Things to do 𝓑𝓮𝓯𝓸𝓻𝓮:
➊ Have a plan! — Which foods are non-negotiable? Which foods are just OK that you’d be fine to skip this year. Spend some time thinking through this and having a game plan free of guilt and shame. You decide what makes sense for you and no one else. ➋ Exercise — Get your workout in like you normally do. Don’t skip. For women, workout in the morning because studies show that it helps improve insulin sensitivity and sets you up for better fat burn for the rest of the day. ➌ DO Not Skip meals. Even moreso, DO NOT fast! — I get it, you want to save your appetite for the ‘big meal’, but doing this will almost always guarantee someone will overeat; especially if you’re not fat adapted. Although generally a good practice, fasting before a big meal always backfires causing increased bloating. Instead, eat when you are hungry throughout the day focusing on proteins and healthy fats. Things to do 𝓓𝓾𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓰: ➍ ACV — Taking Apple cider vinegar 20-30 minutes before your meal will help with 2 things: it helps stimulate adequate stomach acids to help digest your upcoming meal and two, it acts as a great probiotic, stimulating your gut biome for the upcoming task. ACV is also show to help curb appetite naturally. ➎ Eat Slowly — It takes 15-20 minutes for your fullness hormones to register in the brain that you’ve had enough. Eating too fast will almost always result in over-eating. ➏ Have more protein and fats — Of the 12+ hormones that signal fullness, NONE of them are activated by carbs (that’s why you can overeat carbs so easily). Therefore choose more protein and fats during your meal and keep carbs to a smaller portion. Extra points if your carbs are from whole, fresh versions (sweet potatoes, potatoes, veggies). ➐ Eat Carbs LAST — Several recent studies have shown a significant reduction in post-prandial (after meal) glucose levels if you eat carbs last! This means less insulin dump which means less fat storage signaling. So you don’t need to skip carbs, just eat them last! Things to do 𝓐𝓯𝓽𝓮𝓻: ➑ Have your wine AFTER dinner. — Having a cocktail before (or even with) dinner will pause metabolism of your food until the calories from alcohol are burned. That means everything you eat will be converted to fat and “dealt with later”. Have wine at the end of your meal (like suggestion #7 but in this case you’re ‘drinking’ your carbs). ➒ Go for a walk — Or dance. Or move your body. Burn the calories you’ve just eaten with movement. Walking will also help activate your lymphatic system, detoxing and digestion. When you move, your muscles will help clear the glucose in your blood stream, decreasing insulin and helping not only with bloating but also reducing fat storage! ➓ Coffee (or Tea) and Cream before dessert — Before reaching for dessert, have a cup of coffee or tea with a Splash of heavy cream. Giving your body this final push of healthy fats may be just enough to “cap” your meal; lessening your desire for dessert. At the very least it may prevent you from eating a ton of dessert. In the end, celebrate your WINS no matter how small. Passed on the sweet potato casserole? Wonderful!!! Only had one serving of dessert? Or one glass of wine? Stellar!!!!!! Healing your relationship with food takes time and is a skill that needs to be practiced. Give yourself grace this season and know that it’s OK to set aside perfection. Soak in the love and joy from being around family and friends (there’s tons of research that say the endorphins from this have great healing power!!) and don’t worry too much about being perfect with your way of eating. There’s always the next day to get right back on track 😉
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The ketogenic diet has ballooned into popularity over the past 2 years, so much so that there seems to be a new product, snack food item and keto company springing up almost nightly. When I ran my marketing firm we focused a lot on the adoption curve. It starts small, gradually increasing until it peaks and then slowly diminishes downward when a product or idea has saturated the market and the initial hype or craze has fallen. In the event of a novel idea, entrepreneurs and investors have to be keen to find the proper time to enter the market in order to take advantage of a growing consumer base and hence the adoption curve. The most ideal time to launch products is between the early adopters and early majority phase just as the adoption curve is gaining momentum. This allows them to capitalize on the market as it peaks and they can make their mega bucks.
