“Ten years ago in grad. school I typed into Google “Are Poptarts healthy?” (I was seriously asking this) and stumbled upon MDA. Now I’m lifting weights twice a week, exercising every day, my fridge is filled with whole foods, I sleep well, get sun, talk to my mom. I listen to Attia, Huberman, Rhonda, Wolf, Greenfield, Jaminet, Naiman, Saladino, Kendall, on and on. I can’t stop learning more and more. It’s been.a fun ride. And it all started with this critical, independent thinker, experimenter, athlete, businessman, satirist, and cave man, Mark Sisson. Thanks Mark..“
When you follow a keto diet, the number one rule is that you must keep your daily carbohydrate intake low—below 50 grams per day. In practice, that means minimizing or eliminating grain-based foods and foods with added sugar. Your typical bread, bagels, pastries, breakfast cereal, pancakes, waffles, biscuits, and muffins are all off the table (no pun intended).
At first blush, then, it might seem like there is nothing left to eat in the morning. Au contraire! In fact, breakfast is one of the easiest meals to eat when you’re keto. Eggs, veggies, meat, and cheese are all totally keto-friendly options that you can combine into a variety of delectable breakfast dishes. Berries and plain, full-fat yogurt also fit the bill. You can even use low-carb flour and sugar substitutes to reinvent some of those old favorites if you’re so inclined.
A low-carb breakfast with plenty of healthy, satiating protein and fat is how you start your day off on the right foot. Here are 15 keto breakfast recipes to get you going!
15 Keto Breakfast Recipes
These recipes all feature eggs, one of the quintessential Primal and keto breakfast foods. For egg-free (or not-egg-centric) options, scroll down.
1. Mark’s Big-ass Omelet
One of Mark’s top three meals of all time (along with Big-ass Salads and a good steak). This recipe is infinitely customizable with your choice of meat, vegetables, and cheese.
Did you know your favorite coffee shop egg bites probably contain seed oils and other non-Primal ingredients? This copycat recipe only has the good stuff.
Sure, eggs are easy, nutritious, and affordable, but maybe you’re allergic. Or—and we didn’t believe this when we first heard it—apparently some folks don’t want to eat eggs every day? No problem. Besides last night’s leftovers, which are always a fine option, here are a couple keto breakfast ideas, no eggs required.
8. Hemp Cauliflower Oats
These are on the slightly higher end of the carb spectrum with 20 grams of carbs, but 9 grams are fiber. Hemp cauliflower oats are a great pre- or post-workout keto breakfast when you don’t mind a few extra carbs.
These make a fantastic savory side for any keto breakfast or brunch, or use these as the foundation of a keto breakfast sandwich. Just add a sausage patty and cheese.
Don’t knock it till you try it. Once you try adding an egg to your coffee, you’ll forget all about butter coffee—although you can always add butter, MCT oil, or coconut oil to this recipe if you’re so inclined. Swap out the sugar for stevia or monk fruit to drop the carbs even more.
If you aren’t already drinking bone broth regularly, it’s time to get on board. Here’s how to amp up a mug of plain bone broth to deliver even more healthy fats and flavor.
One of the core’s most important jobs is to maintain stability as forces try to act on it—to keep you stable, upright, and in a good position even as you get pushed and pulled and poked and prodded from all angles. While most people think of doing sit-ups, crunches, leg lifts, and bicycles when they want to build their core strength, one of the most effective exercises for developing a stronger core is the standard plank.
But planks get boring. And sometimes, a basic plank isn’t providing the right amount of stimulus to the right spots for your goals. That’s when you turn to plank variations that make the exercise more interesting, target different tissues, and force different adaptations.
Here are ten of the best plank variations on the standard plank.
Knee Plank
This exercise helps strengthen your core, and improves stability and posture without being quite so intense as the standard plank. It’s probably the best place for someone to start who’s never done a plank before and worries about their ability to perform one. To perform this, position your elbows directly below your shoulders and raise your body off the ground, supporting your weight on your forearms and knees. Your body should form a straight line from head to knees. Try to hold this position for as long as you can.
Muscles hit: Engages the transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis, and obliques, along with the glutes, shoulders. Because of the knee resting position, the quads are mostly taken out of it.
High Plank
This variation is essentially the top of a push-up position. It targets the core, but also engages the shoulders, chest, and quads. Start in a push-up position with your palms flat on the ground, hands shoulder-width apart, and arms straight. Your body should form a straight line from head to heels.
