Hi Keto Mom here!
Sharing with you our Keto Journey, I know It gets to be overwhelming, and so I want to give you a couple simple tips. Just so you know, I am not a doctor. I am not a keto expert, although our family has been eating this way and sharing all of the things that we learned with you for the last six years.
Common questions answered by Keto Mom
02:08 How do I track my food/Do I have to track my food
04:56 PORTIONS
06:25 The tip is to FLIP (checking the labels)
09:25 Water intake
11:02 Sugar replacements
13:49 Good fats
15:40 Why do I need electrolytes
17:00 Examples of electrolytes
19:23 IG stories (ketomomsecrets)
19:45 Drinking ketones at night
Full Episode Transcript
Hey everybody! Hey everybody, how are you doing? I hope you're having an incredible morning or afternoon or evening, whatever time it is for you. Welcome to the Keto mom page. My name is Stephanie, and we're going to talk about five common questions that I get on a regular basis. I'm pretty sure I've gotten all five questions today. And so I'm coming to you to answer those questions. But first, as you're tuning in, where are you tuning in from? And let's see, what are you having for dinner? So we already ate, we had some salmon, but what are you having for dinner Sharing is caring. It gives people ideas. So I want to know where you're tuning in from, and what are you having for dinner?
So we're going to talk about these top five questions that I get often. And the questions are this. Well,
Do I have to track my food? Or how do I track my food? Give me some ideas of how to make sure my portions stay under control. Number two, how much water should I be drinking? Number three, tell me about sugar replacements. Number four, we're going to talk about some good fats. And number five, we're going to talk about electrolytes.
I often get the question, why do I need electrolytes? Can you please fill me in on some of these questions that are pretty common.
So again, as you're tuning in, where are you tuning in from, press the share button below. And I would love to know what you're having for dinner. Or maybe if you're all the way across the other side of the world. I'm currently in Minnesota, and actually the weather is quite beautiful here. If you follow our story, and you follow us on Instagram, it was like where do I share my stories? If you follow us on Instagram, you saw that we were in California a few days ago. Bright and sunny, the beaches and the sand, and now we're back in Minnesota. But let me tell you, the heat wave is here because it is been 30s and beautiful. I know that sounds weird, but it actually is a heat wave from Minnesota, you might even see people out in shorts. So okay, we're gonna dive in the very first question.
And it's kind of a question I get on a regular basis every single day all the time is,
How do I track my food? Do I have to track my food? Do I have to pay attention to calories, like all of the tracking, right?
It gets to be overwhelming, and I want to give you a couple simple tips. Just so you know, I am not a doctor. I am not a keto expert, although our family has been eating this way and sharing all of the things that we learned with you for the last six years. I am a homeschool mom, we have four daughters. And we love to help people understand how to fuel their bodies the best they can. But we're not perfect, and so we'll talk about a cheat day a different day. But what I want to talk to you is years and years ago, if you know our story, if you don't know our story, my husband dove into a keto lifestyle, straight keto, super strict, tracking all of his food, like weighing it on a little measuring plate. And everything he did, he was typing in a phone and adding up his carbs and making sure his fat was like, it kind of overwhelmed me. He was pricking his finger to check if he was in ketosis, because eight years ago, you couldn't drink ketones. So all of these things he did for a period of time. So let me ask you, who here tracks their food, like on My Fitness Pal, there's a carb counter, there's actually quite a bit of different kind of counters, you can add up your food and see where you end at the end of the day. Now, here's what I want you to know, you can do it one of two ways, right? If you are super strict keto, and you want to make sure you're 80% fat, and you're under 20 carbs a day, and you're following your macros right...
Because let me tell you, there isn't a one size fits all.
So I can't just hand you a "here you go eat this, and this and this, and this". Like if you're tracking your food and something like a carb manager, or My Fitness Pal, it's going to ask you your age, and your weight, and your gender and your activity level. It's going to ask you all these things, and it's going to give you a suggestion of what you should be eating. Right? So I watched my husband do that a long time ago. And what I tell most people is if their goal is to be really, really, really strict, and they've got really big goals, it's sometimes is a really great idea to track your food if you don't get irritated with it, right? Because it visually shows you exactly what you're eating. So if you aren't one that can eyeball food, if you aren't one that can go "Yep, I ate enough". For you, if you physically can't tell if your full or not. Or if you feel like you're eating out of emotions, like it might be a good idea for you to track your food, at least for a few weeks to a few months to visually understand what you're eating, how much you're eating, if you're overeating and so it's a great idea. If you do it, awesome. If you are one of those people that you're like "absolutely no way I don't want to be stuck to my phone". Here's a simple tip for you. Okay, I like to talk about portions.
