Craving something sweet on Keto? These are REALLY simple and tasty! Seriously 4-6 ingredients is all. This recipe only makes a tiny batch of low carb cookies (8-12), so if you are wanting a bigger batch, double up for sure!
The nuts here are optional. I actually used some of my previously made keto granola on top since it had a mix of pecans, pistachios and almonds. You can also add cinnamon, but again, totally optional!
These keto cookies would be great for a gathering like a potluck with keto and non-keto people alike!
Ingredients
Scale
1 cup Almond Flour
¼ cup Confectioners Erythritol/Monk Fruit
3 tbsp Butter, softened (I like Kerrygold)
1 tsp Vanilla
Crushed nuts, amount desired (optional)
1 pinch Cinnamon (optional)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350F and prepare cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Combine all the ingredients well until a soft dough is formed (nuts can be added in or sprinkled on top if you’re using them.
Roll into small balls (I used a small cookie dough scoop) and drop evenly onto cookie sheet.
Press criss crosses into each cookie with a fork then bake at 350F for 10 minutes.
This salad is really delicious and perfect if you like to make things ahead that you can use for lunches and sides for the next several days. Of course, as I post this we are in the holiday season, so it would be an ideal dish for gatherings!
I personally love brussels sprouts, but if you don’t, I encourage you to still give it a try! When they are shredded, tossed with citrus dressing, bacon and cheese, ummm….you might have an entirely different opinion of brussels sprouts!
Aside from taste and all that, these little green guys pack a punch when it comes to nutrients! Here’s the nutrient profile of these cruciferous veggies according to Dr. Axe:
A half cup of boiled Brussels sprouts (about 78 grams) provides approximately:
28.1 calories
5.5 grams carbohydrates
2 grams protein
0.4 gram fat
2 grams fiber
109 microgram vitamin K (137 percent DV)
48.4 milligrams vitamin C (81 percent DV)
604 international units vitamin A (12 percent DV)
46.8 micrograms folate (12 percent DV)
0.2 milligram manganese (9 percent DV)
0.1 milligram vitamin B6 (7 percent DV)
247 milligrams potassium (7 percent DV)
0.1 milligram thiamine (6 percent DV)
0.9 milligram iron (5 percent DV)
0.1 milligram riboflavin (4 percent DV)
15.6 milligrams magnesium (4 percent DV)
43.7 milligrams phosphorus (4 percent DV)
Brussels sprouts nutrition also contains some vitamin E, niacin, pantothenic acid, choline, betaine, calcium, zinc, copper and selenium.
Lots of reasons to love them and include them regularly in your diet. One of my favorite things about cruciferous vegetables in general is their liver loving power! They are full of phytonutrients, carotenoids, flavonoids, and glucosinolates that help neutralize toxins and support the liver in order to do its job of detoxing the body.
Ingredients
Scale
1 Lemon
1 Orange
1 Shallot, minced
½ cup Olive or Avocado Oil
Salt and Pepper, to taste
6 Slices Bacon, cooked & crumbled
2 dozen, Brussels Sprouts
1 cup Almonds, chopped
1 cup Romano Cheese, grated
Instructions
Cook and crumble the bacon, set aside.
Squeeze the juice from the lemon and orange into a medium sized bowl. Add the minced shallot.
Gradually pour the oil into the juice/shallot mixture while whisking continuously. You should notice the mixture turning from clear to more opaque and creamy looking.
Add desired amount of salt and pepper and place dressing in the refrigerator while prepping the rest of the salad.
Cut any remaining stems off of your clean brussels sprouts and shred in a food processor.
Place shredded brussels sprouts in a large serving/salad bowl.
Chop the almonds and add 3/4 of them plus the grated cheese, crumbled bacon and dressing to the shredded brussels sprouts (you can leave the dressing on the side and mix in later as an option. I like to let it marinate so I do it all at once).