Muscles hit: The high plank hits all the same muscles as the standard plank with a bit more emphasis on the upper body, including the shoulders and triceps.
Side Plank
This variation targets the obliques, the muscles on the side of your torso. Begin on your side with your feet together and one forearm directly below your shoulder. Raise your hips until your body is straight from head to feet. Hold this position without letting your hips drop. Repeat on the other side.
Muscles hit: The side plank is very good at targeting the obliques.
Shoulder Tap Plank
Adding shoulder taps to a high plank can increase the intensity of the exercise and engage your upper body more actively. From a high plank position, lift one hand off the ground and tap your opposite shoulder. Keep your core engaged and try to avoid rocking your hips.
Muscles hit: The shoulder tap places some engagement on the deltoids, but most of it comes from forcing the core musculature to support the movement and lack of support from the arm.
Plank with Knee to Opposite Elbow
This plank variation not only targets your core, but also works your lower body. From a high plank position, bring one knee up towards the elbow on the opposite side. Return to the starting position and repeat with the other leg.
Muscles hit: This is a real ab shredder.
Spiderman Plank
Imagine Spiderman crawling along a skyscraper and you’ll get the feel for this variation, which can help increase hip mobility and core strength—particularly the serratus and transverse abdominis From a high plank position, bring one knee out to the side, trying to touch your elbow. Return to the starting position and repeat on the other side.
Muscles hit: The obliques and hip flexors are hardest hit, while there’s also intense activation of the transverse abdominis and rectus abdominis (which can be difficult to train directly).
Reverse Plank
This plank variation targets the posterior chain muscles, including the glutes, hamstrings, lower back, and triceps. Sit on the floor with your legs extended in front of you. Place your palms on the floor behind you, fingers pointing towards your feet. Push through your palms and lift your hips and torso towards the ceiling.
Muscles hit: Perhaps the most unique variation, the reverse plank targets the posterior chain, including the glutes, hamstrings, lower back, and triceps, but also works the anterior deltoids and pectorals. There’s less “direct” activation of the core musculature.
Three-Point Plank
This plank variation challenges your balance and engages your core even more intensively. From a high plank position, lift one foot off the ground and hold. Keep your body steady and your hips level. Try switching to lifting one hand off the ground and hold while keeping both feet down.
You can also try the Two-Point Plank, where you alternate between lifting left elbow/right foot and right elbow/left foot.
Muscles hit: In addition to the core muscles which are hit from a unique angle and bias, the gluteus medius and minimus on the lifted leg’s side also activate to support the leg.
Plank Jacks
This is a dynamic plank variation that combines cardiovascular exercise with strength training. From a high plank position, jump your feet out wide like you’re doing a jumping jack, then back together.
If that’s too easy, try jumping out your hands as well.
Muscles hit: The transverse abdominis, rectus abdominis, and obliques are all engaged along with the glutes and hip abductors. The tibialis (shin bone) anterior also helps absorb the impact.
Plank Up-Downs
This plank variation provides a full body workout, particularly engaging the shoulders and core. Start in a high plank position. Lower one elbow to the ground, then the other, coming into a forearm plank. Then, place one hand on the ground, then the other, pushing back up into a high plank.
Muscles hit: The dynamic movement between high and forearm plank position engages the triceps, pectorals, and deltoids plus smaller stabilizer muscles of the shoulder girdle in addition to the normal core muscles targeted by planks.
I hope you enjoy some of these variations. Let me know in comment section which ones you do!
“In response to your Sunday with Sisson article about research. I address that very issue in my book, The Health Contiuum, a realisticea approach to improving your health. I have been working on the book for about 40 years, but hope to finally finish it this year. When I read your article, I thought, that is exactly what I wrote in a section I completed around 1995. It was a bit validating to have someone I respect and admire communicating the same message. Now I just need to get it done. Thanks for all you to help lead a better, healthier life. John Jesse.“
In today’s world, we pretty much always have to wear shoes. But the majority of shoes people wear run directly counter to the way our feet and lower bodies are designed to function. Tall heels, thick padding, restrictive material that allows no movement, heavy sole that prevents us from feeling the ground—modern shoes are monstrosities that cut us off from the world around us and inhibit our ability to navigate it pain-free. Shoes that emulate the barefoot experience on the other hand offer tangible benefits to your health, wellness, athletic performance, and overall well-being by recreating the environment under which the human foot evolved.
Here are 9 tangible reasons to wear barefoot shoes.
Improved proprioception.