So here's like something super simple.
When you're at home, take a big plate and swap it out for a little plate, right?
How often do we fill up our plates just because the plate is large, and we want to fill that baby up, and then eat everything on the plate. Or if you go out to eat, you eat everything that you get that you order because it's in front of you, right? So if you dish up smaller portions, and then you wait for a little bit to see if you're still hungry, you can always go back for seconds. But I bet more often than not, you'll be satisfied. We don't need to go for full. So if you don't want to track all of your food in your phone and be stuck to your phone, I know there's a lot of busy moms out there like me, if you like me are not going to stick to your phone and track everything, which I did for a couple weeks to get a good visual of what I was eating. But then I ditched the phone and I was like buns off the burgers, croutons off the salad, more veggies, get rid of the rice and the potatoes, like I mentally knew what I should eat.
And I really was focused on if I'm hungry I should eat, if I'm not hungry I don't need to eat, because the clock says to eat.
So this is a super simple can implement tomorrow tip, a smaller plate, you don't have to fill the plate, you don't have to eat everything on the plate.
Also, if you're like "I don't know how much meat to eat, I don't know if I should be eating all these vegetables". And if you're not going to track it something super simple, and I say this often, the tip is to flip. So every time you're flipping something over to look at like, often I'll teach you how to look at the carbs in something or we're talking about net carbs and total carbs. Right now, I don't want you to look at the portion or the serving size. So if you are trying to figure out like often people overeat nuts, it's something super simple. So if you flip it over, I've already measured these out before, but one serving size of nuts whether it's almonds, I love macadamia nuts. Do any of you guys snack on nuts? I do. And if I had these sitting on my table, while I was homeschooling my kids, which I have before, has anybody ever done this, I'll be sitting there and like, I'll grab a scoop, right, I'll scoop some out, pop them in my mouth. They're sitting on the table, so they're right in front of me. I scoop some out, pop them in my mouth, and before you know it I've had five or six handfuls. Anybody else?, super easy to do.
So something to help you with your portions is whatever you're eating, if you're not tracking it on your phone, if you're not using a smaller plate, look at the serving size and measure it out.
So approximately, a serving size of most nuts are a fourth of a cup. So I just keep this on the counter and the drawer sometimes on top of the nuts, and this is what I eat. I'll grab a scoop, I'll take it over to the table as we're doing math or I'm doing something with my girls or we're reading and I eat out of my little portion measuring cup. It's just super helpful, and so take it for what it's worth. I've also told people that go to work, work in an office if they're super busy, either take your nuts and portion them and snack baggies. Or what I've also found is a Dixie cup is almost the exact same size as a fourth of a cup. So put a whole bunch of Dixie cups on your desk, hide these in your desk, scoop out one Dixie cup, and that's your portion. Make sense? So that's a couple tips to help you stay in control of your food.
I'm curious, what do you do? Do you track your food? Do you try to watch all of those things? The question often says well, "do I should I be more aware of the carbs or should be more aware of the calories?" And the biggest thing I would say about all of that is this and you hear me say it all the time. If you're not hungry, don't eat. Don't eat the clock because the clock says to eat. And you don't need to eat if you're, well let's say for example, you go to a party this weekend. And there's keto foods out, if there's keto foods out and you already ate supper. But you're like "oh my goodness, I want to talk and snack".
If you're grabbing the cheese off the cheese tray and maybe there's fat bombs and maybe there's some keto snacks or keto cookies or whatever there is, but you're not hungry. You can overeat good calories, right?
So the biggest thing I want people to understand is pay attention to how you're feeling and how your body is like if you're hungry or you're not if you're not hungry. I know it's so fun to talk and eat but just try to keep away from that. So, I hope that's helpful.
Number two, water intake. I'm going to show you guys something super fun. I need two more rubber bands but this is a super simple tip for you. How many of you are getting enough water in your day?
You should be drinking about half your body weight in ounces of water.
Anybody doing that? If you are, congratulations! if you're not here's a tip for you. Take your water bottle I love to say find something that you can drink, I love to drink out of a straw. I really should get myself one but then I don't like to clean the straw. So, find yourself a water bottle. Always keep it on the counter, keep it with you in the car. Take it with you wherever you go, and put the amount of rubber bands on the water bottle that you need. So for me, I need to drink at least five of these a day. I should have five rubber bands on here. Every time I fill it up, I'm going to take a rubber band off. So by the time I get to the end of the night and I'm talking to you, I should have no rubber bands on here. And I should have all of my water in for the day, does that make sense? I know there's super cool, like tracker water bottles and has the ounces on there but that's a super simple tip. Put the rubber bands on there for the amount of ounces that you need about half your body weight in ounces of water. Does anybody do this? Do you think it's helpful? So that's a tip for you, and that's it about water. Just get your water in it's super important, super easy.
