We have a dear friend that is gluten intolerant and just found out she also has Lyme disease. She graciously invited us over for dinner the other night and when asked what we could bring, a side dish and a dessert was requested. Well, side dish was easy…Quinoa (pronounced keen-wa)! If you haven’t tried it, it’s a great protein packed gluten free grain that can be cooked pretty much the same way you would make rice, but without all the empty carbohydrates rice affords you.
Dessert. I was stumped. Why? You ask. Along with the gluten free, the dessert also needed to be either sugar free or made with a sugar substitute as Lyme disease will feed off the sugar. This is where the Italian Ice came into play, as I was informed that a low GI fruit was allowed and since it’s nearly summer and the strawberries are very sweet and red all the way through (not only the outside like at the store) from the Farmer’s Market, what better a treat? The butter cookies came into play both because they are gluten free, go well with the Italian ice and because there were four children that just might not like a Stevia-sweetened Italian ice.
Gluten Free Butter Cookies (3 dozen)
2 cups Almond Flour
1/2 cup Coconut Flour
1 egg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup honey
1 T. Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup salted butter, cubed
In a food processor place almond flour, coconut flour, and salt and pulse to combine. Add egg, honey, butter and vanilla and pulse until all ingredients are well blended. Place dough on a large piece of plastic wrap and roll up to create a log. Refrigerate log for at least 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350 F. Prepare cookie sheet with parchment paper. Remove dough from fridge and using a serrated knife cut into 1/4 inch slices and place 1 inch apart on prepared sheet. Bake 5-7 minutes or until edges begin to brown. Allow to cool on pan for 5 minutes then remove to rack to cool completely. Cookies are best eaten the same day, but could be re-baked for 1-2 minutes to crisp again. Store left-over cookies in an airtight container.
Strawberry Italian Ice (adapted from Elena’s Pantry)
20 oz. Frozen Very Ripe Strawberries (I cleaned and trimmed fresh berries from the market then froze them)
2 cups water
1/8 tsp. Stevia
Place strawberries, water and Stevia in Vitamix or equivalent blender. Blend until smooth. Pour mixture into ice cream maker and follow manufacturer’s directions. Serve with a butter cookie.
Both turned out great and the kids even ate the Italian ice! They also almost polished off all the cookies. Next time I think I’ll add some probiotics to the Italian ice and pour it into Popsicle molds for a summer snack. Here’s to a HealthY BodY, HappY Mind!
Coconut Almond Chocolate Bars
May 9, 2012
It’s been a while since our last post, I don’t even know where the time went! Well we have a fantastic post for you today…it’s a healthy recipe for a healthy dessert! Yes, I just said healthy and dessert in the same sentence. Trust me, it can be done. We have been trying to rid our house of the refined flours as of late and through some of the flour substitutions for my favorite treats, I’ve discovered a new love of almond flour or meal and coconut flakes. Well, one of my favorite combinations is coconut and chocolate, so it’s natural that I decided to make a treat using these ingredients. There are tons of variations to this recipe, but here is my favorite and I don’t feel guilty eating one (or two) of these bars as I know I’m getting some great Omega 3′s and antioxidants.
Coconut Almond Chocolate Bars
(makes about 18)
1 T Virgin Coconut Oil
1 cup dark chocolate chips
1 cup shredded raw coconut, unsweetened
1 cup almond flour or almond meal
1/4 cup flax seed meal
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
Spray ice cube tray or mini muffin pan with Pam, set aside. In a medium sauce pan, combine Coconut Oil and chocolate chips heating over low heat until completely melted. Remove from heat, add remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Spoon 1- 2 T. into prepared tray or pan. Place in refrigerator or freezer to solidify. Remove from tray or pan and store in an air tight container in the fridge for 1 week or in the freezer for up to 1 month.
I hope you enjoy these as much as we do and feel free to use other nut flours, add chopped dried fruit or remove all sugar by using coco powder instead of chips (just remember to add more oil or use coconut butter to dissolve the powder).
Are you ready to make a difference this year?
January 3, 2012
I hope everyone had a great Holiday season. We certainly did. This Holidays season definitely showed my family and I that we are blessed by god in what we have been given. This certainly helps me when it comes to choosing some new years resolutions and goals.
