KateGoesKeto: In the morning, Im making waffles!

KETO WAFFLES

Low carb/Keto waffles are one of the best discoveries I have made since starting the keto life style. Seriously delicious, so filling, and honestly make me not miss regular waffles and pancakes. I think you could use this batter to make pancakes too but the waffles were perfect. I added maple and vanilla extract to my batter and used sugar free syrup. They were the bomb. Dustin approved as well! 

RECIPE:

1 cup almond flour, sifted
½ Tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup heavy cream 
2 Tablespoons oil
3 eggs
(Then I added a dash of vanilla extract and a dash of maple extract)

I put all of this into my food processor to smooth it out and make it more batter like!
(If your almond flour is already really smooth then you probably wouldn't have to do that but I was working with almond meal so it needed to be ground finer!)

Top with sugar free syrup and you are good to go! Promise these are SO good, my mouth is watering thinking about this!

Bon Apetit!

-Katelyn

KateGoesKeto: Fat Head Pizza

Gattis who?

Gattis is my favorite pizza ever but I made this Fat Head Pizza tonight and it was AMAZING. I don't even miss other pizza anymore.

The crust, made from almond flour, mozzarella cheese, and cream cheese (and 1 egg). It was FANTASTIC. Absolutely made me forget about Gattis, Papa Johns, Dominoes, all of them. This pizza is absolutely phenomenal.

RECIPE-

Ok so there are A LOT of recipes for Fat Head pizza however this is what I followed-

3/4 cup of almond flour
1 3/4 cup of mozzarella cheese (pre shredded)
2 tbsp of cream cheese
1 egg
garlic (I prefer minced garlic in olive oil)
and a hefty dash of Italian seasoning

Instructions for the crust-

mix the cheese and almond flour and cream cheese in a bowl, microwave for 1 min.

take out, mix together more, add egg, seasoning, garlic, and any other seasonings!

Microwave for another 30 seconds, take out and mix, it should look like a dough!

scoop out onto a piece of oven safe parchment paper, I drizzled a little olive oil on it before I put the dough down.

Place another sheet of parchment paper on top and start to spread the dough out into a rectangle shape, then put take the top parchment off, put the dough (on top of the parchment paper) onto a baking sheet and bake at 425 for 15 min (Watch it, it only needs to be brown but don't let it burn!)

Take out, put your toppings on, I did pizza sauce, a pizza cheese blend, bacon, and salami!

Bake another 5ish minutes until your cheese is melted.

ENJOY!

Seriously so good, if you want leftovers you might want to make 2 pizzas, this one fed both of us with only 2 slices left over!

Bon Appetit!

-Katelyn

KateGoesKeto: Whoooosh

I have heard about keto "whoooshes" before, how you will weigh yourself one day and be the same weight you were when you started and the weigh yourself a day or two later and "whoosh" you've dropped a couple pounds. Well, it finally happened for me! I have officially lost and maintained the loss of 4 lbs and counting! I feel great, although I will admit that I have not been 100% faithful at being under 20 net carbs a day. However I am getting back on track and I am even trying to add in some gym time!

Here is a new list of pro and cons that I have come up with in the last couple weeks since my last blog post.

CONS-

1. Sometimes I want something fresh, a fruit salad, an apple, an orange, something like that. And my options have been slim for a "Fresh" snack. My compromise has been carb master yogurt from Kroger and salads. I do really miss fruit though.

2. No freezer meals. I know that this is probably a good thing, but I miss quick and easy freezer meals because with keto basically if you want something hot then it probably is going to require some cooking and prep work.

PROS-

1. Weight loss! Now I can say that I have experienced weight loss so that is pretty cool!

2. fat. head. pizza. Need I say more? Coming soon on the blog, keto pizzas are even better than regular pizza.

3. Yummy foods, this diet is so yummy, yeah I miss a lot of carby foods but the alternative low carb options are good too!