Proprioception describes the bodily awareness we have as we move throughout the world. Do we know where our limbs are in relation to the environment? Do we have intuitive understanding of what our head, shoulders, hips, and arms are doing as we run, jump, move, or even just walk around? All of these contribute to our overall sense of proprioception and regulate the speed, strength, and safety of our interactions with the outside world. If you have better proprioception, you will be a better athlete. You’ll be more effective in every physical capacity. You’ll be smoother.
The first and arguably most important way we establish proprioceptive awareness is with our feet touching the ground. The simple exposure of the millions of nerves on our feet to the ground—the textures, the slopes, the rocks and twigs underfoot, the slipperiness—gives our nervous system an incredible amount of actionable information about where we are and how we’re moving. Barefoot is obviously best if the environment is forgiving, but barefoot minimalist shoes with a thin sole are second best and provide almost as much information—and they can be worn everywhere.
Better rootedness to the ground. Stability.
The closer you are to the ground, the more stable you are. The less material you have between you and the ground, the more rooted you are. Barefoot shoes give you better ground feel and ground control by minimizing the amount of shoe material between you and the world.
Studies on athletes show this. Those wearing the most supportive shoes, particularly those with ankle support, have the worst balance and stability when performing. Those in bare feet (or wearing minimalist shoes that provide no support and mimic the barefoot experience) have the best balance and stability. In fact, ankle stability studies often use barefoot athletes as the control group against which the various ankle taping methods and high top shoes are compared. The control group always wins in these studies.
Better foot landing mechanics and fewer injuries.
When you run in a raised heel shoe, you tend to land on your heel. When you run in a zero heel drop barefoot shoe, you land more naturally—on the mid to fore foot. This can have huge implications for your risk of repetitive stress injury. Forefoot striking in general tends to place far less loading on the knee joint.1 In a forefoot landing, the knee is slightly bent, allowing the muscles to help absorb the impact. In a heel strike, the knee is fully extended, forcing the joint itself to absorb the impact.
A study from 2012 found that among endurance runners, the heel strikers had twice the rate of injury.2 The mid/forefoot strikers were much less likely to incur any injuries.. having a zero heel drop shoe without a raised heel allows your feet to land according to natural mechanics. Rather than a heel striker, you become
Better posture.
Even just a half inch of padded heel throws off your entire posture up the line. It’s like standing on a slant, and in order to maintain an upright head position your lower back is thrown into lordosis, your knees jut forward, your ankle angle shortens. Instead of a straight stack of joints and tissues from top to bottom, you’re more like a wobbly Jenga tower.
More accurate biofeedback.
I won’t try to claim that running in barefoot shoes allows you to go farther and longer. It doesn’t. The “clouds” that are modern fluffy padded running shoes do allow you to run greater distances in comfort, but this isn’t a good thing for most people. Most people should be getting the biofeedback, aka discomfort, that you receive from minimalist shoes. They tell you when your body has had enough running. If you sever that connection and bypass the natural biofeedback with padded shoes, you run the risk of overtraining and taxing your joints and other tissues.
Barefoot shoes give you accurate biofeedback about how much more stress your feet—and body overall—can handle.
Stronger feet.
The feet aren’t just wedges of flesh and bone. They are active limbs with dozens of muscles that require engagement and stimulation. If you stick them inside stiff shoes, the muscles in your feet atrophy and weaken. If you wear minimalist barefoot shoes that allow full range of motion through every foot muscle and every toe, your feet and toes get stronger, healthier, and more resilient.
Wider toe boxes.
Narrow footwear squeezes the toes together, reshaping them and forcing them into an unnatural position. The natural position of the toes is splayed out, providing a broader distribution of weight through movement and loading. The more compacted your feet and toes, the more concentrated the weight rests on certain areas, promoting stress fractures and bunions. The wider the shoe, the more evenly distributed the forces across the foot. Toes should also be a lot more prehensile than we’ve been made to think, and a wide toe box barefoot shoe can help us achieve that.
Getting comfortable with being the weird one.
This is no small thing. I often tell you guys to “let your freak flag fly” because that’s what it takes to be a healthy, happy human in this world. If you don’t agree with the way things are going, the way most people live their lives, the way people eat and exercise (or don’t), then why wouldn’t you get a little weird? I’m not talking about being the bearded man screaming on a street corner. I mean you should be comfortable diverting from the norm if it’s what you truly need and desire.
Wearing shoes that divert from the norm is an easy low-level entry point to “weirdness.”
It’s a return to the way we came into this world.
On several levels barefoot shoes return us to the purest state of all—how we came into this world.