This is exactly what’s happening with the ketogenic diet (actually I think we’re actually on the downhill of keto—which I love. I’ll explain below). Keto has slowly gained popularity and companies are taking advantage of consumers who are jumping on the train—so to speak—and selling them products that CLAIM to be ketogenic or keto friendly because their product adheres to only one aspect of the ketogenic diet philosophy, net carbs. Many people who quickly jump on the keto train because they’ve likely heard that a friend of a friend of a friend lost a huge amount of weight on keto. Plus they’ve heard that you could eat burgers and cheese and bacon on this diet and still lose weight as long as you stay away from carbs and sugars and you count your net carbs religiously. Want a skinny vanilla latte? Maybe you can have half because it fits in your net carbs. Unfortunately, friends that’s the wrong concept to focus on. Net carbs is one aspect of keto, but it’s not the foundational concept and because of this, those people on keto and counting net carbs alone and not looking at all the other aspects will likely stall in their weight loss and may still have inflammation in their bodies. The core premise of keto is to remove all aggressive, unsupportive and pro-inflammatory causing foods from your diet so that your body is free to burn fat cleanly and effortlessly. And the premise of using a keto diet to achieve wellness, is to first do the above to swing your wellness pendulum back towards the center (to wellness) and then second, adjust your keto diet to your specific needs (every human is different in their optimal macro and micro nutrient needs) and then thirdly, hone your diet, sleep and exercise to optimize your metabolism for FAT ADAPTATION. Ketosis isn’t the end goal friends, fat adaption and metabolic flexibility is. This can only happen when your metabolism—your cells, hormones, hormonal signals—are all functioning at their best. And how do we do this? By getting rid of the unsupportive foods in your diet. Now we circle back to our keto food companies (and not all keto food companies have it out for you. There are some wonderful brands that truly understand what keto veterans and keto purists are trying to achieve). Many companies that tout a keto-friendly product, especially the ones that used to NOT have keto products like Orowheat or Nabisco, be particularly skeptical of them. They’ve latched on the net carb idea, and have created a product that looks good when you do the math, but still contains inflammatory causing ingredients, circumventing the entire core premise of keto all together. What are these ingredients? Here are the ingredients I have my clients AVOID:
Bottomline, if you are looking for true, long lasting weight loss, weight management and health, then please don’t just count net carbs. Be a nutrition label detective and read the ingredients carefully. Many keto products contain some or all of these pro-inflammatory ingredients. If you’re eating these keto products, the argument is that they are better than the standard American alternative—yes I agree. But are they supporting your efforts or sabotaging you? If keto didn’t work for you, I invite you to look at your version of keto and see if any of these foods or products snuck into your diet. It could have been the reason your weight stalled. There is a whole spectrum of keto foods from questionable to super clean. The cleaner you eat, the better and quicker you will see results. Will you EVER be able to enjoy your treat foods again? My answer is generally, "YES you can." However, this timeframe would generally happen after your healing period. What surprises many people is that after they spend the time to heal and strengthen their metabolism and change their relationship with food, they find that they don't even want these manufactured keto products anymore. If that sounds like an unattainable reality, then I encourage you to keep on trucking. Keep moving forward on your keto journey, trust the process and stay focused. When you give your body time, sleep and proper nutrients, the world opens up and that is really when you can truly experience food freedom. Lasting and effortless weight loss is possible friends. Just remember to keep it keto! The kids are asleep, the kitchen is clean and put away, but you aren’t super tired yet. Do you turn on the tv and watch your favorite show for an hour (or two)? If you are like most moms, we tend to justify our answer by classifying this time as “mom-time” or “filling our cup” with something we want to do after a long day at the office and then tending to our kids. But what exactly are we trading in for that extra hour of screen time? The reality is, quite A LOT. Remember when our children were babies and all the experts told us that setting up a night time routine for them was the recipe to get them to sleep through the night? If you were like me, you heeded the advice and set, like clockwork, every night a bath ritual (complete with a song), massaging, lowering the lights, nursing and a little rocking, then placing them in their beds, tucking them in, shutting off the lights and closing the door. Sound familiar? Yup, we did this for them, but never, ever did we think twice about what sleep and rest can do for us. The answer is LEAPS AND BOUNDS. When we don’t get enough sleep our bodies enter a slight state of stress. Cortisol, our stress hormone, stays elevated throughout the day making us agitated and uneasy. It also raises our insulin hormones, which if you remember is