Everyone makes New Years resolutions but we all struggle with making the right resolution and committing to making it happen. One of the things that I am committing to is making a difference in some way to myself, to my family and to our community. My goal was to set some resolutions that will make a difference in my life and others lives. I want to share my thoughts with you on these resolutions / goals in the hopes that I might inspire you to make some great resolutions as well.
My personal goals are to lose that final bit of belly fat and to see six pack abs once again prior to July of 2012. I also have a goal to run a 10 mile race in under 90 minutes. I’ll be testing this goal in April at the Cherry Blossom 10 miler race here in Washington D.C. In doing this, I will have lowered my heart disease risk and put myself in a better place to live a longer life for my wife and kids. I have been working on getting rid of all the belly fat I gained over the years since gaining the pregnancy weight. 
This last year has been great in finding my groove and putting myself back to a great place in regards to being in shape. This last milestone will just seal the deal and get me committed to getting even healthier.
My goal with my family is to be a better dad in a few ways like being a more patient person when the kids want or need my attention. Another one is to give my kids 1 on 1 time at least 1 hr a week per child. We are used to doing a lot of things as a family and I can see that they really enjoy the one on one time.
Another family goal is to put more time into memorable moments for each of my kids and my wife. I want to start making more memories for all of us, not just moments.
I have a goal that I want to attain regarding our community. I want to personally change at least 5 peoples lives in some significant way this year. My goal is to help put these people on a path to better health and living. I have some great ideas on how I will do this but still working on details. I am not talking about just getting 5 people to eat healthier. I mean, I want to help re-direct these peoples lives in a direction that we will all see a significant life improvement from my sharing, helping or coaching them.
I think these are attainable goals. Sometimes we set the bar too high and sometimes we set them too low. I think these all will be very challenging in some way or another but I am confident that I will make them happen.
What resolutions / goals are you committing to this year? I would like to hear about as many of them as possible.
GI Eating Habbits
November 10, 2011
In my goal to lose weight and live healthier I have come to a point where I am temped and challenged by many things that I know will set me back in reaching and staying at my goal. America has made it easy for us to eat and live unhealthy. It is easier for us to buy dinner for 2 for $13 than it is to prepare a little bit ahead of time and spend 30-40 minutes to prepare a healthy meal. Our pantries have turned into shelves of food products that can survive longer than we can remember when we bought it. But boy do they taste good. This last week has been an extra challenge for me because of the convenience of certain foods while living a busy life.
I have the luxury of being able to go home and make my lunch sometimes. When I am in a rush, I am very tempted to open the cabinet and grab food that isn’t going to treat my body right. Most of us americans with kids have a pantry with things like, pretzels, chips, gold fish, and the old standby sandwich bread. Take a look it this pantry. This is what ours looked like a few years ago.
I used to come home and grab bread, sandwich meat, cheese, lettuce, tomato and spicey mustard. I would make a sandwich with that. Then grab a bag of potato chips and have a yogurt with it and think I was eating healthy enough. I mean, at least I wasn’t eating pizza and cheesburgers every day.
What I didn’t realize after all those years was that I was slowly gaining weight because I was eating highly refined , high in carbohydrate foods. I was able to make some changes in my diet which has made a great difference for me and helped me get to a new stage where I was before I started my most recent diet.
Many of you might already have heard about the Glycemic Index. This is an index that a value on a specific food that measures its effect on blood sugar levels. About 3 1/2 years ago I was reading an article about this and learned that certain foods are considers low GI, some medium GI and some High GI. The higher the GI value the more of an effect it has on your blood sugar. The index is highest with Glucose at 100. A low GI food is defined by a GI value of 55 or less, a medium GI value is 56 – 69 and High GI value is from 70 and above. There are entire books dedicated to defining GI values for different foods. The important thing is to understand that higher GI foods are ones that your body digests and in return rapidly increases your blood glucose levels. White Bread is an example of a high GI value. When your body processes white bread, it quickly raises your blood glucose levels which in turn has an adverse effect in that your body has to over produce insulin. Studies have shown that this roller coaster of glucose levels are major contributors to what cause diseases like Type 2 Diabetes and Coronary heart disease. Another thing that these glucose and insulin spikes do is tell your body to store more fat. Have you noticed how many people with diabetes are usually carrying a lot of extra fat?
