Cooking Vs. Baking

For those of us looking to understand why conventional wisdom about weight loss doesn't work for our bodies/metabolisms, I wish to present to you my own person shift in thinking. Our culture wants a recipe to follow to lose weight. For example:

They will tell you... Eat less, move more. Eat lots of veggies and whole grains. Move more. Get your steps in, cardio 5x a week.... everything in moderation. Or maybe... keep your calories under 1500, eat steel cut oatmeal for breakfast (NEVER skip breakfast it is the most important meal of the day), eat a salad for lunch, and a sensible dinner AND you will lose weight.

How many of you have followed their recipes?

I have.

Even when I turned to Keto, I found loads of people looking for a recipe for Keto. 

What do I eat? Which sweetener should I use? What do I order when at a restaurant?

I was right there with them!

It finally dawned on me after talking with someone that has been quietly successful on Keto. He has lost 80lbs and no one has really even said much of anything to him. I gave him the book, Why We Get Fat, and then I watched him shrink down all year. 

I was frustrated with my inability to stick with it consistently. I sat down and asked him about what he has done and how does he continue to stick with it given his job (his job requires a ton of social eating where he is not in control of menu options). He said he does the best he can under the circumstances, and that if he can't keep 100% keto, he doesn't beat himself up. Instead he jumps right back into it. His year had some ups and downs but overall ...HE LOST 80 POUNDS!

It was after that conversation that I realized I was looking at weight loss like baking instead of cooking.

Still confused? 

I have always professed a love for cooking and a disdain for baking. When questioned about this I always explain it like this... The reason I prefer to cook rather than bake is the same reason I preferred art classes to science class.

In art and in cooking, I am able to play, and express myself and provided I possess a few basic skills and understanding of the process, I can create something worthwhile.

Baking on the other hand is like chemistry class. It requires precision in measurements, timing, temperature, and procedure. There is seldom a successful lets-just-wing-it in baking. It requires you to follow a recipe step by step without variance. 

So what does this have to do with changing how I think about Ketogenic Lifestyle?

I was approaching weight loss like baking.

Give me a recipe to follow. I will do it. I will lose weight.

But in reality, I have been given a list of ingredients: fat, moderate protein,  under 20grams of carbs.

How I throw those together to work for me and my body is different from how others will do it.

Just like in cooking.

Think about potato salad. Every family has their own way of making potato salad --no two salads are the same, but they all use potatoes, mayo, pickles.... some might add mustard, onions, celery, bacon...

you get the picture.

I had to switch my thinking to me and how I do life. Once I had a basic understanding of how and why a ketogenic diet works for someone like me, then I had to figure out my own recipe.

So while it is helpful and encouraging to share what works for you, it is also important to know that each of us needs to find what works for us.

RECIPE

Hopefully, you have read the above entry and understand that I rarely measure. I don't have measurements for you. 

I want to talk about fatbombs.

I love fatbombs. I don't eat them everyday. I don't even eat them once a week. I generally turn to fatbombs for one of two reasons. First, because I am hungry but not wanting to make anything and I just want the hunger to go away. Second, to satisfy a sweet craving.

My first successful batch remained in my freezer for months. I finished them up last night so I went in search of some recipes to try. I have been searching for 4 months. I didn't like any of them. Some that I tried I actually tossed in the trash. They were icky.

So today as I was writing this blog post it occurred to me that I had a basic understanding of what a fatbomb is so why not just make my own. So I did.

I ended up with 4 different kinds of fatbombs: Chocolate/peanut butter, Coffee/hazelnut, Cinnamon Toast, and English Toffee

I started with the two things I like in my fatbombs:

Grass-fed butter

Coconut oil

I took almost a full thing of butter and about a half jar of coconut oil and put it in a pan on low heat to combine. When it was melted, I poured it into a measuring cup and it was 2 cups.

I used 1/2 cup as a base for each of the 4 fat bombs.

Chocolate/peanut butter- I added a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder and natural peanut butter plus 3 packets of swerve. I combined and poured into silicone molds.

Coffee/hazelnut- I added one packet of Starbucks Via instant coffee, some heavy whipping cream, hazelnut extract, and 3 packets of swerve. Stir to combine and pour into silicone molds.

Cinnamon Toast- I added heavy whipping cream, cinnamon, 1 pump of vanilla sugar free syrup, and 2 packets of swerve

English Toffee- I added heavy whipping cream, 2 pumps of English Toffee sugar free syrup, and one packet of swerve. 

After taking them out of the molds, the sugar free syrup separated from the mix. I won't use it again.

I will stick to extracts. Be careful of too much cream. My coffee fatbombs separated and didn't fully set. 

What I learned: No sugar free syrup. Very little heavy whipping cream. And next time use unsalted butter :-)