So far still good! I am still loving the LCHF (low carb high fat)/Keto life. Dustin still seems to be enjoying it as well, we have been trying out new recipes and so far our favorites are this low carb chocolate cheesecake pudding with chopped strawberries on top, Fat Head Pizza, and grilled asparagus with olive oil (if you let it roast in the oven it tastes better than pop corn). As well as slow roasting many other veggies, our fail safe dinner plan is a meat like steak or chicken or fish with slow roasted veggies. Not too difficult to make and fills us up!

So thats it for my little update! Soon to come, RECIPES!

-katelyn

KateGoesKeto:BigMacs&Dr.Pepper

First of all I'd like to start my saying that I FINALLY have experienced a little "whoosh" of weight loss! Not a lot but I'm about 2-3 lbs lighter since I last weighed myself 2 days ago. And that's weighing myself at the end of the day after all my meals have been eaten! 

Now to the "meat" of this post (pun intended)....today I wanted a Big Mac. I've mentioned in posts before that I love me some big macs and I wanted one today.... bad. So I made a Big Mac Casserole! I found the recipe on Pinterest and modified it a little for my tastes, I'll put the recipe below. I was very skeptical. Mostly because I thought Big Mac sauce was like a magical unicorn sauce that couldn't possibly be recreated, and I didn't think I could recreate the fast food tasting goodness of a big Mac at home.

WRONG. It was AMAZING.

I'll never eat another regular Big Mac again. Imagine a Big Mac, made with REAL beef, organic cheese, and just all around wholesome/quality ingredients and that's what a Big Mac Casserole is.

Here was my plate, I couldn't even eat all of it, keto has cut my appetite in half, but I savored EVERY bite. It tasted just like a Big Mac, but better. 

RECIPE:

-2 lbs ground beef (I bought the one with 27% fat ratio) 

-2 bags of shredded cheese (I used 1 bag of mild cheddar and 1 Mexican mix) 

-sesame seeds

-dill pickle slices 

-worstechire 

-black pepper 

-salt

-minced onion 

Instructions-

Preheat oven to 350

Brown your meat then add almost a whole bag of cheese to it, a decent amount of minced onion, a splash of worstechire, and salt and pepper to taste, then mix in some Russian dressing (I did about 3tbs.

Once all is combined and cooked down add mixture to baking pan, I used 2 throw away 9x9 pans, but this could easily go into other sizes and work. Spread out and pat together into bottom of pan.

Cover in sliced pickles (I made a 1 pickle layer, none overlapping)

Drizzle Russian sauce over it. 

Cover in cheese then sprinkle a generous amount of sesame seeds over it. 

Bake for 20 min. Then broil for 5-6 and let the cheese get nice and cooked. 

Voila! Big Mac Casserole. 

This recipe made 2 of these pans. My boyfriend and I ate about half of a pan, bf didn't finish our plates. So for 2 people it would be about 8-10 servings (so a couple lunches/dinners) next time I will probably freeze one pan. 

So I satisfied my fast food craving, ate this with a diet Dr Pepper and then for dessert we had a low carb concoction I whipped up. another pun intended. 

1 cup of HWC

A tbs of cocoa powder 

About teaspoon or so of stevia 

Whip into a whip cream then spread into a Tupperware and stick in the freezer. 

Then I cut up 1 Atkins PB Cup (1 net carb) and sprinkled that on top! Was pretty good but again we barely finished it! 

So far so good, officially 1 week into keto and we are loving it! 

-Katelyn 
 
 

 

KateGoesKeto: One Week Check In

Okay so today is day 6, so basically one week into keto. So far no weightloss but I feel lighter. Now, that might be psychological but I mean it when I say I feel lighter and more energetic. I write that as I am currently 7 hours into a 12 hour shift so I mean it! So I thought a week in I would write a little pro and con list of my honest feelings about Keto so far.


Let's start with the bad, shall we?


Cons-
-So. Much. Cooking.
   Now this is mostly my own fault because I am not the type that can eat boiled eggs and slices of cheese. I wouldn't last like that, within 2 days you would find me eat a big mac. So it is a lot of cooking, most of which I enjoy, but some of the keto staple grocery items are a little pricier and I miss the option of popping by a fast food place on my way home from a 12 hour shift to grab something.


