The Keto Coach

So, you may or may not have heard this theory before, but it's one of those "I wish I'd known about that earlier" things that I recently started to understand. When you are on a weight loss journey, you sometimes will experience stalls or periods of unexplained plateaus. You're doing everything right, but you're not losing weight. It can get super frustrating, but there may be a scientific reason why it's happening. I've touched on this a little bit before, but today I wanted to explain it in a little better detail to provide some clarity, and hopefully, some encouragement if you've found yourself in a weight loss stall.  So, I've talked before about how your body puts in a lot of work to keep us healthy and thriving. Sometimes, if you change your eating habits suddenly, or are losing weight too quickly, your body will work to slow down the process, in case this might indicate that you are starving or in crisis. We know that we're not...

So last week, instead of doing a Walmart run with all three kiddos, I used their app for Grocery Pickup. If you haven't used it yet, it's great and I highly recommend it, especially if running in Walmart with your children is one of the more unpleasant ways you can imagine using your time. For me, I dislike the sacrifice of being able to choose all my own produce and meat (is that just me? I like to have control of the exact produce that comes home with me. Maybe I'm a control freak?) Anyway, for the most part though, they always give me great stuff. Last week, though, I brought more jalapenos than I could reasonably use in a batch of jalapeno poppers, and it left me with a couple leftover peppers. I have been trying to look for ways to "spice up" chicken breasts lately, no pun intended, because they're just so dang boring by themselves, so I came up with the idea to make this jalapeno popper chicken using the leftover peppers I had.  If you've ever...

Lately, as I've been browsing through social media pages about the Keto diet, I'm starting to see a concerning pattern as to what people seem to think Keto is. I'm seeing a lot of people putting a crap ton of butter on everything they eat, eating hotdogs and bacon for every meal, and dousing everything in copious amounts of melted cheese. I see people striving to "hit their fat goals" and eating thousand-calorie "fat bombs" as a result. This morning, I literally saw someone blending a HALF STICK OF BUTTER into their "bulletproof coffee" and I almost gagged. I don't mean to sound flip, or like the Keto police, but this craziness has gotta stop. First, let's discuss what KETOSIS is. Ketosis is a natural state that your body enters when it is deprived carbohydrates. In the absence of carbs, your body burns fat for energy. It keeps you alive and functioning. You are born in a state of ketosis (don't believe me? Research the fat conten...

Today I am going to briefly address some things that gets said to me, and others on a weight loss journey, A LOT. I will first say, I think these comments are mostly always made by well-meaning people. People that aren't trying to be critical, but encouraging in their own ways and I genuinely do appreciate when any person stops by one of my social media pages to say something nice. However, sometimes, these well-intentioned comments can be unhelpful and even a bit discouraging. I'll explain why. "You were beautiful before" or, "you were always beautiful" 99% of the time, this comment gets left on a before-and-after type picture where I am showing the physical outcome of my weight loss at some point in my journey. Now, there's nothing blatantly wrong with this. When I hear this, I hear a person who wants me to know that I was beautiful, even when I was morbidly obese. And it is a very kind sentiment. But. There's a few things I've learned o...

So, based off the fact that I'm posting not one, but TWO "sweet" recipes for y'all today, you can probably figure out that I've got quite a sweet tooth. A couple weeks ago, I randomly felt like experimenting in the baking department and seeing if I could create a cakey-keto-brownie that I actually liked. I tried a ruled.me recipe for a chocolate mug cake a few weeks back it was GROSS. Like, throw away after the first bite, gross. Note, I've never made brownies from scratch before, but for some reason (probably to avenge the failed mug cake experiment), I thought it was something I could try. And they turned out really great! I made a small batch for my husband and I one evening and we had them warm with a scoop of vanilla halo top. Delicious! Unfortunately, I have no low quality pictures of the cooking process for you all, but you'll just have to use your imaginations. 😉 Lastly; every time I post a baking recipe, I get asked if it's OK to swa...

So, cinnamon rolls have been a tradition in my family forever. As far back as I can remember, I looked forward to having them every year on Thanksgiving and Christmas morning. When I got married and started having kids, we continued the tradition, but my kids liked it so much, we eventually turned it into a Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mothers/Fathers day, birthday tradition :) We always just used the canned cinnamon rolls that come with the little bucket of frosting. They're delicious, but needless to say, LOADED with sugar and carbs. As I have gotten older, and less tolerant of sugar, this tradition has left me feeling like garbage about an hour after breakfast. Not only did my blood sugar crash, but they seemed to just evaporate and leave me starving not long after. We got in the habit of also making bacon to go with them, so we'd have some protein, but it didn't help much. When I started Keto, I knew that I would need to say goodbye to the canned rolls, but I was ...

So, a few weeks ago I started doing some serious thinking about how I could start eliminating processed sugar from my kid's diets. I don't fit into the "crunchy mom" category by any means, so do not get the idea that I am pretending to. However, I think that it's important that my kids don't get in the habit of having sugar three times a day, because I've now learned so much about the negative effects of overconsumption. If I can set them up for nutritional success, then I want to do that. So I started thinking about things they eat regularly, and trying to find healthier alternatives. We've replaced pop tarts with organic toast and fruit, we've replaced frozen pizzas with homemade keto pizzas (they LOVE them too, you can find a great recipe for those  here! ) and we've swapped sugary peanut butter for homemade and keto-friendly peanut butter. Though my kids were the inspiration for me starting to make my own peanut butter, it is a delicio...

"When you feel like giving up, remember why you started." I have discussed my issues with chronic illness here before, but for those of you who don't know, I have suffered from Hashimotos Thyroiditis, Hypothyroidism, PCOS and adrenal fatigue for about 7 years. After my son was born in 2011, my health just plummeted, and I became extremely ill. My immune system shut down, letting in an infectious blood virus, and a bad case of mono. Soon after, my digestive health and functioning went out the window, and I started suffering from bad bouts of IBS three or four times a week. This was a vicious cycle: I was already in the habit of binge eating junk food, and I had a particular love for carbs and sugar. Then, my Doctor poorly advised me to eat a high carb diet to get my stomach issues under control. This sounded like a best case scenario to me: little did I know, it was going to be the start of years and years full of chronic illness. Before getting pregnant with m...

The term "intermittent fasting" is typically an intimidating one when you first hear it, and that's understandable. The concept of going long stretches of time without eating anything is counter intuitive, especially in western cultures where we've created the tradition of eating three meals a day. IF is not something I can claim to have any sort of expertise on, but it is something that I can at least help to demystify for those that are curious. Basic Fasting Info & How This Correlates with Keto The practice of "intermittent fasting" (we'll call it IF for short) is simply a strategic eating schedule where you abstain from food during a certain window, and only eat during a designated window. For example, many people will follow a "16:8" IF schedule where they eat for an eight hour window of the day, and don't eat for 16 hours. When people talk about weight loss, they will typically advise that you not eat after a certain time a...