Recipe Time – Pumpkin Spice Fat Bombs!

I feel a little fall in the air – how about you? This recipe is something I came up with on a whim – I felt like some pumpkin pie and decided to try it in a fat bomb! Feel free to add more or less spice to yours depending on taste!

Macros come out to 240 calories, 27 grams of fat, 1 carb, and 1 gram of protein per fat bomb.

Ingredients:

4 oz cream cheese (softened)

4 tablespoons butter (softened)

4 tablespoons coconut oil

4 tablespoons heavy cream

1 tablespoon pumpkin spice

2 packets Truvia (or sweetener of choice)

Silicon muffin cups (or your mold of choice)

Combine your ingredients and blend away in a Ninja, magic bullet, etc. The mixture should be smooth and thick.

Spoon the mixture into molds – you should get 6 even portions – and freeze for a few hours. You will have some delicious pumpkin spice Fat Bombs at your beck and call in no time!

Intermittent Fasting: Why I Do It and How to Start

One of the big “things” in the keto world right now is intermittent fasting. Is it worth the hype?

Back in 2014, I had never heard of this concept. Keto wasn’t as mainstream then, and there wasn’t a lot of guidance available on how to do it, save from the foods to eat and not eat. The strange thing is, I was practicing intermittent fasting and didn’t even know it! On the keto diet, it’s sort of the natural progression of things.

Why do it intentionally? More fat burning! The longer you stay in a fasting state, the more the body liberates its own fat to use as fuel. It is also beneficial if you have a fatty liver, because it allows your liver to burn off its own fat as well.

Intermittent fasting will happen on its own if you have been on the keto diet for any length of time. Hunger slowly disappears, and you may find yourself skipping breakfast and even lunch. It helps to be aware of IF and to keep track of the time if you are wanting to maximize the fat you’ll burn.

There are a few different ways to do IF: 12/12 and 16/8. 12/12 is more of a “normal” three meal a day way of eating. You choose a time to be done with eating, let’s say 7pm, and you don’t eat again until 12 hours later at 7am. This way, you fast for 12 hours but have a 12 hour eating window. On 16/8, you fast for 16 hours, and have an 8 hour eating window, so if we keep our same 7pm example, you would fast until 11am.

I am currently practicing 16/8, although most days, I don’t end up eating for a full 20-22 hours! I don’t suggest you do this necessarily. It’s just that most days, I’m not hungry until dinner. I always stay within my 8 hour window however, and don’t eat past my own cut off time, even if I just eat the one meal.

Intrigued? Are you perhaps hesitant because of the fear of hunger? Here are some tips for you. First, don’t try intermittent fasting until you are on a well-established keto diet. In the early days of keto, you are naturally more hungry due to your body adjusting from glucose burning to fat burning, so if you try IF during this period, you most likely will cave and eat outside of your window.

Second, water, coffee, tea, etc. do not break your fast. Please don’t restrict water or your fluid of choice (provided it is sugar free of course). There are some keto advocates out there that say that bulletproof coffee (adding fats like coconut oil, butter, and heavy cream) will break your fast. On the flip side of that coin, there are also ketoers (including doctors) that say that adding fats will not break your fast as it does not trigger insulin. I happen to believe the latter, that fats will not break a fast. As such, I do enjoy coffee when I wake up with a small amount of heavy whipping cream in it. This seems to keep me going all day, the fat in the cream keeping me satiated until meal time. If you enjoy bulletproof coffee or coffee with just one kind of fat in it, I say go for it! This should help you make it during your fasting time. You should not use any sweeteners, however, as there is some evidence that even calorie free sweeteners will trigger insulin (the fat storing hormone). I seem to be losing weight thus far with my coffee regimen, but I am keeping a close eye out for any stalls and will re-evaluate if things seem to be slowing down.

In conclusion, the best way to begin intermittent fasting is simply to begin keto. As time goes on and you find yourself less hungry, try to have a “stopping” time for eating in the evenings, and plan to fast for 12, 16, or more hours! You will find that things happen quite organically, and fasting won’t be a challenge at all.

Recipe Time – A Tale of Two Dips!

Do you ever get snacky for chips and dip? I know I sure do! Here are a couple of quick and easy ways to satisfy your need for crunch with cool, creamy dip!