our master fat storage hormone. When your insulin levels are high, your body is in fat storage mode. Further, when it is chronically high (day in and day out), then your fat storage lever is jammed in the on position with no quick way to turn it off. Cortisol also stimulates hunger. Since your body is “stressed” (but really just tired), your brain thinks you don’t or won’t have enough energy to get through the day, so it forces you to eat. But not just ANY food, it trains your body to seek out foods that can deliver quick bursts of energy. Can you guess what those are? Yes, carbohydrates and sugars—the junk food!!! Studies have shown that a person can change their insulin sensitivity to that of a pre-diabetic in just 2 days of inadequate sleep! That extra hour doesn’t sound so great afterall, right? Here some things you can do to improve your sleep (HINT: give yourself a night time routine, mama!): Set the environment The best ambient temperature for humans is about 65°. Adults should target a room temperature of 60-65° while children and infants ambient temperatures should 65-68° because the cool air can stir them more than it can an adult. Why so cold? The human body naturally gets warmer during sleep. The body opens blood vessels which raises the body’s temperature slightly in a process called vasodilation. When you think of the purpose of sleep, which is your body’s time to repair, opening blood vessels makes so much sense because by doing so, it helps more efficiently transport oxygen and vitamins and minerals to our cells, muscles, neurons, etc. that are repairing or regenerating and filter and carry away toxins. (The human body is soooooo cool!) Turn off all the lights Studies have shown that even the smallest amount of light can effect our circadian rhythm. That’s because our bodies are biologically wired to respond to light. When our cells detect light they stimulate the release serotonin which directly stops the brain’s production of melatonin, initiating wakefulness. So, turn off all the lights in your room. Yes, even your VCR and digital alarm clock light! Shut off your devices 1 hour before bed This goes along with the tip above about hormone secretion from light. Once the sum sets, our brain responds by producing and excreting melatonin from our pineal gland. This calms us down and prepares our body for sleep. In our technology centered world this natural signaling is disrupted by our devices—ipads, kindles, phones, computers and TV. These light emitting devices keeps our serotonin production high which keeps us artificially awake but our bodily systems tired and ready for repair (which is essentially what rest is for). A good rule of thumb is to turn off your devices at least 30 minutes before bed—I like to recommend 1 hour so that your body can really prepare for rest. Front load your sleep Well, I’ll just sleep in on the weekend or stay in bed a little longer in the morning. Unfortunately it doesn’t work this way. Studies have shown that it is much more effective to front-load your sleep and get to bed earlier. Because our bodies naturally work with the rising and setting of the sun, once the day begins, chances are your body will be in a wakeful mode. Have you ever stayed up late and then still woke up at your normal time the next morning no matter how hard you try to sleep in? This is a direct example of your body doing its natural job. Try going to bed 30 minutes earlier than you normally do. Do this for a week or two and then gradually increase the time until you’ve found a nice sweet-spot in your sleep quality. Go for a walk after dinner Studies have shown that a quick 20 minute walk after dinner each night can increase the quality of your sleep—which is a great thing. Ecotherapists claim that a walk can help impact the production of neurotransmitters like melatonin which can encourage more deep sleep. Walks have also been shown to reduce stress and work to reset your circadian rhythm. So instead of dessert, try going on a walk after dinner! Monitor your sleep with an app Has this really struck a cord for you? Know that not everyone needs a full 8-9 hours of rest a day. Just like with everything else, people’s needs are individual. Some need 6 others 9 and if you have been chronically sleep deprived you may need more in the beginning and then your needs may level off or taper down. The only way to know how much you will need is some experimentation and a sleep app. I use my apple watch and an app called Pillow to monitor my sleep. You can see data like resting heart rate, etc and see a relative sleep score. I am not a sleep expert, but you can quickly see how adjusting your sleep duration can have massive effects on your sleep quality. Whatever you do, do your best to make sleep (and consistent sleep) a priority. Don’t sabotage your weight loss journey by not getting enough sleep. It’s something that isn’t hard and doesn’t cost nY money to do; but it has immense implications for your total health and wellness! The ideas, concepts and opinions expressed herein are intended to be used for EDUCATION PURPOSES ONLY. These documents are published and distributed with the understanding that Arlene Santos and This Keto Family are not rendering medical advice of any kind, nor is intending to replace medical advice, nor to diagnose, prescribe or treat any disease, condition, illness or injury. It is imperative that before beginning any diet or exercise program, including any aspect of the ketogenic program, you receive full medical clearance from a licensed physician.
