Have you seen the iconic “Butter Makes Your Pants Fall Off” video too? I’m sure you must be really curious to know more about Butter Bob Briggs and where he is now!
Who is Butter Bob Briggs?
Bob Briggs is one of the most popular guys who initially spread the word about keto and lchf diets.
His real name is Bob Briggs but he got nicknamed Butter Bob Briggs because his first viral video was titled “Butter Makes Your Pants Fall off!”
He lost 145 lbs in 14 months, cured his acid reflux, eliminated joint pain, and lowered his triglycerides, by simply eating a high-fat diet with little to no carbs!
Briggs gained a massive following online because the way he explained complicated diet concepts was very relatable and quite simplistic.
We at Fitness Unicorn follow the same philosophy and try to explain keto diet (or lchf) concepts in layman language so that you can reap more benefits from this beautiful diet.
MORE: Culver’s Low Carb Guide
Is Butter Bob Dead?
After knowing all this info about the legend, you may be wondering why he vanished from the internet. Many people on forums like Quora and Reddit are wondering whether he is still alive.
He has not updated his website nor uploaded any video on Youtube for the past few years. His last youtube video was uploaded 3 years back.
So what happened to Butter Bob Briggs? Is Butter Bob Briggs still alive?
Butter Bob Briggs is still alive and living quite normal (and healthy) life.
I think the reason for his disappearance is that he said what all he wanted to say through his online channels.
He is definitely not a vlogger who would upload daily videos about his diet updates. Nor does he want to provide any coaching or diet plans to his audience.
He seems to be very happy in his life and doesn’t look like someone trying to build an online brand. Surprisingly enough, he built a massive following of 130k subscribers on Youtube by uploading just 43 videos!
Ask any successful YouTuber today and they’ll tell you the sweat and pain required to reach that level of following!
Butter Bob Briggs Diet
Bob Briggs asks a very simple question to the public – “Why are fat people hungry?”
This short and simple question has a very profound logic hidden inside which led me to an aha! moment.
We all know that we eat energy (in terms of food) to use that energy in our daily life for functions such as breathing, walking, sleeping, digestions, etc.
But if you already have excess stores of fat (energy), then why are you still feeling hungry? Your body could automatically utilize the reservoir!
This dilemma has a lot to do with insulin and Bob Briggs often talks about insulin resistance.
What is Insulin Resistance?
Before we talk about insulin resistance, let’s see what insulin is:
Insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas that helps glucose in your blood enter cells in your muscle, fat, and liver, where it’s used for energy.
Insulin resistance occurs when your muscles, fat, or liver don’t respond well to insulin and have trouble using glucose from the blood. To balance out things and maintain healthy functioning, our pancreas produces more insulin.
Did you know that insulin resistance has been associated with world’s most common health issues like:
- Obesity
- Depression and anxiety
- Alzheimer’s
- Dementia
- Heart disease
- Type 2 Diabetes,
So what’s the result of insulin resistance on our bellies? They tend to accumulate more fat.
But what causes high levels of insulin?
One of the major causes of high levels of insulin is high amounts of carbohydrates in our diet.
Guess what is the #1 factor leading to our high carb consumption? It’s those refined grains and sugar! Think about all your favorite junk food and I bet 90% of it is made of either sugar or highly refined grains.
Foods like burgers and pizzas have a glycemic index value, meaning that they release a lot of glucose in our blood very quickly.
Now that your glucose levels have risen above the normal range, your body produces more insulin to stabilize your blood sugar and maintain proper functioning.
And if you have developed insulin resistance, more and more glucose needs to be released to lower the sugar levels in your blood stream.
And things don’t end here!
As you accumulate more and more fat, your body releases certain chemicals which further reduce the effectiveness of insulin.
Result? You now require more insulin to do the same amount of work!
This endless loop goes on snowballing as you keep on binge-eating on high carb foods to the point of obesity. On top of it, the extra calories you eat also lead to weight gain.
Now you see why eating lots and lots of high carb foods can trick your body into accumulating belly fat due to insulin resistance?
This is the whole premise of Bob Briggs’s diet. He recommends eating very low-carb and high-fat meals (hence the name Butter Bob Briggs) to improve insulin sensitivity and break the chains of insulin resistance, which is the key to weight loss.