Toss the salad well to incorporate all the ingredients. Top individual servings with some of the remaining chopped almonds.
The holidays can be a really hard time when it comes to temptations and trying to stay on track with healthy eating. Thankfully there are some truly delicious ways of “indulging” without regretting it later.
NOW, I have to preface this with the fact that I am all about having a treat here and there with ZERO guilt! A couple of caveats: if you are sensitive to certain foods, those don’t count as “treats”! I do not at all find it worth having things that send you backwards with your health! The other things is that I would encourage that treats still have very high quality ingredients, organic when possible, gluten free if necessary!
These brownies do have some applesauce in the recipe which might cause keto people to twitch…but, fear not! There is only 1/2 a cup of unsweetened applesauce in the entire recipe which, depending on the size of the brownie might amount to 1 carb per brownie from the applesauce.
I do not believe in “keto foods”. Instead, I encourage a whole foods, nutrient dense approach to keto that involves using foods to help reach a ketogenic metabolic process. This means you can have a little applesauce within a recipe if the overall carbs are still low, keeping blood sugar stable.
Here’s where to get some of my favorite ingredients:
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Ingredients
Scale
Brownies
6 tbsp Butter (grass fed) or coconut oil
½ cup Dark Chocolate chips (I use Lily’s)
1 Egg
1 Egg Yoke
½ tsp Vanilla
½ cup Applesauce (unsweetened)
¾ cup Almond Flour
½ cup Cocoa Powder
3 tbsp Monk fruit or Erythritol
¼ tsp Salt
¼ tsp peppermint extract
Peppermint Frosting
½ cup Cream Cheese, full fat
2 tbsp powdered erythritol
¼ tsp peppermint extract
Instructions
Brownies
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease an 8″ square pan with butter or coconut oil.
Melt the chocolate chips and butter/coconut oil together in a small pot over low/med heat until just melted, and stirring until completely smooth.
I use Lily’s Chocolate Chips as they are low carb and sweetened with stevia.
Stir in the whole egg and the yolk, vanilla, and applesauce.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients (almond flour, cocoa powder, monk fruit or erythritol, and salt) and then stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth into an even layer.
Bake at 350 for 35 minutes or until set.
Peppermint Frosting
While the brownies are baking, in a medium sized bowl, add all of the frosting ingredients and mix until well combined and smooth.
Let the brownies cool all the way before frosting. I put them in the fridge or freezer for at least an hour once they are almost all the way cool so that the frosting goes on smoothly without sticking to the brownie and creating a mess.
Option: add some Christmas sprinkles made with natural ingredients! You can find a link to some good ones in the ingredients section!
How do you lose weight without slowing down your metabolism or losing your mind?
Gone are the days of low fat and calorie restriction…right? Are they? I’m not so sure.
If you are low carb you totally don’t have to worry about calories, right? Wait, is that true? I’m so confused.
If you ask people about either of these subjects I can promise you will receive different responses and they will be all across the board. You will likely become quite confused and left wondering “now what?”
Calories are a tricky thing. The first thing to understand is that the way your body metabolizes a calorie will be different than how it works for your best friend or neighbor and it’s dependent upon many things. In fact, this also is different for your own body in your 20s versus your 40s, etc.
Let’s put age and genetics aside for a moment. What factors impact our metabolisms that we have control over?
Body composition, meaning your body fat % compared with muscle and skeletal mass. Clearly the more muscle and less fat you have going on, the higher your metabolism will be. Good motivation to get to lifting weights or doing some functional fitness using your bodyweight!
Thyroid levels. I go into detail on which labs to have run here, but what you need to understand is that if your doctor checks your TSH only or your TSH and Free T4, that is NOT ENOUGH INFORMATION!! We need TSH, Free t4, Free T3 and Thyroid Antibodies (Thyroid Peroxidase Antibodies [TPOAb] and Thyroglobulin Antibodies [TgAb]) at the very minimum for thyroid labs (yes there are more numbers involved!). Go read that article I linked above because it will also explain how your doctor might look at your labs and say “you’re fine” when you don’t feel fine and it’s because YOU’RE NOT! You need to understand this stuff if you are going to be able to advocate for yourself!