Guess what the GI value of most of our prepared foods and processed foods are? Crackers, breads, pretzels, chips,potatoes, fries, buns, bleached flour etc.. all have something in common. They are highly processed carbohydrates that our bodies digest and BOOM, they spike your blood glucose levels. Our cabinets are literately full of these easy to prepare, easy to grab and go type foods. It is no wonder why many americans unknowingly get to a very unhealthy place when the are consuming hi GI value meals.
What have I figured out? Well, I figured out very quickly that the fat gathered on my stomach, hips and lower back and other places are directly effected by eating a lower GI value diet. Right after reading the book “The New Glucose Revolution”, I went on a diet. By eating lower GI value foods and mixing very low GI value foods with some High GI value foods, I was able to drop about 10 pounds within a month or two. I did this without working out or exercising at all. Then I hit a wall and I started to relax the diet some. I was able to roughly keep the weight off I had already lost, but I easily put weight back on when I wasn’t watching the GI values of the foods I was eating. What I found was that you don’t need to only eat low GI value foods, but you need to counter balance the highs with the lows. For example, if you are going to have some fresh white bread at dinner that you can’t resist, be sure to eat plenty of veggies that in general have a low GI value. Studies have shown that a low GI value food will significantly reduce the GI effect from the high GI value food.
The last couple years we have experimented with many new ideas to lower the overall GI value of the foods we eat at home. For example, using coconut flour in foods instead of bleached white flour helps. Using whole wheat anything is much better too. Think about it this way, the more the food is processed or refined, the higer the GI value is going to be. This is a perfect example why Oatmeal is much better for you than a bowl of cereal. Oatmeal has a much lower GI value than any cereal on the market. Whole grains will always do better for you, but don’t get sucked into the fact that whole grains are in all of the foods we buy. The problem is that those whole grains have been refined to a point where your body will spike it’s blood glucose levels very easily.
I mentioned earlier that recently I have been challenged by our cabinet food. We have kids, and yes even my wife and I eat some foods occasionally that are not what I think are the best choices. For example, this is what I saw in our cabinet yesterday when I got home to eat lunch. We have pretzels and chex mix .
We have wheat bread.
We have these awesome chips. These aren’t even that bad for you. I mean they are a multi-grain chip right? 
I could easily make a lunch with these and feel like I have done my body good. But I know the effects my blood glucose levels will have on my body. So I chose to spend the extra 5 minutes and make a large salad, with reheated left over grilled chicken breast, carrots, cucumber, some sun flower seeds, a few craisons and some home made italian dressing instead. I can definitely feel the difference in my afternoons when eating this lunch vs. a High Carb lunch. I don’t get that glucose and insulin spike which normally sends me into a phase where I am super tired for a couple hours in the afternoon. This is where most people use the coffee as a pick me up. I am one of those who did. But I found that it doesn’t really help in the long run. When your body goes through these ups and downs in glucose and insulin spikes, your body is doing extreme things to reverse those effects and we tend to pack on some fat and our energy levels get out of wack.
You might have been reading my blog for a while and noticed that a couple months ago I went on another diet guided by my naturopath doctor. It is more of a Paleo diet that focuses on eliminating starchy foods. If you have been reading, you know that for me it worked very well. And I have changed my ways of eating for the better hopefully for the long haul. I have not committed to only eating a paleo diet forever but now that I have cut the weight I wanted, I am allowing some carbs back in my diet as special occasions and not as the norm.
The Paleo diet is a great example of how you can thrive on eating low GI value foods. The Paleo diet removes grains from your diet and thus you are left with mostly low GI value foods. As you know from reading my blog posts on my journey in “Healthy as Goal”, you have probably noticed that I am following a close to Paleo diet. What I have found is that I can easily cut off a couple pounds by being more strict for a couple days and then relaxing from the diet for special nights etc.. For example: Pizza night is a love of mine. We make a whole wheat version of the dough and the rest I put on the pizza are paleo friendly. This one night a week or sometimes every other week, I splurge and have this High GI value dinner. But I also follow it up with much more stringent meals at other times. I have been able to keep the weight off and stay in decent form since being on the strict diet to cut weight off. I am real happy with how it is going.
I am always looking for new low GI value foods and meals to bring into the mix, so if you have any suggestions please post it here so we can all share. I am going to start posting some more of the meals we eat in hopes that you will share back with me.
