Here are a few photos of delicious food we made at home on our health journey. This has been about a 4 year journey so far so there are a variety of plates here. Most are very healthy and turned out beautiful as well.
KETO VEGAN April 5, 2018
I went to meet my new Dr. in December last year, which I am usually nervous about. Among the many topics we discussed, one was my weight, and he ended up asking me to lose 20 pounds. This is what started me on a quest to find the most appropriate lifestyle change. I had already begun a basically full out vegan lifestyle in May of 2017, but I had not cut out many things like eggs, butter and we also still have meat once a week. The transition into this vegan lifestyle was on its way. I was feeling better, more energy, but yet the weight wasn’t coming off like I wanted it to since May.
In my searching, I found that the keto diet was all the rage right now, but the typical keto diet was very much opposite of where I was headed, which was eventually 100% vegan, which meant even leaving out oils from my food choices. I noticed there was a lot of meat people were consuming on the keto diet but also that there weren’t many vegetables, it seemed out of balance. Plus, the meat people were choosing were not very healthy choices like bacon and hot dogs, or sausages just because they were considered protein. My original assumption was that this keto diet was basically Paleo and a person was to eat a ton of meat and no bread.
I knew I must have been following the most confused, and ill-informed people to get this impression, once I realized what was medically involved in the keto diet. It’s not all about meat, and people were consuming way too much meat and very little nutrition on top of that. The actual keto diet plan says to increase your fat intake and reduce greatly your carbohydrate intake. That is much different from what I was seeing in all the recipes and popular posts. The keto ratios show that a person is to consume 5 -10% of carbohydrates, 20-30% protein, and 60-80% in fats. I hope someone tells these confused people that meat is not considered fats, even though some meats are very fattening.
After seeing these ratios, I thought, this can be done with a vegan lifestyle, no problem. Finding any information on keto vegans was almost impossible, and more times than not it was highly suggested not to try to conform the vegan style into a keto plan. I had already stepped way into convincing myself this was possible to turn back now, so I kept going. I did find a few articles on it, but one video from Dr. David Jockers was very concise and broke it down quite well. Watch the video. I can admit, I have not gone this direction yet, but I am seriously considering it.
I have learned from personal experience, that using herbs is vital to enjoying any kind of food or diet transition. I highly recommend using many herbs in cooking new foods, like when leaving out a food typically eaten in a dish, like chicken or beef. Herb variety is something to keep in mind while changing foods to include in the vegan keto diet.
Since the keto diet would help in more than just the area of weight loss for me, like lowering inflammation and arthritis pain, it was for these reasons I was so interested in it to begin with. Keeping in mind that whatever diet you choose for the long-term should be different than the one that is short-term. Our bodies depend on us to fuel it, and if a person doesn’t eat the nutrition or drink the nutrition the body needs, it can’t access it any other way. Food is fuel, fuel has balanced proportions, this would be the first thing to keep in mind when considering any diet plan. I do feel the keto diet is not sustainable long-term, not even the vegan keto plan. However, to get a jumpstart on weight loss and to aid in lowering other symptoms this is possible and healthy for about a three-month timeframe.
The keto diet for a vegan would look a little like this. Many vegans do not use oils, even olive oil which most people claim to be very healthy so this part could be the most challenging for the avid vegan consumer. This is the area that I will start at to break down specific foods for the fats component.
VEGAN FATS:
Avocado, coconut oil, coconut milk kefir, avocado oil, coconut butter, raw cacao nibs and powder, olives, coconut milk yogurt, MCT oil, minimally processed dark chocolate, olive oils, coconut flakes
Adding extras of these will be vital and the key to the true keto success of the vegan keto plan.
CARBOHYDRATES:
Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, lemons, limes, spinach, kale, zucchini, onions, Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, asparagus, romaine lettuce, green leafy lettuces, green beans, pickles (no sugar), coconut kimchi, sauerkraut, pickled ginger, artichokes
These are just a few of the examples, but there are a wide variety of the green leafy vegetables and berries to choose from. These are the lowest on the glycemic index and some of them are considered free foods that don’t have to be counted towards the carbohydrate percentage amount. Carbs like berries must be counted and monitored.
VEGAN PROTEIN:
Pea protein, hemp protein, flax seeds, sprouted nuts, sprouted seeds, roasted nuts, roasted seeds, tempeh or natto, vegan protein powder drinks, shirataki noodles, shirataki mushrooms, algae (spirulina), hemp seed, algae-based omega 3’s,
Spirulina powders nutritional yeast, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds
This is a large list, maybe not comprehensive, but a large list of protein options.
Dugan suggests other things like drinking green Matcha tea, or dandelion tea replaces coffee in the morning are great ideas, but coffee isn’t off limits, just power it up and make it purposeful, like a bulletproof coffee instead.
The focus, in my opinion, is still to have the meals to be mostly vegetables, but really add on the fats to your vegetables to optimize the fat intake needed daily to reach ketosis, which is the key for this diet plan. In fact, something important I learned from the video from Dr. Dugan that eating too much meat will eventually go against a persons ability to reach ketosis because it becomes such a stressor for the body by creating constipation and it would be turned into sugar at a certain level of meat consumption. The Functional Nutritional Practitioner Michael Dugan at Dr. David Jockers website explains all of this in his video I linked above, and again here. I found that alone to be very interesting and could be the reason people say that the keto diet didn’t work quickly or well enough for them. One would then have to ask, what they were really eating. This has worked for many years for removing disease and a side effect of the keto diet is weight loss.
If your food choices are vegetarian or vegan don’t lose heart about doing a keto plan, it is very doable. Again, I don’t suggest doing this for more than three months, I don’t know that I could last three months on it, but I am willing to try this for at least three weeks and test it out to lose the 20 pounds the Dr asked me to lose. Give it a try, and keep in mind balance and mindfulness are so very important as well.
A big thank you goes out to Dr. David Jockers, Health Nutrition Practitioner at DrJockers.com for the excellent reference materials in this blog, and the YouTube video with advice on doing a keto plan without compromising a vegan lifestyle.
Adam's Eve 