Hormone Balance. This is another one that I dive into more here. but what you need to understand is that the relationship between estrogen and progesterone is extremely important at any age. AND what you need to know is which is higher than the other? If your progesterone is lower than your estrogen, there’s a problem. Even if both hormones are low, If you have more estrogen than progesterone you will experience symptoms of ESTROGEN DOMINANCE which will mimic low thyroid hormone. A couple of these symptoms are slow metabolism and weight gain around the hips and thighs (is this sounding about right?).
Toxic (tox-sick) Load. Yes, our bodies are beautifully designed to detox continually through our skin, digestive system, liver, kidneys, endocrine system and respiratory system; HOWEVER, the culture in which we live in is inundated with toxins through food, electronics, chemicals in our cleaning supplies, scented “everything”, plastics, stress (it’s a toxin), makeup, body products, detergents, etc. Our bodies are OVERLOADED! When this happens, the scale (literally and figuratively) will tip in the wrong direction because toxins store in fat! In addition, the high toxin burden creates systemic inflammation which is part of the whole paradigm when it comes to our hormones, thyroid, adrenals and therefore metabolism.
Now that we have that snapshot of some of the big ones that impact our metabolism, let’s throw another one in there, and it happens to be the topic of this post. CALORIES RESTRICTION.
Calories, while they DO matter, clearly are not a black and white “thing”. We could line 5 people up and all 5 will burn the same food differently, even if they are the same “size”, and that is dependent upon the factors outlined above. What your body needs will be different than mine, for sure. So it really doesn’t make sense to follow some program that is generalized, right? My first word of advice with this is to track what you eat for a few days, being super honest, and then reduce your caloric intake by even just a couple of hundred and go from there.
Here is what we want to avoid: I see many people start to follow some kind of plan (and I am sorry but these plans often include food you have to purchase from them that is just FULL OF CHEMICALS [speaking of toxic]) and they tend to be SUPER low in calorie. Usually it’s around 1200 and below.
Here is the typical scenario:
Let’s call our person Daisy (name of my dog!). Daisy signs up for a weight loss program and is super excited because of all the amazing testimonials she has seen and heard about. She gets all of her products (which cost hundreds of dollars. It was a stretch for her, but she’s sick and tired of…well…being sick and tired, and overweight). She feels super hungry the first few days because they have her at 900 calories and those calories go fast! However, she’s determined and likes that she doesn’t have to plan the food…she just opens a package and there you go! She had a hard time with energy and focus for the first few days because of her low calories but she’s already lost 7 pounds so she’s jazzed and committed to this amazing program.
Fast forward: Daisy ended up losing 13 pounds over just two weeks which was amazing! But things just kind of STOPPED. The scale wouldn’t budge. So, she decided to lower her calories just a tiny bit more and add some HIIT (high intensity interval training) classes in to burn more calories. Thankfully, the scale started moving again! Slower now, but she expected that because “they say” you lose mostly water weight at first.
Once again, however, the scale stalled. Daisy was starting to feel bummed, her energy wasn’t where she had hoped it would be and she could swear her hair was getting thinner.
What’s going on??
According to Dr. Westin Childs, “calorie reduction, especially in hypothyroid patients, will result in the combination of ‘metabolic adaptation’ and ‘thyroid damage’”. What this means is that your body (which is freaking smart) will detect this calorie restriction and interpret as “danger”. From there it will change things up within the metabolism in order to adjust so that the body can do more important things for survival (it is far less concerned with our weight than we are!).
Think of the thermostat in your house…it’s just like this. Your body is designed to regulate itself well, so when things change, it will adjust so that it can reach that state of equilibrium once again. We just don’t always like it!
