Tag: ketogenic

Feeling Great After a 24-Hour Fast

Jamal3 Comments

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We fasted today to give our bodies a surge. In a fasted state, I have the most focused and productive workouts and feel a cognitive boost throughout the day. I feel great and wasn’t hungry at all today – probably because I keep my healthy fat intake at 70%-80%, my protein moderate, and my carbs really low.

My workout schedule wasn’t too strong this week, but there’s still time to make up for that. We’ve been really good because we want to look good at this wedding this weekend. Fasting while keto boosts your metabolism and naturally pumps up your muscles; it’s also scientifically proven to fight cancer cells.

I won’t lie though – the longest period I can fast for is 24 hours. It’s tougher when you lift heavy weights, so I generally stick to my #intermittent fasting windows; 16 hour fast. 8 hour feeding window. It’s amazing what the body can do when you fuel it properly and generously. 🐻

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It’s Snacktime in the FATboys Kitchen…

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I’m having a low-carb, deconstructed chicken sandwich this afternoon. I was inspired to come up with something new because S is having low-carb biscuits and gravy. While I do love the biscuits and gravy recipe we use, it’s heavy on the dairy side of life, and I need to stay away from that to keep feeling light and healthy.

  • My body doesn’t tolerate dairy very well and since cutting it out of my diet over a year ago, I feel so much better on a daily basis. If I do have some dairy? I have some kombucha and get back on my mostly-dairy-free train.

To start, I fried a few chicken thighs in beef tallow using our home deep fryer. S had already made the keto bread so this was ready to go by the time my chicken was finished and ready for seasoning.

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Next? We slice the bread in half and add some homemade spicy keto sauce on each side. Continue on to debone each thigh and chop, together, with spinach. Add your preferred seasoning – I used a mixture of cayenne, lime juice, and a pinch of garlic salt – and place the chicken spinach mixture on top of the keto-sauced bread.

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At the top of this idea, I thought I would be able to mix the spinach and chicken, and make a sandwich with no issues. The mixture turned out to be a tad too unruly to rest calmly between the keto bread slices, so this is how the deconstructed version of this snack came to mind.

How was it? Absolutely DELISH. I enjoyed it with a crispy tequila water on the side.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

 

Oh We’ve Got Buns, Hun. Keto Buns.

Jamal1 Comment

January kicks off some fun and new content for the blog. We’re hoping to make cooking videos a regular thing in the FATboys section of Gays in the life. People often think we have boring food lives as regular low-carbers, but with video like these, we hope to show that we’re anything but dull when it comes to our food.

 

We followed Maria Emmerich’s recipe from her latest book The 30 Day Ketogenic Cleanse. We used the buns to make her sloppy ottos recipe – ground pork cooked with onions, topped with homemade keto thousand island dressing and sauerkraut – which turned out SO amazing. I want more.

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I like to use keto bread in bun or loaf form for sandwiches… ESPECIALLY a good breakfast sandwich.  The keto bread recipe in Maria’s latest book is dairy-free. Not everyone can tolerate dairy the same so this is a huge bonus for me. A little over a year ago, I cut way back on dairy and experienced great results. My weight-loss stall was broken and I could tell my insides were happy with me (TMI? lol)

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Don’t be afraid to have fun with whatever lifestyle you live in the kitchen. A true diet shouldn’t feel like a diet. You have to live, people. Catch us under FATboys for more keto and low-carb gems.

Snap, Crackle, Pop!

Jamal5 Comments

I have a feeling we won’t be ordering so many wings now…


We’ve only had this bad boy for about a week, and it’s changed our kitchen game already. For the past (coming up on) three years, S and I have produced our low-carb creations via the stovetop, oven, our grill or crock-pots. This home deep fryer by DeLonghi doesn’t take up much space on the counter and has yielded some extremely tasty keto snacks for us.

Staying as true to ketogenic and low-carb form as possible, the only oil that will be used in our fryer is beef tallow – a form of pure animal fat.


Eating real food is the key, regardless of your lifestyle, so this single ingredient, healthy fat will do well with the heat of the fryer. Some oils – if cooked at too high a temperature – become bad for you.

We baked some bacon-wrapped smokies with the family over Christmas , so we immediately knew we had to try frying those…

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(Post-fry)


And check out these wings!

We’ve been ordering so many wings, but now that our schedules are getting back to normal, we’ll have the time and energy to cook regularly again.

How exciting! New toys in the kitchen means remixed recipes and more fun and creativity to keep things interesting as a pair of low-carbers.

Stay tuned,

Back on Track

Jamal8 Comments

It’s Saturday! And I’ve managed to successfully stick to my set fasting windows. This was the reset I needed. The beer last weekend was delicious, but my body KNOWS when intruders – carbs – are strolling through my system.

Outside of sticking to fasting windows, ranging from 16-37 hours this week, I’m patting myself on the back for making every planned workout. As of late, I’m unable to pop right up and be gym ready in the morning. Lifting weights before work was convenient because I like to go STRAIGHT home after work. I’ve never been a fan of errands or veering too far off any scheduled plan; and yes, a scheduled plan includes my drive home (haha).

