Amy, what do you eat? And why?
Lately, many of my family members have commented that I look and feel better than I ever have before. But figuring how and what I eat has always been a wonder to them.
When I was diagnosed with auto-immune disease in 2017, I was determined to feel better and live a life where I can feel young for as long as I possibly can (and live). I also knew that once you get one auto-immune issue, more could follow. I wanted to nip that in the bud!
I started with a low/no-carb diet, then moved toward a low FODMAP diet, which evolved into a combination of a healthy Keto and anti-inflammatory lifestyle. At one point during all this, I tried to add sourdough/gluten back in, but that was a disaster for my gut and my face! I also learned that eating too many nuts, bars, or sugar alcohols was disagreeable to my gut. With experimentation, I go on and off with small amounts of dairy, but am mostly dairy-free. I skip breakfast and try to eat all my calories in an 8 hour window, called 16:8 intermittent fasting, which makes meal planning easier and also brings mental clarity. The result: I do not need medications to treat my auto-immune issues. I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight and more fit because I am feeding my muscles correctly. And I have experienced the unintended side-effect that some of the unexplained chronic pain that I have suffered from since age 20 is decreased and almost diminished! These results have made it easy for me to remain disciplined, and turn a diet into a lifestyle.
But, all of this begs the familiar and familial question...”So what do you even eat?”
To be honest, I eat A LOT. And I LOVE what I eat as well as the variety. Most of my food comes out of a fridge; not the pantry. I do not miss bread, carbs, or sweets. I don’t even have sweet cravings anymore either.
It’s been 4 years since I eliminated carbs and I still don’t miss it. I feel great and healthy.
If you are wondering about the science behind a ketogenic lifestyle I would start with the wealth of research and evidence backed science that my cousin, Amit Shah, has been working on at Virta Health. Virta is working successfully at saving lives by changing lifestyles and diet and reducing or eliminating the needs for pharmaceutical drugs that merely put a bandaid on the symptoms. I would also do some research into the FODMAP diet which might help you alleviate any IBS symptoms you have had but never realized you could fix.
Ketogenic diet:
In general, a well-formulated ketogenic lifestyle reduces your carb intake to 50 grams of net carbs a day (total grams of carbs minus the fiber). Done well, the majority of your calories come from heart healthy fats such as olives, nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil, avocado oil, and grass fed ghee (rather than cheese wrapped in bacon, slathered in butter)! We also get some fat calories from healthier animal fats such as Omega-3 rich fish and grass fed beef. Artisanal cheeses, in moderation, is also a great source of good fat. If you are trying to avoid inflammation opt for cheeses made from an A-2 cow, goat, and/or sheep milk. Fat calories add up and make you feel full, so you don’t have to gorge on foods that gross you out to get to your goal. My fat comes in sprinkles, drizzles, or as part of the protein I eat. The rest of your food, about 25-35% of your macro intake, comes from proteins such as fish, beef, poultry, eggs, and tofu. I avoid processed imitation meats. I also avoid coconut oil because I noticed it increases my personal cholesterol. Amit also lives a Ketogenic lifestyle as a vegetarian! He feels and looks great and has alleviated his auto-immune issues as well! Here are some good Indian recipe ideas for Vegetarians and Meat Eaters.
Tracking your meals using FitnessPal or CarbManager is a good place to start. Getting a keto meter to test ketones every morning helps you see if you are in ketosis and therefore burning fat instead of sugar. I use Precision Xtra, but there is also one by KetoMojo that I hear works well. Here’s a great article on the Virta blog on measuring and understanding ketosis and it doesn’t give you a thousand pop-ups and cookies. Virta also has a blog with many practical tips and tools to staying healthy as well as interesting recipes. Or better yet, sign up for Virta as a patient and get all the help you need!