I know it is hard to commit to giving up all these great foods that we enjoy on a typical American diet. They have become staples of our living and boy do they taste good. But as you read more about the GI index and how it effects our health, things start to make sense regarding why our healthy in america is becoming a downward spiral. There are simple things that I implemented that have allowed me to still enjoy food and yet reverse the effects of poor eating and weight gain. Start small, read the book I suggested or ask me questions. After that, then take another step from there. You don’t need to jump in head first. Just commit to learning more about what you are eating and how it effects your body.
Please, share your thoughts and recipes in the comments section if you have some.
Autumn Vegetable Soup
October 29, 2011
It’s October, autumn for us, but as I sit and write this there is snow on the ground. It’s been snowing/sleeting all day and this soup whether snowing or leaves falling will warm you up and fill you up! I would like to say I created this soup on my own, however, I found it hiding in a Fine Cooking magazine. I’ve adapted it some and you could always change out some the veggies or add more to make it your own too!
Autumn Vegetable Soup
Yields 8 cups
2 Tbs. olive oil 3 medium carrots, cut into medium dice 4 leeks (untrimmed) 1/4 cup medium diced yellow onion 2 cloves garlic, minced 2 cups 1/2-inch-cubed peeled butternut squash 1/4 tsp. allspice Pinch of cayenne, more to taste (or I used siracha hot sauce) Kosher salt 1 quart homemade chicken broth 1 141/2-oz. can no-salt-added diced tomatoes (or fresh diced roma tomatoes) 4 sprigs fresh thyme (tie together with kitchen twine for easy removal later) 2 cups lightly packed, coarsely chopped kale 1 cup baby spinachTrim the roots and dark green leaves from the leeks. Slice the white and light green parts in half lengthwise and then thinly slice the halves crosswise. Rinse well and drain.
Heat the oil in a large soup pot over medium-high heat. Add the carrots, leeks, and onions and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the squash, allspice, cayenne and 1 tsp. salt and stir to combine. Add the broth, tomatoes with juices (or fresh tomatoes with extra broth), and thyme. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Add the kale and spinach* and cook uncovered until the squash is tender and the kale and spinach has wilted, about another 10 minutes. Discard the thyme sprigs before serving. Season to taste with salt and cayenne or siracha.
*Note: Add 1 cup rinsed canned chickpeas if desired.
How can Probiotics help us stay healthier this winter?
October 25, 2011
We have written a few times about how Probiotics can help your digestive tract and how it can aid in digestive functions. One area that is less commonly known is that Probiotics have been studied as a safe effective way to reduce fever, rhinorrhea, and cough incidence and duration and antibiotic prescription incidence, as well as the number of missed school days attributable to illness .
One such study was done where a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, with 326 eligible children (3–5 years of age) were assigned randomly to receive placebo or a Probiotic supplement mixed in milk. The Probiotics supplemented were two well known Bacterias, Lactobacillus acidophilus in combination with Bifidobacterium animalis. The results were clear. The subjects who had the Probiotics supplement had much less instances of fever, cough, rhinorea and other flu like symptoms.
Here is the study results summary:
Relative to the placebo group, single and combination probiotics reduced fever incidence by 53.0% (P = .0085) and 72.7% (P = .0009), coughing incidence by 41.4% (P = .027) and 62.1% (P = .005), and rhinorrhea incidence by 28.2% (P = .68) and 58.8% (P = .03), respectively. Fever, coughing, and rhinorrhea duration was decreased significantly, relative to placebo, by 32% (single strain; P = .0023) and 48% (strain combination; P < .001). Antibiotic use incidence was reduced, relative to placebo, by 68.4% (single strain; P = .0002) and 84.2% (strain combination; P < .0001). Subjects receiving probiotic products had significant reductions in days absent from group child care, by 31.8% (single strain; P = .002) and 27.7% (strain combination; P < .001), compared with subjects receiving placebo treatment.
This is a very significant study that clearly shows the benefits of good bacteria as a supplement. If you want to read more about this study that was done, here is a link to a copy of the article written in the American Academy Journal of Pediatrics.
Getting lean and staying there. That will be the challenge.
