Sauteed Zucchini

This is a great side dish for your steak or burger. It’s my favorite go-to side. I call zucchini and cucumbers the “freebies” because they are nontoxic nonsweet fruits that have almost no carbs or calories. Although cucumbers are served cold, zucchini can be cooked and flavored for a delicious warm side dish! Yum!

Ingredients:

1 zucchini per person, sliced into half-moons

1 teaspoon grass-fed butter per zucchini

sea salt

Optional: garlic powder, European feta cheese, oregano

Instructions:

Heat a cast iron to medium high. Melt the butter, spreading it around the bottom of the pan. Add the zucchini and cook for a few minutes, stirring often, until they are just cooked through but still firm. Add any optional ingredients and serve warm. Enjoy!

Spaghetti Squash Beef Casserole

I saw someone post something similar on one of my carnivore groups this week and I immediately thought it was such a good idea! I made it right away and all 3 of my kids ate it up, so I knew it was a success!

Ingredients:

1 medium spaghetti squash

1 T melted butter

Sea salt

2 pounds ground beef

1 t garlic powder

1 t onion powder

1 C cream, preferably raw

1 C parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon lemon zest

1 C shredded cheese, preferably raw (I like Costco’s raw gruyere)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350. Cut the spaghetti squash in half lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds. Rub the melted butter all over the inside and salt liberally. Place inside-down on a cookie sheet and bake for 40 minutes. When they are cool enough, use a fork to scrape out the “spaghetti” from the squash rinds.

In a sauce pan, warm the raw cream to 120 degrees and stir in the parmesan cheese with a little salt and the lemon zest.

Brown the meat with salt, onion powder, and garlic powder.

Stir the spaghetti squash, beef, and alfredo cream sauce together in a large bowl and spread in a glass baking dish. Top with the shredded cheese and place under the oven broiler for a few minutes until the cheese is just melted. Serve and enjoy!

Salmon Poke Bowls

These are super easy, delicious, and versatile. Set out little bowls of all of the ingredients, and let your guests or family build their own! Top with tamari and pickled ginger and enjoy!

Ingredients:

Sushi-grade raw salmon, chopped

Julienned or sliced English cucumbers

Shredded carrots

Sliced avocado

Chopped mango

Chopped pineapple

Shredded nori

Wheat-free tamari sauce

Pickled ginger

White rice, if desired

Protein-Sparing Modified Fasting

THIS ARTICLE NO LONGER ACCURATELY REPRESENTS MY BELIEFS. ALTHOUGH WE NEED TO KEEP PROTEIN ADEQUATE AND FAT LOW, I NOW BELIEVE A HEALED BODY NEEDS APPROPRIATE AMOUNTS OF HEALTHY CARBOHYDRATES AND ADEQUATE CALORIES. PLEASE REACH OUT TO FIND OUT MORE!

For many of us with weight to lose, intermittant fasting and ketogenic diets aren’t enough to get to our goal weight. I struggled for years to lose weight, especially the last 10-20 pounds that just wouldn’t budge. Then I discovered protein-sparing modified fasting (PSMF) and the last pieces of the weight-loss puzzle fell into place.

PSMF has been around for decades, but like most nutrition science it fell to the wayside when the fat- and meat-phobia of the 80’s began. Basically, PSMF is when one fasts most fat and carbohydrates but maintains a healthy amount of protein in the diet. It had magical results in my body and in many of my clients’ bodies, helping us lose the last bit of weight and keep it off. PSMF is still considered a high-fat diet, but the body is burning it’s own fat stores, rather than burning dietary fat.

More recently, Maria Emmerich of Maria Mind Body Health has been promoting PSMF, and she has an excellent calculator on her website for determining how much protein, fat, carbs, and calories to consume on “normal days” and “PSMF days”. https://mariamindbodyhealth.com/calculator/ I found this to be helpful, but slightly complicated. Also, Maria is extreme with it and i don’t agree with her super low numbers. If the calculator doesn’t work for you or you don’t/can’t measure your body fat, a simple method is to keep carbs super low (around 50 grams/day total carbs - not net carbs), keep fat as close to 50 grams/day as possible (with an option for weekly higher calorie refeed meals), and eat as much protein as you need for satiation. I found at first that my body wanted a lot of protein, and I was still losing weight. Maria even says in the small print that consuming extra protein is fine. Some days I ate as much as 150-200 grams of protein and still lost weight. The minimum amount of protein required during PSMF is one gram per pound of lean body mass (basically your goal weight, or what your weight would likely be right now if you had the same amount of muscle but very low body fat).

Easy ways to increase protein while still fat-fasting:

-Whole eggs everyday, adding whites if you’d like. Even though the yolks have 4.5 grams of fat each, your body needs at least 50 grams/fat each day and egg yolks are an excellent source. Some days I eat 6 eggs, and my favorite is soft-boiled.

