I realized that I haven’t written a specific post about what diet I actually eat in over 3 years.
Somehow I just assume that everyone reading this blog knows what I mean when I reference “ex150” or “the heavy cream diet” or “my cream diet” or “90% fat HFLC low-PUFA keto” or “my stupid internet diet.”
But a few readers recently pointed out that it might make sense to periodically remind everyone, for example new readers, what this “stupid internet” diet is that has me reliably down 84lbs without counting carolies or exercising.
Other good things that happened to me on this diet:
My testosterone regularly tests over 1,000 (“way too high”)
My teeth, gums, eyes, and joints have become less inflamed
I get 90% less sunburn. Used to burn to a crisp in 45min, now I can stay out for 2-4h in crazy summer sun (no sunscreen)
I cured an incurable circadian rhythm disorder/disability, Non-24
Did I mention the 84lbs fat loss without counting carolies or going hungry?
Note: while I love this diet and it works very well for me, I do not think that everyone should/must eat like I do. ex150 is a pretty extreme variant of a pretty specific type of ketogenic diet, and plenty of people don’t need it, hate it, wouldn’t benefit from it, or straight up cannot do it sustainably.
While I appreciate it when people give my diet a try, I highly recommend you check out my post on How to Find your Personal Optimal Diet. This is just one of the possible options.
What's good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.
The ex stands for experiment.
When I started this blog, I initially called my diet “low-protein keto” because that’s why I invented it. But I realized that I wasn’t 100% sure that “low-protein” was the load bearing part of what I was doing. Instead, I decided to name the blog “Experimental Fat Loss” (=exfatloss in short) and that I’d name my diets merely describing what they consisted of, without presuming to understand the mechanism by which they worked.
The 150 stands for “150g of beef” which is roughly 1/3 of a pound. To be honest, I picked this because I was shooting for “low protein” and cutting a pound of beef in thirds is pretty easy without having to constantly weigh or measure anything. It just happened to work out pretty well, and so I stuck with it.
Technically I also add a small amount of non-starchy vegetables to the ground beef for flavor and texture, and to help soak up the rendered fat. I used to weigh the vegetables relatively strictly to be 60-80g per day, but I no longer do this. I just pour a “generous amount” in and probably end up closer to 150g of non-starchy vegetables a day. Think spinach, bell peppers, okra, onions..
Now 150 grams of beef & some vegetables is not the only thing I eat on this diet. In fact, it’s missing the major ingredient of my ad-lib food intake: heavy cream.
ex150 would be more appropriately called ex150cream, but I literally just thought of this the very first time 3.5 years in. My bad.
People mockingly call ex150 “the cream diet” because it almost entirely consists of heavy cream. Depending on the type of beef (I prefer 80/20 ground chuck) and how much cream I consume ad-lib on any given day, the vast majority of “carolies” I consume come from heavy cream. The rest comes mostly from whatever fat is in the ground beef, and the butter I cook it in, since vegetables have nearly no carolies in them.
As of the last 6 months or so, ex150 has also involved supplementing 1 serving of apple cider vinegar daily, which adds minimal cost & inconvenience, and seems to work well for me.
Another recent note: I used to always whip the cream into a pudding consistency for the first 3 years. I haven’t whipped it in 6 months, and have recently still reached a new all-time low after plateauing forever. I therefore think that it’s fine to just drink all the cream straight, or with coffee. Whipping cream for a “dessert meal” is still a valid option though.
In a sense, ex150 is much better defined by what’s NOT part of it:
No caloric restriction: the heavy cream is ad-lib, and always has been
Minimal linoleic acid from seed oils or other sources, because I think seed oils did obesity
Just about as little protein as a sedentary adult can sustainably eat, because almost everyone in the West eats too much protein (vegans & seniors may be the exception)
Almost no carbohydrates, hence the diet is extremely ketogenic (90% kcal from fat)
Extremely low fiber (I used to say <3g/day, these days it might be up to 5 or even 10g), and thus low irritation of the bowels
No food variety, which can lead to pleasure-induced eating. You literally eat the same thing every day.
No added salt, citric acid, or glutamate (e.g. mushrooms/tomatoes): these seem to induce overeating aka hyperphagia (note: like the addition of ACV, this is a relatively recent change that I intend on keeping going forward)
ex150 tries to push all the fat loss levers you can possibly push at once.
It is:
Hyper ketogenic (90% kcals from fat)
Super-low omega-6 PUFA linoleic acid (the bad one in seed oils)
Super-low salt
Super-low glutamate
Super-low protein
Super-low carb
Very high in MCT fats because dairy fat is about 11% MCT
Extremely simple
I’m not aware of any other diet pushing as many buttons at the same time. There are a small handful of things you could add, like a focus on omega-3 from fish, or some other supplements, but nothing that I’m convinced will make a huge difference, at least without trading in a lot of complexity.
And simplicity is a big reason for why this diet works so well.
There are some obvious candidates:
If you’re diagnosed diabetic or prediabetic, or are taking any medication related to blood glucose or diabetes, you should be careful when switching diets in general, and ex150 is just about the most extreme diet I know.
It will MASSIVELY change the amounts of glucose your body will get & how it’ll deal with it. If you take medication or are otherwise sensitive to this, please consult a doctor about how to switch to a heavily ketogenic diet before trying this.
ex150 is also heavily based on dairy. If you know you don’t deal with dairy well, e.g. based on your heritage, family members having issues with dairy, or having problems with it yourself in the past, this might not be the diet for you.