This is something that people need to take seriously. The way your body reaches that state of equilibrium again is by doing things like lowering the free T3 (this is our active thyroid hormone…we don’t want it to lower!). Or it will raise the reverse T3 which is the hormone that is produced when stress is detected and, unfortunately it will attach to T3 receptor sites but it is inactive, so it is basically blocking those receptor sites from receiving the active thyroid hormone it needs.
Your TSH might not reflect a change at all, or maybe just slightly, therefore if your doctor tests your thyroid and that’s the number he’s most concerned with (SO typical…sadly), he will send you on your merry way with a pat on the back telling you “it sucks getting old”, or something equally helpful.
From here you will go home and “recommit” to your program! You are going to exercise more and harder and eat less or try a different diet altogether! In fact, this is stuff your doctor may have encouraged. In reality, your body is in distress and going “harder” at this will cause the situation to get even worse. Down the road, you will give up because you can’t possibly eat less or exercise more and what’s the point anyway? So, you start eating your “regular” diet again and you could swear you are gaining weight faster. It’s like you just look at food and the scale goes up.
You’re not crazy; your metabolism has slowed down and so the whole scenario is going to be a tough one now.
Big sigh.
If this is you, please know that the very most important thing to focus on now, if you want your body to respond well again, is to send messages to it that it is NOT in danger. You are NOT starving it. It is NOT being over stressed with too much exercise.
This doesn’t mean start eating dozens of donuts and watching hours and hours of TV in the name of selfcare. What it means is easing up, having a balanced approach, and getting some help.
It’s a good idea to know where your thyroid levels are. It’s a good idea to know where your sex hormones are at as well. If you have any imbalances going on in these areas, your body will have a very hard time with weight loss, you will struggle with energy, brain fog, motivation, moods, digestion, sleep, and all the things.
Do I recommend KETO?
Maybe, maybe not. This would require some assessment to see if this fits your lifestyle (it is a commitment) as well as to determine if your body is too stressed to try something like this at the moment. Most importantly if your thyroid is low or adrenals are out of whack you can absolutely do KETO, but it needs to be modified.
Confused? I don’t think this is the kind of advice most people want from a health coach. I mean, where do you go from here? This is not an easy answer, as you should know from reading the above. It all takes a very individual approach.
Please do reach out if you are in this position and feel stuck. I am here to help. I offer free consultations via the phone so we can hash some things out and see if there are some things I can help with. Please head here to my calendar to schedule a consult or simply email me at jess@healthwithjess.com
Now, consider having a healthy snack and going on a gentle walk! <3
I admit, I can’t stand carrots. Can’t STAND them. But I LOVE Carrot Cake. It is hands down my favorite cake! In fact, as a rule I have it on my birthday, every year. Well, except this year. Not sure exactly what happened…I often just make it myself (and I love to!). I had some before my birthday but I didn’t love it and it didn’t have cream cheese frosting so, it didn’t count. 🙂
To make up for it I made some today. It is, after all, still my birthday month! However, I’m done with my big splurges for now, so I made this one a low carb/keto version and it is GOOD!
You can modify this recipe and make it using coconut sugar if you prefer that as a sweetener. As for the cream cheese frosting, if you are vegan I would just go without the frosting. I’m not sure if there is a great dairy free substitute. However, using full fat coconut milk would probably work for some kind of a frosting like topping!
Ingredients
Scale
Cake
½ cup Erythritol (or whatever sweetener you prefer. Adjust amount as needed)
5 tbsp Butter, softened (from grass fed cows)
4 Eggs
2 tbsp Heavy Cream
1 tsp Vanilla
1.50 cups Almond Flour
2 tbsp Coconut Flour
1 tbsp Baking Powder
1.50 tsp Ground Cinnamon
¼ tsp Ground Allspice
½ cup Carrot, finely grated
Cream Cheese Frosting
4 oz Cream Cheese, full fat, softened
2 tbsp Butter, softened (from grass fed cows)
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tbsp Heavy Cream
¼ cup Confectioners Erythritol (again, use your preferred sweetener here)
Instructions
Cake or Cupcakes
Preheat the over to 350F.
