PD Mangan Diet – What He Eats (With Meal Pics)

P.D. Mangan is a 67 year old Californian, with a background in microbiology.

He’s passionate about helping people live healthier lives, and regularly shares his research on Twitter for his 170,000+ followers.

He leads by example, and looks strong and healthy, particularly for his age.

In this post we’ll dive into the details of what he eats, with plenty of examples.

Table of Contents

1 Summary
2 His Personal Journey
3 Examples of What He Eats
4 What He Avoids
- 4.1 Sugar & Sweeteners
5 Roundup
6 Before You Go…
7 References

Summary

First, a quick high level summary

What does he eat and drink?

He’s a big proponent of eating real food, and as a result his primary foods are meat, eggs, fermented dairy, seafood and vegetables.
When we say meat, it’s more often than not, steak 🥩
In terms of carbohydrate consumption, it’s always under 100 grams per day, and very often under 50 grams. This means that most of the vegetables he eats are non-starchy¹².
He eats some dairy – preferring fermented sources such as yogurt and cheese. He doesn’t drink milk³⁴.
He drinks water, coffee, tea and red wine – no sodas or artificial sweeteners.

Jump to this section to see examples of the meals that he eats.

What doesn‘t he eat?

He avoids processed food – such as refined grains, candy and chips
He avoids seed oils, which are oils such as vegetable, sunflower, soybean, corn and canola

When does he eat?

He practices intermittent fasting – such that he consumes his meals within an 8 hour or less eating window⁵
Typically eating between 10am and 6pm⁶
He doesn’t eat breakfast first thing, saying that he feels tired if he does⁷
He tries to avoid eating late, with 7pm being the latest cut off⁸

His Personal Journey

PD wasn’t always an example of good health.

13 years ago, in 2009, PD was a long time vegan battling with chronic fatigue⁹.

He was 5’10” 130lbs, and his main form of exercise was long distance running.

^ Left: PD as a vegan, battling chronic fatigue. Right: PD eating meat and lifting weights. Source tweet

The advice he was getting from conventional medicine wasn’t working, and he realized he had to find a solution for himself.

He decided to switch to a primal diet, eating whole foods with plenty of meat, eggs, fish, and dairy.

Gradually his energy started coming back.

At that point he added in weight training, packed on 25lbs of muscle and never looked back.

^ Another transformation pic – Twitter source

Some time after recovery he wrote his first book Smash Chronic Fatigue.

He’s since gone on to write 9 further books, but his main, ongoing, content outlet is Twitter.

Examples of What He Eats

In this section we’ll go through some examples of meals that PD has shared.

With the idea that this provides inspiration for others who want to emulate aspects of what he does.

Breakfast

Below are images PD has shared of his breakfasts:

^ Eggs and sausage – source

^ Steak and fried eggs – source

^ Steak and scrambled eggs – source

^ Eggs and Chorizo with pear – source

^ Quick breakfast, boiled eggs, corn tortillas, olive oil and salt. 14g of carbs per tortilla – source

^ Steak “the original protein shake” – source

Lunch

PD’s food pics appear to be largely breakfast or dinners.

Perhaps partly because his lunches are lighter, and closer to snacks:

^ Tweet source

A few examples include:

^ Jamon serrano and cheese – source

^ Home made beef jerkey – source

^ Boiled eggs, olive oil, salt and corn tortilla

More on what he says about his lunches; mentioning they’re often yogurt or the previous night’s leftovers:

^ Tweet source

^ Tweet source

Dinners

Below are examples of the types of dinners that P.D. eats:

^ Steak (Tri-Tip cut), tomato, avocado and zucchini with red wine – source

^ Steak, vegetables (brussel sprouts, beets and bell pepper) and red wine – source

^ Surf n Turf (Steak and Shrimp) with sliced tomato and avocado – source

^ Beef burgers, cheese, avocado, grilled onion and pickles – source

^ Steak, peas and red onion with red wine – Twitter source

^ Beef steak with mushrooms and onions cooked in the beef fat – source

^ Steak, chicken, broccoli, pepper and wine – source

What He Avoids

PD is a big proponent of avoiding refined grains, sugar and seed oils.

Remarkably, just doing that could help us all live healthier lives.

^ Tweet source

Sugar & Sweeteners

PD avoids sugar and sweeteners.

He sees sweeteners as a stepping stone for quitting a sugar addiction, but not something one should be consuming otherwise.

Suggesting stevia may be healthier than synthetic sweeteners such as sucralose, aspartame, acesulfame etc.

^ Tweet source

Interestingly, he points out that most people aren’t solely addicted to sugar.

As he says, they will rarely take a spoon of pure sugar and eat it.

Instead it’s the combination of sugar + carbohydrates/fats/flavorings that does it.

^ Tweet source

I think that’s fair to say – certainly I’ve never thought about eating spoonfuls of sugar. However, finishing the last chocolate cookie in the cupboard? Now that’s a temptation.

He also makes an interesting point about steak; it’s not attractive in the way cookies and candies are. You’ll eat it if you’re actually hungry though:

^ Twitter source

Roundup

I think it’s fair to say that most of us would be very pleased to look lean and healthy like PD late into our 60s.

Hopefully the above content gives a window into the type of diet he uses to achieve this.

Of course, it’s not the only way, but it’s certainly an example that’s clearly working.

Lastly I’d be remissed if I didn’t mention that PD runs a coaching program to help overweight people lose weight and get back on track.

You can learn more about this at PDManganCoaching.com. I have no affiliation with this program and don’t earn anything if you choose to use it.

If you’ve got any questions or comments on the post, please leave them below.

Before You Go…

If you enjoyed this post, you may also enjoy:

What PD thinks of TRT, and whether or not he uses it
Dumping Iron – Book Review & Summary – The book by PD Mangan discusses how excess stored iron, called Ferritin, appears to increase risk of heart attacks and cancer. Explaining how you can solve this.

References

1
Tweet on <100g carbs per day | July 2022
2
Tweet on <50g carbs | May 2020
3
Tweet on fermented dairy | May 2019
4
Tweet on avoiding milk | August 2019
5
Tweet on eating with an 8 hour window | May 2020
6
Tweet on daily meal timing | May 2020
7
Tweet on eating early inducing tiredness | May 2020
8
Tweet on last meal timing | September 2021
9
Twitter thread on Chronic Fatigue Recovery | September 2019