This week I decided to step outside of my stubborn-overly-scheduled mindset and just wing it. If I wasn’t hungry, I didn’t eat. This is largely due to keeping my healthy fat intake at 75% and my protein and carbs at good ketogenic levels. I had two, half-hour lifting sessions this week, and did yoga for 25 minutes two mornings. Every workout was focused, calm, and productive. I say calm because my body felt rested; even in the act of ripping my muscles apart and working on inversion poses.

How much a sweat comes out of a workout has never been a marker of success for me. With that being said, however, I’d never sweat so much during a workout. TMI, sorry, but I’m not sure what that could mean. Maybe it means nothing. I’ve never been a heavy sweater in the gym, but could working out in a fasting state be serving as some form of detoxification for me? The day after each lifting or yoga session, I felt as though I’d worked out, but the recovery period was much faster.

This morning we made these amazing breakfast sandwiches. Almond flour biscuits, egg, ham, extra sharp cheddar, jalapeno, and a bit of mayo.

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They were so bomb. It’s been ages since I had a breakfast sandwich and we were both too excited to eat them. S and I are looking into local butchers so we can level-up on healthy fats, our cooking, and culinary creativity. Whatever you eat, you’ve gotta have fun with it. Can you imagine this sandwich with some freshly sliced, thick-cut bacon? My weekend has been made already 🙂

Alternate-Day Fasting Journal: Day 1

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Fasting for any period has always been difficult for me. I believe the main cause of my up-and-down scenario in the world of fasting is the inability to get out of my own head. Before S and I became extremely busy – and exhausted – I was doing exceptionally well sticking to a regular intermittent fasting schedule. By eating between the hours of noon and 8PM, I was able to break my fasting period around lunchtime at work, but was also able to make sure I wasn’t eating too late in the evening.

In the past, I could successfully fast – only consuming green tea, coffee, and/or water – I could last two and a half days. Fasting for long periods does not work well for me and that’s okay. You’ll notice at one point I began a fat-fasting journal, but never got past the first entry here on the blog. At least on a fat-fast you could eat, but it became really difficult to do that type of fasting once I cut dairy from my diet. After two years of exploring the ketogenic lifestyle – almost three full years low-carb – I feel I can openly move forward with this fasting experiment.

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Today went surprisingly well for coming off a weekend where I consumed more carbs than I’d like to admit. Thanks to the low-carb, keto pumpkin cheesecake we made last night, I didn’t wake up hungry. Skipping yoga this morning, I went right into work where I made it through the day with no temptation or fear of collapsing under hunger’s heavy pressure. There were a couple moments of mild stomach cramps, but drinking plenty of water calmed that symptom. Immediately after work I hit the weights and had a productive lifting session. Lifting after not eating for about nineteen hours was an interesting experience; but more on that later.

It’s been just over twenty-three hours since my last meal. There were no headaches, I feel strong, my mind has been pinging and alert all day, and I don’t plan on eating until tomorrow morning. All it took, so far, was keeping a clear head; even smelling all the food in and around the breakroom at work today didn’t phase me. Focus is it. Focus is what’s been missing from my past attempts at exploring fasting. I’ll most likely break my fast with some eggs scrambled in coconut oil and spinach. Did you know the term “breakfast” comes from one breaking their fasting period? Breakfast doesn’t have to be in the morning, but I’m sure mine will come before lunch tomorrow.

Squishy Fries? A+

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These bad boys were so delicious! We simply sliced the avocado in frylike pieces and wrapped them in bacon. On medium heat, we cooked and rotated each bacon-wrapped avocado in a pan.


We didn’t add any seasoning this time, but I imagine some cayenne pepper and a dash of salt would set these off just right.

The texture is very interesting. The outside is gloriously proud and crunchy, while the avocado center washes over your tastes buds like an intoxicating avocado elixir.

This dish is great if you’re craving bar munchies and want a fun conversation-starter at your next cookout. Prep time is minimal and you cook the outside until each side has that awesome, fried bacon glow.

Buttered n’ Grilled Chicken. It’s What’s for Dinner.

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S and I recently bought a new grill and decided to have some fun with it tonight. We melted real butter – you know the kind with only two ingredients and no hidden sugars or random chemicals that are, pretty much, sugar?  – and added seasoning to the melted butter. We placed 6 bone-in-with-skin chicken thighs in a large bowl and worked the seasoned butter mixture around the chicken until it solidified; making it easy to manipulate and cover every side of the thighs in a glorious explosion of healthy fats.

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I’m pretty sure the neighbors thought we were burning the place down. Some weeks back we had a good friend over who covered his steaks in a sugary marinade that flooded the bottom of our new infrared grill. This resulted in the grill smoking like a bomb had just gone off until the last of the marinade burned off. At just below medium heat, the chicken was ready to sizzle and dance on the marinade stained grates.

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I like to keep it simple, so I added some spinach to my plate with some homemade keto Dijon sauce on the side. The sauce was made by mixing a couple tablespoons of Dijon mustard, a dash of full-fat mayo, and a couple teaspoons of MCT oil. The oil is tasteless and is an easy way to add some healthy fat to your meal. Be careful though! Too much of this and you’ll be running to the toilet.

Everything is better on the grill. There’s no arguing that. Putting the damned thing together was a pain in the ass, but I’m thrilled now that we can do a little more than our stove-top or baked creations for dinner. Summer may be coming to an end, but you’d better believe we’ll be grilling our low-carb-high-fat hearts out until the snow arrives. But then again, growing up in Alaska, my parents often grilled with snow on the ground…