Yes, it happens to the best of us and even to the most dedicated. I often tell family and friends not to worry about what I’ll eat at a party or event. Most of the time there is a satisfactory number of primal keto friendly food options and even if there isn’t, I’ve been on this journey long enough where I’m calorically efficient and not easily swayed by sweets or treats. The problem mostly lies with my clients who are newly keto or primal. The temptations run high when you’ve just started your keto transition. This is because your body still has strong psychological attachments to food—and not only that, there’s a HUGE chemical component too that is almost impossible to escape by pure will alone. You see our bodies function and react based on the signals it receives from stimuli like sights, sounds, environmental triggers and yes, food! The food we eat trigger hormonal cascades throughout our bodies influencing how we react. For example, eating large amount of carbs and sugars will signal an insulin cascade as the body reacts to remove excess sugar from our bloodstream. When insulin does its job too well, your insulin levels plummet and you get the all to familiar hangry which forces you to gorge on some more pizza, snacks, etc. The glucose also bonds to similar “happy” receptors in our brain and stimulates the brain to release dopamine and opioids; essentially eliciting a “high” similar to what you get from the use of recreational drugs. And just like with addictive substances, when these happy hormone levels plummet, your brain will crave more. Are you seeing a pattern? Your body will react to what you put in it. People that claim they are “addicted” to sugar, quite literally are because their bodies are stuck in the ebbs and flows of hormones that are too strong for our bodies to ignore. Now do you see why our society’s notion of “will power” on any diet is doomed from the beginning? You may be able to get by the first few days, maybe even the first few weeks on will alone, but eventually as your body puts more and more pressure for you to desire these foods, your will power will falter. So what happens when it does? Is your diet ruined? Have you just failed? The short answer is NO. Here’s a few things to remember when your choices were less than perfect: How much did you side step? Be honest with yourself and hold yourself accountable. How large was your treat? Was it a part if a single meal, like an ingredient? An entire meal? An added meal, like a dessert? Or was it a full day (or days) of indulgences? Depending on how large you side-stepped, what you need to do will vary. Also, if you are fat-adapted and metabolically flexible, your body may be able to “bounce” back quickly and you actually don’t need to do *anything* (HINT…This is the ultimate goal…metabolic flexibility. Pretty much a superman model where your body is so optimally tuned, a cheat meal or dessert doesn’t register a blip on your metabolic map.) Get back on track and push forward. First I like to remind my students to take a deep breath. NO you haven’t ruined your diet forever. An NO, you are not a failure. You simply made a side step and all you need to do is step forward again the next day. Have your treat meal/snack/item and then the next meal go back to primal. What if you made several side steps? Yes, it happens. Know that it may be harder to step forward with several side steps or backward steps. You entered that hormone cascade loop again so breaking it might be that much harder—but you can do it! Don’t dwell on your error. The worst thing for you to do is beat yourself up for your indulgence. Remember our hormone cascades we talked about above? Dwelling on your error and being uber critical on yourself raises your cortisol levels which make you…..eat! Yikes, so don’t dwell, move forward. Try this: Look at your upcoming week and identify areas that you may be less than perfect. Decide before the event how you want to approach the situation. Look at the menu, plan ahead and if all else fails, be ok with your situation and be confident that you can step forward tomorrow. Ride the stored fuel! Chances are a majority of your treat meals will be converted to glycogen (stored form of glucose) and stored in your liver and muscle tissues. When those coffers a full, the excess glucose converts to fat and is stored around our body under our skin (subcutaneous, soft and squishy) or around our vital organs (visceral, the dangerous fat). So what do I mean about riding the stored fuel? Well you want to force your body to burn the fat it just created. Chances are you won’t be full the next day—ever have that happen? Yup, it’s because you have stored fat and your fat cells are sending leptin hormones out that tells your brain, “We have energy. We are full.” The problem when we eat based on schedule—“It’s noon so I have to eat lunch”, vs waiting until our body sends us true signals. So begin to listen to your hunger cues and eat a bit less each meal the next day or wait an hour to have your breakfast. Burn the stored fuel! Another way to deal with your extra stored energy is to use it. Go on a morning walk and another after dinner. Exercise is a great way to burn extra energy (aka fat), but be cautious not to over do it. Excessive exercise and