Hey Reader!

In the 126th issue of The MF Kitchen, you'll slice into the details of:

• Recipes for my Buffalo Chicken Dip Pinwheels and OREO Cream Filled Protein Donuts!
• Which of these two came first?
• Should you skip breakfast if you want to lose weight? Here's my stance...
• The oatmeal glow up (if you do it right)...

Preheat your ovens…

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Weekly Recipe Roundup 🍽️

Buffalo Chicken Dip Pinwheels My new FAVORITE 60g Protein Lunch. Definitely give this a go! Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself: ​​​Buffalo Chicken Dip Pinwheels.pdf​

OREO Cream Filled Protein Donuts The EASIEST (and DELICIOUS) Protein Donuts on the INTERNET! ​​Click below to download the recipe and make it easy yourself:​ ​​​OREO Cream Filled Protein Donuts.pdf​

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Recipe Recreations Of The Week 🤌

OREO Overnight Oats Protein Cookie Dough!

Macros for the WHOLE Bowl:​
404 Cals, 45g Carbs, 8g Fat, 36g Protein

Here's the recipe and video:​
👉 https://www.instagram.com/theflexibledietinglifestyle/reel/C-Imzzuulq8/​

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This Week's Flavor 🎥

😮‍💨 70 Cal Fruity Pebble Protein Push Pops If you're looking for the perfect low calorie dessert meal prep, these Fruity Pebble Protein Push Pops are it! Only 70 calories with 5g protein and most importantly, they taste incredible! ​Here are the recipe and video.​

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Zach's Beats 🎧

​ ​ 🐐’ed ​GOATED - Armani White​

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One FAQ ❓

Answer: I’ll be straight up and spill the answer to this question right away.

Fasting isn’t magical. It isn’t going to “boost your metabolism.”

But can it actually help you lose body fat?

Yes and no.

Let me explain.

I’ve experimented with intermittent fasting for many many years.

I mostly did the 16:8 method which is 16 hours fasting and an 8-hour eating window.

So pretty much eat my first meal at 12pm and be done eating by 8pm.

I did this for a few years.

It worked great!

But then I decided to start eating breakfast again and realized something.

My hunger needs me to be proactive, not reactive.

It builds. And once it hits a certain level of hunger, it takes a disproportionate amount of calories to bring that hunger down.

But when I am proactive with my hunger, my hunger in return acts rational (aka I am full/satisfied with the right amount of calories).

So when I was skipping breakfast, I ended up so hungry by lunchtime that it was nearly impossible to feel satisfied without eating an ABSURD amount of food.

It becomes a slippery slope that by the time I start eating, I need WAY more food to tackle that hunger than if I’d just had a balanced breakfast in the first place.

And this raises another point. Intermittent fasting isn’t magical.

It’s a misdirection.

By giving someone a smaller eating window, they have less time to eat.

So because they have less time to eat, they eat less calories.

That’s why they lose weight.

But anyways, do I think you need to eat breakfast RIGHT AWAY when you wake up?

Nope. Let me walk you through how I do it.

I wake up and the first thing I do is chug at least 20oz water.

No food yet.

Then I go a little 10-15 minute walk to get some fresh air and movement.

I also drink another 20oz of water with my electrolytes on this walk.

I am about 90 minutes into my day and still no food yet.

Then I make some coffee.

I love coffee on an empty stomach.

Sits better and the caffeine hits me better for productivity.

The caffeine from the coffee also acts as an appetite suppressant aka it blunts my hunger.

I finish my coffee.

It is now about 8:30am-9am and 2.5 hours into my morning.

Now it’s time for breakfast.

I am moderately hungry. About a 6.5/10 on the hunger score.

Not a mountain of hunger that would be impossible to climb.

I keep my breakfast around 500 calories with 50g of protein.

And then each meal throughout the day is a bit bigger.

So am I an intermittent fasting hater?

Absolutely not.

I just think skipping breakfast doesn’t need to have a name lol.

So this is the punchline of all my nutrition stances.

Nothing is magical. If you really enjoy it and it.

I know so many people who skip breakfast and do just fine! They love it and don’t get a mountain of hunger.

And I sometimes skip breakfast by accident. But when by accident, my hunger wasn’t taking over my mind.

