Ketogenic diet

I wanted to share my experience with a Ketogenic diet. About 7 weeks out from my show with my body not responding to the macros I was on at the time, my trainer decided to try a ketogenic diet with me (Keto).  Ketogenic diet is a high fat low carb diet.  Protein is also kept pretty low.  I went from having protein be 40-50% of my diet to about 20% and fats going from 20-30% to 65-80%.  Carbs dropped to 0-5%. 

Obviously this was a MAJOR change to my diet. I’m generally pretty capable of switching things up and keeping my diet interesting while keeping it within certain macros. But honestly, the first couple days I had NO idea how to put together a decent meal on this type of macro split.  I literally ate ground beef with ranch dressing on it.  My coworkers would wait for me to heat up my lunch just to see what kind of random stuff I was eating that day. (Before they left to go enjoy taco bell or burger king or Gates BBQ)

After a few days of trolling the internet for Keto recipes (thank you internet), I was able to actually put together something more resembling a meal. I happen to enjoy braunschweiger (liver sausage) and found that it was a perfect food for this diet.  Also I could eat lots of cheese, pepperoni, salami, make mini no bake cheesecakes. It seemed awesome.. for the first week.  To be honest eating mostly fat gets pretty icky after a while. Though I managed to find some low carb “bread” and muffins, mainly used to deliver butter to my mouth, they weren’t very flavorful and eating butter isn’t as great as it sounds.

We followed ketogenic diet for 2 weeks. Then we reintroduced carbs into my diet. It was kind of like a really big carb cycle, 2 weeks low, 2 weeks high.  We finished my prep with 3 weeks low carb. By the final 3 weeks I had become pretty proficient at making high fat meals but I was getting really tired of eating them.

At the end of the process I don’t even feel that this diet was all that effective.  The first 2 weeks we saw decent change, after that it leveled out and stayed that way for the duration. 

Following my prep, my trainer attended a seminar where ketogenic diet was discussed. It’s shown that the long term health risks of this type of diet far outweigh any short term benefit.  The thing with this type of diet is, it was first developed for short term use in morbidly obese patients in order to get them down to a weight that offered less risk for gastric surgery.

My personal opinion after being on the diet is, it cannot possibly be healthy. Eating mostly fat it’s really hard NOT to eat a bunch of high sodium processed foods.  To keep the protein and carb in take down you can’t eat a lot of whole, close to nature foods.  I love cheese as much as the next person.. but I don’t believe that should be a major part of a healthy diet.

Of course there are people who would disagree with my assessment that a balanced diet is better than a ketogenic diet. There will always be differing opinions. I feel like carbs always get such a bad rap. As I study to get my personal training certificate and eventually a nutrition certification, I look forward to learning more about how the body responds to certain macro splits and different theories on nutrition. Fitness and healthy lifestyles are always changing, there are new developments all the time and you have to constantly change and push yourself to continue to be successful.  As I near the beginning of my next prep, I am anxious to see how this goes the second time around. I plan on documenting more thoroughly how my body responds to the process and how you can get lean on a balanced diet that includes carbs.

Avocado fudge

After my accidental avocado fat bomb incident. See previous post 

I decided to try again to make the avocado fudge I intended to make. I got the idea from chocolatecoveredkatie.com  

The original recipe called for coconut butter.. I usually try to sub out things I dot have with things I do.. So I just used regular butter. And they came out SO GOOD! 

They are way more delish than the fat bombs and they are a little bit less calories too! 

Fudge Ingredients:

6 tablespoons of butter

1/4 cup (about 56g) of mashed avocado 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

2 Tablespoons Waldon farms syrup (or honey or agave but this will add more cal and carbs) 

Pinch of salt

1-2 packets of stevia 

Optional chocolate layer 

2 tablespoons coconut oil

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa 

2 tablespoons Waldon farms chocolate syrup (or honey or agave) 

Directions below this yummy picture

Directions: 

Melt the butter, mix the fudge ingredients in a blender until smooth and creamy. Pour into a small pan or container. Put in the freezer at least 3 hours. 

Once the fudge is in the freezer you can mix the chocolate layer now or later. I did mine right away and as you see it stayed right on top. 

Melt the coconut oil and mix together with the cocoa powder and syrup of choice. Pour over the avocado layer and let set. I left mine overnight. 

Macros for 1/8 of the recipe 

Calories 119

Fat 13g

Carbs 2g

Fiber 1g

Protein 0.1g 

Accidental avocado coconut fat bomb

Just over 2 weeks to go and I'm doing a Keto diet for the remainder of prep. For those who don't know that's a low carb high fat diet. So looking for recipes I found an avocado fudge recipe. The problem was 1. I can't read I guess. And 2. I didn't have coconut butter. 

These 2 factors led to the creation of avocado coconut fat bomb. They're still delicious. But not very fudgey.

Ingredients :

1/4 cup mashed avocado 

6 tablespoons coconut oil

2 tablespoons Waldon farms syrup (or agave or honey) 

1 tsp vanilla extract 

Stevia to taste. (I used about a tablespoon ) 

Mix it all in a small blender, pour into a container and set in the freezer 3 hours or until set. 