Okay! This is a huge question, and I think oftentimes a question that people ask but are kind of confused about. Especially if you're tracking all of your carbs, and you're super concerned about your carb counter, is sugar replacements.
Now, this is a question like what sugar replacement should I use? What's the best?
Oh, my goodness, somebody messaged me today. And she's like, "I didn't know that monk fruit had four carbs in it, and four sugar alcohols, and now I screwed up my ketosis". And I was like, hold on, we talked about this often. But you can subtract sugar alcohol and fiber from the total carbs. The point of a sugar replacement if you're making a low carb keto snack, or you want to add something to your coffee, or whatever the case may be, is the point of these is they don't boost or spike your insulin. Now, I only know that because I've learned that from doctors. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nurse, I'm not a scientist. But I do know that sugar affects your body, right?
So if you eat an Oreo, just let me ask you this. Think of your favorite favorite dessert that's not keto? And can you just eat one? Or do you feel like if you eat one, it like spikes something in your brain to make you go, "I want more". That's what sugar does, right?
If I eat a chocolate chip cookie, which is my most favorite yummiest dessert ever. I don't care where it's from, if if there's chocolate chip cookie, I can't just eat one. Which is why I cannot have them in my home because I love them so much, right? But the sugar spikes in my system, my brain goes I need some more sugar and then I spiral out of control, eat the whole bag and then I am super grumpy.
The point of a sugar replacement is it doesn't do that. So when I make a keto or low carb cookie and I use one of these, what I love about this is I actually what this does is it doesn't hit your brain, like sugar sugar. So like if I grab a keto cookie, I'm most likely not gonna grab a second because it doesn't make me go back and crave it like, let's just say cane sugar does, right? So these don't spike your insulin like that, they're a better option. Should you be eating a whole bunch of keto cookies all the time? No. But is there better options to make a dessert into low carb or keto? Yes. So my question to you is this. I like the monk fruit the best because it has a lesser, of all of them aftertaste. It doesn't have like the cooling effect. A lot of people love Swerve, and then I found this in my cupboard and I actually don't even know if I ever bought it. I think somebody gifted it to me and I've never used it. But I looked at the back of it and it's got erythritol, xylitol, so I've never used it. But it looks like a great great substitute. I just found it digging digging back there. What do you use for a sugar replacement? A lot of people want to know. So I hope that makes sense.
Next question, good fats. If you're here, if you understand low carb, if you understand the keto diet, you know the point is to eat some good fats.
If you're eating good fats, your body will stay fuller longer.
So when we say intermittent fasting, or if we say you're not going to snack all day, if you have some good fats for your lunch and good fats for your dinner, you shouldn't have to snack because fat keeps you fuller longer. Does that makes sense? So for example, Kerrygold butter is a good example of good fat. This is my favorite butter to use. Whether I'm putting it on vegetables, or I put it in the pan to make our eggs, I use this most of the time. Some other good fats are avocados, we love avocados, or has anybody ever been on the lean diet?. Did you ever eat lean? I know my husband did years and years and years ago it was like chicken and broccoli, chicken and broccoli and rice chicken and broccoli and rice. And he would eat so many egg whites like he was going out of style. But now that you are keto or low carb, you can eat the yolk, right? The yolk is the fat, the white is the protein. So like when somebody's talking about eating keto or low carb or like I need to eat some good fats, there's lots of good fats, right? Whether it's an egg or salmon or fish, or some good butter or heavy cream, I don't do a lot of like, sometimes they'll share recipes of heavy cream and cream cheese. That's a little different story, we're going to talk about that on a different time. Cheese is different for a lot of women versus men. Just know this, good fats are supposed to be in your food, If your goal is to not snack all day, because fat keeps you fuller longer. What is your favorite fat to eat? I love some good old Kerrygold butter.
Okay! Last question, and this question I get often. I'm going to show you a couple of things.
The question is, why do I need electrolytes?
Anybody know? when your body is in ketosis, it is flushing out sodium, magnesium, potassium, your body's flushing out your electrolytes. So if you're in ketosis, your body is getting rid of those. You need a lot of water. And you need to replenish your electrolytes. The way that you would know this is if you get a slight headache throughout the day, if you're kind of feeling like, well, if you're kind of feeling off, if you get leg cramps. You guys when I travel, I will let you know when I travel, I do not drink as much water as I should have when I'm at home.
I do not drink enough water when I travel. I'm just I'm super busy, I super go go go. I don't pay attention, and then I jump out of bed at two or three o'clock in the morning screaming because I have leg cramps. I didn't drink any electrolytes, I didn't have enough water, I'm super dehydrated. And you're going to know it.