exercise too strenuous for your fitness level will only make you tired, run down and EXTRA hungry at the end. Intermittent Fasting Depending on your fat adaptation and where you are with primal nutrition level, you can try to intermittent fast the day following a treat meal or a larger side-step. Similar to riding your stored fuel above, intermittent fasting is a safe practice that switches on the repair and recovery mode of our bodies and will use stored fuel (aka fat) for energy! If you’ve never IFed before, I suggest you do not jump to this option. You have to work up your fasting muscle slowly so jumping in cold turkey may be doing more bad than good. Even if you do nothing special after a treat meal/side-step, the key is to step forward the next day. Get back to eating keto or primal. Get back to basics and trust that your body will level itself out within a day or two. So one treat meal here or there isn’t going derail you too much. As long as you don’t make it a habit you don’t sweat the small hiccups. The ideas, concepts and opinions expressed herein are intended to be used for EDUCATION PURPOSES ONLY. These documents are published and distributed with the understanding that Arlene Santos and This Keto Family are not rendering medical advice of any kind, nor is intending to replace medical advice, nor to diagnose, prescribe or treat any disease, condition, illness or injury. It is imperative that before beginning any diet or exercise program, including any aspect of the ketogenic program, you receive full medical clearance from a licensed physician.
Have you tried these juice boxes yet? The minute I saw them in my local grocery store I knew we had to try them. Now my kids don't actually drink juice. Come to think of it they mostly drink water or milk on a daily basis. My oldest likes sparking water and there is an occasional Gatorade Zero for him. Contrast that with how I grew up with a huge bottle of Sunny Delight and Sweet Teas in the fridge. Woahâsmall mom win for me! Woot Woot!
I am also very well aware that my children don't have the same things as other kidsâmostly by choice, but I certainly don't want them to feel weird or outcasted or deprived in any way. So when there are products like this that align with my desire to keep them low-carb and free from sugar and/or processed foods, I'm all for it. Ingredients The package boasted 1g of Sugar and only 5 calories per juice box. Plus there is "No added Sugar". I was skeptical of the taste, though the back did show monk fruit as the sweetener. I decided to give it a try and see what the consensus was. As for me, the no sugar and natural sweetener option sat well with me. I gave it the first 3 stars off the bat. Kid-Friendly The packaging is very fun and cute. Ok, why is this even being reviewed you may ask. Well, when you are presenting a new lifestyle with the potential of "no sugar" to three children under 8 years old, the probability of complete and total buy-in at the beginning of anything new is low. The cute characters and bright colors make it look "fun" so in my opinion, the kids are more willing to try it. "Yeah, my kids' don't pay attention to the packaging," you say? I kinda thought so too until my 5 year old said, "Oh, can we do this? Adults vs kids." I was all, "what are you talking about?" Then she goes, "This. On the juice box. The fun fruit kids are playing tug-a-war with the Mommy pineapple!"..... TouchĂŠ my friends. They DO pay attention and it matters to them. So therefore another star for the packaging and kid-friendliness. Price Now for price. My grocery store sells a pack of 6 for $4.49, about $0.75/per juice box. Our prior go-to juice box averages at $0.42/per juice box but is sweetened with sugar and has more carbs/sugars per serving. We're certainly not talking hundreds of dollars here, but comparatively speaking, the Rethink juice boxes are almost twice as expensive as "the leading brand". Luckily my grocery store has had these on sale for a few weeks now and so I'm paying $0.63/per juice box. But honestly even if they weren't on sale I would still buy these and spend a little extra so that I know that my kids are getting quality ingredients. The whole argument that kids can handle processed crap better because they have been metabolisms is flawed and sad. Their bodies are trying to develop under all the inflammatory stress. Why do you think there are so many cases of asthma and autism these days? Ok thats a post for another day, but for now, another star for price! Kids' Review They were so excited to open these up. Every time I ask them to try something new they always ask, "It is keto?" I guess I should be proud they are aware of what keto means...or maybe I should be worried I've made mini keto police monsters ?. They of course have to try all the flavors (my grocery store only carried 3 flavors, but their website says there are 5 flavors). Their little eyes lit up with the first sip and three little thumbs shot straight up in the air. "Good?" I asked. "DEEEELICIOUS!" said my youngest. "Mmmm tasty" said my middle. "Can I have all the flavors tonight?" said my oldest (always the negotiator). Where to find them? If you can't find these in your store, lucky for you Amazon carries them in bulk, packages of 32 boxes.