Grease a 9″ cake pan with butter or coconut oil OR line muffin tins with paper liners and set aside.
In a large bowl, beat together the erythritol and butter until fluffy.
Add the eggs and beat in. Add the heavy cream and vanilla and mix well.
Add the almond flour, coconut flour, baking powder and spices. Combine well.
Add the shredded carrot and carefully combine using a spoon. Stir just until carrot is well incorporated.
Pour into the cake pan or cupcake liners and bake at 350F for about 15 minutes for cupcakes or 25 for cake. Insert a toothpick into the center of the cupcakes or cake and make sure it comes out clean before removing your goodies from the oven.
Cream Cheese Frosting
In a medium bowl, beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth.
Add the erythritol and vanilla; continue mixing.
Add the heavy cream and mix until your frosting is nice and smooth. You can add more heavy cream as needed, just be sure to add it in very tiny amounts to make sure you don’t make your frosting runny.
Cool your cupcakes or cake completely before frosting! I like to put mine in the fridge or freezer to speed the process, plus the frosting goes on easier when the cupcakes or cake are chilled.
Soup is such a great way to have something super delicious but also nutrient dense! This is one of my absolute favorites! I LOVE using bone broth in soup for all those extra nutrients like collagen, glucosamine, amino acids and gobs of minerals!
If you are a keto/low carb person, you will appreciate the cauliflower in this recipe (although potatoes would be fine as well).
In a large skillet cook pork, onion and garlic over medium heat until meat is browned and onion starts to soften. Add salt and crushed red pepper. Cook for another minute then transfer to soup pot.
Add chicken bone broth and water and stir well.
Add cauliflower and bring to a simmer. Let simmer about 30 minutes or until cauliflower starts to soften.
While soup is simmering, cook the bacon and crumble for the topping.
Once the cauliflower is soft, add the heavy whipping cream and kale. Combine well.
This recipe is under “Sides & Stuff” on my website, but truly, I could eat just this for a meal and be 110% satisfied! It’s full of lots of good fat, protein and nutrients. I am careful to use animal products that are without added hormones, antibiotics, nitrates and nitrites.
You can use cauliflower florets for the recipe or riced cauliflower like I did. It has amazing flavor! This dish is one for Keto and non-keto folks alike!
Ingredients
Scale
1 Head Cauliflower, florets cut up into small pieces
8 Slices Bacon, cooked and crumbled
½ cup Sour Cream (full fat)
½ cup Mayonaisse (made with avodaco oil, NO canola oil!)
1 tbsp Ranch Seasoning
¼ tsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper
1 cup Monterey Jack Cheese, shredded
1 cup Sharp Cheddar Cheese, shredded
6 tbsp Fresh Chives, chopped
Instructions
Preheat oven to 370 degrees. Grease a 9×9 casserole dish with butter or coconut oil & set aside.
Steam cauliflower until just tender, not too soft and drain any excess water. Set aside.
Combìne sour cream, mayonnaìse, ranch seasonìng, black pepper ìn a large bowl. Add the steamed caulìflower, 1/2 of the bacon, sharp cheddar cheese and chìves; mìx well.
Spread the mìxture in the casserole dìsh and sprinkle the monterey jack cheese and the rest of the bacon on top.
Cover dish wìth foil and bake for 20 mìnutes. Remove foìl and bake another 5-10 mìnutes or just untìl cheese ìs bubbly and begìnnìng to brown. Garnìsh with chives as an option!
This is truly one of my favorite “go-to” recipes. It’s one that is so darn easy and yet delicious at the same time. I love to make extras of this one and eat it over the course of a few days.
