Keto Eating Philosophy and Recipes
Recipe #1
Keto Cheesecake Brownies
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 25 minutes
Total time: 35 minutes
Ingredients:
- 8 Tablespoons of butter
- ¾ cups Swerve or Monkfruit sugar substitute
- ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- Two eggs beaten
- ½ teaspoon of salt
- ¾ cup almond flour
Procedure:
Cheesecake Layer:
- You will need 4 ounces of cream cheese, 3 TBSP Swerve, 2 tbsp heavy cream, 2 tsp vanilla extract.
- Get ready to bake! Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Line an 8×8 inch baking pan with parchment paper and put it to the side.
- In a bowl, combine melted butter, swerve, and cocoa powder.
- Mix in the eggs. Then add the almond flour and salt and stir well.
- Spread the brownie batter to all four corners of the pan.
Cheesecake Topping Layer:
- In a blender or food processor, combine cream cheese, swerve, heavy cream, and vanilla extract and blend for 15 seconds.
- Spoon the Cream cheese mixture in lumps onto the brownie batter and swirl.
- Both the brownie batter and the cheesecake layer are pretty thick, so they probably will not create beautiful swirls, but they make a delicious layer of sweet cheesecake and fudgy brownie.
- Finally! Bake these for 25-30 minutes or until the brownies, are set. Allow to cool, slice, and keep in the refrigerator.
KEYS TO HIGH-FAT, LOW-CARB, PRIMAL STYLE EATING
Removing unhealthy refined carbs and fats from your diet will allow space for more nutrient-dense, high-satiety primal/paleo/ ancestral-style foods.
A variety of fresh, colorful vegetables will be the centerpiece of your diet and occupy most space on your plate. Casual critics often dismiss keto as unhealthy based on an assumed restriction of high-antioxidant, nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables.
Remember that gut-brain connection that supports the hypothesis over the intestinal microbiome’s profound influence on digestive and immune function, inflammation control, mood stability, and cognitive function? That microbiome also impacts insulin sensitivity and fat metabolism, improves thyroid function, improves sleep, and so much more.
These dietary changes aim to allow healthy gut bacteria to preside over the ever-present harmful bacteria; after all, illness results when harmful bacteria predominate.
It’s important to eat your vegetables when you go keto because carbohydrate restriction automatically reduces your intake of certain other gut-healthy high-carbohydrate foods.
Nutritional ketosis is facilitated and easier to sustain after the initial 21st day. Once you have made it to the other side, it’s essential to adhere to the hard limit of 50 grams of gross carbohydrates per day.
Your main goal is to kick carbohydrate dependency and increase your fat intake to remain satisfied and not struggle. Be diligent during the first three weeks, and your body is making the most changes. You are learning more about real whole foods every day. Be graceful and be intentional about your choices.
A NEW EATING PHILOSOPHY
Food is your friend, not your foe. The recipe for the keto cheesecake brownies above is a pleasant reminder that dieting doesn’t have to be boring at all! Changing your life needs to be accomplished energetically. The energy that you harvest within you will drive your success. Digging deeper to relearn and re-identify yourself is within reach!
We have been conditioned to think that skipping meals, especially breakfast, is a disaster. This concept is a relic of the carbohydrate-dependency paradigm.
If you are hyper-insulinemic and unable to burn body fat well, skipping a meal will make you tired, cranky, and likely to binge when you do eat something.
Failed attempts at fad diets like calorie-restrictive diets, detox cleanses, or a programmed fast will simply cause more fight or flight stimulation.
If you exist in carb dependency and attempt to crash-diet frequently, you will create metabolic damage that can make fat adaption extremely difficult.
As you begin, don’t be overly ambitious to restrict calories or begin fasting, build momentum before starting these practices. Refocus on making the right food choices consistently.
In a fat-burning paradigm, regular meals are overrated, period. Hunger sensations, instead of being a telltale sign of fight or flight, are something that can help enhance your enjoyment and appreciation of food.
An ode to fat from the 21 days Keto Reset Diet by Mark Kisson:
‘The secret to becoming fat and keto-adapted is to make natural fats the centerpiece of your diet and the vast majority of your calories (even though vegetables will still occupy the bulk of your plate). Hence, yo any lingering fat phobias that you harbor as a result of flawed cultural programming from dated, inaccurate science. Read Gary Taubes’s books such as Good Calories, Bad Calories; Why We Get Fat; or The Case Against Sugar for exceptionally well-researched and referenced presentations about how ridiculously flawed and manipulative the scientific foundation for grain-based diet is. ‘
‘Eating fat won’t make you fat. It will help regulate your appetite and satiety hormones so you need less food to achieve total dietary satisfaction.’
