honestly wanting to help people as a coach.
• I take coaching very seriously.
• Right now, I’m kind of more into gymnastics yoga than I would be more in Crossfit, but I do a lot of work in mobility.

WHAT LED YOU TO KETO?

• I’ve never tracked it or done anything with blood ketones or anything like that.
• I just live with kind of a high fat diet.
• My problem is nighttime. That’s when I have carb issues.
• But being a science geek, there is so much information on the Internet that I feel like you kind of has to pick few people or one ideology for a while and write it out.
• So I’ve tried all of it.
• It really started with crossfit. When it got big, it was also the beginning of paleo movement.
• So I went to the gym, was doing my Chobani yogurt with an apple and granola at lunch thinking I was cruising which I weigh 160 pounds
• When I get to the crossfit gym, this guy named Bill, the owner, was really smart, really fit, really knows what’s up and he had this kind of beginning of Paleo – Paleo manifesto
• Then I got into the Paleo thing then my science light was like, “Oh this makes evolutionary sense.”
• And then, he talked to me about stuff about coffee. He said I can put butter into my coffee, and I think it’s insane.
• Life goes on, and you’re doing the Paleo thing and learned more about increasing fat.
• And then I’ve heard about it one other way and I was just ready for a changed.
• That was 5 years ago and not a morning goes by I don’t drink bulletproof coffee.
• Bullet coffee changed my life.
• I was defending it at school the other day were someone’s like; “Oh you put that butter in your coffee and you think that’s healthy?”
  And I was like, “I know it’s healthy.”
• It’s been 5 years and 4 blood panels and any tests later.
• I’ve mastered intermittent fasting but I recently run into a lot of health issues
• Keto for me started with a bulletproof coffee ended with Dave Asprey and Tim Ferriss

HOW DO YOU MAKE YOUR COFFEE?

• I use a blender
• My fiancé and I, I got her into drinking it too
• So we make like a big 12 oz coffee.
• It really more like a wheat coffee, because I like to taste more that the caffeine
• We take 4 tablespoon of butter
• 6 tablespoon of brain octane
• And then I blend it until it gets thick
• That’s the main thing. You have to blend it.
• Out of all the nutrition stuff I’ve done, this changed my life the most.
• On Paleo at the beginning I always feel hungry.
• And now, I drink one at 6:30 in the morning before I leave for work and the other one last me at 9:00 and then I don’t eat between 11:00 and 2:00 and I am totally fine.
• I just do salt. I do 20 oz and put it in there and chug it.
• I’ve never done the lemon.
• I challenged myself that I’m going to start doing less carbs
• I’m freaked out about it because during the marathon training, I was fat adapted and I think that really did benefit me
• I kind of chilled in the middle of Keto and not worrying about it
• It was not a good experience for me
• With the intermittent fasting, everyone loves it and it is all so great so I am going to do it.
• And then it’d be like at 1:00, I feel like death and my stomach hurts, and I was like, “No this is just in your head.”
• My biggest advice with this stuff is that, it is a decent switch but you just got to be honest with yourself while you’re doing it especially if you’re swinging into Ketosis
• I found so many stigmas in what I was supposed to be doing versus what I needed to do.
• And the also, spending so much money on this tests was really eye opening.
• It’s a stress hormone test.
• I thought low cortisol is good because you’re not stress
• But it means my body could not handle anything
• So anytime I do crossfit, I get a migraine.
• My body is totally inflamed because it couldn’t deal with stress
• And it starting to affect my relationship
• I took on the marathon at the wrong time
• I was coaching tennis, I was getting my second masters degree for educational stuff, training for a marathon and trying to keep my podcast going
• The last 6 miles took an hour and 8 minutes
• And it was disappointing
• I don’t think my family and friend wants me to do it again because it has been an uphill battle ever since then.
• Going into Keto and the guy Todd I worked with, I took him on because I like him and he follows the bulletproof diet.
• For me, I was not in the mood to do this and do vegetarian
• But through out the whole thing though – the Keto lifestyle, high fat living diet helps me. I’ve been doing way better
• I’ve been really diligent about no gluten
• The Keto was pee strips; the gut biome was scooping and little shakers.
• I did the uBiome one and this GI map that is way more intensive
• The food allergy one was blood. But that one, I haven’t dabbled. I haven’t gone hardcore into it because it stresses me out.
• It turns out that I have a pretty decent parasite over growth
• There’s 2 main population of bacterium that one is associated with skinny people and one is associated with obese people
• Having 87% of the obese one, I knew something was wrong.
• Being a healthy person, I kind of assume that my biome is great, but grew up with asthma, allergies, terrible acnes and they just pump me full of antibiotics and antihistamine my whole life
• And turns out my gut biome are not that great.
• It relates into so many weird things.
  I get really hot at night, and I can’t get enough sleep and I’ve never really get a very good physique. And it turns out it’s really hard to get substantially lower body fat and have really good physique if you have a gut dysbiosis.
• Honestly, I thought this stuff was just a little folly. I thought you just eat healthy and live right
• I did not listen to myself; I did not listen to my body well when I should have been and it set me back.
• Honestly in terms of Keto, the biggest voice is in the system.
• So if you’re not tracking it, you truly don’t know until you track it.
• If you’re following a protocol and you’re not getting the results that you’re supposed to get in the protocol, trust the protocol to show those results but also trust that something might be wrong and it is totally out of your control.
  Only way we can control is what we do about it.