It’s how we as hominids came into this world 2 million years ago: walking upright on bare feet.
It’s how modern humans spread across the globe: walking upright on bare feet or in the flimsiest of moccasins or sandals.
It’s how we as individuals were born: as babies without shoes on.
The onus is on those wearing and selling big padded protective shoes to prove that their footwear is safe. The default position is that the oldest, most natural mode of upright barefoot bipedalism is also the safest and most effective. You have to prove that it’s not.
Tips to Prepare for Wearing Barefoot Shoes
Once you’ve got your first pair of barefoot shoes, be careful. If you resume full activity levels in the new shoes, you might risk injuring yourself. You need to acclimate your lower body to the new situation.
Spend as much time barefoot. Go barefoot at home, in the park, in the yard, at the beach. Really
Train your feet. Do toe spreads against a tight rubber band, squeeze pencils between your toes, pick up objects with your feet, go walking in deep soft sand, alternate pointing at objects in the distance and then at your own face using your toes, walk around on the sides of your feet.
Start taking shorter strides when walking and running. Walk and run softly, try to be silent.
Start slow. From short walks to longer walks to brisker walks to easy jogs to runs to sprints. Don’t skip a step.
Stop when you get sore. Don’t push through the soreness. Stop right away and come back tomorrow.
To eat fruit or not to eat fruit. That is the question.
It turns out that fruit is a contentious and sometimes confusing topic within the low-carb community. Some low-carb advocates argue that fruit should be strictly limited or avoided altogether, both because of the carbs and because they’re wary offructose. Yet some of the staunchestcarnivore dietproponents are now incorporating fruit and promoting a “meat and fruit” approach. That’s right, carnivore—billed as the ultimate zero-carb diet—now allows fruit (depending on who you ask).
Even for folks who have no particular philosophical sway against or in favor of fruit consumption, it can be hard to decide which fruits, and how much, to include if they’re aiming to reduce carbs.
My stance has always been that fruit is a natural but not necessary part of the human diet. Sure, it’s higher in carbs than meat or vegetables (on average), but fruits also come packaged with fiber, nutrients, and antioxidants that do a body good. Fruit can be a great way toadd carbs around workoutsif you so desire. Biting into the first perfectly ripe peach of the summer is a wholly hedonic experience.
But for folks watching their carb intake, and especially for those following a very low-carbketogenic diet, it won’t do to chow down on massive bowls of fruit salad for breakfast. Here’s how I weigh the relative merits of different fruit options.
Choosing the Best Low-Carb Fruits
There’s no definitive algorithm that can spit out a low-carb acceptability rating for a given fruit, but the factors below are the ones I consider relevant to this question.
1. Start with the amount of carbohydrates and fiber in a typical serving.
Carbohydrates because… obviously, and fiber because fiber doesn’t get absorbed and converted into glucose. Instead, it mostly travels through the gut, where commensal microbes “feed” on certain types. That’s why some people only count net carbs, which is total carbs minus fiber.
I don’t bother getting that granular. Countingtotal carbsis less work and avoids debates about whether to subtract fiber from all sources or only certain ones. Just understand that if you’re comparing two pieces of fruits with similar carb content, the higher fiber one will probably have less of an impact on blood sugar.
You can stop there, or you could also…
2. Consider the antioxidant value.
Antioxidantsare compounds that help mitigate cellular damage due to free radicals, and fruit happens to be a terrific source of antioxidants (although herbs and spices are even better). But not all fruit is created equal here. The antioxidant power of different foods is measured byOxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity, or ORAC.1 Higher is better.
3. Consider the glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load (GL).
Glycemic index measures how much individual foods raise blood sugar when you eat a certain amount of carbohydrate—50 grams of carbs from pineapple or 50 grams of carbohydrates from cantaloupe, for example, compared to 50 grams of carbohydrates from pure glucose. Glycemic load takes into account a typical serving size of each food item, making it more useful. Watermelon, for instance, has a GI in the medium range but a relatively low GL because it’s mostly water.
GI below 55 is considered low, 56 to 69 medium, and 70 or above high.
Low GL is 10 or below, medium is 11 to 19, and high is 20 or greater.
All else being equal, select lower GI/GL fruits.
4. Nutrient profile.
Finally, you could consider what specific nutrients a given fruit is particularly rich in. If you’re trying to boost potassium intake, you might go for avocado, guava, or kiwi. For B6, opt for durian (hold your nose).
