Keto

The Best Keto Friendly Curry

February 27, 2019 JayneLeave a comment

Curry, it’s one of the most delicious dishes on the planet, but don’t think just because you are rocking a low carb diet that you can’t eat it. In fact with its combination of meat, vegetables, and a creamy sauce you can make a delicious low carb curry for you and the family with minimal effort. Just read the post below to find out how.

Equipment needed

First off, before we get into what ingredients you will need to create this curry you need to check you have all the right equipment.

Don’t worry though, as you don’t need masses of specialized stuff. In fact chopping boards, a sharp knife, and something like one of these cast iron casserole dishes will do. The latter being the best way to slow cook the curry and get a delicious rich flavour.

Ingredients

Next, you need to think about the ingredient you will include in your curry. Obviously, meat is a good starting point as this is low in carbs and full of tasty and filling protein. Most folks go for chicken, but beef and lamb also work well, and if you are looking to push the boat out using some king prawns works well too.

Image source

Curry powder is an essential ingredient for this dish.

For the sauce, you can use plenty of veg including onions, garlic, and tomatoes. Of course, most ketoers limit the amount of onion and tomatoes they use but remember as long as you don’t go overboard, the net carbs in both is fairly minimal and well worth spending on a delicious evening meal.

Red and green paper also make an excellent choice to include in your curry and are similarly low in net carbs. You’ll also need cream or cream substitute, and some good old fashioned curry powder and ghee to get things going.

Recipe

Start with heating the spices, herbs, and curry powder in the ghee, so they brown. Then add the meat once it’s been cut into chunks.

Once that has browned add the veg and a little water and leave to simmer on the stove top for around 10 minutes. After that, it’s time to add the cream stir and then place the dish with the lid on in a low oven. Leave to slow cook for an hour or more, and at the end, you will have created a delicious family dish.

Serve with

The best thing about serving up this delicious version of curry is that you get to eat wit with some pretty impressive side dishes as well. Of course, you’ll have to eschew the samosas and poppadoms, but in their place why not treat yourself to some seriously low carb cauliflower rice? You can even by this read made and frozen from the supermarket now, so all you need to do is bung it in the microwave for a few moments.

Alternatively making yummy spinach paneer is also totally keto friendly and delicious too, so go ahead and treat yourself and your family to a delicious low carb curry night!

3 Keto Baking Recipes the Family Will Love

January 30, 2019 Jayne7 Comments

The key to the keto diet is to get as close to eliminating all carbs as possible. As such, traditional pastas, breads, and baked goods are a no-no. That doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy a sandwich or even indulge in some cookies, but you will need a modified version of these staples. Try out a few new recipes and you will learn which ingredients need to be swapped. No matter what recipes you use, baking will remain enjoyable for you and your loved ones. Check out these three keto baking recipes that will teach you that eating a keto friendly diet doesn’t mean you have to say goodbye to delicious baked goods.

Keto Chocolate Chip Lover’s Moist Cookies

The key to a good chocolate chip cookie is combining the perfect amount of chocolate chips with a rich and decadent dough. In order to make this cookie keto diet approved, you have to substitute regular flour for something else. You can use ground flaxseeds, coconut or almond flour, or even psyllium husk. You can’t use regular sugar either so you will have to get a sugar substitute like stevia, monk fruit sweetener or erythritol. Some of these items can be picked up at the grocery store but other items may need to be purchased at a health food store or ordered off the web. The good news is that the baking process is fast and simple, so you will be able to enjoy your Keto Chocolate Chip Lover’s Moist Cookies in just minutes.

To make these cookies you will need the following; 1 cup of standard flour substitute, 1/3 cup butter, ½ cup of sugar substitute, ½ cup sugar free chocolate chips, 1 egg, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, ¼ teaspoon baking powder, and a sprinkle of salt. First, mix up all of the dry ingredients in a bowl. The butter should then be heated on the stove or in a microwave until it is melted. Next, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.

After the butter has melted, you want to add in the egg and vanilla extract to it. After it is well blended, pour it over the dry ingredients and mix gently. Use a tablespoon to make evenly sized dough balls, then flatten them as you place each one on a cookie sheet. Your cookies will need to bake for 10 to 12 minutes before they are golden brown and moist.

Low Carb Sandwich Bread

Bread can be a major point of contention for those trying to eat a low carb diet of any kind. There are plenty of pre-packaged varieties, but there is nothing like making something delicious from scratch. You might want to make a keto friendly specialty bread like challah that contains cheese and tomatoes so you can make it a meal. Make modifications to existing recipes so that you can enjoy biscuits, flatbreads, and even dinner rolls while on the keto diet plan.

Try KetoLogic’s recipe for keto bread and you will have a recipe that can be used to make bread at any time. This recipe is great for beginners as there aren’t many steps, but the end result is still a flavorful delight. Whip up a batch, slice up the entire loaf, and you will be able to reach for a piece of bread whenever you want – without feeling guilty.

