Category: Keto

Cauliflower Hash-Browns

10/27/2017

There is a restaurant in East End side of Pittsburgh that has the best cauliflower patties. I get them every time we visit. I haven't mastered the taste of those specific patties yet- but I'm going to keep trying. These patties are still super delicious and a great addition to any low carb menu.

They can be added to your breakfast with a side protein such as ham or eggs. Or enjoy them as a side with your favorite lunch or dinner meal.

You have the option to use a fresh head of cauliflower, but I'm all about convenience so I used the already riced cauliflower that is found in the freezer section of the store. Be sure to get cauliflower with no added seasonings.

Ingredients:

1 bag of riced cauliflower
1 egg
1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
1 small onion chopped
1 ts of garlic salt
1/2 tbs of thyme
1/2 tbs of parsley
pepper to taste
2 tbs olive oil (for cooking)

Macros/ Portion Fix
this is for 3 patties.
1 💚 vegetable
1 💙 fat

Directions:

Cook the bagged rice according to package directions. Deduct 45 seconds of cooking time. Drain rice and squeeze out and extra water by pressing a paper towel while rice is in the strainer.
While rice is cooking, add egg, cheese, onion and seasonings in bowl. Add drained rice. Blend all ingredients together until mixed well.
Add oil to pan, allow to heat over medium heat. Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, scoop cauliflower mixture and place into heated oil. Depending on pan size, 3 scoops is ideal to allow room to flip patties.
Press mixture to form a flat patty. Using the spatula, form patty into a circle. Allow patty to cook on each side for approx. 5 minutes. Sides will be dark.
ENJOY!

**Nutrition Label above is for 1 Patty Suggested serving is 3 patties.

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No Grain Breakfast Burrito

10/24/2017

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If possible, no food gets thrown away after dinner in my house, especially veggies. Even if there is only 2 tablespoons, that is enough to add to my morning breakfast.

If you are one of the many cutting back on your starchy carbs - here is an easy way to enjoy a breakfast wrap without those extra carbs.

Ingredients:

2 whole eggs
1 tbs salsa or Pinco De Gallo
1/4 cup taco meat (left overs!)
1 slice of chopped avocado
2 tbs mushrooms and peppers

Directions:

Scrample eggs in bowl, heat small pan with cooking spray - allow pan to heat up. Pour eggs in pan and allow to cook until it is just about cooked all the way though. Flip egg.
Add all your left over ingredients into small bowl and warm in microwave for 1 minute. If you do not have a microwave warm on stove before cooking the egg.
Remove egg from pan and place on plate, add ingredients to center of egg and fold into a burrito.

Optional: I drizzled about 1 tbs cheese on top. You can also drizzle hot sauce if you like your burritos with a little heat.

Exchanges:
1 ❤️protein
1/4 💚veggie
1 💙fat

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Keto Diet 101

10/20/2017

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The ketogenic diet (AKA keto or ket diet) is one of the most talked about diets right now. By nature we are curious- and when we see people sharing positive outcomes from these trending diets - it makes sense that you'll want to maybe give the diet a shot yourself. But before you rush to spend hundreds of dollars on special ketone drinks and embarking on any diet plan, it's important to prepare yourself for what you might experience with this type of eating plan.

What exactly is a Keto Diet?
The keto diet is similar to a previous trending diet known as the Atkins Diet. It involves drastically reducing carbohydrate intake, and increasing fat.

Easily said - it's a high-fat, low-carb, moderate-protein diet that if followed properly will put your body in a state of ketosis. When this happens, your body creates ketones and becomes more efficient at burning fat for energy. Standard ketogenic diet (SKD) typically contains macronutrient ratios of 75% fat, 20% protein and only 5% carbohydrates (this includes vegetables, starches and fruits). If you currently eat a lot of grains (pasta, rice breads, cereals and), fruits, potatoes, etc....on this diet you can not eat them.

What are Ketones?
Everyone has ketones in the body even when they are not following a keto or low-carb diet, so you don't need a special ketone drink to produce them. Ketones are chemicals made in your liver. You produce them when you don't have enough of the hormone insulin in your body to turn sugar (or “glucose”) into energy. You need another source, so your body uses fat instead. Your liver turns this fat into ketones, a type of acid, and sends them into your bloodstream. Your muscles and other tissues can then use them for fuel. For a person without diabetes, this process doesn’t become an issue.

But when you have diabetes, things can run out of control and you build up too many ketones in your blood. If the level goes too high, it can become life-threatening. So if you have diabetes it's important to discuss this diet option with your physician.

Disadvantages of Keto Diet

Difficulty Sticking to the Diet: Because of the highly restrictive nutritional guidelines it can be difficult to adhere to the diet. Staying on track with a low carb diet can be difficult to find appropriate foods at social functions, school and restaurants and you may be more tempted to stray.