The epiphany that eating fat won’t make you fat should happen within the first 21 days of changing your diet completely.
Healthy sources of fat will help you better burn stored fat, stabilize your appetite, heighten your mental focus and bring great satisfaction because fat taste good!
The hormones that become regulated during this initial 21 day reset period are the appetite-stimulating hormone ghrelin and your prominent satiety/fat-storage hormone leptin.
ADVANCED STRATEGIES
Here is an inspiring story about Speedgolf World Champion Rob Hogan and how he violently extinguished his sugar habit.
Rob Hogan of Galway, Ireland, is the world champion in the offbeat sport of Speedgolf. In 2013 he won $10,000 and a world professional tidal by shooting a 77 on a Championship golf course in only 39 minutes (carrying only a handful of clubs and running at high speed between shots). This generated a Speedgolf score (adding strokes and minutes together) of 116. In a quest to improve his endurance for Speedgolf, Hogan, a golf professional by trade, joined a local endurance running club. He conducted a series of weekend runs escalating distance. Over time, Hogan worked up from 13 miles to 15, and then to 17–a distance he completed four weekends in a row.
Hogan completed these runs without consuming any water or calories!
He would drink his favorite treat at the finish line: an ice-cold Fanta orange soda at the local convenience store. On the fourth of Hogan’s consecutive weekend 17-mile efforts, he recalls experiencing an intense craving for his Fanta in the latter stages of the run–a vision popped into his head and would not go away.
He could have easily skipped out on his final loop on the 4-mile route when this clear and present danger sign of bonking manifested, but Hogan soldiered on, intent on again completing the total distance. By the time he somehow got his body to the finish line by sheer force of will, something extraordinary happened: his desire for the Fanta subsided, as did his penchant for sweets in the weeks and months that followed!
Hogan violently forced his body into high fat and ketone oxidation to get through the last four miles of a run that took him beyond the previously perceived limits of his metabolic abilities. In doing so, he sent a powerful message to his hypothalamus–let’s call it the Central Governor, to break free from sugar dependency and become a fat-burning beast, forever, in a single day!
The outlandish conclusion to this story required some validation from Dr. Shanahan:
“These intense, novel and unique experiences are powerful signal generators that message the body that it needs to change, and the body responds accordingly. Hogan essentially hacked the typical transition from sugar-burner to fat-adapted–something that might take weeks of gradual dietary transitions and intense exercise–by pushing his body to the limit while starving it of calories.” Shanahan explained.
This story is not meant to inspire everyone to start running 17 miles every single weekend. Instead, this story is a detailed examination of the power within us all.
It’s also a reminder that the sugar cravings we find insatiable can dissipate over time. We are rendering sugar completely unnecessary.
Recipe #2
Egg Muffins in Ham Cups
Eggs and Ham, it’s what’s for breakfast! The perfect grab-n-go breakfast is easy to make the night before so that you can pop them in your mouth and get on with your life!
Ingredients:
- One tablespoon of melted coconut oil
- Six slices of ham
- Six large eggs
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Three tablespoons shredded cheddar cheese
Procedure:
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and brush six muffin tin cups with coconut oil.
- Line each cup with a slice of ham and crack one egg each on top of the ham-lined muffins—season with salt and pepper and about ½ tsp of cheddar cheese.
- Bake for 13-18 minutes, depending on how you like your egg yolks set.
- Remove from muffin tin and keep in the fridge.
These are tasty, easy, quick, and just what you need to keep your breakfast game on track and your snack attacks like healthier eating.
Recipe #3
Katie’s Keto Granola
Here is the breakdown of this granola’s macronutrients:
The granola by itself:
-
- Calories: 453, Fat: 38g, Carbohydrate: 20 g, Protein: 11g
Granola with Coconut Milk:
-
- Calories: 487, Fat: 41g, Carbohydrate: 21g, Protein: 11g
Granola with Coconut Milk and ¼ cup Fresh Blueberries:
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- Calories: 510, Fat: 42 g, Carbohydrates: 22g, Protein: 11g
Ingredients:
- 1 cup raw almonds
- one cup raw cashews
- 1 cup raw pumpkin seeds
- 1 cup raw sunflower seeds
- ¼ cup coconut oil softened
- 1 tbsp raw honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- one cup unsweetened coconut flakes
- 1 tsp Himalayan Sea Salt
- 1 cup cocoa nibs
- Lots of optional add-ins
*For more keto recipes, visit our recipe blogs or head over to our Youtube channel.