Anybody else ever had that? And if you If that's you, and you're like, "oh my goodness, all I need is some electrolytes". Yes, there are days at two or three o'clock in the morning when I would run into the kitchen, and no kidding dump this down my throat. Or I would open up a packet of electrolytes. And I would just like... Because it was my fault, it's my fault. So how can you fix that? And how can you never feel like that? drink your water. And here's some examples of electrolytes. You could use some simple salt in your water. Just throw pinch in it every time you're drinking some water. Some people just like shove it in the face. We've got Himalayan salt, I just like Real Salt. It tastes better.
You can drink pickle juice, does anybody in here drink pickle juice? super, super, super great for electrolytes. My favorite way, honestly, is just to grab an electrolyte packet. So our incredible company created these delicious, tasteful, they have like little yummy flavoring. So we've got an orange, lemon lime, I mean, that's it. So I just throw an electrolyte packet in some water. So my water that I'm tracking throughout the day, I can throw electrolytes in my water. And I've got both of them done throughout the day. Make sense?
So those are the top five questions. I hope that that part of it makes sense. Every time that you have a question, messaged me, because I'll cover it. And I'll directly message you, whatever your question is, or post it below. And I'll come back on here and do another Q and A, just to give you some guidance. I'm not perfect, but we've learned a lot over the last six years. And I think it's pretty I know, our family feels great.
Like I was walking around here today. And thank you, for those of you who said Happy birthday. It is my birthday, and I feel quite wise and super blessed and super thankful. We've learned a lot over the last six years. And I was walking around just being super thankful for my day. And I was like, man... I am so thankful that I have another year. I'm so thankful that I had another amazing year. I'm thankful to be a mom, I'm thankful for this community. And I'm so thankful for my health. Like, I don't know, I just walked into my room and I was like, I feel great, our family's healthy.
And it really boils down to the decisions that you make, right? Like, are you gonna move your body or you're not gonna move your body? Are you going to focus on your health for your long term goals? Are you just going to give up and not try?
Like...
I don't know, I just think it's so important to have accountability. And so that's why I'm here. So thank you for the birthday wishes I saw some of you must have been following me on my stories. If you guys want to see something hilarious, my daughter loves to take the funniest pictures of my face. So if you go over to Instagram, my Instagram handle is Ketomomsecrets, all one word. I will just say it's super embarrassing and super funny, and I let her do it. But she just posted the most absurd, absurd, absurd pictures of my face and she thinks it's hilarious of just me. You should go check it out. But I was going to show you also something because I get this question a lot.
Some of you see me drinking ketones at night and you're like, why are you doing that? So I do drink ketones. This is where my my journey started almost six years ago, and I like to drink a caffeine free packet at night because we ate dinner a little while ago.
It helps with cravings, it's sweet enough that I don't need a cookie, ketones help with sleep, I just honestly love them.
And they're just amazing. And I really wanted to blue one for a dessert. So I'll just tell you this, for those of you who've been asking, we may do something fun at the end of the month. So if you want to know more about my mom fuel, if you want to get a great deal, if you want to maybe grab a trial kit. I would love to talk to you more about where my journey started, why I drink ketones. I call it my mom fuel, because I haven't taken a nap in over six years. And I think some people are like, "whatever". But for real, I feel incredible. I feel like I'm stronger than I was in high school even prior to having kids. My mental clarity is on point, ketones are a fuel source, right? Your body can make them or you can drink them. So I would love to chat with you more about it post three below.
And I'd love to help you understand what they are. I'm going to show you some videos of what they can do for you. And then let's launch your health into this next month. Let's either start, get you on the right track. Let's get you past your plateau. Maybe you're feeling incredible, and you just want to amplify what you're doing. They're an incredible source for whoever you are. It doesn't matter, and I absolutely can't speak really any more highly higher. I don't even know but I feel incredible. And they taste great!
They're so good. We'll just say this is my birthday dessert because honestly, this is all I need. So, and the kids will eat the cake. So I hope you guys have a great night. Thank you for tuning in. I hope the Q and A was helpful.
So we talked about tracking your food, tracking your water tracking your macros, what are sugar replacements. We talked about... and electrolytes and water and why I drink ketones. So message me I'd love to share more information with you post at least three below, and that's it. So I hope you guys have a great night and we'll talk to you soon.
Bye everybody. Have a great evening!
Hit me up on IG! ketomomsecrets
Join me on Facebook KetoMom
Check out our videos Youtube KetoMom
Join my newsletter at ketomomsecrets.com
Text Me! 507-363-3483
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: