Seeing as I am broken in body, and have some difficulty moving about I started a new regime to lose some weight. Basically, no sugar or carbs, lots of green leafy vegetables and healthy fats. Some, including the missus think all fats are unhealthy. 3 weeks in and I'm down 11 pounds, or about 3 kilo's. Feeling pretty good too! Anyway, looking for some new way to cook old favorites. All input welcome.
I'm familiar with the diet. Back in the day it was referred to as Atkins though it's been popular since the 20's I think, and has gone by many names. It's basically a high protein low carb diet. It forces the body into ketosis which results from the breakdown of fats in the liver. In this state the body switches over from burning glucose (or sugar) to dietary fat. One of the things I missed most was mashed potatoes as a side to the meat portion of a meal. I'm a "meat 'n' two" gal, so substituting the carbs in that combination was always a challenge. I found this, which I loved!! Still love, and sometimes make it anyway, even though I haven't followed the diet for a long time, just because it tastes yummy! Now that I follow a low calorie diet I vary the recipe and make low cal substitutions. It's a very forgiving recipe, and you can add or subtract the various flavoring ingredients without much impact. There's even frozen chopped cauliflower now in the frozen food section of the store, so you can eliminate all that chopping if you want something faster! Let me know how you like it! Ingredients Creamy Mash Cauliflower 5 cups cauliflower chopped 4 tbsp Heavy Whipping Cream 3 tbsp Butter 5 cloves garlic minced 2 tsp rosemary 3 tbsp parmesan 1/2 tsp pepper salt (to taste) Chop up 5 cups of raw cauliflower. Bring pot of water to a boil (enough to cover all the cauliflower), add the cauliflower and boil for 15 minutes or until tender. Drain cauliflower and place in processor. Cook butter, garlic and rosemary in a saucepan over medium heat until fragrant. Add melted butter, garlic and rosemary to processor and pulse several times until well combined. Add cream, parmesan, salt and pepper to processor and process until smooth and creamy. Taste for salt level. Serve warm and enjoy!
Keto is Atkins on steroids. The Atkins diet phases carbs out and back in, while limiting fat. Keto starts out low carb and goes lower. It's also called a low carb/high fat diet. The goal is to maintain 25 grams of net carbs (total carbs minus fiber) per day. The trick is to avoid anything with wheat based flour or sugar, and to up the amount of fat and fiber in your diet. There are a lot of good Keto recipes out there, I recommend https://www.reddit.com/r/ketorecipes/ You'll probably find all of your favorite are out there and have been "ketofied".
Thanks Ronni, cauliflower? Really? Don't think I'm odd because I don't like cauliflower. I'm odd anyway. ER, I hadn't found that site, thanks.
Honey you can make it taste not much like cauliflower at all depending on what you put in it, because it's such a bland vegetable. If you add cheese, butter, sour cream etc., (all allowable on your diet pretty sure) or other flavorings of your choice, you get the experience of mashed potatoes as an appropriate accompaniment, without the carbs.
I'm willing to try it again, there is just this predisposition to, I don't know......I'll report back!
I love cauliflower but no one in my family will have anything to do with it. The frozen mashed cauliflower in the freezer section is good all fixed up like Ronni suggests, but I still prefer the large pieces cooked with butter. Just keep telling your self that it is just a carrier for cheese, butter and sour cream. Actually with all the fixin's in it there is no taste of cauliflower at all.
If you have Netflix, watch the documentary called "The Magic Pill", it explains rhe benefits of a Keto diet in great detail. It's also on YouTube It runs about an hour and a half, but it's well worth the time.
Only trick to losing weight is to work off more calories than you take in ! I put my " now ex-hubby" on a diet and he lost 30 lbs in 30 days ! Just a balanced diet eliminating the fats,,6 oz lean meat either broiled baked or boiled, all the fresh green vegetables you want with no butter or fat, one slice bread per meal or 2 inch square cornbread with one serving of starches,, beans peas corn ect ! Worked for him !
Low, very low carbs, high protein worked and veggies for me and your body needs fat to survive so be careful about cutting it all out. I have to have more protein because of hypoglycemia and I really have not missed the carbs......potatoes are my only carb. I went from an almost size 18 to a size 12, don't remember the time frame.
