Don’t Blame it on the Good Times, Blame it on the Veggies

I want to apologize in advance for not leaving out the gross details. There. I said it. 

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Quite often, people ask me this question:

Can I eat [insert vegetable]?

My answer is almost always yes. How is this possible? There are plenty of vegetables that have a relatively high amount of carbs in them, but even then I usually say yes. Why? Plenty of reasons, and these are only a few of them:

❤ Vegetables are high in fiber. Fiber is not evil. Fiber keeps stuff moving through your digestive system, and will (in most cases) prevent you from getting constipated. Fiber will also prevent your blood sugar from spiking, so even if the vegetable is a little high in carbs it may not necessarily spike your blood sugar as much as expected. A high fiber diet can also decrease the risk of getting haemorrhoids. Basically – fiber has plenty of benefits.

❤ Vegetables have loads of vitamins that are super important. Yes, you can eat vitamin pills and supplements, but the bioavailability of vitamins from pills and supplements is much lower than the vitamins from actual real vegetables.

❤ It’s the ethical thing to do. I’m ignorant enough to assume that none of my followers have ever gone to bed hungry (at least not because they couldn’t afford food), but there are plenty of people who do. I am not vegetarian, nor will I ever be (again), but living solely on meat is not good for us, our environment, and it is certainly not ethical. Meat production is a lot more energy consuming than vegetable production – and if everyone who could afford it were to live on meat alone, there would not be enough food for everyone. Truth is – there is enough food for everyone on this planet. It just isn’t distributed evenly.

❤ Veggies make you happy! According to research from The University of Queensland, eating 8 or more servings of vegetables a day will not only improve your physical health, but also your mental wellbeing. Okay, so normally, seeing as I consider myself a woman of science, I would never say something based on one study. However, eating veggies never hurt anyone, so I think it’s safe to say trusting their research carries very little risk.

❤ Vegetables are filling. They just are. Don’t believe me? Google it.

❤ Vegetables will not make you fat. A lot of us chose the low carb lifestyle because we wanted to lose weight. One of the most important lessons to learn is to look back and figure out what made you gain weight in the first place. For me, it was an unhealthy lifestyle with lots of processed food and high levels of stress. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I’m fairly certain that no one ever gained weight because they ate too many vegetables.

I am not saying that you should eat 10 carrots a day. But eat a little bit of carrot every now and then. Have a few pieces of an onion on your burger. Eat as much broccoli and cauliflower as you can. Do not be afraid of colors. Realize that corn is not a vegetable, it’s a grain. Low carbing generally does not include eating grains, but a spoonful of corn will not kill you. But most important; Stop being afraid of vegetables.

Cheaty Cheesy Cupcakes

I love cheese. Of course, since I love cheese, I also love cheesecake. Cheesecake is actually one of the cakes that usually turn out pretty decent, even when you’re only using low carb ingredients. The other day, I had an epiphany: What if I use peanuts as a crust for cheesecake? Unfortunately – there was not a peanut in sight in my house. But I did have a jar of peanut butter, so I gave it a try anyway.

This is what I used:

❤ Almost a jar of sugar free, organic peanut butter (depending on how thick you want the crust to be)
❤ 125 g/4.5 oz plain cream cheese
❤ 1 ½ tablespoon of gelatin powder
❤ 150 ml/5 fl.oz water
❤ 1 egg
❤ 300 ml/10 fl.oz heavy whipping cream
❤ 2 limes (zest + juice)
❤ 1 ½ teaspoon of stevia powder
❤ 3 tablespoons of erythritol
(I also used some lemon juice from a bottle – I only had 1 lime, and it wasn’t quite enough)

The first thing I did was to put peanut butter in cupcake trays – I got six huge cupcakes out of this recipe.