Some of the benefits of a keto diet are: lose weight, feel great, diminish auto-immune symptoms, reduce inflammation, and reduce IBS symptoms (so long as you eat fiber rich vegetables). Many health gurus such as Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Steven Gundry, Dr. Peter Attia, and more have podcasts that discuss how a ketogenic diet can starve cancer cells, reduce Parkinson’s symptoms, and stop the inflammation that leads to turning on the Alzheimer’s gene. I often recommend this one with Dr. Ronesh Sinha for Indian Vegetarians and if you want to go even deeper, his interview with Peter Attia is great too.
Intermittent fasting also helps you get into ketosis if you are having a hard time. It merely involves skipping one meal – usually breakfast. You basically want to eat all your calories in an 8 hour window, the way humans did from the very beginning. Know that your body does its best work when it’s not busy trying to digest food, so less frequent snacking or no snacking is preferred.
Most of you simply want a list and links to meal ideas, friendly foods, and recipes. This list is also great for my sisters who recently realized that their GI issues and abnormal lethargy has been due to long undiagnosed Celiac disease - it’s all gluten free (and grain free).
Here’s a basic shopping list
Breakfast ideas
I LOVE eggs. I love them in every form – boiled, slightly under-boiled like a ramen egg, scrambled, sunny side up, poached, and omelets. But I only eat pasture-raised eggs and try to stick with 1 a day. When I make omelets I avoid nightshades like peppers. If I use cheese, I only use feta or goat (not cow dairy). Some ideas:
Here’s my Hippy Hash post: 1-2 scrambled eggs with a few cubes of roasted sweet potato (weigh them and count the net carbs), mushrooms, and half of an avocado. Eat on top of a spinach or arugula salad drizzled with olive oil. We also eat it on top of sautéed baby bok choy - delicious!
Scrambled eggs or a sunny side up egg with avocado and “Everything but the Bagel” spice mix. Add a side salad or baby bok choy.
Greek omelet with olive tapenade and a bit of feta cheese on top of a spinach salad.
Green eggs and ham. Scramble eggs with basil or homemade pesto (optional side of good bacon IF its from a local farmer).
Eggs and turkey sausage (also from my local farmer – not the grocery store processed ones).
Indian/Persian scrambles: You can also mix in many different leftovers with your eggs for a good scramble. For example, if you don’t like the taste of eggs, scrambling eggs with a dollop of Saag Paneer gravy or Ghormeh Sabzi hides the taste! You can mix any of your favorite flavors for an egg scramble – Indian spices, Asian spices etc. and you will achieve variety.
Don’t have time to make breakfast or need a meal replacement?
My first choice is to have coffee or tea for breakfast and wait for lunch to be your first meal. If that’s not an option for you, you might want a bar. While bars-to-go are easy, many of them contain processed ingredients, nuts or sugar alcohols that might not agree with you. Some of the Quest bars are pretty good, but after a while the nuts and sugar alcohols were too much for me. If that’s you too, try an easy protein shake. Most of them only require adding water!
Here are my favorite brands with the cleanest ingredients. I prefer grass fed hydrolyzed beef protein because my gut doesn’t tolerate whey or the variety of ingredients in plant-based products. Many plant-based powders have hidden toxins and metals too and usually are higher in carb content than I prefer. Here are my favorites:
Risa Groux Chocolate Collagen, but it’s pricey.
Julian’s PaleoThin Double Chocolate I add a scoop of collagen as well.
Unflavored Pure Paleo mixed in with MUDWTR for flavor (that’s my referral link and you get $10 off your first order).
Lunches/Dinners:
Turkey pot roast: can substitute this recipe with chicken as well.
Anti-inflammatory salmon or steelhead – choose wild when you can.
Asian-glazed salmon, steelhead or cod: Mix white miso paste, Red Boat Fish Sauce, Tamari, yuzu sauce (optional), garlic, ginger, ground black pepper and lemon. Pour the marinade over your fish. Bake for 10 minutes, broil for 1 minute. Eat with pickled ginger.
Petrale or Dover Sole: Dust in almond flour and your favorite herbs and immediately cook on a generously buttered/oiled skillet. I use a stainless steel skillet for this because the fish is tender and flakey.
