👨‍🍳 The MF Kitchen #106 - 300 calories is more than you think


Hey Reader!

In the 106th issue of The MF Kitchen, you'll slice into the details of:

  • Recipes for my Air Fryer Breakfast Burger and Protein Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies!
  • The holidays can be hard on your 'diet' but don't feel bad...
  • Busting the popular "carbs make you fat" myth...

Preheat your ovens


Weekly Recipe Roundup 🍽️

Air Fryer Breakfast Burger

There are hundreds of variations of this breakfast sandwich out there.

This is my absolute FAVORITE.

Super easy to make too!

Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself:
Air Fryer Breakfast Burger.pdf

Protein Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies

It's official, we're having cookies for breakfast.

Try out this huge cookie for only 336 cals!

Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself:
Protein Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies.pdf


Recipe Recreations Of The Week 🤌

🍔🍕 The 12” Cheeseburger Pizza

Macros for the WHOLE 12” Pizza:
894 Cals, 75g Carbs, 18g Fat, 108g Protein

Here's the video and recipe:
👉 https://www.instagram.com/reels/CrJQtGYA9p_/


Zach's Beats 🎧

A banger to add to your gym playlist:

Swag Surfin' - Whethan


One FAQ ❓

Question of the Week:
“Be honest with me… can a few days of holiday eating really make me gain noticeable body fat, or am I just freaking out?”

Answer: Just here as a friend to remind you to not feel guilty about the food you’ve enjoyed the last few days for Christmas.

I remember the mental turmoil that was the day after Christmas...

“Damn, I’m an idiot.
Why did I eat so much?
I'm fat...”

Was I being rational? Really felt like it in the moment.

But to be fair, the puffiness/bloat is mostly just your body holding onto some extra water.

Literally. That’s it.

It’s incredibly easy to overestimate what a few days can do to your body composition because you can SEE the changes!

But it goes away right when you get back to eating normally.

Here’s some quick math.

There are about 3500 calories in a pound of body fat.

Aka you’d have to eat 3500 calories MORE than what you normally burn on a daily basis (your maintenance calories).

Let’s say it’s 2500 calories.

So you’d have to eat 6000 calories in one day just to gain 1lb of fat.

Shit, you might’ve done that lol.

I honestly doubt it because that’s a lot of calories.

BUT if you did, I highly doubt you did it the next day as well.

You probably ate much less because you were still full from the day prior.

My point is, I am not saying go eat like a gluttonous asshole.

Actually, let me change my mind mid-email. Be that gluttonous asshole.

You’re better off enjoying lots of amazing food with friends and family, creating memories, and spending a few days not giving a singular f*ck about calories in my opinion.

Memories you can’t get back. They last a lifetime.

Body fat you can always lose.

And you will lose it within a week or two when you get back into your routine.

We are playing the long game here.

You didn’t ruin anything.

You made memories!

And i'll leave you with one last thing to remember:

​You don’t get out of shape from Christmas to New Years. You get out of shape between New Years and Christmas. Read that again.


Serving Surprise 😮

When I hear someone say “carbs make you fat,” I immediately think:

“Well I don't know about that.”

This visual is a great representation of that.

Fat sources are naturally much more dense in calories.

9 calories per 1 gram of fat.
4 calories per 1 gram of carbs.

So that means, for every gram, carbs are less than half the calories as fats.

Let's compare the two:

Which do you think is easier to overeat on?

This is not to demonize fats (you should know by now that I love me some balanced macros).

We should be eating protein.
We should be eating fats.
We should be eating carbs.

They all serve their purpose.

They make up a dream team for optimal health, body composition, and performance (which is what we're after).

It's just something to look out for!


Over the holidays, I heard a family friend say this when talking about their new diet to start the new year:

“Time to start the unhappy diet!”

This is a topic for another day on how messed up diet culture is.

And how unnecessarily hard 99.9% of diets are.

But just know this.

You are in the 0.01% here.

This is the “I can’t believe I can eat this and lose weight” diet!

Can’t wait to see you crush 2026.

Much love and happy cooking,
Zach

600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
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