While these were hanging out in the freezer (I don’t know why – but I did put them there), get started on the gelatin mix. Bring the water to a boil, add the gelatin powder, and stir like crazy. When the gelatine is completely dissolved, add the erythritol (this should melt – unless you want extra crunchy cheesecake), and let this dissolve as well. In the mean time, zest your limes and squeeze the juice out of them. Make sure you don’t get any of the white stuff from the limes while you’re zesting. It tastes pretty terrible.

When your gelatin and erythritol-mix has cooled off a little while, add the lime zest and juice. Then get started on whipping the cream. Whatever you use for whipping is completely up to you. I like adding the stevia powder while whipping it.

When the cream looks like this, add the egg and cream cheese. This should be mixed on low. When this is thoroughly mixed, add the gelatin mix, a little bit at a time, while mixing on low. If the gelatin starts working it’s magic before you get to this point, just reheat it a little bit, but it shouldn’t be too warm when you add it either.

Pour the cheesecake mix into the cupcake trays (on top of the peanut butter), and leave them in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Voila! Your very own cheaty cheesy cupcakes.

Enjoy! ❤

Avocado Brownies

After I discovered dark chocolate, I’ve been a chocoholic. Milk chocolate doesn’t tickle my fancy at all, but that barely sweet, dark, rich chocolate with an almost bitter aftertaste can make my day. A friend of mine swears to making banana brownies every time she has company, and they’re delicious! Unfortunately – bananas, sugar and wheat flour doesn’t go hand in hand with a LCHF lifestyle. Flour and sugar can be replaced with almonds, protein, coconut and other sweeteners, but the banana is still there. I’ve had tons of success in replacing bananas with avocados in smoothies, so why not in brownies? These were amazing. Yes. I’m that good. Unfortunately, I forgot all about taking pictures, but the recipe is fairly easy to follow without pictures as well.

Here’s what I used:

❤ 1 ripe avocado
❤ 1 egg
❤ 100 g/1 stick of butter (melted)
❤ 2 tablespoons of water
❤ 3 tablespoons of almond flour
❤ 1 scoop of baking protein
❤ 2 teaspoons of vanilla powder
❤ A pinch of salt
❤ 6 tablespoons of cocoa powder
❤ 2 teaspoons of stevia powder
❤ 3 tablespoons of erythritol
❤ 150 g/5 oz of 86 % chocolate

Start by mashing your avocado. Add the egg and butter, but make sure the butter has cooled off for a while first. I usually add the water to the butter to help it cool faster, but it doesn’t make any difference. Mix well, and add the baking protein, almond flour, stevia, erythritol, salt and cocoa powder while you’re mixing. Chop up your chocolate, and add that as well.
You can pretty much use whatever you have to bake it – I used a bread pan. 320 degrees F/160 degrees C for 25-35 minutes, depending on your oven. Let it cool off before cutting it, and store it in the fridge.

Enjoy! ❤

Be Kind To Your Body

To me, health is about taking care of my body. Of course, that means exercising, eating mostly healthy and taking care of myself. Eating right is about more than calories and carbs. It’s about refueling, recovering and recharging. Depending on your do’s and dont’s, you may or may not need an extra nutrition boost. I have this little thing that I make that I call a “power juice”. It’s all natural, and tastes super delicious. Typically, I drink it after a workout.   

It’s a pretty easy mix – I like it with bubbles, so I usually give the water a fizz using my sodastream before adding the other ingredients. 

• A fistful of raspberries (I used frozen ones)
• A pinch of himalaya salt 
• Two wedges of lime
• A few mint leaves

Give it a quick stir, and drink up! 

Now, one may question why I add the salt. Because I’m a runner, I lose a lot of salts and minerals when I sweat. This needs to be replaced. Most people get enough salt through their food, but since I don’t eat foods that are processed I usually end up with less than the recommended amount. This is also the reason why I take Magnesium supplements. 

I also take iron supplements on a regular basis. Because I donate blood every three months, this is something that they ask me to take to replace the iron I lose when my body suddenly loses 10-15 percent of it’s blood volume. 