Burger patties or meatballs made with grass-fed meat. Simply add salt and pepper and form your patties or balls. Pair them with a salad or in pasta made with Miracle Noodles or Hearts of Palm. Noodles like this are available at Sprouts, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Thrive Market. (The Thrive link also includes my “invite friends” discount).
Miracle Noodles/Hearts of Palm with any sauce, veggies, mushrooms, or proteins of your choice. Avoid inflammatory tomato sauces. Opt for pesto, olive tapenade, or olive oil with a yummy salt such as truffle salt. Add goat cheese and greens to your pasta. Add any other protein of your choice.
Grilled tofu with taco seasoning and olive oil or my anti-inflammatory rub. Add guacamole and a salad. I use firm tofu and press the water out between two plates. Cube them in 2 inch squares and let sit on paper towel. Marinade them with the oil seasoning mix and grill preferably on a grill pan to prevent sticking.
Scallops, guacamole and salad.
Sheet pan veggies: Broccoli, sliced steaks of purple cabbage and/or cauliflower, carrots, zucchini (bake with olive oil, salt and pepper below 400 degrees, if above 400 degrees use avocado oil).
Sautéed vegetables: broccoli, baby bok choy with sliced kumquats (delectable), mushrooms with herbs...
Fresh vegetables: fennel, carrots, celery, cucumber. These fulfill my need for crunch and are great to dip into guacamole, a canned salmon or sardine mixture, or no sugar nut butters like “Barney Butter” made from skinless almonds and no phytates.
Boiled artichoke dipped in homemade pesto sauce, Indian raita or Persian yogurt such as Mast-O-Musir. This one is new for me. But it’s high in fiber and pre-biotics!
Sardine or salmon salads on a cucumber boat. Mix sardines or salmon with chopped celery, mayo or soy and ginger. Scoop out the seeds in the cucumber and scoop in the sardine or salmon mixture and eat! These are admittedly harder on the palate for me. So I tend to spice them up with spice mixtures, fresh or pickled ginger, tamari etc. to hide the fishiness.
Taco salad: Ground turkey with taco seasoning on a bed of greens with avocado and grilled onions. Or roll it up in a low or no carb wrap.
Chicken cooked in the instant pot: marinade first in olive oil, apple cider vinegar, half of an orange squeezed, rosemary and garlic. Saute onions in the instant pot. Brown the chicken slightly on both sides. Add broth and any veggies. Then 15 minutes high pressure, with a natural release. Basically, follow the same directions as the IP Turkey recipe above.
Chicken Tikka Masala: Here’s a link to my favorite recipe from Two Sleevers. She has great recipes overall. I also love her Daro Wat recipe.
Pot roast. I like this recipe but I only use ONE date and double the All Spice. The veggies I use are carrots, celery, and collard greens.
Sushi: Sushi grade salmon from Dry Dock Fishing company, with avocado, ginger and wasabi. Add seaweed paper. Or eat out!
Poke bowl: make your own poke or go get poke without the rice and choose no-carb toppings.
Indian sabzis: green beans, cauliflower, cabbage, peas in moderation (peas are high sugar and high FODMAP).
Indulgences
So what do I indulge in? Once you are keto adapted, cravings diminish. But I still like to feel like I am having indulgences and desserts.
Dark Chocolate: I love 100% dark chocolate (it’s bitter, but also very sweet to me) especially Montezuma’s 100% from Trader Joe’s. If you tolerate peanut butter, then dipped in PB is amazing! One square of Hu Chocolate or Extra Dark AlterEco will also likely keep you in Ketosis. This Portland brand is also the MOST heavenly.
A slice of grapefruit is refreshing
Seasonal fruits - but only a small serving making sure you still stay under 50 grams of net carbs for the day.
Chocolate avocado pudding: In a food process blend avocado, 100% cacao, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, mint, and a dash of nut milk for the consistency you want. Top with sea salt and unsweetened coconut.
Pellegrino with bitters or flavored Pellegrino
And if you have already jumped on the bandwagon through a ketogenic, Whole30, Paleo, FODMAP or Low-carb lifestyle and YOU have favorite recipes to share with me, I would love the links in the comments below! Always looking to change things up!