The Keto Coach

As my fourth month of Ketogenic living comes to a close, I unfortunately have no amazing (scale) progress to report for this month, and I know exactly why. I fell off the wagon a little bit the week before Mother's Day, and then spent the rest of May getting back on track. I got frustrated at the beginning of the month because, for whatever reason, my urine ketone strips weren't showing that I was in ketosis. I later learned that this may have been for hormonal reasons, or may have been because my body was actively using all the ketones it was producing for energy and didn't have any to discard as waste. Ketone strips can only show what your body is discarding as excess, and if your body is using 100% of the ketones you're producing (which very well may be the case for me, considering all my other outstanding health issues that my ketones are having to compensate for) then your "pee strips" probably won't show ketosis. I know this now, but it was ...

Happy Memorial Day! Later today we are going over to my parent's house for a family dinner and yesterday I was perusing the Aldi for something fun to bring along with us. They had some great looking keto-friendly-fruit (berries) for super cheap (which, let's be honest, that's why we love Aldi!). So I grabbed a bunch (all for under $5) and decided to come up with a fruit dip that would compliment it. I used to create a fruit dip that was [delicious, but] chock full of sugar that was cream cheese, cool whip and sweetened condensed milk. Every once and a while, I would try to reign in the sugar by buying "light" or sugar free cool whip, but still, the sweetened condensed milk accounted for everyone's carbs for the day (or week). Anyway, it was one of my favorite things to make for a party, and I wanted to come up with a keto friendly alternative. On instagram somewhere, a friend posted a recipe for keto condensed milk, and I'll try that one day, b...

One of my very favorite things to make for my husband and I is Jalapeno Poppers. When I was pregnant, one of my very favorite things to get was a Jalapeno-Cheese stuffed pretzel from Wawa. It was basically a soft pretzel full of cream cheese and diced Jalapeno. Well I still love the combination of spicy and creamy that pretzel gives, but this recipe gives me the best of those flavors PLUS bacon. What's not to love! This recipe makes a great appetizer if you're entertaining, or a side dish. Hey, I even make them as my main course sometimes. They're one of my favorite things! Tip: if Jalapenos are a bit too hot for you, soaking the hollowed out peppers in ice water for about 7-8 minutes helps take some of the "sting" out. If Jalapenos are WAY too hot for you, you could swap them for mini sweet peppers, and that would be delicious too! Ingredients: - Fresh Jalapeno peppers (about 6-7) The bigger, the better! - A block of cream cheese - 1/2 Cup of shredded M...

If you've been following any die-hard ketoers on social media (I do, my entire "follow" list on IG is people committed to the Keto diet!) it's easy to get the idea that we all live off of prime rib and avocados. If you are on a tight budget, it is easy to be scared off from a diet consisting mainly of meat and vegetables, but I wanted to share some tips on how to stick to a no-carb diet and not break the bank. First, it is important to remember that any time you shift your style of eating and begin to cut out food groups, you are automatically saving money by no longer purchasing sugar-filled, processed foods. It may seem like healthy eating is more expensive, but I've found that I will spend the same amount of money whether I'm buying junk food or whether I'm buying healthy food. Everyone spends money on food, you just have to prioritize your way of eating. Secondly, don't put too much thought into what you see ketoers posting to their social med...

Hey everyone! So today, I am tackling the slightly-awkward topic of digestive issues while on the Keto diet. Hey, we're all adults here, right? Chances are, if you've been following a Ketogenic diet for any amount of time, you have come across one or more digestive issues. This is extremely common! I actually mention this multiple times in  my Keto Coach e-book  because it is so common and can sometimes be the deciding factor in whether or not a person continues their keto way of eating. My goal is to set you up for success, so that if you do run into some issues, you can deal with them successfully and carry on about your business. If you've clicked and read this far, chances are you have had some issues too! Again, it's normal, and there's ways to deal with it. The first thing people will experience when they cut carbs and sugar from their diet is diarrhea. Your guts are used to being fed bready, fibrous starches that "bulk" everything up digestiv...

I have been Keto for three months now, as of May 1! And I feel great! So this month was a little bit frustrating because I was stuck on a plateau for three weeks. For the first 2/3 of April, my weight either stayed exactly the same at 203 or fluctuated up to 207 and back down again (I HATE holding on to water, so frustrating!) I stayed consistent and kept working out. I ate intuitively and ate when I was hungry and didn't when I wasn't. I was SO excited when I stepped on the scale to see 202, the plateau was finally broken! My consistency paid off, and I experienced a "fat whoosh" and FINALLY got down into the 190's! I ended the month at 198 and I was SO excited, I have wanted to get to "onederland" for so long! The theory behind the "fat whoosh" effect is that sometimes, when you are losing weight, your fat cells start to shrink but fill up with water as a place holder. When you've been overweight for a long time, or you have b...

When I was growing up, I remember listening in on several conversations about the validity of popular expressions such as "everything in moderation," and toying around with them in my head to figure out how I felt about them. The biggest problem I was facing with accepting the "moderation" perspective was that it was almost always used to justify negative behavior or habits. I heard a lot of people disagree on destructive patterns on behavior and agree to disagree with the simple quip "well, everything in moderation!" Now, none of these conversations were about nutrition necessarily, but the back-and-forth argument has circled around my head throughout the years. Unfortunately, it was mainly in moments when I felt I needed to justify a negative eating choice. This, and many other lies like it, are part of a slippery slope of logical fallacies that are keeping so many people overweight and unhealthy. Today, I want to dive head-first into some of these ...