-Weight loss?
   This is more a con of the LACK of weight loss lol. I see SO many people on keto drop a good bit of water weight within the first week and....I have gained 2 lbs. Now, that is with weighing myself a few minutes ago during the middle of the day 2 meals in however I would expect to at least be like 1 lb lighter...but I am not letting this weigh on me TOO much because A) I am still learning the low carb life and B) I only have a loss goal of about 10-15 lbs so I cant really expect to lose it all in one day.






PROS-
 
-Feelin' Good
  I may not have lost any weight yet but I FEEL good. I don't feel bloated, I have felt pretty alert and energized during the day. Just an overall good feeling.


-0 Guilt
  Pre-Keto I would stress out every day about food. I pretty much ate whatever I wanted but I would feel a lot of guilt later about what I ate. I like that Keto offers a good guideline for food and it is easy enough to follow the low carb part of it. So at the end of the day when I have 5-10 carbs left because I was good all day then I have absolute 0 guilt eating some of my Halo Top ice cream or some Atkins PB cups!


-Direction
   I like that keto is something pretty easy to understand as far as the LCHF (low carb high fat) part of it. It's easy to calculate net carbs in something (carb-fiber) and there are literally tons of Facebook groups and pinterest ideas, etc. on keto recipes and tips. Every question I have had so far was EASILY answered with a google search or asking on a facebook group!




So that is my rough pro and con list real quick. Overall I am still happy with it, still going to stick with it. I am a little bummed I haven't experienced that immediate drop in water weight but most people that say that they immediately experienced a drop of 4-10 lbs in the first 1-2 weeks have much more than 10-15 lbs in mind for a goal weight loss. I am a little disturbed at gaining 2 lbs but I am going to attribute that to weighing myself in the dead middle of the afternoon and to the fact that I am making a huge dietary change and have not been 100% strict with myself so far. So this week I am determined to buckle down a little more, seriously focus on low carb & fitting into my calorie count and not so much on macro counting because honestly as a beginner it is hard to think about fat and protein intake.


Here are a couple pics from my favorite meals I have eaten this week! Keto can be super yummy!

Jimmy Johns is my new bae, they offer for any of their sandwiches to be ordered as an "unwhich" wrapped in lettuce!

The bootlegger was good, the #9 Italian night club was better.

Breakfast taco! With sausage, eggs, cheese, and Taco Bell mild sauce & chipotle sauce!

My yummiest coffee for sure!

Grilled salmon with veggies! (half eaten because I forgot to take a picture)

 

 

What the heck is a keto?

 

So without seeming too cliché I'd like to talk about my new years resolution which, of course, has to do with health/fitness. So I have attempted lots of diets and end up falling off relatively quick because they are too inconvenient (raw til 4), too expensive (all organic/no processed), or just lacking in good options (vegan....)...but I think I have FINALLY found a lifestyle change that is going to work for me.


I say this already on my 4th day with little to no cheats, so I am confident that I can stick with it. This "diet" is call the Keto diet. It is actually growing in popularity now and my parents have been on this diet for quite some time with great results.


When my mom first started telling me about keto many moons ago I thought she was a little crazy, I mean aren't fats bad? Why would you want to eat MORE fats? But as she started to explain it to me it actually made sense. Watching my parents eat sausages and eggs covered in cheese for breakfast and prok rhines dipped in cream cheese dips has me thinking this was a diet I could get behind. However back then I didn't have the motivation to change my diet and I also just didn't completely believe it would work. But then my parents both lost more weight than I could believe possible eating yummy foods! So for the new year I decided that I was in.