October 11, 2011
So my goal in my diet has been to get leaner and to set the bar lower regarding my body weight. I have finally reached my goal. This week I weighed in at 162.5 pounds. The lowest I have weighed in 10 years. It has been a complicated venture to get down to this weight. I have been pretty good about eating what I am supposed to be eating but I think portion control was my issue a lot. I actually found great ways to eat protein, more vegetables and some fruit. What I gave up is the big ticket…. I used to eat a lot of starchy carbohydrate foods like any type of bread under the sun. Boy do I love bread. I actually found it challenging to break from the trend of having starchy foods on my plate. Like stir fry night. What is stir fry without having a nice plate of white rice to go under the stir fry.
Here is what I know now about my body. When I eat a lot of starchy foods, my body stores fat. Our bodies are not made to eat so much starchy foods. Take a look in the average american’s food pantry. What is in it? Mostly foods that will last a significant period of time and are starchy in nature. I think our bodies pay for those diets. I think it directly relates to the glycemic index of the food you are eating as well. All of these starchy foods that we eat, like potatoes, crackers, cereal, white rice, bread and desserts all put a real hurting on our glucose levels in our body. The theory is that we build up insulin resistance by eating this diet. In return our bodies store fat like a champ!
What do I do now? I certainly am not going to go back to eating all the food I was eating before. I am starting to experiment with introducing carbs back into my diet and see how it effects me. The key is to not eat highly refined starches. If you do, be sure to eat it with a balanced meal so the Glycemic load is lower. Example, if you are going to eat white bread which has a high glycemic index, you need to be eating something with that to lower the effect on your blood sugar. So in this case, be sure to eat vegetables with it. That will help lower the overall glycemic value of the meal which will manage your blood sugar a lot better.
So I am going to start eating some more whole food grains as carbs instead of what I was eating all of the time prior to my diet. Eating brown rice instead of white rice. Eating a significant portion of veggies with a pasta dish. Swapping out a vegetable for chips at lunch time.
One thing I certainly will be keeping up is drinking shakes for breakfast and lunch when needed. Drinking a shake with carrots, spinach, part of an apple, plain Greek Yogurt and some high quality protein powder has really been a great way to keep my body in the right place.
We’ll see how it goes and how well I can keep the weight off. I’ll keep you informed on my progress and effort to stay at or near my weight.
Oh how I miss a fresh loaf of bread!
September 23, 2011
It has been 23 days since I started on my diet to lose around 10 pounds. The first couple weeks, I was really craving carbs and sweets. Lately I haven’t missed having dessert or much carbs. But let me tell you, I really miss having a few slices of fresh bread. One of my all time favorite foods is fresh bread with butter on it. I can taste it now…. Warm fresh bread, Yum!
OK, so now that I have gotten my craving complaint out of the way, here is what is going on. I have been doing fairly well sticking to the diet. No starchy carbs, sweets, beer, no coffee and trying not to over eat. I honestly can’t believe it has been this long since I have had coffee. At first I was drinking green tea but I haven’t had it in about 10 days. So I am fully off of caffeine and it is weird not drinking it or needing it. I honestly have not been tired at all during the day. One thing that I have definitely noticed is that I have plenty of energy to get through the day. From what I can understand, since my body is not having major sugar level spikes in my body I am kept at a great energy level.
Another interesting thing that has been happening is that I can definitely tell when I am not eating well. I actually feel when I have over eaten. If I eat too much food at a meal, I definitely feel that and can react accordingly.
Today when I weighed myself, I was at 166.5 pounds. I a m 4.5 pounds from my goal. My goal is to lose the final weight and change my diet slightly back to introducing healthier carbs and sweets. During that process I want to maintain my weight. If am not maintaining the weight I will back off and get back to the basics. Then I’ll re-introduce other food again.
I am still exercising about 4-5 days a week, but I have been getting bored with running. So I am not going longer and longer distance. I am sticking to about 3.5 miles each run. I am also doing situps and pushups as well. I’m thinking about doing more cross fit type exercising at home. Any suggestions?
I also want to share about some of my keys to succeeding in my diet. I believe that taking a probiotic daily and taking digestive enzymes has given me an edge on things. Keeping my body in a slight state of ketosis has been fairly easy with my diet and I can tell that is how I am losing the weight. I think the main reason for me not losing more weight faster is just because of the portions I eat. For the most part, I eat good portions, but at dinner I tend to eat more than I probably should. I also have had some late night snacks on almonds and cheese that are most likely holding me back a bit. Super Green shakes for breakfast and sometimes for lunch are working awesome! Maybe I’ll share some of my shake recipes in upcoming posts.