-Fat-free lunch meat. Even organic lean pork and chicken are fine, because there is no unhealthy PUFA fats when there is no fat. It’s just protein. Be sure to check the labels and find organic lunch meat that is 0-1 gram of carbs and 0 grams of fat. Pure protein. Roll it up with pickle slices and mustard for an awesome lunch.

-90/10 or 95/5 Ground beef, super lean steak without much marbling, and beef liver. You can cook it in a dry cast iron pan with lots of sea salt and it is delicious. Maybe a bit of butter or ghee but count your fat grams.

-Nonfat greek yogurt with Nunatural Liquid Vanilla Stevia. I love the thickness and creaminess of greek yogurt. Be sure to watch for any additional ingredients besides milk and probiotics, especially “nonfat milk powder” which is pure lactose/milk sugar. You can divide the carbs listed on the label in half, because they are required by law to report the carbs in the milk, but the bacteria digests at least half of it. Or make your own yogurt and let it ferment longer and it’s basically carb-free. I like to add a few raspberries or blueberries on top, and it feels like a wonderful dessert on a PSMF day.

-Lean pork loin and boneless skinless chicken breasts for dinner.

-Lean seafood like white fish, salmon without the skin, shrimp, oysters, scallops, and. mussels.

There’s nothing better than losing weight while full. Please reach out for a nutrition session with me if you have questions!

Beef Larb Salad

These are fun, easy, and absolutely delicious. Even my kids will eat them - in fact, they gobble them up! Double or triple the recipe for more than one hungry person.

Beef Larb Salad:

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

1 t sea salt

1 t garlic powder

1 t ginger powder

2 scallions (green onions), sliced, both white and green parts

juice and zest of one large lime

2 T fish sauce

2 T low sodium/ wheat-free tamari OR Braggs liquid aminos

2 T rice vinegar

1/2 Cup chopped fresh cilantro, mint, and basil (thai basil or regular)

For serving: julienned English cucumber (skinny cucumber with thin skin, wrapped in plastic).

Directions:

Brown the beef in a cast-iron pan with the ginger, garlic, and sea salt until cooked through. Turn the heat down and stir in the sliced scallions, tamari, fish sauce, rice vinegar, and lime juice and zest, and warm through. Sprinkle some of the herbs on top to serve, and plate the remaining herbs, and cucumber on the side. Serve the beef larb in bowls, topped with cucumbers and herbs, and enjoy!

Barbacoa Beef (Instapot)

My family eats this for dinner about once a week, it’s our main staple. I can’t get my kids to eat plain pot roast because they think it’s too boring, but they inhale my Barbacoa Beef on “taco salad night”. Hope your family loves it too! (This recipe can be easily doubled or tripled and makes great leftovers, too.)

Barbacoa Beef (Instapot)

Ingredients:

2 T butter

2 lb beef chuck roast

1 C beef broth

Juice of one lime

1 T apple cider vinegar

1 T tomato paste, optional

1 T chili powder, optional

1/2 t cumin

2 t oregano

1 T sea salt

1 t garlic powder

1 t onion powder

Instructions:

1.     Cut beef into large chunks. Either place on a cookie sheet, salted, under the broiler, flipping once, until brown; or saute in the Instapot with the butter until all sides are browned and then press cancel.

2.     Combine lime juice, vinegar, tomato paste, cumin, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt in a lidded mason jar and shake.

3.     Add the mixture to the Instapot with the browned beef.

4.     Secure the lid on the Instapot, closing the pressure valve. Press the “manual” button and set the timer to 30 minutes. Afterword, allow the pressure to naturally release for at least 20 minutes, releasing the pressure valve at this time if it hasn’t released on its own yet. Remove the lid, transfer the beef chunks to a bowl, and shred the barbacoa beef with two large forks, stirring in enough of the remaining liquid/fat so that the beef is saturated and moist.

5.     Serve the barbacoa beef in bowls with various toppings of your choice: shredded lettuce, sliced olives, sour cream and cheese, chopped avocado, lime juice, etc.

Buffins! (Bacon Muffins)

These are delicious and have virtually no carbs. The coconut flour can be omitted for those with fiber-intolerance like SIBO and they still turn out well, although more egg-y. You can also omit the baking powder for a strict carnivore muffin. These go like hotcakes at my house, I suggest at least a double batch and freeze the extras, if there are any! The can easily be brought to room temp from frozen, or quickly warmed up in the microwave for 30 seconds. Enjoy!

Ingredients:
12 pastured eggs
4 Tbs butter
1/4 C coconut flour
1 tsp baking powder
16 strips nitrate-free bacon, chopped now or crumbed after cooking, fat pressed out with paper towels while warm
1/2 cup cheddar cheese
Butter (for greasing your muffin tin)

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Fry chopped bacon in a skillet until crispy. Set aside.
3. Mix eggs and butter in a mixing bowl.
4. Add coconut flour and baking powder, mix.
5. Stir bacon and cheese into batter.
6. Either grease your muffin tin with butter or line with silicone baking cups.
7. Pour batter into muffin tin and bake for 15 minutes. Can be frozen for up to 6 months! Pop in the microwave for 30 seconds and go!