It was an, “oh shoot, it’s already 11am and I haven’t eaten anything 😅”

So my answer to your question is, eat that breakfast!

And it’s ok to not eat that breakfast sometimes as well.

Just be proactive with your hunger.

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Weird Food Fact 🤓

There is this question...

A question that I can’t remember where the heck I heard it first.

I know I was super young. Maybe 5-6 years old.

My hunch is I heard it on TV watching cartoons.

I loved The Magic School Bus and Bill Nye the Science Guy so maybe there?

Anyways, I say how long ago I heard the question first because it’s wild that I never really sought out to find the answer.

I am almost positive you have had the same or a similar journey with this question.

“What came first, the chicken OR the egg?”

It seems like a simple/fun question.

But it’s actually pretty intense and controversial haha.

Let’s crack this debate open (punny I know 🤣) and get into the science behind both sides.

My goal is to give you the case for both sides so you pick which one you think actually came first.
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The Case for the Chicken

The argument for the chicken goes like this:

How can an egg exist without a chicken to lay it?

Evolution is a slow process, and at some point, a creature that wasn’t quite a chicken (call it a proto-chicken (prototype chicken)) had to evolve into the modern chicken we know today.

The logic here is that the fully-formed chicken had to exist before it could lay the first proper chicken egg.

So, Team Chicken’s main point is simple: no egg without a chicken.

But let’s flip that around…
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The Case for the Egg

Here’s where things get scientific.

Long before chickens (as we know them) existed, there were egg-laying creatures.

Dinosaurs, reptiles, and fish were laying eggs millions of years before chickens came onto the scene.

So technically, eggs existed long before chickens did.

But we’re talking about chicken eggs, right?

Here’s the key point: genetic mutations happen during reproduction.

Somewhere along the evolutionary line, a proto-chicken laid an egg.

Inside that egg, thanks to a mutation in the DNA, the very first true chicken was formed.

This means the egg containing the first chicken came before the chicken itself.
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The Science Says… Egg Wins

Experts in evolutionary biology, like Dr. John Brookfield, have pointed out that species are defined by their DNA.

The DNA inside the first chicken egg was different from that of its proto-chicken parents, officially marking the start of the chicken species.

So, if we’re looking at this from a purely biological standpoint, the egg came first.
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Why This Debate Is So Interesting

Here’s why I love this question: it’s not just about chickens and eggs.

It’s about questions like this that we might’ve never dove into to find the real answer.

Or conclusions that we have been fed to be true so we just assume they are true without challenging them or trying to figure out why.

There are so many of these beliefs we have that should be challenged.

Not saying to question everything lol.

Here’s a rule for myself.

I don’t talk about things I haven't throughly researched.

If I am relying on someone else’s opinion to create mine, I don’t talk about it.

If I can’t explain why or teach about it, I don’t talk about it.

The more I dive into a topic, the more embarrassed I would’ve been if I had talked about it before I did the research to truly understand it.

And God forbid, someone would’ve asked me “why” or ask “how does that work” and I didn’t have a full understanding, I would’ve been stuttering and embarrassed 😅

Anyways, sorry about the rant haha. I just wish people would do a bit more research into a topic before they adopt the answer as fact/truth.

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Serving Surprise 😮

My name is Zach and I love oatmeal.

Why?

It checks out so many of the boxes I love for my meals.

1. Volume ✅
2. Taste ✅
3. Texture ✅
4. Satiety ✅
5. Easy to make ✅
6. Versatility ✅

And the glow up it has can be pretty amazing.

Here is what 60g of rolled oats looks like:

And through the cooking process which you saw three examples above of, it can turn into A LOT more volume.

Absorbency is a big-time overlooked aspect of macro-friendly cooking.

Ingredients that are absorbent are incredible at adding volume to meals.

This is a topic I want to cover in a lot more detail in the future because it is such a great concept to master.

And to know the ingredients that are high on the absorbency scale to utilize in recipes.

So we can turn a little bit into a lotta bit 😎

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Last thought before I go...

You have full permission to ignore advice that doesn't work for you.

Even mine lol.

The internet is FULL of "you have to do this" rules, most of them recycled from someone who recycled them from someone else.

Try them, sure!

But if something isn't working for your body, your goals, or your lifestyle, drop it.

Much love and happy cooking,
​Zach