Anyone want to do a “holiday hacks” thread? Ideas and plans to get through the end-of-the-year with minimal detours?
So far, I have been making fresh beef cracklings to stay out of salty snacks. Also sort of peppermint drop tiny fat bombs to stay out of sweets (just tallow and peppermint oil- enough for me).
Other ideas?
I like your tallow and peppermint oil, but I’d have to add some allulose.
This time of year, Publix has a great sale on Standing rib roasts, which they will butcher down into
a rack of ribs and ribeye steaks. I can then cut a few steaks thinly into beef jerky that I spice up.
For sweets, I go to Carolyn Ketchum, of the website “All day I dream about food.” She’s an excellent
chef, and I have several of her Kindle books. My husband swears by her Italian cream cake recipe.
She does use a lot of erithrytol in her sweets, but I find in many you can substitute allulose.
…just not any that you need to harden (like crispy cookies) or a recipe you are worried about it over-browning. Allulose browns quickly in the oven.
Dunno… this year is rough. Everybody and their brother is giving us cookies, like lots and lots and lots. AARRGGHH!!!
And it seems everyone wants to come over for dinner and bring food with them, mostly stuff full of carbs and sugar. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!
I find myself fasting more than I have in a while, or having just coffee and a bit of cream, nothing else.
It is hard. I really want stuff I know is bad for me. Not having had it for months or even years sometimes doesn’t take away the desire. I envy those for whom the time does that. Some of us aren’t so lucky.
It seems as though everything is skewed. The people at the end of our road, they raise cattle, and they take really good care of them. Great beef. Visiting with the guy, he’s telling me he’s gone to being much heavier in eating meat and dropped the carbs way down. Great! What does he hand me? A package with a Christmas card on it. I opened the package after he and his wife left… it was 3 POUNDS of chocolate chip cookies, and those weren’t keto either. AARRRGGHHHH!!!
Yikes, that’s too bad it wasn’t steak instead of cookies. We just toss our cookies or take them to work.
I made a keto cheesecake and will make some low carb mousse (not quite keto, because it uses 70% chocolate, though the carb count isn’t bad). I will have some chocolate, probably some ice cream, and will have some (homemade, Einkorn, sourdough) bread. (Chocolate is in the stockings.) Also, will have some latkes, which is one of our family member’s specialties. Will fry in tallow.
We are going to have eggs (frittatas, quiches, etc), sausages, and the like. So not too carby for the main meal. My wife will also make some vegetable.
I might try some apple cider vinegar + water beforehand, and some walking afterwards, both of which help drop blood sugar.
I’m also planning a 4.5 day fast on the first full week of the new year.
But it’s hard not to have some carbs at this time. I just get back to keto as soon as I can, usually the next day.
I fried up two entire packages of bacon and keep it in the fridge. I don’t mind it cold and it’s the one go-to snack that can keep me from shuffling through the nuts, cookies and candy that keep showing up.
Before I describe my hack I need to add the caveat that I am gluten-free and dairy-free due to food intolerances. That alone makes avoiding many of the holiday food traps easier. With that being said, I do make desserts that I can eat for special occasions. My hack is to enjoy the one special meal for the day. I stay keto for breakfast and lunch (if I eat it) and enjoy the dinner, dessert and all. Next morning, it is back to a keto breakfast, usually eggs and bacon.
Air fried some beef suet. Salted, it is good fresh. Had it with some chicken-dough biscuit thingys.
Had steroids overnight, so the fat will help with hunger and not get me in trouble.
They “deflate” as they cool. Put rest in the fridge to see how they reheat later.
How does it taste that way? It might be a good fit for me. (Raw/lightly cooked Suet is not great for me.)
Do the steroids affect your hunger? I was on them for poison ivy, but that’s not long enough to figure out what happens.
Steroids do seem to make me hungry. When that happens, I seem to over consume protein. Which puts me out of range for GKI… which sometimes triggers that need for more steroids. Seeing if I can break the cycle?
That, and I do like to play a bit in the kitchen.
These are tasty salted and fresh from the oven. Before today I have been working off of some trim from a pressure cooked brisket. That was a little more rendered and therefore a bit more crunchy. Since I have suet fat from 1.5 beef in my freezer, I thought I’d see if this works.
I have a 70 mile drive to see family Christmas Day. Plan is eat a can of mackerel for breakfast around 8am.
Won’t eat anything once there except turkey breast and perhaps some green beans. I’ll take a couple of teaspoons of ground flax seeds to mix with the beans. They’ll probably have broccoli casserole. But they use Velveeta. I love broccoli casserole but I’ll probably pass.
I’m fasting today and tomorrow. Water, tea, and a teaspoon of MCT oil with my fat soluble supplements.
Won’t be hard to ignore all the stuff I know I shouldn’t eat. Only been doing keto/extended fasting since late September this year but I’ve been eating healthy since 2021.
Family knows my food choices and they understand how hardheaded/picky I am. Every time I’ve been down there to visit since I started my health kick, I weigh less than the previous time and they always notice.
May go back down there in New Year’s eve but they always have pizza. Probably just fast that day if I go.
If needed I will eat an Ozempic omelette.
It’s either 2 cans of sardines, or a can of sardines and a can of mackerel. Both are Portuguese style packed in olive oil. I pour off the oil into the Labrador. Then mash the fish with a fork, add three extra large chicken eggs and pink salt to make a ‘pancake mix’. Then fry it in butter.
After eating that I am impervious to any sweet festive treats. Standard keto kills cravings, but not the social pressure. With the Ozempic omelette, there is no way I can stomach anything else. It’s a complete ‘off switch’. Not even a wafer thin after dinner mint.
Went to family Christmas gathering.
Ate …
Nothing
My stepdaughter and her husband usually do all the cooking and he had surgery Tuesday. So she just fixed lasagna. They understood why I passed on that so I wound up doing an unplanned 24 hour fast lol.
Worked out great. Checked my blood glucose and blood ketones before I broke the fast at 7:00 p.m. and my GKI is 1.0, a personal best.( blood glucose was 60, ketones 3.1)
Ate 14 grams of walnuts and 14 grams of macadamia nuts along with just a half a cup of veggies with a tablespoon of olive oil on the veggies and a teaspoon of avocado oil. Sprinkle the tablespoon of ground flaxseed on the veggies. Washed it down with 8 oz of soy milk.
For dessert I added a tablespoon of peanut butter.
An hour and a half later I checked my blood glucose. 82, works for me.
I cooked for Christmas, so I needed to do some tasting while I cooked- very minimal, less than quarter teaspoons on a couple of things. Otherwise, tallow, MCT, wings, and shredded fatty beef. Maybe too much protein.
Since we took Christmas to my father-in-law’s, I was able to make the most trouble-causing leftovers disappear in the transition back home.
Christmas managed. New Year’s won’t be any trouble.
Well, it’s hard for sure. My family always makes some things that are ok for us and they dont pressure us so that is nice. However, we both “cheated” a bit. I allow myself a “cheat” at such occasions but not for sugar. Sweets arent that hard for me to resist anyway. I had a hippie style grainy brown bun. A year ago that would have flared my hand pain but this year it just made me very sleepy. Im usually quite energetic so it felt odd to me. On the down side, I’m up about two pounds today! Carbs seem to be hyper fattening to me now.
There seems to be a lot of magic surrounding Christmas.
The Christmas ham leftovers seem to Brie disappearing as well at my place. (They make the most delicious ham and eggs).
That will just be the water held by the glycogen storage increase. It will flow out as soon as you get back into nutritional ketosis.
I would chop up grissle fat and air fry and then salt it.
I called it: Carnivore Popcorn!
