HOW TO HACK THE STEAKS AND EGGS DIET

The most popular and commonly used version of this diet is based on the consumption of 2 meals per day in 8 hour feeding window followed by 16 hour fast. Both meals contain nothing but steaks or meats and eggs. Carbohydrate re-feeds are advised on every 3 or 6 days.

How to hack the diet?

Step #1. Remove all of the carbohydrates.

There is no point to re-feed with carbs since you want to make fat your primary fuel source. Those so called cheat days prevent your brain and body from switching entirely to ketones for primary fuel source.

Since you was a sugar aka glucose burner during the biggest part of your life, your brain is addicted to carbs. So, every time you ingest them, it takes you back to the starting point. This creates a situation where you do 2 steps forward and 2 to 3 backwards . In other words you end up circling from A to A.

The carb re-feeds keep your body in the sugar burning / fat storing mode.

There are not enough carbs to rely on glucose, but you also do not give yourself enough time to entirely flip the switch to ketosis. This massively confuses your brain, because there is not enough energy.

It leads to many side effects such as brain fog, grogginess, sleepiness and decrease in the levels of satisfaction. It also hides potential risk of developing food addictions.

If you don’t believe me I highly recommend you to start measuring your blood ketone levels and see for your self.

What to do instead?

Calorie cycling and fat or fat and protein re-feeds. Replace the carb days with high calorie ones. On same days incorporate additional amounts of healthy fats. You can experiment with different kinds.

If you need more protein, feel free to add some. Just make sure to stick with the sources recommended in the paragraphs bellow.

You can also bump your calories up by adding some powerful fast acting fats in forms of medium chain triglycerides: MCTS, non refined cold pressed coconut oils.

Another great option would be to use some organic olive oil or simply experiment with additional amounts of grass fed butter or ghee.

Switching from carb to fat re-feeds will produce extremely beneficial impact on your keto adaptation. Your body will began metabolize fats way more efficiently and ultimately you will become a fat burning machine. Once it happens, you’ll be ready to move towards the last step.

Just incase you can tolerate it, you can also experiment with some dairy products such as: sour cream or fatty cheeses like Edam or Gauda. The quality of the fat they contain is nowhere near close to the one of the others I’ve mentioned. They can also make you bloated, so use them sparingly or mostly as a 2nd option and do not overdo them. Keep that in mind and always go full fat and organic (if possible). If you are lactose intolerant stick with the other fat sources.

#Step 2. Switch to grass fed meats, butters and pastured free range eggs.

*Eggs: One of the best protein and fat sources you can have. Considered by the Iron Guru himself as the ultimate food, he believed the consumption of huge quantities of eggs (up to 36 per day) may produce beneficial results identical to the ones triggered by the usage of anabolic steroids.

Even though they are one of my favorite foods, I do not encourage you consume those amounts, but rather use pastured ones.

Comparing to the factory ones those from cage free chickens are significantly richer in nutrients such as: Vitamins A, B, D. They also contain higher amounts of Omega 3 fatty acids.

Accordingly to Dr. Axe they have 98% smaller risk of salmonella disease.

*Meats: Forming the nutrients in them mostly depends on the way animals were fed: “You are not what you eat, but what you eat has eaten”. (Quote by John Meadows aka The Mountain dog)

Beef: Comparing to the one from grain fed cows, grass fed beef contains around 5 times more omega 3’s and almost twice as much of CLA aka Conjugated Linoleic Acid. It also has slightly less fat per pound.

Both meats have plenty of B3, B6 and B12 vitamins and both contain Iron, Selenium and Zinc, but the grass fed is free of hormones, antibiotics and other toxic chemicals.

*The only problem with the grass fed beef: Often is too tough and many people are not able to process nor digest it.

Because of that I came up with 2 preparation methods you can use in order to avoid any difficulties when it comes to chewing and processing it.

Use an under tension cooker
This can turn the toughest piece of meat into a delicate one. You can also put some different seasonings during the cooking process in order to add more flavor to it. Just make sure they are free of chemicals, sugars and starch.

Go with ground beef.
Find a butchery and pick the grass fed beef of your choice. Kindly ask the butcher to grind the meat for you. Use it to make burger patties or cook on a skillet with plenty of butter or ghee.

In the videos bellow I am showing few of my favorite ways to prep some easy digestible steaks and eggs meals.

Another good practice is to make yourself burger meat from 30% grass fed beef liver and 70% steak.

Other meats: Use organic hormone and antibiotic free chickens, turkeys and pastured pork. If you are fan of it you can also do grass fed bison.

Based on a review from the Toxicological Research : the antibiotics in the meats and other food sources might produce a very negative impact on the balance of the good bacteria in your gut. Other studies suggest same compounds are linked to different forms of cancer and developmental problems in children.

