Hey Reader!

In the 147th issue of The MF Kitchen, you'll slice into the details of:

• Recipes for my Pepperoni Pizza Gameday Sliders and Homemade Cocoa Puffs Cereal!
• Going over your calories on the weekend? Do this...
• Why does Swiss cheese have holes? I found the truth...
• This has 186g of sugar in it?!

Preheat your ovens…

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Weekly Recipe Roundup 🍽️

Pepperoni Pizza Gameday Sliders The NFL is back in full swing! So wanted to give you guys a super easy and delicious Pepperoni Pizza Gameday Sliders recipe for your own gameday! Click here for the recipe and PDF: ​Pepperoni Pizza Gameday Sliders​

Homemade Cocoa Puffs Cereal I eat a lotttt of cereal. And I always wanted to make my own protein cereal! So here it is 🙌 Click here for the recipe and PDF: ​Homemade Cocoa Puffs Cereal​

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Recipe Recreation Of The Week 🤌

Creamy Gochujang Brothy Rice Bowls

Macros for the WHOLE Bowl:​
530 Cals, 65g Carbs, 9g Fat, 50g Protein

Here's the recipe and video:​
👉 ​​https://www.instagram.com/p/DeXG5fnRaVa/​

If you haven't already, join the FDL Community so you can share your own creations.

​Click here to join now!​

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This Week's Flavor 🎥

🥞 239 Cal Cinnamon Roll Protein Pancakes The BEST Protein Pancakes on the Internet. No debate! Thick, fluffy and only 239 calories with 22g protein! ​Here is the recipe and video.​

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Zach's Beats 🎧

My current cooking music vibes 🎶 ​Sh-Boom - The Crew Cuts​​​

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One FAQ ❓

Answer: Honest answer?

You’re not overthinking it.

It absolutely can be enough.

But it’s also a lot easier to fix than you think.

Here’s the math nobody does.

Let’s say you’re in a 500 calorie deficit Monday through Friday.

Nice work! That’s 2,500 calories in the bank for the week.

Now the weekend hits.

Like you said, you’re not binging.

Just brunch, a few drinks, some snacks, dinner out. Normal stuff.

But “normal untracked” can easily land you 1,000-1,200 calories over maintenance per day.

Two days of that?

Your whole week’s deficit is gone. Back to zero.

And you have no idea why the scale won’t move because “I was so good all week.”

Weekends are two out of seven days (that’s almost 30% of your week).

They count way more than they feel like they do.

So what do you do about it?

Not “be perfect on weekends.”

That’s not happening and I wouldn’t want it to.

Here’s what actually works:

1. Don’t go from tracking everything to tracking nothing. That cliff is the problem. On weekends, start by just tracking your protein. Hitting protein keeps you full, and you’ll naturally eat less of everything else.
2. Pick your “hell yes” moment. Instead of grazing all weekend, decide ahead of time what’s actually worth it. The pizza night with friends? Go all in and enjoy it. The random snacks after drinking? Probably not worth it lol.
3. Think in weeks, not days. If you know Saturday dinner is going to be big, eat a little lighter Monday through Friday to leave some room. Your body doesn’t care what day the calories show up. It cares about the weekly total.
4. Hit your steps when you can! Being able to hit anywhere in the 5k-10k step range does a lot more for people than they think.

The bottom line...

Your weekdays are proof you can do this!

You don’t need a perfect weekend.

You just need a weekend that doesn’t erase the other five days.

Close enough beats completely off every time.

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Weird Food Fact 🤓

One day, you’re making a sandwich for lunch.

You grab a slice of Swiss and hold it up to the light like a little window.

Ever stopped to wonder why that cheese is full of holes?

It'll always freaked me out a little 😅

Well turns out, it's gas from bacteria...

When Swiss cheese is made, cheesemakers add a special bacteria (its very fancy name is Propionibacterium freudenreichii, but we’ll just call it Fred lol).

Then the cheese gets moved into a warm room to age for a few weeks.

And that’s when Fred gets to work.

Fred eats the lactic acid in the cheese and lets out carbon dioxide gas.

That gas gets trapped inside the firm cheese and slowly forms bubbles.

And those bubbles become the holes.

So yes, the holes in Swiss cheese are basically tiny bacteria burps lol.

Cheesemakers even have a name for the holes.

They call them “eyes.”

And a Swiss cheese that comes out with no holes at all is called “blind.”

I could go on and on about cheese and jokes, but i'll leave it there.

I never knew where the holes in cheese came from!

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Serving Surprise 😮

Crumbl has had a rough year.

They've closed at least 57 stores in 2026 so far, and one group of franchise owners just filed for bankruptcy.

And the thing that was supposed to help turn it around?

Drinks.

Crumbl (yes, the giant cookie place) started selling “dirty sodas.”

And one of them made the internet lose its mind.

It’s called the Crazy Cousins.

It contains:

• Red Bull
• Mountain Dew
• pineapple
• strawberry purée
• coconut cream

All in one cup...

The 32oz large has 840 calories and 186g of SUGAR!!

Usually in this section, I go out, buy the thing I'm talking about, and try it.

But i'll be honest...

I'm not trying that 🤣

Because think about that sugar number!

186 grams is almost half a pound of just SUGAR.

Roughly the same sugar as five cans of Coke... in ONE drink.

But as with everything I cover in the Serving Surprise, I’m not here to tell you to never get one.

If it’s a “hell yes” treat for you, enjoy it.

And to be fair, Crumbl does have lower sugar options on the menu.

But if you can redirect your craving, I have a vanilla ice cream recipe that SLAPS and the macros are:
​353 Cals, 32g Carbs, 9g Fat, 36g Protein

For a full pint!

Here's the recipe:
👉 https://www.instagram.com/reels/CzJqa2xOogT/​

A whole pint of something that's actually filling.

And that same sweet tooth satisfied 😁

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Thanks for reading the 147th issue of the Macro Friendly Kitchen!

Hope you continue to enjoy reading them as much as I love writing them 😁

Appreicate your support along the way 🫶

Much love and happy cooking,
​Zach