Overall I am very happy with my progress. I am getting leaner and I feel better.
What’s on your mind? Is there something you would like to know or ask?
Healthy Alternative to Store-bought Granola Bars
September 21, 2011
My kids love granola bars, but I can’t stand that they are loaded with sugar or corn syrup and the ones that aren’t are loaded with price! So, like others before me I searched the internet for a good granola bar recipe…but what I found was usually full of sugar or peanut butter. The sugar I can always cut down on, but the peanut butter is an allergy in our house, so I took a number of recipes, removed the peanut butter and made these. I use organic ingredients where I can and buy unsweetened dried fruit. These bars can be adapted to your tastes (other dried fruits can be added or subbed and nuts would be great too), made to be chewy or crunchy and store well. Enjoy!
Val’s Granola Bars (about 16 bars)
2 cups Old Fashioned Oats
1 cup Wheat Flour
3/4 cup Grape Nuts Cereal
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped dried apricots
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 egg, beaten
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3T. oil (canola, coconut or olive)
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup honey
Pre-heat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl mix oats, flour, grape nuts, sugar, raisins, apricots and cinnamon. Add egg, vanilla, oil, salt and honey and mix thoroughly with hands. Press mixture firmly into a greased 9×13 in. pan and bake for 12-15 minutes (chewy) or 20-22 minutes (crunchy). Allow to cool for 2 minutes in pan then cut bars. Cool completely, then wrap in foil or store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.
Note: For easier cutting, line baking pan with parchment paper or foil making sure to have some overhang. Grease the paper or foil then fill and bake. After cooling for at least 2 minutes in the pan, use overhang to pull bars out and cut.
Healthy As A Goal: Measuring success
September 12, 2011
This last week has been a challenge in a few areas of my new diet and exercise program. I usually run 30 to 45 minutes and then do push ups and situps with my stretching 3 days a week. Then I try to life weights 2 days a week. Recently I have been challenged by timing and have mostly focused on running.
One of my challenges has been how to push my body harder to increase my calorie burn as well as get my heart rate down for longer distance runs. My heart rate has been hovering around 167 – 170 bpm at a 9:30 min. per mile pace. That is not what I should be at. At that pace, I should be at around 140 bpm. So of course, I decided to add sprint runs in with my workout. Along with that, I decided to change-up my music I am listening to. The music has really, really helped. I switched from running with country music, (Kenny Chesney Channel on Pandora) to more fast paced dance music with a great rhythm. There is an awesome DJ out of France that does some very cool Mixes. His name is Madeon. I have been queuing up his music for my run and I was able to push my self up to 2-3 minute stints in my run at 6:30 – 7:15 minute / mile pace. In short, the music really helped me step up the pace. Now I just need to lower my heart rate for longer periods of running at those paces.
Another challenge I have had is that I am still struggling with a hamstring pull I have had for a while. I should be stretching more and icing it when it is sore. A friend has given me their leg stick to help massage the muscle easier. We’ll see how that works.
On the diet, things are going pretty well. I have been eating well and staying on the diet for the most part. The only cheat I had was last night, we took the kids and my mom and dad out to a Japanese Steakhouse for dinner. Wow is it tough to not eat all the carbs at one of these restaurants. I had 2 pieces of sushi and stuck to my guns on the rest.
This week Dr. Ogilvie asked me to pick up some Ketone Sticks so could measure how consistent I am keeping my body in a slightly ketonic state. This is key to burning off the fat. I have definitely found through using these sticks (you pee on them and do a visual measurement) that I can become too far into ketosis if I just have a protein drink. We need the vegetables to keep our body in check. If you are too far into a ketonic state, our organs have to work too hard. So consistently in a slight Ketonic state is the key. We should drink plenty of water so as to flush your kidneys while doing this diet too.
I’m at 168 lbs. Still hoping to get some momentum this week to get pushed further towards my goal of getting to 162 or possibly 160. I have noticed that my belly is losing fat. I used to show my kids that I could make a small bagel or donut out of my belly fat on top of my belly button. It is getting harder and harder to do that.
I am still taking Probiotics Daily, Digestive Enzymes as well as Omega-3 Fish Oils and a whole food multi-vitamin. My energy levels are awesome! Haven’t felt like I need a nap in a couple weeks.
That’s all for now. Have a great week! Post some questions if you have any? I would like to interact with my readers more here.