Intro to LCHF Diet
Bob Briggs preaches about a diet that is based on very few carbs (20g max) and high amounts of fats.
He says the whole diet is based on percentages, and that you have to limit your protein intake to less than 15% of your macro consumption.
If the word macro seems alien to you, here’s what it means: Macro or Macronutrients are the three major nutrients you consume whenever you eat any food. These are namely fats, proteins, and carbohydrates.
Getting back to the famous Bob Briggs Diet, here is the step-by-step formula:
✔️ Step 1: You have to strictly limit your carb intake and keep it under 20 grams per day. Based on your physical activity levels, you may do fine with a slightly more amount of carbs. Start with 20g and then experiment as you move further into your journey.
✔️ Step 2: More than 75% of your macros should come from fats! You need to log your daily food consumption in a mobile app like carb manager and try to hit the target every day.
Initially, you may not be able to get enough fats and hence you could supplement your diet with butter, ghee, cheese, coconut oil, etc to fulfill your fat requirements.
Always go for natural high-fat meats like Ribeye, Brisket, Unprocessed Bacon, chicken thighs and legs, fatty fish like salmon.
(You may have deli meats like bologna occasionally!)
In order to amplify the fat content, go for animal fats such as lard or duck fat, Ghee or clarified butter, Olive oil, Coconut oil, Avocados, Olives, or Eggs.
✔️ Step 3: Bob Briggs ask you to keep your diet very simple initially and get used to the same eating pattern day-in day-out.
Narrow down your recipes to 3 or 4 maximum and rinse and repeat every day.
The idea behind this suggestion is that it’s quite easy to be overwhelmed with so much information at the beginning of your diet. The more you google stuff, the more you’ll be frustrated with the huge information overload.
There is literally an endless number of low carb recipes online catered to different diets and lifestyles, which might confuse you altogether!
✔️ Step 4: This is one of the most interesting step in the Bob Briggs diet. He recommends that you eat only when you are hungry! It could even be once or twice per day.
In a world where most of the fitness trainers and coach are crying over the timing and strictness in a diet, eating when hungry comes as a total flip-around!
And trust me you guys, when you are doing a high-fat low-carb diet, you rarely feel hungry. Again, insulin is the reason behind this concept.
You see, regular consumption of carbs make your insulin fluctuate a lot and takes you through the roller-coaster of energy spikes and crashes. These fluctuations lead to laziness and further increase your cravings and hunger.
On the lchf diet, your insulin sensitivity highly improves and insulin levels tend to stabilize.
Results?
Now you have much better appetite control and your brain will accurately tell you when you are genuinely hungry! No more craving for a pizza just because you saw an ad!
There may be times when you don’t feel hungry for 14 hours straight. It is very normal in this diet and you don’t have to eat unnecessarily.
In fact, this eating pattern is called intermittent fasting which will further boost your weight loss.
✔️ Step 5: Whether its keto or lchf diet, initially you will be losing a lot of salt due to peeing frequently. And hence its highly recommended that you add more potassium and sodium (salt) to your diet.
As you suddenly stop eating carbs, all your excess glycogen (stored form of carbs) will start emptying. The glycogen holds water in your body and as it releases, the retained water will also be shuffled out of the body.
So in order to avoid exhaustion, you need to up your salt intake.
✔️ Step 6: This is the final step in your Butter Bob Briggs diet, which involves walking as an exercise.
The above 5 steps only talk about nutrition in the diet, but the sixth step tackles weight loss from the other angle i.e. exercise.
He goes on to say that walking isn’t a must for this diet and you can reap all the benefits without it as well. But developing a good walking routine will release good hormones and also help you lose more weight.
The interesting thing about Bob Briggs Diet is that he does not recommend any caloric limitation (like most diets do) and all he focuses on is the percentage of different macros.
Butter Bob Chili Recipe
Calling this recipe “famous” would be an understatement!
Butter Bob’s Chili recipe has been one of my favorite Chili since I began my low carb journey! And the best part is that you can make so many customizations without losing the original taste.
What is defined as a “chili” is still a point of debate. But usually, it is a gravy of meat and peppers that is quite hot and spicy!
Some people argue that meat is a must-have and that there shouldn’t be any beans in an authentic chili. Well if you ask me, there’s no right and wrong in cooking. Experiment with what you like till you reach the ultimate recipe that gets a place in your handbook!