Top 8 Low-Carb Fruits
Without further ado, this is my not-entirely-scientific top 8 fruits that I’d recommend for carb-conscious Primal eaters.
Note that the values below are approximate. Depending on what sources you use, you might arrive at slightly different values.
Berries
Blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, boysenberries—they’re all good! Berries are going to deliver the most antioxidants (highest ORAC scores) of all the fruits on this list.
Carbs per ½-cup serving: 7 to 11 grams (2 to 4 grams of fiber)
ORAC: >4000 (wild blueberries clock in at 9621)
GI: 25 (blackberries, raspberries) to 53 (wild blueberries)
GL: 2 to 4
Cherries
Cherries are up there with berries in terms of their antioxidant value.
Carbs per ½ cup (about 10 cherries): 12 grams (2 grams fiber)
ORAC: 3747
GI: 25
GL: 4
Kiwi
Kiwis are underappreciated, probably because of their hairy skin and, let’s face it, seedy interior. But one kiwi delivers around 85 percent of your daily vitamin C requirements (almost twice as much as an orange, ounce for ounce) and 31 percent of daily vitamin K.
Carbs per kiwi: 10 grams (2 grams fiber)
ORAC: 862
GI: 50
GL: 7.3
Grapefruit
Half a grapefruit, which boasts a low glycemic load, will net you around half your vitamin C for the day. Just don’t ruin it by sprinkling sugar on top.
Carbs per ½ medium grapefruit: 14 grams (2 grams fiber)
ORAC: 483
GI: 22
GL: 2.4
Apricots
If you’re looking for a bite-sized fruit morsel to satisfy a small sweet craving, look no further.
Carbs per apricot: 4 grams (1 gram fiber)
ORAC: 1100
GI: 34
GL: 3.8
Cantaloupe
Cantaloupe is similar in potassium to banana for about half the carbs. It’s also delicious when wrapped in prosciutto. Not every fruit can say that.
Carbs per 1 cup serving: 13 grams (1.5 grams fiber)
ORAC: 319
GI: 65
GL: 4
Guava
You might be surprised to see a tropical fruit on this list since they tend to be high in carbs. (Indeed, this is the highest-carb option here, though it’s not astronomical by any means.) But guava has a low GI and GL and, more importantly, it is a nutritional powerhouse. One cup of guava blows other fruits out of the water, delivering 500 percent of your daily requirement of vitamin C (five times as much as a medium orange), 688 mg of potassium (about 1.5 medium bananas, which would come packaged with 40 grams of carbs), and 42 percent of the daily value for copper.
Carbs per 1 cup serving: 24 grams (9 grams fiber)
ORAC: 1422 to 2550
GI: 24
GL: 5
Avocado
Of course, we couldn’t have a best fruits list that omitted the avocado. Besides its healthy fat content—one of the reasons avocado is the darling of the keto world—it packs respectable amounts of B vitamins, folate, vitamin K, potassium, copper, and antioxidants to boot.
Carbs per 1 avocado: 12 grams (9 grams fiber)
ORAC: 1922
GI: 10
GL: 9
Do You Like What You See?
I’m guessing I just angered or bewildered some of you. Rest assured, just because your favorite fruit doesn’t appear here doesn’t mean it’s not “Mark approved.” All of this is somewhat subjective.
I don’t want you overthinking this stuff anyway. The goal is to be mindful about what goes in your body, not to obsess about the relative merits of one plum versus three apricots. That kind of obsessingis worse for your health than any amount of fruit ever could be. Any fruit is going to be a better, more Primal-friendly option than the hyperprocessed junk lining your supermarket shelves.
Ok, that’s it for today. What fruits would have made your list? Any favorites that you feel I overlooked here? Let me know in the comments.
“Placebos: As kids in the 80s, whenever we complained about a stomach ache and asked to stay home from school, our mom would give us some “medicine” to calm our stomachs. It was 2% milk with a bit of sugar and green food colouring. It worked like a charm.“
When you follow a 
In today’s world, we pretty much always have to wear shoes. But the majority of shoes people wear run directly counter to the way our feet and lower bodies are designed to function. Tall heels, thick padding, restrictive material that allows no movement, heavy sole that prevents us from feeling the ground—modern shoes are monstrosities that cut us off from the world around us and inhibit our ability to navigate it pain-free. Shoes that emulate the barefoot experience on the other hand offer tangible benefits to your health, wellness, athletic performance, and overall well-being by recreating the environment under which the human foot evolved.
To eat fruit or not to eat fruit. That is the question.