Keto Flu - yes drastically reducing your carb intake can make you feel sick. When the body goes long periods of time without carbohydrates you experience a feel similar to withdrawing from an addictive substance and may last for as long as a week.
Symptoms of keto flu maybe include:

Sugar cravings
Dizziness
Brain fog
Irritability or Moodiness
Poor focus and concentration
Stomach pains
Nausea
Cramping
Confusion
Muscle soreness
Difficulty falling asleep

Altered Blood Lipid Profile: This is a major concern in people in ketogenic diet because of the fluctuations in the amounts of fat in the diet which can be detrimental to your long-term health. Many high-fat foods that are low in protein and carbohydrates, such as butter, lard, coconut and egg yolks, are high in saturated fat, which can increase your risk of heart disease. Additionally, high-fat diets may cause injury to brain cells that help control your body weight.
However, the diet can be focused on eating healthy fats instead of relying eggs, butter or bacon. Statistics indicate that alteration in blood lipid profile lowers cholesterol levels in some people whereas it peaks in others.

Micronutrient Deficiencies: Due to restriction of carbohydrates in ketogenic diet, micronutrient deficiencies can result. To prevent this from happening, you should focus to taking high quality multivitamin/mineral supplements twice every day. In addition, use fiber supplement to ensure that your digestive system stays healthy throughout.

Ketoacidosis: If the level of ketones in your blood skyrockets, ketoacidosis may occur because ketones are acidic in nature. This means your blood pH could become lower which can spell death. However, this should not be a major concern if you are not diabetic. Your blood sugar levels are always under control*, and your body will only allow many ketones to be produced at one time. However, if you are diabetic, your blood sugar can go as high as 300-2000mg/dl from the normal level of 80-120. When this happens, there is low insulin to glucagon ratio which can trigger ketoacidosis.

Bad Breath: Don't be surprised if your breath starts to reek. "Acetone, one of the ketones [being produced], can cause your breath to smell like nail polish remover,"

Urinary Tract Stones and Weak Bones: Other potential side effects that will need monitoring may be urinary tract stones, as well as weaker bones (osteopenia, a precursor to osteoporosis). When you're not eating enough carbs and taking in too many fats and proteins, you could take calcium away from your bones. And when you're on keto, your urine pH levels become more acidic, which can deplete the body of calcium and increase the risk of kidney stones due to the added stress on the kidneys.

Advantages of Keto Diet

Epilepsy: While the exact mechanism that promotes success on the ketogenic diet is unclear, Epilepsy.com suggests that it is ketones -- special molecules -- that ketosis produces that aid in controlling seizures. Because your brain normally runs on glucose, which is derived from carbohydrates, ketosis may induce a change in brain chemistry that limits seizures.

Fat Burn/Weight Loss: Improves your body’s ability to exploit stored fat for energy production. For some, the main benefit of ketosis is its ability to aid in dieting. Ketosis may help you improve your body composition because your body burns fat in ketosis. It's important to know that most fat loss will only occur if the diet is paired with exercise. The body must move in order to use up more fuel in the form of glucose or fat.

Decreases Appetite: In the state of ketosis, you are less* likely to feel hungry. You be able to survive on a low calorie dietand won’t feel hungry like when you consume meals rich in carbohydrates.

Aide in Cancer Treatment: Many cancer therapies are designed to target the biological differences between cancer cells and normal cells. Nearly all cancer cells share one common trait: they feed off carbs or blood sugar in order to grow and multiply. When you eat a ketogenic diet, some of the standard metabolic processes are altered and your blood sugar levels go way down. Basically, this is claimed to "starve" the cancer cells of fuel. As in all living cells, the long-term effect of this "starvation" may be that the cancer cells will grow more slowly, decrease in size or possibly even die.

When choosing a diet plan it is important to consider the long-term effects and benefits and to consult with your physician if you have any health conditions that you are being treated for by doctor. Also, your goal may be to lose body fat, but is the diet doable as a lifestyle? And for long term. Any diet can assist with weight loss, but maintaining that loss is the key factor to your success and good health.

Want more info about follow the Keto Diet?
This book is the #1 selling book right now to teach you how to follow a Keto Diet. Click on the image to read more info about the book.

The Keto Reset Diet: Reboot Your Metabolism in 21 Days and Burn Fat Forever

References: Information has ben collected and provided from the following resources:
WebMd, Ahmed Abdelmoity, MD, FAAP, director of neurology and chief of epilepsy and clinical neurophysiology at Children's Mercy Kansas City, Consumer Health Digest, Livingstrong, Health-Line, BodyBuilding, MyKetoKitchen

The author of this article acknowledges that the information provided in this article was provided by the referenced sources listed about and holds no copy-writes to the information. All information including images are copy-written and sole ownership of the owner of such.

