what is keto?

The ketogenic diet is a very low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. By restricting your carb intake and increasing dietary fat, your liver converts stored body fat into molecules called ketones. When the number of ketones rises to a certain level in your bloodstream, you are officially in a state of “ketosis,” and your body is using fat as its primary fuel source.

The classic, medically-defined ketogenic diet has 75% of your daily calories come from fat, 20% from protein, and 5% from carbohydrates. However, for athletes and active people with greater energy needs, we like a version we call “Mod Keto” that lowers fat to 40–60%, increases protein to 20–40%, and bumps up carbs to 20%. Either approach can yield great results.

We’ve longed been told that calorie restriction, increasing exercise and reducing dietary fat intake are the keys to weight loss. But, if you’ve ever attempted to control your weight by subsisting on fewer calories — especially from mostly bland “diet foods”— you’re already probably aware that this typically produces minimal results and is extremely hard to stick with long-term or consistently. Yes, I am one of them because most of MMA fighters do "Yo-Yo" diet to make competition weight(mostly water weight cut). Ketogenic diet is a good strategy for a long term fat burning state in order to achieve one's healthy body weight/health status.

Evidence has shown that, compared to a low-fat diet, a low-carbohydrate diet results in more weight loss. Ketogenic diets have also been shown to increase focus and improve markers of heart health, and they continue to be investigated for their potential in treating a variety of health problems.

When it comes to Keto pizza, we have to make our pizza dough #1 fat head or #2 cauliflower. Since I make almond milk every week, there is lots of almond pulp leftover. I combined almond flour and coconut flour with eggs.  Most of ingredients are from local farmers market, such as raw cheddar cheese from NH and topping vegetables from local farmers. All pantry/dry goods from  Thrive market, which is like a BJ's or Costco of whole foods market. Basically, Thrive market is an online grocery store where you can find healthy and organic products and offer up to 50% off from retail price. They make it easy to shop by the lifestyle and dietary values–organic, Paleo, gluten-free, etc. I save tons of $$$ here.

Keto pizza 101... You have to make the dough first! It won't be the same process as a regular pizza, like preparing a dough, putting topping and tossing it to oven. You have to use oven twice! Also, you need wax paper to make the only dough first. After you make a keto pizza dough, it is the same cooking process as regular pizza. This low carb pizza crust is my current favorite. It’s doughy and chewy, has a really good “bread” or "cookie crust" texture, and you can make several at a time and store in the freezer or refrigerator.

This pizza is dairy free, gluten free, keto pizza. Sorry for vegan friends. I do make vegan cheese occasionally. This cheese are made of mainly macadamia nuts. I personally think macadamia nuts are the best nuts for ketogenic diet. Even though I am not full ketosis, high quality fat is essential to my diet. Cheese is the most food I miss when it comes to fight camp diet or regular diet in general.  Gradually, I eliminated my dairy intake in last few years especially after my study in Master's degree in Applied Nutrition. I still play around with vegan cheese, so wait until I make my best. So far all vegan cheese I make taste like a real cheese. By the way, I accidentally found guanciale l made before in the fridge, so just tossed them on my keto pizza. This white pizza was very successful low carb dinner!

Keto bread is another project for me because if my client who follows ketogenic diet ask me for nutrition counseling, I must be familiar with ketogenic life style. I am always experimenting with lower carb and gluten free recipes in line with my lifestyle. Well, following a low carb diet doesn’t have to mean lettuce-wrapped sandwiches for life. Are you looking for new ideas for sandwich during your keto diet? A plate for keto community should be full of healthy fat and low carbs. I am a big fan of sandwiches and bread though. My answer for creating a light and airy keto bread that can hold up to the toaster is using plenty of eggs and healthy fat.

If you want to make this bread taste more like a sponge cake style bread to top with berries, add a teaspoon of stevia or other Paleo approved sweetener to the batter. To get a finer texture, use almond flour instead of almond meal. Although this bread doesn’t taste exactly like white sandwich bread, it’s a great alternative. But if you’re looking for a bread to try that tastes and looks more like bread, just give up "ketosis" and make it gluten free option when you reload carb to replenish glycogen.

This is soft like regular bread. The crust is soft, too – it doesn’t get crispy. You can make toast, sandwiches, and French toast again. You can eat bread and butter again!Although this bread doesn’t taste exactly like white sandwich bread, it’s a great alternative. But if you’re looking for a bread to try that tastes and looks more like bread,

This paleo and keto bread is  soft, fluffy, absolutely delicious and with a killer crumb. I used more almond flour. You truly need a super finely ground almond flour here, as if you use meal your bread will turn out dense and oily. This tastes more like keto pizza dough above.

What if rice is taken away from Asian people? Yes, we cry. ??? At least, I cry because cannot believe my life without rice. This is my Buddha bowl at random day dinner. My Buddha bowl has all the same umami-rich, savory flavors, but they're packed with green vegetables and built on a base of broccoli sprouts, which I find to be totally underrated and underutilized. Although broccoli sprouts can be enjoyed in a number of ways such as adding in green smoothie, it brings great flavor to Asian dish. For protein, I cooked grass-fed beef liver. You hear these nutrients such as Vitamin A, Vitamin E, Beta Carotene, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, Proven cancer-fighter CLA. They're not what you'd normally expect to find in beef but its exactly what you'll find in the grassland beef. Plus. beef liver is such a nutrition dense food to get access to high quality hormone-supporting protein and fat sources with none of the nasty toxins or inflammatory compounds you find in commercial meat.

I highly recommend making cauliflower rice or cauliflower mash so you get that satisfaction for the desire for starchy food but it doesn't affect your blood level. Mine is purple cauliflower from local farmers market. It looks like containing lots of polyphenol. If we can make low carb rice, variations would be amazing! such as paella, fried rice, curry rice and much more.

With minimal carbs in your system, your fatty acids get released into your body. Your liver then starts to convert these fatty acids into ketones. Ketones are what your body will start to use as its primary source of energy. However, fasting is a better way to get your body into ketosis. The best fasting technique, in my opinion, is probably intermittent fasting. Well. let's not talk about physiology here at Tatekitchen because we  all love food!