Itâs sunscreen season folks! This Keto family spent all day in the water trying to beat the heat. To us summer is another opportunity to keep toxins off our bodies (after all your skin is your largest organ) while still protecting us from the suns rays.
Iâve been working on a natural sunscreen formula with naturally derived protection from essential oils for UVA and added non-nano zinc oxide for UVB rays. Coconut oil and Shea butter adds to the SPF and beeswax makes it water proof!! ALSO...added powdered cocoa (just a little) for a brown tint (woohoo!)â if youâre dark skinned like us, most all natural sunscreens on the market are super white and pasty and hard to spread. This was easily spreadable and the color blended in perfectly into our tan complexions!! The results? 1 initial application, 6+ hours of direct sun/swimming and ZERO burns! Hereâs some interesting facts about the naturally occurring SPF of certain oils and ingredients:
What is so bad about normal sunscreens? ??ââď¸Many sunscreens on the market contain hormone disrupting chemicals that inhibit or interfere with our own bodyâs hormones and cell receptors. They are shown to contribute to organ system toxicity and even reproductive toxicity as well as contain pesticides. Not to mention their effects on the aquatic life are detrimental. The main 3 bad-news chemicals are:
Why make your own?
Not a DIYer? No worries, Young Living sells are GREAT all-natural, essential oils infused sun block. Who's Young Living? Young Living is a leading essential oil company with a global footprint and customer base. They own 9 farms worldwide and also partner with farms that uphold their high standards of farming, harvesting and distilling essential oils. They have set the standard on their "Seed to Seal" philosophy of planting only the best seeds in their native soil and use organic and sustainable farming methods. Young Living has over 600 products in their system including an FDA approved Vitality Line of essential oilsâmeaning oils in this line can be safely ingested. Young Living delivers 100% pure therapeutic grade essential oils and essential oil infused products to help its customers live toxin-free lives. I only recommend using Young Living oils because of the quality and purity of their products. Their oils aren't filled with synthetic fillers, making them super effective. And let's be honest, when it comes to our healthâand in this case, our skinâwhy wouldn't you want the purest essential oils on the market? Visit their website here for more information on their history and philosophies. Ready to buy oils? Become a Young Living member. Get member perks as well as 24% member pricing on all products. Need more help? Contact me!
Recipe Yields: Approximately 6 oz of sunscreen
Ingredients: 1/4 cup Shea butter 1/2 cup fractionated coconut oil (for double batch, only use 3/4 cup coconut oil) 2 tbsp beeswax (optional for water proofing) 2 tbsp non-nano zinc oxide 1/2-1 teaspoon of unsweetened cocoa** (optional for a tint or use Savvy minerals foundation) 20 drops raspberry seed oil 15 drops carrot seed EO (about 1 tsp) 10 drops Royal Hawaiian Sandlewood (optional) 10 drops Geranium or Lavender
Steps:
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Let’s get something straight here. The Keto lifestyle is NOT bacon, cheese and hot dogs all day every day. It is NOT eating pork rinds dipped in cheese or eating blocks of butter (at least not all the time...although I’ve been known to eat a small pat of butter as I’m cooking LOL). The Keto lifestyle IS an ultra low carb, moderate protein and high HEALTHY fat diet. It is a diet with therapeutic values and has been used as a therapy for CHILDREN with epilepsy since the 1920s (Can you tell me of another “diet” that has been/is being prescribed to people as a therapy and treatment??) It IS a diet who’s emphasis is on WHOLE, NATURAL and FRESH, NOT processed food. It IS a diet who’s main source of carbohydrate intake comes from vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and nut flours. So my question is, what is so wrong about that? Lately I've seen and heard other people guilting parents into thinking that "going keto" is wrong and unhealthy. I believe that keto and low carb is lifestyle that can most definitely be adopted by children as long as you, parents, use some common sense and best judgments. Here's what I mean. Children need nutrients to grow, yes. But what they DON’T NEED is processed and refined sugars. They don’t NEED processed carbohydrates or inflammation-causing ingredients like highly processed “vegetable