That diet was only a short term and not intended as a lifestyle. But when you learn how to trim the fats without missing everything fried its not so hard to maintain healthier eating habits !
Why not give us a few of your favorites and let us see how they can be made healthier. We may have some new ideas for old favorites. We just don`t know what your favorites are ! You can also mix the cauliflower 50/50 with mashed potatoes .
Keto diet, huh? Cutting out sugar and carbs while focusing on green veggies and healthy fats can be really effective. I’ve had to tweak my diet a lot too. I used <LINK REMOVED BY MOD> to boost my fitness routine, and it made a big difference in my overall energy. For cooking old favorites, try swapping out high-carb ingredients for keto-friendly options. Cauliflower rice instead of regular rice, or almond flour instead of wheat flour for baking, can work wonders. I’ve found that making small changes to recipes can keep things interesting without sacrificing flavor.
It always seems interesting when a really old topic returns. I thought I would share what I'm doing lately. I share my life with a diabetic who wears a continuous glucose monitor and takes a medication. I am not diagnosed diabetic but I have had pre-diabetes for many years. My doctors have never mentioned this. My weight also falls in the low range of obese category. Again with the doctors. For six months I've been taking prednisone for a lung condition. Those symptoms improved late summer and I finished weaning off, last week. Side effects include diabetes and weight gain. I was concerned about developing diabetes. So I started myself on a continuous glucose monitor (CGM). I was not surprised, but was disappointed, at high readings. So I started cutting out foods that caused glucose spikes on the CGM. Basically, everything I like . It's ironic because I always hated being tethered to my I-phone and now, since the CGM app is on the Iphone, I carry it everywhere. Ditto with my Apple watch which monitors my activity and oxygen levels. A side effect of all of this is that I'm much more informed about what foods increase my blood sugar. Some were quite disappointing. For example, I spent about an hour reading breakfast cereal labels to find no-sugar-added types. Guess what? For dry cereal it boiled down to two brands, of the hundreds (?) in my big corporation grocery store. That was a shredded wheat type with bran. Trying it (great for the fiber content) my blood sugar shot up from 110 to 185 in 30 min. @#$&#!. Also, I like a broccoli salad which contains a small amount of apple and dried cranberries. Not as much, but blood sugar still shot up from 110 to 145. My personal goal blood sugar is 70 to 140 with average 115. Sadly, heirloom tomatoes (arrgghh) have that effect too, although less and not sauce tomatoes. The only thing I seem to miss is potato chips. Double #$@%!. They are my drug addiction. No more Oh, and dumplings. And French fries. Even whole grain barley and brown rice raise my sugar. I'm convinced that I'm at least insulin resistant although tests have never indicated actual diabetes. This is complicated because I'm vegetarian over 45 years, and wont ever change that. I do eat dairy and eggs. So. Now I eat very low carb. The blood sugar is 100% in range, average 119. When I start to see a rise, say above 125, I get up and walk around. Garden chores also help. I have a good, comfortable indoor bike, which I've been using a lot now. That also helps. I have a chili that causes zero increase in blood sugar - black bean, mushroom, and lentil. Very tasty and satisfying. Also a variety of other bean recipes, very satisfying and filling. I have eggs, usually omelet, for breakfast. Eating more tofu. For snacks, usually deviled eggs (sometimes) or flax crackers with cheese. Those contain only flax seed and are easy to make. I don't have much craving. Minimal. I never believed in the keto diet or lifestyle. That is partly because it counters everything I've been taught, I think a lot of propaganda about the food pyramid and American Diabetes Association / American Heart Association about healthy carbs. But it seems that's what I'm doing. I bought test strips from Amazon. They verify that. Without caring much about weight, I have 4 ounces left to lose and I'll be out of the obese category. I have lost ten pounds this month. I think I need to lose at least 15 more pounds to see if I can reverse the insulin resistance. Here is an interesting Ted Talk video by a doctor at Purdue University. I don't believe everything doctors say, or every Ted talk (more than a grain of salt in my always skeptical mind) but I found it compelling. Also this one, but remembering that youtube contains every opinion on everything and many contradict each other emphatically. So that's my 2 cents, so far, on keto diet. Not recommending anything for anyone, just describing what I'm thinking about and doing at the moment. To be honest, I don't know who is right.
