While I do not plan on making this blog all about keto and intermittent fasting and weight loss (because there are plenty of people better equipped to talk about these things), I do want to share a few recipes that I and my family have really been enjoying. I'm down nine pounds right now on the scale, but I feel like my body composition has really begun to change. I have to tighten my belt by two extra notches, for instance, and my face is looking more thin.
I've also naturally fallen into more of a One Meal a Day (OMAD) or a 20/4 intermittent fasting (IF) schedule. There are two reasons for this, I think: first is that when I'm not eating high-carb, high-sugar foods, I don't get hungry every couple of hours, and by the time I'm truly hungry--about 2pm or 3pm--I'm ready to make an early dinner, eat it, and then have a small amount of seconds a little later if I feel I want it or just be done eating for the day; and second is that my stomach has shrunk, though I am making sure I get sufficient calories when I do eat so that I'm not wrecking my metabolism.
Sometimes I'll look at the clock and be surprised to realize it's already 3pm or 4pm and I still haven't eaten and am only now starting to feel hunger. It's just so much easier to fast when I'm not eating sugar. The couple of times I've allowed myself to have some sugary treat, I've ended up feeling pretty sick to my stomach, which just helps reinforce my avoidance of sugar. All my sugar cravings are gone, otherwise.
Cooking Keto
Cooking keto-friendly foods is often just about tweaking a recipe a little bit. Once you know which foods and ingredients to avoid and how to substitute for those ingredients, it's usually possible to take a normal recipe and change a few small things to make it keto (or high fat/low carb, at least).
Case in point is this Tuscan Beef in Wine Sauce served over Creamy Mashed Cauliflower, both recipes by Steve at SeriousKeto. We don't drink, so I used beef broth instead of wine for the Tuscan Beef (and while I know you can eventually cook the alcohol out of wine, it takes a very, very long time, and I didn't care to worry about it), but the recipe was still a five star winner. So dang good! And the mashed cauliflower was so creamy and delicious even though I merely mashed the boiled cauliflower with my potato masher and didn't use an immersion blender to fully blend it.
The other day, I wanted fried chicken, so I breaded the chicken breast cutlets I had using this recipe by Makinze Gore, and then fried the breaded chicken in coconut oil on my stove instead of oven baking it, and served it with the spicy mayo. I fried the chicken because I wanted more fat in the recipe, as it was my only meal of the day, and I also love how the breading becomes so crisp and tender when it's fried. It was such a huge hit with the family that they begged me to make it again, which I did last night.
I always have a bag of pork rinds in my pantry for breading purposes, and when I have my food processor out, I'll just grind up the bag of pork rinds and store them in the fridge to make future meal prep easier.
Keto Breads and Baked Goods
There aren't really any keto substitutes for baked goods like breads. I mean, there are good keto baked goods recipes, but you cannot expect keto breads to taste exactly like the originals. Almond and coconut flours and other non-gluten and non-grain flours do not act like gluten flours, and they simply cannot produce the same results. If you can set aside your expectations of being able to chow down on fluffy, risen breads and baked treats that are indistinguishable from the high-carb originals, you'll get along fine. Commercial keto breads are kind of nasty, in my opinion, and I don't believe they are all that keto anyway. They're certainly expensive (a single loaf will run you at least $6), and the manufacturers are geniuses for taking advantage of the growing keto market, but they're still not very yummy. Better to make your own.
You don't want to eat even keto breads every day for every meal, but I love them as a treat every once in a while. This low-carb cheddar-garlic bread from KetoConnect cooked in a mug is really good, and with only four net carbs (subtract the grams of fiber from the total carbohydrates to get net carbs), you can still have a sandwich and be keto! I slice the finished bread into four slices and either share or store two of them or hog them all as the bread for a couple sandwiches or as a serving of bread for a meal.
Also good are keto mug cakes when you really want a dessert after your meal. I usually douse mine with heavy cream right in the mug before eating them. Husband and I will often make one and split it because they're so filling.
In conclusion, it's easy for me to imagine being able to eat this way at least 85-90% of the time for the rest of my life. I'm certainly hoping I'll eventually take off all the weight I want to, but I already feel a lot better.
Thanks for listening!
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