oils” [canola, soybean, etc], dyes, artificial flavors, antibiotics, fillers or any other food garbage that's traditionally present in the Standard American Diet foods. Children NEED nutrients, I whole-heartedly agree. Just let those come from good, natural, wholesome, non-gmo, all organic ingredients. This is what Keto has done for our family. We focus on these real foods and avoid anything "food-like" or in the words of Michael Pollen, "fake food." I am actually so tired of people commenting to parents who’ve adopted this lifestyle that they are “hurting” their children. And I’m sorry, giving your children gold fish and fruit rollups with processed garbage is giving your kids the “right” nutrients for growth?? Some of these people claim to be the “experts” yet they actually know very little about the principals of actual Keto. So if you are a Keto mom or Keto parent looking to bring healthy foods back into your home, then YES! Ketofy your kids! It can be done. We certainly are not the "experts", but we've done it—we're still doing it (progress over perfection, right?) If we can do it, I have no doubt you can too. Here's some things we've learned. Here’s just a few things to keep in mind:
More and more families lately are making a conscious decision to reduce or remove processed and refined carbs from their diets. I applaud you mamas (and dads). This is not something you should feel guilty for. Use your best judgement and what works for your family. I have no doubt if you incorporate the right carbs and foods, you’ll find your own success. Even family is different—so do what works for you. Keto-On!
Snacks, snacks and more snacks. I recently posted about cleaning out our pantry and how transitioning my kids to Keto has been a challenge. We got there, most of the time, but getting them to try and love Keto food was difficult, especially the snack arena â mainly because there wasnât any. This time last year (and even 6 months ago at that), there werenât very many pre-packaged Keto friendly snacks on the store shelves, which made a lot of sense because strict Keto revolves around eating clean, wholesome food low in carbohydrates and sugars with minimal to no preservatives. And letâs face it, most OG food manufacturers werenât going to reformulate or rethink their foods or processes just because the popularity of the Keto diet had grown.
This made packing lunches for my kids â who did not want to eat a salad or cut up celery with deli meat every day â a huge Challenge. My kids longed to have ânormalâ food which meant mainly convenience food: chips, cookies...aka snacks, and I longed for ânormal foodâ to be healthy and wholesome. Fast forward to now where I think Keto has reach critical mass. Companies are realizing that this isnât a âfadâ diet and people (and families like ours) are now committing to âliving Ketoâ for good. Im excited to see more and more innovative and health-conscious companies pop-up with food and snack options that are keto, paleo, whole30 friendlyâYEAH!! But donât be fooled, some âhealthyâ foods still have high net carbs, so read the labels. Hereâs a list of some foods weâve come to LOVE and have graced our Keto pantry. Click on the links below to be redirected to Amazon. Our Current Snack Favs
Click on the images below to go to Amazon.
â(This page contains affiliate links.) Can I be the first one to admit that adulting is hard @*# work? There's so much pressure in today's uber-visible world to be the best mom, the best wife, the coolest, the smartest, the skinniest, the most organized...yadda yadda yadda. I know I can get all the help I can get and lean on my tribe of mamas who are WAY BETTER at doing certain things to help me fill my gaps.
Stay tuned for posts, reviews (keto and not) as well as life hacks I've figured out (or ehem stumbled upon) as I post them here. It takes a village more than ever — let me start by sharing some of my golden nuggest! |
AuthorArlene Santos is a Certified Health & Nutrition Coach and works with women and families to implement achievable nutrition plans centered around primal, nutrient dense foods that are easy to prepare, kid-friendly and delicious. She believes that every woman and mother deserves to feel energized, focused, healthy, lean, happy and confident. As purveyors of nutrition within our own households, mothers have a unique opportunity to change the definition of "healthy foods" in their families. Arlene empowers women to take back their own health, fill and strengthen their cups, so they can advocate for wellness in their families. Archives
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