If you want to add the chocolate swirl 

2 tablespoons Waldon farms

2 tablespoons cocoa

2 tablespoons coconut oil 

Pour on top and swirl through with a knife 

Macros per 1/8 

Calories 134

Fat 15g

Carb 2g

Fiber 1g

Protein .4g

Low carb Oopsie rolls attempt 1

3 weeks to go and we are doing Keto for the remainder of my prep. It's always tough adjusting diets. I starting looking in to some low carb recipes and found oopsie bread. 

I read some horror stories about how difficult these were and although it takes some care, I didn't have too much problem.  I found several recipes and though the one I used came out well, I think I will cut out one ounce of cream cheese cause I found a lot that only called for 3 instead of 4.  So, lets get to it..

Ingredients

3 eggs

4 oz of cream cheese (or 3)

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

optional: spices/seasonings to taste

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit 

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites

Mix the egg whites and cream of tartar until the whites form peaks

Mix the yolks and cream cheese and any seasoning. For this first run I opted for just 1 packet of splenda.  You can use italian herbs, splenda and cinnamon or any combo of spices you choose. 

Gently fold the yolk mixture back into the whites mixture, take care not to break down the whites.

Gently scoop 6 dollops of the mixture on a baking sheet, I used parchment paper to ensure they didn't stick.  You should use all the mixture making the 6.

Bake for 35 minutes.  Let cool, can be stored on the counter for several days or in the fridge, though the fridge will keep them SUPER moist so I recommend pulling them out and letting them sit before you want to use them.  Mine are still on the counter and I made them 5 days ago.. Still fine.

I'll be trying these again and will post up any other variations I come up with. 

Macros per the 4 oz recipe are, Per 1 of 6

Calories 102

Fat 8.5g

Carbs 2.2g

Fiber 0  (I'm toying with adding fiber powder to this next time)

Protein 4.3g

Keto mini no-bake cheesecake

Hey there FitFam! Work is finally easing to a slow steady crawl after tax day, I'm a CPA for those who don't know. This was the first time I've actually been in the office doing taxes on tax day (normally I'm out working on an audit).  It was CRAZY!!  So even though I've been a bit quiet I have still been hard at work in the gym and in the kitchen making all my foods for my ever changing diet.  We are having pretty good success with Keto, but we are going to cycle off for a couple weeks. Before I do though I wanted to share a few recipes with you that will always be my in my Keto back pocket.  Today I want to share with my coffee lovers out there.  (Not a coffee lover..keep reading, I've got you covered too!)  If you're not keto you could sub low fat cream cheese and sub almond milk for the heavy cream to make it lower fat friendly.

Let's start with the odd fact that I am NOT a coffee lover! I drink a little.. I like to add a lot of milk and sugar so, I haven't had coffee in quite a while.  But I do have some mocha cappuccino mix and thought it would be an excellent addition to the mini no-bake cheesecakes I've been making. This is something pretty simple to whip up and since I'm the only one in my house I make a lot of single serve dishes. If you wanted to make a few at once you can just multiply the recipe by the desired number of servings, easy-peasy!

Ingredients:

Basic recipe:
2 oz cream cheese
2 tablespoons heavy cream (I've also used 1 so if you need a bit less fat 1 will work!)
sweetener of choice to taste (this is optional if you're a cream cheese lover you might omit this)

Flavor options:
2 tsp mocha cappuccino (for the coffee lovers.. this had a pretty strong coffee flavor, you could easily cut this in half if you wanted to tone it down)
1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder (if you like a chocolate cheesecake)
1-2 tablespoon(s) waldon farms strawberry syrup (calorie free, carb free and delish!!)  I find mine at the local grocery store but you can get their stuff here https://www.waldenfarms.com/

I like to garnish with a little waldon farms syrup too!

Procedure:

Pick your flavor above and mix all the ingredients. If your cream cheese is straight out of the fridge then pop in the microwave for 10 seconds oro so to soften it a bit.

Once its all blended, pour the mix into a small container or glass or however you wish to serve it, and place it in the fridge to set. (30 minutes should do the trick, but I tend to make mine a bit more in advance and let it sit longer)

It should be about a 1/2 cup serving size.  Perfect to satisfy a sweets craving and excellent macros for a keto diet!

What I ate today. Ketogenic.

Hi there #fitfam .. Just over 5 weeks out O_O .. About to wrap up 2 weeks in keto and go back to a "traditional" 40/40/20 bodybuilding split. I've kind of gotten the hang of keto. Still sometimes have a hard time getting all the fat without many carbs or the protein level I was used to. I took pics of all my food yesterday so you could see what keto is looking like. 

So here's everything I ate and a total from myfitnesspal on macros for the day. 

2 pieces of bacon, egg white and cheese omelet 

Homemade keto "mounds" bar.. I skimped on the "chocolate" a bit :). And mozz stick 

Chicken and asparagus. (Probably the least keto of all my meals) 

OMG these were delish! I have a bad sweet tooth and these hit the spot. 

Mini mocha cappuccino cheesecake and a mozz stick 

Green bell pepper with some ground beef and cheese. 

My carbs are a bit high.. About half come from fat sources though so it's not like I'm eating startchy things. Still figuring it all out. After 2 weeks on 40-40-20 I get to try my hand at keto again.  Will be looking up some recipes and things getting ready.