Both antibiotics and hormones can interfere with the fat burning processes and also lead to malabsorption of the proteins. In the end of the day it is not how much you eat, but what percent of it your body is able to absorb.

I avoid them by any means since years. Based on plenty of experimentation, self observations and analysis I came to this conclusion: consumption of those meats definitely alters my mood and ability to perform at my best. After eating them I tend to feel less recovered from my workouts. I also noticed those meats drastically reduce their size during the cooking process.

Doing what the bodybuilders advice you and buying huge quantities of the cheapest ones is not only harmful and unhealthy, but also not worthy.

#Step 3. Eat fish.

Instead of having only meats and eggs bring some variety by incorporating days with consumption of extra quality fishes. Do this at least 2 times during the course of the week.

What kind of fishes you should use?

Eat more wild caught and low mercury fishes and stay away from the farm raised ones (specially the salmon).  

Always go with the ones rich in proteins and fats such as: salmon, rainbow trout, king mackerel and sardines. One of my favorite recipes is eggs on skillet and baked rainbow trout topped with some extra butter.

The fishes I mentioned are great source of complete proteins and omega 3 fatty acids. Perfect food for upbeat mood, optimal brain performance and muscle building and recovery.

Do not worry if after a while you start substituting more of your meats with fatty fishes. Many people don’t know it, but they actually do better on more fish and less meats.

So, if you discover you are one of them, do not be afraid to eat more. This protocol is all about hacking the diet in order to get the best results for yourself.

Step #4. Do not neglect the supplements.

Desiccated liver tablets – great source of additional vitamin B12.
Celtic or other high in iodine sea salts.
Vitamin D and C.
Magnesium and potassium.
The first two are the originally recommended, by the Iron Guru himself. Even though it is a bit rare on some places, I highly encourage you to get your hands on the original Celtic Sea salt, but if you are not able to buy it, use another one rich in Iodine.

A great example is the one I currently use: Atlantic Sea Salt mixed with organic sea weed. Also non refined and hand harvested. Per 100g it contains over 93% salt and 1500 IU Iodine – 1000%.

Always get most of your nutrients from food. Make sure to use only supplements that are free of starch, gluten, sugar or any other form of preservatives and chemicals.
Take your time to read the labels carefully.

Even in minimal quantities those compounds may interfere with your keto adaptation, alter your mood, performance and make you feel like crap.

In controversy to what is recommended in the classic version of the diet, you should stay away from any sort of multivitamins.

It is not possible to get proper supplementation from one pill only. By using multivitamins you can never take the right amounts and you can easily end up having nutrient deficiencies.

Believe it or not the quality of the nutrients used in those products is really low, so I recommend making your own stack.

Step#5. Eliminate the first meal and do one meal a day “OMAD”.

If you carefully followed all of the previous steps, after a while you will reach a point, where you will no longer experience of feel of hunger. You will develop completely different relationship with food and you will be ready to free your mind from one of the biggest distractions of our time – Food.

As I’ve mentioned you can monitor your blood ketone and sugar levels, but even if you don’t you are going to feel it.

This will not only allow you gain some extra time and conserve your body’s precious energy for some more important tasks than food digestion and processing, but also make you rely on your own fat stores for fuel effortlessly.

In comparing to the first step this will turn you into the fat burning machine that mostly runs on what is in its own tank.

Making this adjustment will improve your insulin sensitivity and help you utilize every single nutrient you ingest way more efficiently. The combination of the prolonged and the diet I explained trigger anabolism and autophagy.

Pretty soon you will find you’ve mastered an extremely powerful tool for building muscle and staying lean naturally. You will also notice strong increase of inner strength and a fairly strong sense of being capable to do more things. You will become more alert.

The more and more you stay on this plan the more you’ll find you stay leaner and more muscular without an actual caloric restriction.

If you have hard time removing the first meal entirely, reduce the duration of your eating window.

You can do it by strategically having your lunch later during the course of the day and after time replacing it with buttered coffee.

Some people may find they can get rid of the first meal easier than others. Do not be afraid if you are one of them, but also never force your body to do things quicker just it for the sake of it.

Because I always had plenty of exciting stuff to do, merging my meals into a huge dinner was never an issue. That was the way everything happened for me, but I truly believe you should follow your body’s natural rhythms. So, please do not get upset if you find it takes you a bit longer.

It is important to do it effectively not necessarily faster. If you follow all of the previous steps you will ultimately get there.

*Food for thought: During the 60’s and 70’s all of the meats and dairy were grass fed. All of the milk was whole. The eggs were free range and all of the fishes were wild caught. I believe you should keep that in mind when you decide on some of the old-school bodybuilding diets.

I hope that makes sense.

Yours truly:

Peteonthebeat