You can also do whatever you’d like with it in terms of having it for lunch, a snack, even a side dish for a BBQ or potluck. It offers a good dose of healthy fats and protein so you will be feeling pretty good for hours after eating this yummy salad!
The good news with the avocados is that because of the lime juice, they tend not to brown as easily. I have also kept this in a mason jar before as well for better preservation. Enjoy!
Ingredients
Scale
2 cups Organic Chicken, cooked & shredded
1 Avocado, diced
½ tsp Garlic Powder
½ tsp Pink Himalayan Salt
½ tsp Pepper
2 tsp Lime Juice, fresh squeezed
1 tsp Cilntro, chopped
¼ cup Mayonnaise (made with avocado oil)
¼ cup Sour Cream (full fat)
Instructions
Mix all ingredients well in a medium sized bowl (I like to double this recipe).
You can eat this right away or let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes or so. The flavor only gets better!
Serve on a bed of lettuce, in a lettuce wrap or, if you are not concerned about carbs, on your favorite bread!
Comfort food alert! This is one that comes with no guilt, however, if you are in the low carb camp. This simple recipe uses fathead dough for the crust. You can doctor this up with olives and sour cream if you like. We added salsa on top and it was delicious with or without!
Ingredients
Scale
Dough
1.50 cups Mozzarella
3 oz Cream Cheese
1.25 cups Almond Flour
1 Egg
Filling
1 lb Ground Beef (grass fed and finished)
½ cup Onion, chopped
1 tsp Chile Powder
1 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Smoked Paprika
1 tbsp Olive Oil
½ cup Salsa
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 F.
In a pan over medium heat, saute onions in olive oil until starting to soften. Add ground beef and seasons. Cook until browned. Add the salsa, combine well and set aside.
Add mozzarella and cream cheese to a bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir and microwave again for 30 seconds until cheese is melted and combined well.
Add egg to cheese mixture and mix well.
Add almond flour and mix until smooth and combined well.
Roll out dough between two pieces of parchment paper until about 1/4″ thick. Use a bowl to cut uniform circles.
I take the excess dough, mush it into a ball and roll it out again.
Lay the circles on a cookie sheet lined with parchement paper or a silcone baking mat.
Place a couple of spoonfuls of the meat mixture in the middle of each circle and fold in half. Press the edges down with a fork.
Cook at 425 F for 12 minutes or until they start to turn golden brown. Top with whatever you’d like…sour cream, olives, salsa…. serve warm!
I LOVE banana bread! In fact, before I started following a ketogenic protocol I was always making it. I would make several loaves or a bunch of muffins and keep the extras in the freezer. I always made sure to make them “healthy”. Of course for a long time that meant “low fat”! Oh how times have changed!! While these yummy muffins are low carb (about 15 net carbs per muffin), they are a little too high in carb to be considered KETO (unless you’re not having hardly any carbs in the rest of your day!).
If you would rather do something a little more paleo, you can for sure substutite something like honey or coconut sugar for the sweetener. Just be sure to adjust the amount as needed!
Enjoy!
Ingredients
Scale
1 Over Ripe Banana
½ cup Butter, melted (I use grass fed)
3 tbsp Coconut Oil, melted
4 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
⅔ cup Almond Flour
⅓ cup Coconut Flour
½ tsp Salt
½ cup Keto friendly sweetener like Erythritol (or sweetener of choice, just adjust amount as needed)
1 tsp Baking Powder
½ cup Chocolate Chips (I use Lily’s brand as they are sweetened with stevia) OR you could use chopped nuts
Instructions
Preheat oven to 325 F and prepare muffin tin with paper liners.
Mash banana in medium sized bowl then add all wet ingredients and combine well.
Combine dry ingredients (aside from chocolate chips) in a separate bowl.
Blend wet and dry ingredients together with a mixer. Stir in chocolate chips.
Divide batter amongst the 12 muffin tin cups.
Bake in oven for about 30 minutes or until muffins start to turn golden brown.
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