First, we need chips right? It should be totally crunchy but able to hold up to dip…enter turkey bacon! I eat regular bacon of course, but I have found that turkey bacon is seriously easy to crisp up in the microwave and makes a perfectly dippable chip! They take about 1 minute and 15 seconds per slice in the microwave! So easy!

And now for the first dip – ranch! All you need is one tub (16oz) of sour cream, and one packet of Hidden Valley Ranch mix (the dry powder). Mix it up and you have one perfect low carb dip! Easy!

Next is my buffalo chicken dip! This one is easy too, but takes just a tad bit longer to make. Here’s what you’ll need:

One can (12.5oz) of canned chicken (watch out for additives)

4 oz cream cheese (softened)

Frank’s Red Hot sauce (no hidden carbs here!)

Combine your chicken with your cream cheese, then add the sauce to taste (about 1/4 bottle). You can double this recipe as needed. It’s a hit at parties!

Happy dipping!

Recipe Time – Chocolate Peanut Butter Fat Bombs!

Now for my second favorite fat bomb recipe – chocolate peanut butter fat bombs! They taste like peanut butter cups! I use Adams no stir peanut butter as it contains no sugar, but you can use regular peanut butter, depending on how liberal you are with your diet. I find I do better with no added sugars at all. You can also experiment with more or less cocoa powder depending how chocolatey you like them.

The macros come out to 270 calories, 27 grams of fat, 6 carbs, and 5 grams of protein. Let’s get started!

Ingredients:

4oz cream cheese (softened)

4 tablespoons coconut oil

4 tablespoons heavy cream

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

6 tablespoons peanut butter

2 packets of Truvia (or sweetener of choice)

silicon baking cups (or your mold of choice)

First, combine all the ingredients in a blender, Ninja, bullet, whichever you have! Process until well combined and smooth.

Next, spoon just a little bit of your mixture into your molds. You should get 6 portions.

Next, place one tablespoon of peanut butter into each of your molds.

Next, spoon more of the chocolate mixture over the peanut butter to cover it.

You may need to tap your molds on the counter to allow the mixture to settle more evenly. Last, place your molds in the freezer for a few hours and voila! You’ll be snacking on peanut butter cups before you know it!

Enjoy!!

Recipe Time – Lemon Cheesecake Fat Bombs!

Ahhh fat bombs…power packed with flavor and healthy fats! They can help you slaughter cravings and make a nice little snack when perhaps you must skip a meal. They keep you full and satisfy the sweet tooth all at once!

Cheesecake is my jam. Before keto I had no problem polishing off several slices of cheesecake. When I was pregnant and had no business eating cheesecake because of gestational diabetes, I craved it…and ate it! Needless to say upon embarking on keto I still craved my cheesecake…enter these little gems! They are pretty darn good and definitely allow me to get my cheesecake on without the carbs!

These days my cravings are more of a thing of the past, as I go deeper into ketosis. I do still eat them, however, as I do 16/8 intermittent fasting (do I sense the topic of another blog??). During my 8 hour eating window, I sometimes get a little peckish but don’t feel like eating a meal until later, so one of these babies does the trick quite nicely.

For those of you who might be counting macros, these come out to 207 calories, 23 grams of fat, 1 carb, and 1 gram of protein per fat bomb.

Let’s get started!!

Ingredients:

4 oz cream cheese, softened

4 tablespoons butter, softened

4 tablespoons coconut oil

1 oz lemon juice (or lime juice is tasty too!)

Two packets of Truvia (or sweetener of your choice!)

Silicon baking cups (or ice tray, or mold of your choice)

First, combine all your ingredients in a blender (or Ninja, or Bullet, whatever you have) and blend it together until well combined!

It should be smooth with no lumps. Next, spoon your mixture evenly among silicon baking cups (I don’t recommend paper, they stick). You should get 6 servings.

The next step is super important – be sure not to skip it!

Lick the spoon!!

Place your fat bombs in the freezer for a few hours. The next thing you know, you’ll have some beautiful, cheesecake-a-licious fat bombs at your disposal!

Mmmm! Enjoy!

Recipe Time – Keto Pizza Rolls!