There are even people who do fine on normal or moderate amounts of dairy, but not on the extreme amounts consumed on ex150. Remember, the diet is practically 90% heavy cream.
People will gall bladder/fat digestion issues. The diet is 90% fat. The fat in heavy cream is already emulsified, which makes it easier to digest. But it could still be an issue for some people. If you know you have issues digesting fat, be careful and watch out for signs when consuming a ton of cream. I’m told the symptoms include diarrhea and undigested fat in the stool. You probably know more about this than me if you have such a condition.
Word of warning: carrageenan or other emulsifiers
I am in the lucky position to have cheap, affordable, delicious store brand cream available that uses only cream as its single ingredient, and even a backup that just uses gellan gum as an emulsifier. Companies add emulsifiers so that the cream won’t clump, which can happen if it’s being stored or transported for long periods of time (I think).
But most, especially cheap, brands of heavy cream contain the emulsifiers carrageenan, and so-called mono- and diglycerides.
I personally try to avoid these. I don’t have any solid evidence that these are bad, but I’ve heard many anecdotal reports, and seen some studies, in which carrageenan has caused indigestion or other issues for people.
If you have in the past had issues with digesting dairy even though you think you should do ok on it (e.g. pastoral heritage like Northern European or British Isles) and many in your family do ok on it, I recommend that you check your heavy cream’s ingredient list.
If the cream you use contains carrageenan, I recommend trying to switch to another brand if you can.
A brand that’s usually available in most stores nation wide in the U.S. is Horizon, and their heavy cream only has added gellan gum, no carrageenan. You can find it at many middle to upper level grocery stores. Many high-class grocery stores also carry single-ingredient cream that contains nothing but cream, but these tend to be rare and expensive. You’ll be drinking A LOT of heavy cream on this diet, so I recommend finding an affordable combination of ingredients & price. I do fine on gallons of gellan gum cream per week. (Yes, you will most likely be drinking over a gallon of cream each week.)
Ah, finally! Having said all these other things, how does one actually do ex150?
Cold Turkey yet a 1-2 week adaptation period
You have to do it cold turkey. Unfortunately, ex150 works by what it’s cutting out of your diet, mostly not by what it’s adding.
DO NOT just add more heavy cream to your Standard American Diet, it will not work.
You have to go all-in over a span of maybe up to 1-2 weeks. And that’s only to give your digestive system some time to get used to the higher fat and lower fiber intake. Oh, and going to low-sodium and keto adaptation.. remember, you’re pressing ALL the buttons.
Personally I like just going cold turkey and switching diets suddenly, but then I’m used to high-fat/low-fiber/low-sodium keto. If you’re currently not used to any of that, plan to not feel amazing for 1-2 weeks, and possibly have a digestive adaptation period.
Go very strict. Don’t change the plan.
I’ve written about the strategy of finding what diet works for you before.
Just follow the plan strictly for 30 days. There are many ways to mildly change the diet that make it not work. If you start out with one of those and it doesn’t work, you don’t know if the diet doesn’t work for you at all or if you just changed it too much.
Once the diet works for you, you can modify it.
If you have any serious amount of weight to loss, it’ll take you more than a few weeks anyway. Even the most aggressive fat loss stories take people half a year to years.
Set yourself up right for sustainable, long-term fat loss and reaching a healthy weight in a healthy way.
Here’s the exact plan
Eat one real meal a day: 150g of fatty (80/20) ground beef and some non-starchy vegetables, cooked in butter. No salt, no spices, no sauce, no sides. Pick either lunch or dinner.
The rest of the day, drink heavy cream plain or in coffee. Drink to satiety, but don’t guzzle it down too fast - you can make yourself nauseous that way. I recommend drinking small cups at a time or sipping until you get a feel for how much you need.
Do it for 30 days
You should of course see some initial weight loss before day 30 on any diet that works. But anything much shorter won’t give you a clear enough trend to really tell.
Many people’s weight fluctuates naturally by over 10lbs, especially overweight and obese people.
If you just do the diet for a week, you might be catching a random up or down trend, and not actually see the effect of the diet itself.
Commit to doing it 30 days at a time. Again, if you have serious weight to lose, you’re in this for the long haul anyway.
View it as a probation period of sorts; you’re just trying to figure out if you and the diet are a good match. You can reinvent the business once you have some experience.
Appreciate, but don’t over-appreciate, the water weight loss
You will likely lose a lot of water weight in the beginning. I believe any diet that will eventually lead to sustained fat loss will also lead to short-term loss of water weight.
Losing water weight is therefore a good sign, but not necessarily proof that the diet will work. Less water retention is generally a good thing up to a point: it probably means less inflammation, less bloat, and it IS less body mass your joints are supporting. You will also look dramatically thinner when losing water weight.
But of course there’s a limit to water weight loss: if you’re morbidly obese, it’s not because you have an excess of 100lbs of water on you.
Water weight is like a puppy: excitable & moves a lot in the short-term, but not necessarily indicative of a greater trend in the right direction.
That said there’s also nothing wrong with the water weight loss. So just be prepared for it, appreciate it, but don’t get used to losing 20lbs in a week over and over again, cause it’ll be the same 20lbs.
Let me know how it goes!
I’ve previously run an ex150 trial, and 7 out of the 10 participants stuck through the full 30 days. All of them lost weight, on average 9.6lbs.
But I’m always interested to see people’s experience on the diet. A lot of people tell me they find it much more enjoyable than it sounds at first. Others can’t deal with it, or find it very hard.
The more data, the better!