On occasion, I also take a vitamin C supplement. Especially if I need an extra boost to fight off a cold. But normally I try to get my vitamins and minerals from eating healthy. 

Why am I telling you this? Well… When every person you meet has a different opinion on what supplements you should and shouldn’t take, it’s easy to listen more to everyone else than you listen to your body. I can’t tell you if you need iron or magnesium supplements. Of course, you can get some blood work done to find out if you need some sort of supplements, but be critical to whose advice you buy. 

There are doctors and dietitians who are experts on how your body works. But more importantly; you’re the only one who’s an expert on what works for your body. 

Coconut Pancakes

LCHF and pancakes usually do not go hand in hand. However, there are certain hacks you can do to make it okay. When I was growing up, my dad used to make us pancakes on rainy Saturday mornings. Feeling a little nostalgic today, I decided to try to mix up the recipe my dad used.

Don’t get me wrong – you probably don’t want to eat this for breakfast every day, but once or twice a week is perfectly fine. The net carbs isn’t too bad, and even if I haven’t done the math, most of the ingredients in it is pretty low in carbs.

Here’s what I used:

❤ 2 eggs
❤ 4 (big) tablespoons of yogurt
❤ 4 tablespoons of shredded coconut (or 2 tablespoons of coconut flour)
❤ 1 scoop of bakepro (baking protein)
❤ ½ teaspoon of stevia powder
❤ 1 teaspoon of psyllium husk powder
❤ 1 teaspoon of baking powder
❤ 1 pinch of salt

Start by mixing your eggs and yoghurt, before adding the dry ingredients.

Mix well, and wait 15 minutes. This way, the dry ingredients will absorb most of the liquid.

Melt butter in a frying pan on medium/high, and add the batter like you would with normal pancakes.

Give them a few minutes before flipping them to the other side.

That’s it!

Use your topping of preference. I love the standard butter + pancake syrup (Walden Farms has one with no calories and no carbs!) or butter and strawberries. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any strawberries, so I used a strawberry sauce from Walden Farms. It tasted yummy, but I agree; It looks like there was a pancake massacre going on here:

Other toppings that I think are great for pancakes are blueberry spread, cream cheese, whipped cream, raspberries, blueberries and Walden Farms’ chocolate syrup. What’s your favourite pancake topping?

Zucchini Bolognese

I’ve always been a sucker for pasta. Carbonara, bolognese, alfredo, the kind that I don’t even remember the name of that has seafood in it. If it’s pasta, I’ll eat it. Unfortunately, eating a shipload of pasta while sticking to a low carb lifestyle is a no-go. Thank God we can still eat zucchini (squash).
For a while now, I’ve been fighting a pasta bolognese craving that would not let go. Just eating the bolognese did not exactly tickle my fancy, so I decided to give zucchini pasta a try. And boy, did it work!

Here’s what you’ll need (enough for 2 hungry people):

❤ Approximately 1 lbs (400 g) minced beef
❤ 1 chili pepper
❤ 1 garlic (some may think this is too much, but I’m a sucker for garlic as well)
❤ 3 shallots (or regular onions if you don’t have shallots)
❤ 2 tins of chopped tomatoes
❤ 1 zucchini per adult
❤ Spices (salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, oregano, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder etc)

I also used some fresh basil and thyme.

Start by shallow frying the minced beef, shallots and garlic. In the meantime you can start preparing your zucchini(s).

I used a spiralizer to make it look like spaghetti, but you can also use a cheese grater or chop it with a knife if you don’t have one.

When the beef and shallots are thoroughly cooked, add the chopped tomatoes and spices. If you want to add herbs, you should wait until the last five minutes or so. Let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

When the bolognese sauce has about 5 minutes left, melt some butter in a frying pan, and add the zucchini. Some people like adding spices to it. I didn’t, but this is completely up to you.

When it starts looking a little soggy, it’s done!

I also used some creme fraiche mixed with thyme, salt and garlic and some grated parmesan cheese. Yummy!

Enjoy! ❤