What is Keto? Well, from a beginners understanding (read, I am still learning so this is just what I have gathered) it is a low carb, high fat diet. Low carb meaning under 20-25 NET carbs a day, (max 30) but 20 is optimal. High fat meaning (for me at least) close to 140 grams of fat a day. Now, everyone will need different macro counts, there is a calculator I will link below for you to find your own ideal macro information! My "perfect macros" are as follows:


Height: 5'1  Weight: 120lbs  Activity Level: Light (trying to change that to a higher activity level but with keto (from the research I have done) its good to go ahead and choose a lower answer because the goal (for weightloss) is to still be at a calorie deficit. Meaning you still want to eat less calories than you burn so you can lose weight.


Daily-
Calories: 1600
Protein:75g (18% of my diet)
Fat: 141g (76%)
Carbs: 20


So this is "perfect macros" looks like. The last 4 days I have been experimenting, using an app called Carb Tracker that lets me input all of my foods and tracks it all for me so I can see where I am at. Since starting my diet on Tuesday (It is Friday now) I have done pretty well I think.


Tuesday rang in at 24 Net Carbs, 8g Fiber, 52g of Protein (14%), 129g of Fat(78%), and 1498 calories.


Wednesday- 19 Net Carbs, 32g Fiber, 113g of Protein (25%), 127g Fat (64%), and 1978 calories.


Thursday- 23 Net Carbs, 28g Fiber, 87g of Protein (19%), 138g of fat (69%), and 1776 calories.


There is definitely a learning curve to this diet. As you can see nearly every day I messed something up, Tuesday I had too many carbs (trying to use up my buffalo wild wings leftovers bc I didn't want to be wasteful!), Wednesday I somehow WAY overdid it on the protein and calories (whoops), yesterday was my best day yet but I still went a little over in my carbs.


However even though I have messed up most days I would still consider this to be an easy diet to follow. Avoiding carbs is surprisingly easy, I find that there are PLENTY of options for low carb food and snacks. They even have low carb tortillas so I can still have a wrap a day which is amazing to me. I genuinely do feel better besides being a little more tired in the mornings but I was warned that in the beginning while your body is still transitioning that could happen.


The MOST difficult part of this diet is counting macros. Eating low carb is easy but when you start trying to factor in calories and making sure you get enough protein and fat then you start having to get a little more choosy. However yesterday was my best day so far besides too many carbs and a little too many calories and I had my favorite foods so far! As long as you aren't a super picky eater then I think this diet could work for everyone, honestly the hardest thing for me so far is not eating fruit like I used to. No fruit, no oatmeal, no yogurt. However through all my research so far into this diet and watching lots of youtube videos from people who are on ketogenic diets I have become SO much more aware of what I am putting into my body! Who knew that yogurt was an inflammatory?! And don't even get me started on how your  body processes carbs/grains. YUCK.


I am excited to see where this lifestyle takes me, so far so good and I feel like it can only go up from here! Every diet is going to be hard but I feel like keto makes so much sense and what other diet lets you have things like Big Mac Casserole and Cream Cheese Buffalo Wraps? Seems like a no brainer to me!


So here are some links that have helped me so far!






My favorite youtubers:


Katherine Michelle; she is great, she's young and in college like me and shows yummy keto options and talks about how she incorporates keto into her life on daily basis including roadtrips, on the go, all her daily meals, healthy meals, yummy meals, etc.! She also has A LOT of info on supplements which I haven't even begun to think about yet!


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMAB_CuRxRNg-lmmirKDYww




Keto Connect; This is a couple that both do keto and they are so much fun to watch! I would say they are definitely on the healthier side, I am not quite on their level of eating a hard boiled egg and half a portion of almonds for a snack yet but I do enjoy watching them! They are a HUGE fountain of knowledge, they break down macros for meals really well and have taught me so much!


https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzRYivTpUQ0r2qPPjfLoQiA


Here is there website as well, I am thinking about enrolling in their course but I am going to wait a little while.


http://ketoconnect.teachable.com/p/keto-quickstart-course


And here is their 20 under 20 challenge for 2017!


http://ketoconnect.net/20under20/


THE MACRO CALCULATOR (Also by Keto Connect)


http://ketoconnect.net/calculator/