You will learn a few things about me as we embark upon this keto journey together. First, I don’t do any keto “desserts”, save for fat bombs. Second, I do not like “keto” flours (almond, coconut, etc.) except for pork rind “flour”. Don’t stop reading now, even if you don’t like pork rinds – hear me out! You can turn pork rinds into dust by beating them to death or processing them in a blender or Ninja or something like it. I use the pork rind dust as flour to coat fried chicken (trust me, this turns out to be the tastiest fried chicken you’ve ever had!) and I use it as a replacement for almond flour in my take on a “Fathead” dough. You will never taste the pork rinds, I promise!

So here we go – here is my recipe for dough that you can use for regular pizza, pizza rolls, sausage “biscuits”…anything you can think of that needs a savory dough!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (mozzarella creates a “white” dough with a mild taste, but I used fiesta blend)

1 oz cream cheese

1 egg

1 cup “dusted” pork rinds

First, process your pork rinds into dust by either blending or placing them in a bag and beat with a meat hammer. It does take quite a few pork rinds to get a cup of flour, but go slowly so you don’t make too much (unless you want extra for fried chicken later!).

Next, you will need to measure out your shredded cheese and add your cream cheese. Place in the microwave for about a minute and a half until just melted, and stir to integrate the cream cheese with the shredded. The cheese will stick to the spoon and you may not get it perfectly blended – that’s ok because soon we will knead the dough and that will mix it the rest of the way.

Next, add your egg and pork rinds to the cheese. Start stirring with your spoon to begin breaking up the egg yolk. It will stick like crazy and not mix super well, but once the pork rinds are stuck to the cheese and egg mixture, you can turn out the dough onto parchment paper and knead it by hand to fully incorporate the dough.

If at any time your dough becomes too difficult to work with or sticks, you can heat it a little in the microwave. I have never had to do this, but you can if it’s giving you issues. Don’t do it for too long or you might cook your egg!

Next, break the dough up into little balls and mash out into circles. I did 5, but if you are more conservative with your dough you can stretch this out into 6.

Next, add your toppings as desired. I used pepperoni and Muenster cheese, but you can use your favorite pizza toppings, or even breakfast toppings like eggs and sausage, whatever you like.

Next, fold up the rolls, roll them in your hand a bit, and place them on parchment paper on your pan, seam side down. I sprinkled some garlic powder on them to add to the Italian taste! Preheat your oven to 400, and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden.

They are chewy, bread-like, and delicious!! Enjoy!

Keto: Cravings Buster?

Are you a carb-aholic? Do the cookies and cakes call out to you like a forsaken lover? What about breads and pastas? Do they haunt your dreams?

I know they certainly did mine! My pre-keto days are not far behind me, but my cravings are gone. Impossible you say? Au contraire!

Are you new to the keto diet and struggling with cravings for non-keto foods? Are you considering a low carb or keto diet but unsure about leaving your “precious” behind? Let me ease your mind!

I’m not saying your cravings will be busted in a month like mine are. I have the benefit of previous fat adaptation behind me, plus every one is different. But keto will solve your carb cravings one way or another!

The first few weeks of a keto diet are hell, I’m not going to lie! I suffered near constant hunger. See, the body is resistant to a keto diet. Our bodies possess an innate ability to burn either glucose or ketones as fuel. This is an evolutionary advantage – in times of plenty, when we can find sources of sugar, glucose is the fuel we will use, while in times of scarcity, we can burn our own fat (or dietary fat) in the form of ketones as fuel. Glucose, plus the insulin that it triggers in the body, equals fat storage for most of us, meant to be burned later when sources of glucose are scarce. The problem we face in our modern world is that there are hardly any times of glucose scarcity so we never get around to burning our stored fats…and that brings us to the obesity crisis. Since most of us have never had the opportunity to burn ketones due to our glucose surplus, our bodies resist this metabolic process, driving us to crave carbs for that quick energy that it will surely bring.

Did I mention the cravings can be hell? Oh how my body longed for those carbs! But you can bust through this because ketosis blasts those carb cravings…eventually.

How do we get there, you ask? With some well planned snacking, of course! Now, in the keto world, the thought of “do calories matter” leads to divisiveness among the camps – some say yes, some say no. I’m no doctor and can only give my opinion on this matter, but whatever the answer is, I say calories do NOT matter in those first critical weeks. In order to properly train your body to be a fat burning machine, you must feed it fat. You can worry about calories later if you’re so inclined – just by going keto you will naturally eat fewer calories than you did previously anyway.