The most common types of chili are tomato-and-pepper red chili, white chili, chili Verde, vegetarian chili, mild chili, and the clean-up-your-throat chili!
This chili recipe from Butter Bob Briggs is a spicy blend of beef, sausages, peppers, and tomato puree.
Here are the ingredients:
- 4 lb Ground Beef
- 1 lb Ground Sausage
- 2 large-sized onions
- 2 medium green peppers
- 2 tsp of garlic powder
- 1/8 cup of cumin
- 1/4 cup of chili powder
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (warning: too hot)
- 3 tsp salt
- 1x 10.5 oz can of Rotel Tomatoes and Green Chilies.
- 1x 29 oz can of Tomato Puree.
- 32 ounces of beef broth
(PS: It yields a huge quantity so batch it up according to your needs.)
Procedure
- Brown 3 and a half lbs of meat.
- While the meat is browning, chop 2 green bell peppers and an onion.
- Separate the fat from the browned meat and pour half of it into the pot.
- Add all the spices into the pot with the meat and stir well.
- Now add the chopped onions and peppers into the pot.
- Add 32 ounces of beef broth.
- Mix in both the cans of tomatoes and green chili and the puree.
- Mix everything and cook for approx 40 minutes on medium heat, while stirring gently.
Your famous Bob Briggs Chili is ready to be served! Pair it with a nice whole-fat snack and you have a super keto meal at your disposal.
Nutrition Info
These nutrition stats are based on the whole batch. You may need to portion out based on your macro needs.
- Fat: 297 g (this is if you drain and throw away a 1/2 cup of fat from browning the meat)
- Protein: 272 g
- Net carbs: 60 g
So one serving of this chili would give you 65% fat, 27% PROTEIN, & 6% NET CARBS, which makes it keto-friendly and lchf-friendly as well.
LCHF vs Keto Diet
Butter Bob Briggs is all about following a low carb high fat (lchf) diet where you eat less than 20g carbs and more than 75% fats in your meals.
Along the same lines, a fairly new diet concept known as the Keto diet is also spreading like wildfire! In fact, Keto was one of the top 10 Google searches in the year 2018, in the health and fitness niche.
So what’s the difference between these two? And if you’re thinking to start, which one is better?
Carbs Limit
The most significant difference between lchf and Keto is that Keto emphasizes on a strict carbohydrate limit (usually 20g) whereas LCHF is silent about the exact amount of carbs.
LCHF does not specify a strict number that you have to comply with, the whole diet revolves around “low” carb meaning that the percentage of carbs should be less than 10%.
Lets understand it with an example. Suppose Jim and Tim both are on the lchf diet and they both are eating “low” carbs and high fat.
They both eat less than 10% carbs each day but their exact carbohydrates greatly vary from each other.
Jim is eating 20g of carbs, 30g protein, and 150g of fats whereas Tim is having 40g carbs, 60g protein and 300g of fats.
As you can see, Tim is having double the carbs but the percentage remains the same i.e. 10%.
The keto diet, on the other hand, strictly limits your carb intake to 20g or less.
Results
If your sole reason for adopting a low carb diet is weight loss, then Keto is the way to go!
The strict limit of carbs in the keto diet is recommended since it has proven to be the fastest way to enter ketosis and start burning fat as fuel.
On the lchf diet, you are more likely to go above 30g or 40g of carbs which will prevent you from harnessing the maximum benefits of ketosis.
Consider this: Blueberry is a “low” carb snack and perfectly fits the lchf diet criteria. However, if you end up eating too many, it’s no longer a keto diet and you won’t be entering ketosis.
You may have been putting in lots of effort and controlling those sugar cravings. But if you are simply focusing on low-carb high-fat foods without considering the actual amount of carbs, shedding pounds might still be a struggle.
Which Diet to Follow
If you’ve read till here, I’m pretty sure you understand that every keto diet is an LCHF diet but every LCHF isn’t keto.
Keto is specifically designed to shed belly fat while eating a super low carb diet, which also has additional benefits like improved mood, fewer cravings, higher energy levels, clarity in thoughts, etc.
And if you don’t really care about weight loss but want to experience all the other health benefits, give LCHF a try!
Surprisingly, Butter Bobb Briggs’s diet is actually the Keto diet itself because he clearly says that you should eat less than 20g of carbs.
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