Creamy Keto Sugar Free Cheesecake

If you ever get in the mood for a really decadent dessert while on the keto diet, then you have to try out this next recipe. The really great thing about cheesecake is that it is easy to make because there are not many ingredients in it. You will need to make the crust first, then the filling, but each step is super-fast to execute. Next up, a sugar free keto friendly cheesecake to die for.

Measure approximately 2 cups of flour substitute, ½ cup of melted butter, 4 teaspoons of sugar substitute, and a teaspoon of almond extract, then blend well to make your cheesecake crust. Roll out the dough and then carefully place it on the inside of a pie shell. Press down firmly so that the crust falls into the corners.

To make the filling for your keto-friendly cheesecake you will need; 3 8-ounce packages of cream cheese (softened), 2 eggs, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. All you have to do is blend all of these ingredients well and then spoon the mixture into the pie shell. Smooth the top of the cheesecake, then bake for approximately 45 minutes at 375 degrees.

It can take effort to find the right ingredients needed to make these delicious keto-friendly recipes, but once you taste them you will be more than happy to put in the work. Enjoy keto bread so that you can make scrumptious sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, and even a slice of cheesecake while still eating smart. These recipes can be addicting so try to enjoy them in moderation.

Keto

Five Tips To Improve Fast Loss Even More

October 5, 2018 Jayne1 Comment

Improving fat loss is something that you can do in a lot of practical ways. You probably are wondering how you are going to make the right decisions, but you can actually do all the things that are listed below. They will make you into someone who is in very good shape, and you will find that you could completely change your whole lifestyle if you are really focused on fat loss. The people that have committed to what they need to do are going to feel like their whole routine is new because they have more energy and a better body.

Ketos

You could go to a place like mrketo.com when you are ready to start looking at ketones and keto products. There are a lot of ways to get this into your system, and you have to try to use the coffee, the powders, and the products that you could put into your sauces. The keto product line will force your metabolism to rise, and you will burn fat when you are not even trying. You can keep your metabolism high at all times, and you will be in a much better place mentally because you can tell that you are losing weight. People with a high metabolism lose more weight generally, and they always feel like they can conquer that next task.

Running

Running is something that you can do in your spare time, on your break, or when you are on the treadmill at home. The person who is running gets a lot of activity into a small period of time, and it could be something that you do regularly because you know for a fact that it is helping you make changes to your body. It also supports your gym workouts.

The Gym

You have to have some sort of circuit workout that you will do at the gym. You will be in a place where you can get your gym workouts to be much easier, and you will notice that you can do them in just half an hour. You are not spending all your time at the gym, and the gym has a lot of other options that will be just right for you like the pool and the racquetball courts.

Yoga

You have to consider going to yoga because it is so good for your body. You will feel much more flexible, and you will feel like you have seen a massive change in the way that your body works because you feel more limber. You also learn how to breathe in these classes, and you can release a lot of stress in these classes that you would have had to hold onto otherwise.

The people who want to improve their fat loss the most will need to be sure that they have found a way to do all the things on this list. You do not do them all at the same time, but you will do them in stages so that you can be the healthiest version of yourself.

Keto

Why I’m Back on Keto

April 26, 2018 Jayne2 Comments

Back in January 2017, I decided that I needed to take my health a lot more seriously, and I started dieting and exercising in an effort to lose at least 4 stone. Given the fact that I’m a type 2 diabetic, I decided after a lot of research and advice from Husband that a low-carb, or ketogenic, diet would be best for me and I started cutting down drastically on the amount of carbs I was eating. I also started a program of weight lifting and the weight started falling off of me. I noticed a change in my shape in just a few months and I was really enjoying lofting heavier weights each time I went to the gym. For more information on the ketogenic diet, see this.

However, halfway through the year, a few things happened – my birthday was in June and then midway through July I went through some pretty bad stress, and the whole thing knocked me totally off the wagon. I’m an emotional binge-eater and when my willpower reserves are low, it only takes the slightest thing to make me revert to negative behaviours. Husband tried to gently warn me when I was at the beginning of the slide, but it didn’t sink in and 18 months after starting, I’m now back to the weight I was when I started.

Why I'm Back on Keto

We had some friends over a couple of weeks ago to watch the football and they asked how I was going with the gym and diet, and I had to admit that I’d let it all go, but while I was talking to them, I realised how much I’d missed it all. Overeating actually gets really boring after a while and I’d been enjoying lifting weights while I was doing it, so I made a decision. I needed to get back to it.

This time, however, it’s a little trickier. I’ve started eating keto again and I’m definitely felling better for being on a low-carb eating plan but the gym side of it hasn’t fallen into place yet. Maureen can only really be left alone for an hour at a time, and the gym is a 20 minute drive from home, which means I’d have 20 minutes to workout, unless someone is at home to puppy-sit.

However, from next week, Burrito Baby is going to be going to a childminder for one day a week, which means that as well as being able to get some work done without an endless stream of Sam and Cat playing on Netflix int he background, I’ll also have a bit more time to exercise. Husband got my bike out of the shed recently and bought me a new chain, so this weekend we’ll be fixing it up so that I can at least start doing some cardio a few times a week. I’m excited to get back into it, as not only is my physical health better when I exercise, but my my mental health seems improved too.