WHAT IS A DAY OF KETO FOR YOU?

• I drink 20 ounces of salt water while my coffee is getting ready
• Probably 16 ounces of hydro flask
• Mugs that have 2 tablespoon of butter and 3 tablespoon of brain octane
• If I am still feeling thirsty, I’ll have some extra tea
• If I had an intense crossfit workout then I’ll eat grass fed really good bacon and farm fresh eggs
• Butter coffee pretty much 9.9% of the time
• Protein and fats and no carbohydrates
• At lunches I eat a lot of sardines, I have a jar of coconut butter on my desk, and organic nuts on top.
• And then maybe have some kind of bar, but I’m trying to avoid that.
  I’m trying to power through before I’m going to crossfit.
• And then when I get home, I eat a lot of eggs.
• Usually I’ll have a organic rice cereal with almond milk or something

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU GIVE?

• Start with bulletproof coffee
• Don’t take it seriously at night time
• Take your morning seriously
• Just try your best to find good bulletproof coffee
• Get good organic beans that tastes good
• You got to get the grass fed butter – unsalted
• You can start with coconut oil but get MCT oil or brain octane
• Start small
• If you don’t want to do bullet proof coffee, just try and increase your fat intake in the morning and get rid of the carbs in the morning
• And you’ll go into a little carb crash
• Just start with the morning
• If eat gluten my face feels cloudy, I’ll get a migraine, I really get sick and I just power through that
• I stopped drinking because it makes me sick
• It’s way worse now for sure.
• I’m going through this anti inflammation, like this detox thing.
  It’s a pretty aggressive system.
• My weakness is Chinese food so I had some Chinese food and Todd said that the MSG is going to kill me and the I was so sick
• I almost called in sick to work because of dinner
• Looking back, I think I have issues with it.
• If I went really hard at the gym I will feel really sick.
• I used to compete with crossfit, and I’d be knockout for 24 hours
• My body don’t have the adrenal support and I was not listening
• But it is an interesting endeavor to kind of go through
• I feel good
• The biggest thing now is getting back at the gym
• I’ve lost so much strength
• It has been substantial
• Gut wise –I don’t know, but in term of energy, it has been crazy
• And now seeing the effects gluten has is pretty eye opening for me.
• I’m taking this very expensive prescription probiotic that is called Megaspore
• I’m going to get the retest on pretty soon and it will be interesting if I can get back into my old fitness ways and see how my body changes

HOW CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU?

• Just find me on Facebook, Alex Hofeldt
• The podcast is on iTunes, Stitcher and all that
  There are some nutrition episode but it is mainly me just kind of diving into the subject of Science trying to get you see if it’s worthy of your time and motivation
• I have some new projects coming on.
  I’m trying to do more work with students and parents
• I’m might to start new podcast and do video new series
• I’m trying to design a mindfulness course and stuff like that to try and do all this bio hacking stuff that we’re doing now and our later years
• I have kind of a mission to try and change the education and the students a little bit more.
• I have strong low frequency Christmas lights in my room and I have oil diffusers
• My mission is to get the kids to see it and get the teachers talking
• If somebody is smarter or knows more that you, just trust them for a little while.
• Just stick to it.
• Pick somebody, pick this podcast, and pick Keto and just stick with it for a while.
• And just do your best and then write it out

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