It is critical that you eat fat to satiety, or you may give in to those cravings in a pinch. To combat the ravenous hunger experienced in the beginning, having some high fat snacks around will be just what the doctor ordered. Nuts, cheese, meats, and fat bombs will all be your friend during this time. I’m not an advocate for eating fat bombs all the time – if you have fat to lose, you should not eat tons and tons of dietary fat or your body won’t burn your own fat stores – but in those first critical weeks fat bombs will help you feel satisfied and are great for getting rid of those sugar cravings. I will post a couple of recipes I really like for fat bombs soon!

After the first few weeks of your keto diet, you will become fat adapted and suddenly your hunger will drop – you will find you can go longer and longer between meals – and your carb cravings will slowly disappear. Don’t include a lot of keto “junk foods” in your diet, like keto cookies, cakes, and breads, and it will help to assuage your cravings faster.

Stay the course! You can do this, and I promise your sugar and carb cravings will officially be busted!

The Journey Begins…

Hi, I’m Amy! Thank you for joining me as I begin this journey of keto weight loss! Let’s start with a little background…

I originally came upon the ketogenic diet back in 2014. I had experience with the Atkins diet in my late teens and knew low carb was a great diet to lose some weight on, and I vaguely remembered that the Atkins book talked about ketones, but I didn’t really know there was such a thing as a ketogenic diet. In 2014 while I was researching low carb recipes, I began to learn about keto through various blogs. One notable one was Dr. Peter Attia. He has a great blog about keto and its effects on metabolic syndrome, as well as athletic performance. Another notable site with tons of info and recipes is Diet Doctor. If you are new to keto I’d definitely recommend checking these out! Anyway, I embarked upon my first keto journey in May of 2014, back before keto was as mainstream as it is now. I suffered through the “keto flu” and realized in that horrible week how addicted to carbs and sugar I really was – the withdrawal was similar to nicotine withdrawal! I remained keto until early 2015 and lost a total of 60lbs. I felt great! In any case, life happened and I fell off the wagon, so here we are starting over (I’ve also since had a child so I’m sure that helped me gain all the weight back!).

I’m currently 33 years old and started with a weight of 246. At the beginning of August 2018 I decided I would follow a paleo way of eating, which shares many similarities with keto but allows starchy veggies and fruits. I had gestational diabetes with both of my sons, and one night after a meal with potatoes, I had a familiar dry mouth feeling that was typically indicative of high blood sugar and decided to check my blood glucose 1 hour after eating…it was 200! For those who may not know, this is a very diabetic number. Type 2 diabetes runs heavy in my family, and since I had gestational diabetes with both my kids, I knew I was at a high risk of developing diabetes…but I was not prepared to do so at 33! The next night I checked my post prandial blood sugar again after eating and it was 160, another diabetic number! I checked my fasting blood sugar the next morning and it was 140, again indicative of diabetes.

At this point I knew I had a decision to make: keep going as I was going and develop diabetes in my early 30s, or make a change for good for my health so I can be here for my kids. It was an easy decision.

From my prior experience with keto, I knew it could reverse type 2 diabetes. Two weeks after beginning paleo, which really just enabled my carb addiction anyway, I quit all carbs besides green veggies cold turkey. Immediately after my first keto meal, my post prandial blood glucose number was 119, high normal. A few meals later and I was in the low 100s. My blood sugar is now completely stable and normal after meals. It has taken nearly two full weeks for my fasting blood glucose to return to normal, but it is now in the low 100s as well.

I am also down to 222lbs. I still have a long way to go but with the diabetes scare, I feel things are different than they were in 2014. I feel really ready to take back my health and get down to 150lbs or less. I feel as ready to change now as I did when I was finally successful at quitting cigarettes. I know I can do it this time.

Will you please help me stay the course? Join me in my journey, and comment your challenges and successes!

Here is a “before” pic – I can’t wait to have some progress pics soon!

Welcome!

Welcome to My Big Fat Keto Life! I’m so glad you chose to join me as I embark on my keto quest to lose 100 lbs! I’ll be sharing tips and tricks along the way, as well as delicious recipes. So kick back, relax, and enjoy the journey!