Have you ever tried a ketogenic diet? I’d love to hear about it, so please leave me a comment below.

Health · Keto

My New Keto Lifestyle

February 10, 2017February 10, 2017 Jayne5 Comments

Keto If you follow me on Facebook, Insta or Twitter you may have noticed that lately I’ve been banging on about dieting again, but this time it’s different. You see, I’ve found a way of eating and exercising that I’m truly in love with and I’ve managed to stick to this with more discipline than anything I’ve ever done…and it’s showing results, too!

The first part of my new lifestyle is my eating plan, keto, or a ketogenic diet. The principle is that by restricting carbs and eating a high fat, high protein diet you force your body to access glycogen which is stored as fat, which in turn gives you weight loss and retrains your body about what to burn and what to store. It’s great for type II diabetics and is also what Dr. Michael Mosley is promoting through his “Eight Week Blood Sugar Diet” book (I HIGHLY recommend this as a starting point if you want to learn about keto eating). At the moment, I eat under 20g of carbs a day (just for perspective, one baked potato contains roughly SIXTY grams of carbs, which would be three days worth for me!) and aim for around 100g of protein and 100-120g of fat. Once you realise that fat doesn’t make you fat, it revolutionises what you can eat!

Limiting carbs means that I have to be a lot more creative about cooking (and also means that bacon and eggs feature heavily in my life right now!) but it’s actually been a lot easier than I thought. For instance, I’ll occasionally cook a roast for the family, except I don’t have potatoes or Yorkshires, however a big plate of roasted meat and veg is still a delicious meal and feels like SO much less of a compromise than “diet food”.

Many keto-devotees don’t calorie count if they’re eating it as a lifestyle rather than weight-loss aid, but I’m currently limiting myself to 1300 calories a day because I had a total of 5 stone to shift. However, most people advocate working out what your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is so that you can work out exactly how many calories you need to eat just to exist.

The next part of my lifestyle change is exercise. Before now, exercise has been a dirty, dirty word to me. I’m naturally incredibly lazy, so moving around until my heart pounds has never appealed to me, but I’ve found something I really enjoy and seem to be pretty good at – weight lifting. I’ve always been disproportionately strong for a 5ft 4in woman so turning that into something I can use to improve myself has been a real joy. I’m using the StrongLifts app which gives you a workout-by-workout breakdown of what lifts to do and what weights you should be moving, and I just love it. I’m getting almost as much satisfaction from seeing how much I can lift than I am from seeing how much weight I’m losing. It’s actually an incredible way to burn fat, but before you ask, no, I won’t end up looking like a bodybuilder – it takes RIDICULOUS levels of exercise and protein intake for that kind of physique!

Which brings me onto the money shot of any post about dieting – my weight! When I started in January, I weighed 14st 7lb – not the heaviest I’ve ever been but a full 5 stone heavier than I’d like to be and enough of a shock to make me get my arse into gear. I started in earnest with diet and exercise and after sticking religiously to it (and I mean genunely religiously, I’ve not had a SINGLE cheat meal in this time) I’ve already shifted 15lb, taking me down to 13st 6lb.

I still have a long way to go, but when I think about the fact that I’ve already lost over 20% of what I need to, it really bolsters my enthusiasm. Keto is a lifestyle that I can see myself sticking to for years to come, even when I’m trying to maintain weight rather than lose it and I’m really hopeful that I can reverse my diabetes too. I’ve had a lot of help from Husband, my friend Katy and a couple of Facebook groups I’m in, and I’m still having to think about basically every single meal but I’m hoping in time it will all become second nature (I already feel like I have an encylopaedic knowledge of the carb content of every item in Waitrose!!).

A lovely knock-on effect is that it’s given me so much more energy (I know it’s a massive cliche, but it’s true!) and lifting weights has improved my cardiovascular fitness on almost a stealth level. I decided I needed to get moving more as I’m very sedentary on a daily basis so I re-started the couch-to-5K app that I’ve neglected for about 3 years and I didn’t, to my MASSIVE surprise, die during my first run! Husband has kindly treated me to a pair of proper trail running shoes because pavements don’t really exist where we live, as well as some proper socks, and I’m already feeling enthusiastic about running more. Also, I’m really hoping to join a netball team again once as that’s something I used to love doing.

I feel like I don’t even know myself any more, but that’s such a good thing! I used to dream about the cheat meals I could have when I got to my desired weight but now I just keep thinking about how much weight I’ll be able to lift or the nice clothes I’ll be able to finally fit into.

As a side note, I thought I’d try to keep diet and keto recipe posts to a minumum on here because it might get boring, so I’ve started a dedicated keto lifestyle blog, which you can find at The Keto Life. It’s very sparse at the moment, but I’ll be doing more recipe posts and updates as an when they happen.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or want to get started with keto, leave me a comment or hit me up on social media.

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