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Ketones, You can get them for FREE!

10/16/2017

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Oh boy...Ketosis! The new thing right?

Friends - Ketosis is nothing new. You don't need anything "special" to get your body to burn fat. -
I know because I just lost 13 lbs in 8 weeks with a special ketone enhancer.

The science of how the body uses energy for fuel has been around since the beginning of time. The body's primary source of energy comes from glucose (carbohydrates that you eat) when you use up the energy (move your body more) and deplete the glucose supply the body goes to stored fat, as the fat gets broken down to produce energy it produces ketones, a type of acid. In diabetics if ketone levels become too high it is called ketoacidos and is a serious condition and very dangerous.

So how do you burn FAT naturally??
**You eat natural food sources (fresh proteins, vegetable, which are carbs by the way and healthy fats) 🥓🍗🥩🥒🥦

**You monitor sugar intact (what becomes glucose in the body) by reducing or if possible eliminating starchy carbohydrates (grains, potatoes, etc) and high sugar fruits.

**You MOVE YOUR BODY more to use up the existing glucose so you are forced to burn fat. The more you move the more energy you use up = the more you BURN away!

Heres why doing it natural is important. If you do not LEARN how to CHOOSE healthy food, How to PREPARE healthy food, how to EAT healthy food and how to consistently MOVE your body - you are never going to MAINTAIN your weight loss or ENERGETIC lifestyle long term. We want LONG TERM right?

Giving you some tough love ❤️❤️ friends....because helping others live healthier lives is my passion.

Want more ENERGY?????
Eat energetic whole natural food and MOVE YOUR BODY!!

Want to lose fat and KEEP IT OFF??
Eat energetic whole natural food and MOVE YOUR BODY!!

Want to LOVE yourself more and gain CONFIDENCE??
Eat energetic whole natural food and MOVE YOUR BODY!!

Need guidance I'm only a click or call away. This is what I coach in my groups. get in one...and next TAKE ACTION.

Friends there is no magic solution out there. Reaching goals for long term success require GRIT - hard work, determination, perseverance and guts to get what you want. When you apply all these things the results are amazing!!!!

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Keto, Ketones, Ketosis -Oh My!

10/16/2017

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Keto Diet, Ketones, Ketosis is the new "trending" thing. If you're not a part of it ...don't worry, the key word here is trending. I hear many say it's hard to get ketones in the blood to burn fat..hmmmmm is it?
I love a challenge...so I said - let's find out.

What seems difficult to many is that you have to put forth a little "effort" when doing it naturally by eating whole food and exercising. But Isn't that our goal? to get rid of processed foods and exercise to achieve that long term healthy lifestyle?

If you look at this test strip it shows after one week I had ketones in my blood. Yeah, it wasn't in an hour but I'm not doing this artificially or for a quick fix, I want long term results. And a week of consistency leads to weeks and years of life long habits.
So how did I do that?

I only reduced my starch intake. And I kept some carbs in my diet like fruit because I want to build and preserve lean muscle and to increase lean muscle it requires carbohydrates.
I also did not follow Keto diet because I have history of severe GERD. A Keto diet encourages consuming foods I should avoid because of acid reflux or my history of it.

WHAT I DID-

I ate clean foods and did a 30 minute anaerobic workout (strength/HIIT) all from home using BeachBody on demand workouts.

Here's my daily food intake:

Meal 1:
❤️💚💜 💙protein, carb (vegetable and fruit)
I usually have a nutrient dense protein drink like Shakeology or Epiq whey isolate. I'm not a morning eater.... so this makes sure I'm getting my balanced 'nutrition' in to burn that fat! This shake won't burn fat or make me lose weight, it's just my healthy food blended in a cup and off I go. 👊

Meal 2:
❤️💚💙 protein, carb (veggie) and fat. Protein source is meat, eggs or fish. All fresh natural food you get at the store.

Meal 3:
❤️💚💙 protein, carb (veggie) and fat. Protein source is meat, eggs or fish. All fresh natural food you get at the store.

I only eat within an 8 hour window and I only consume snacks if I'm hungry. And if I do it is a protein and a fat like almonds or ham and cheese rolls.

Burning fat is possible- people do it all the time. They do it by commitment, consistency and GRIT. And when you put in the effort the feeling of accomplishment is AWESOME and more likely to be a lifestyle. You don't have to be a part of what is trending...be YOU....and you will accomplish GREAT THINGS!!

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Cauliflower Hash-Browns

No Grain Breakfast Burrito

Keto Diet 101

Disadvantages of Keto Diet

Advantages of Keto Diet

Ketones, You can get them for FREE!

Keto, Ketones, Ketosis -Oh My!

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