Here's What I Think… – Page 5 – A Blog by Kelly McIntosh

Hidden Beauty: Our River Adventure in Jamaica!

Kingston, Jamaica has been hot… The kind of still, brassy heat that makes it difficult to breathe. The Sahara dust coming in from the Motherland has made things worse, and all over the city sits a haze that forces you to shield your eyes from the glare. We decided to escape one Saturday. We normally head for the beach, but the thought of sunbathing and splashing in warm water held very little appeal in our search for respite from the unrelenting heat of the city. It had to be a river. I envisaged trees along the side of the river and the icy cold water characteristic of our rivers. I created an entire picnic in my mind and I just knew how our day at the river would look and feel. We just had to decide on the river…

Cheating on Keto: Bad idea or nah?

“Today is a cheat day.” Why? What is it that you’re missing out on that you feel the need to go off plan? This is a controversial topic that people get quite emotional about. I have been keto since end August 2017. My son and I started keto together, and in the early days, we would play this game: “Would you cheat on keto for that?“ LOL! It was fun! Popeye’s chicken and patties (a delicious portable, meat filled pastry here in Jamaica) would always get a resounding YES, but we pressed on with our low-carb food, opting to relegate the Popeye’s and patties to fantasy status only. Months passed and pounds were shed and one day he reminded me of this silly game we used to play. We had simply stopped playing it because we simply didn’t crave that kind of food any more.

Road Trip While Keto: Our Day in Treasure Beach, Jamaica

Sometimes you’ve just got to get out of Kingston… know what I mean? Like any major city, Kingston, Jamaica has its fair share of stressors: traffic, ongoing road improvement works, horrible taxi drivers that force your soul into your mouth with every drive, noise, searing heat especially now that they’ve removed what seems like every living tree all in the name of road network expansion and the everlasting presence of garbage. Everywhere. So two weekends ago H insisted on heading out of the city for the day. Who am I to fight against a drive out of town, that’s likely involve a beach stop and yummy food 🙂 Here’s what we did and how we stayed keto (and happily so!) on a perfect day on the road.

FLOW Jamaica: PR & Marketing Shell. Nothing more.

We lost internet service at our residence on the afternoon of Thursday June 6. We got it back on the afternoon of Thursday June 13. What follows is an account of the extreme effort on my part to have our service restored and a tale of a huge service provider that appears to be nothing more than a PR and marketing shell. Harsh? You decide for yourself.

Keto Caribbean Style? Yes we can!

So keto is in the news these days, all over it. And for those of us living in the Caribbean I can understand why some would dismiss the benefits of this diet and ignore the success stories by labeling it as “another north American fad.” Well, I live in the Caribbean, Jamaica to be precise, and I’ve been keto since end August 2017…and counting. And I’m not alone! There’s a small but growing community of us right here in the Caribbean and the diaspora who are living the keto lifestyle, eating the delicious high octane food that characterises our region. In my latest podcast episode I cover the following topics to show how we rock keto Caribbean style

What about snacking on keto?

Snacks. Snacking. I need snacks. How exactly does one snack on keto? Is snacking even allowed on keto? I get these questions ALL the time. First of all, let’s start by banishing the word “allowed”. We’re all adults here and none of us requires permission for what we choose to put in our mouths and bodies. What I do is provide you with information on how the choices we make impact our bodies and I may even show you how they support or sabotage your personal goals. What you actually do is up to you. So sure, you can snack and sure there are keto type snacks that you can eat and enjoy and remain on track. In this post I’ll explain what happens when we snack, give you some ideas for keto approved snacks and provide you with some recipes & links for easy to make snacks. Let’s jump in!

Advice for Securing Justice in a Domestic Abuse situation in Jamaica

Last year, prompted by a woman in distress seeking to escape an abusive and potentially dangerous domestic situation, I did a blog post entitled: “Domestic Abuse in Jamaica: Where are the safe houses for women seeking refuge?” You see, I was trying to identify where she could get safe harbour immediately. I came up empty. Since then, the government has announced plans to establish 3 national shelters and I’ve received confirmation that the Woman Inc crisis center is up and running. However, another recent encounter with a woman seeking to escape and resolve a violent domestic situation caused me to revisit the issue of resources and advice available to women in similar situations.

8 Tips for Staying Keto in a Non-Keto Household

One of the members of our Caribbean Keto Tribe reached out to the group with this question: “How do you stay on track with keto when there are people in the house who eat carbs?” It’s a very valid question. When you’re trying to change the way you’ve eaten all your life, and those same (delicious) carbs are all around you, the task can seem daunting. It becomes trickier when you’re the one that prepares most of the meals too, right? You figure that if you lived alone or if everyone else was doing keto, you could easily make a salad with grilled chicken or some cauliflower rice and curried goat and keto on. But the presence of bread in the house, that ice cream in the freezer, that box of breakfast cereal in the cupboard, the crispy snacks that you buy for the kids and the mac and cheese you’re making to go with dinner test your best resolve.

Downtown Kingston: Artsy Capital of Jamaica.

“Downtown, Kingston.” What do those words evoke? What comes to mind? Crime. Dirt. Wholesale shops. Chaos. Garbage. Crowds. These are some of the images that immediately come to mind. I worked Downtown, Kingston for 9 years. And I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the area’s proximity to the sea. I fell in love with the very old, historic buildings as evidenced by their architecture that were literally on every corner. I fell in love with the potential I knew the space held. I imagined King Street being closed off to vehicular traffic one Sunday per month, with scores of people, families, the young and the old, pouring in to buy local food, supporting local artisans, enjoying Jamaican music, having access to clean rest room facilities and benefiting from free parking. Well today, a small, intrepid group of visionaries has done more than imagine. Downtown, Kingston comes alive on the last Sunday of each month!

Keeping Keto Simple: The 4 things that guarantee success.

“Don’t eat this!” “Eat more of that!” “The keto-what?” “Carbs are the devil!” “Fats are good!” “But not trans fats!” “But what about my cholesterol?” “Am I in ketosis?” “My macros need adjusting!” “Don’t count calories but count carbs? Say what?” “And what the hell is a carb anyway?” “IT’S ALL SO CONFUSING! I GIVE UP!” Are you at that point yet? You’ve tried so many things, yet you’re still fat. Have you resigned yourself to being fat forever? Are you trying to convince yourself that you’re happy? Are you finding work-arounds to exist in this world as a fat person? If this resonates with you then you’re the person I’m talking to.

Don’t give up just yet… This is the Information Age, and so today, our challenge is not accessing information. Our challenge is to be able to sift through the plethora of information out there, triangulate and then decide what is valid from what is sheer quackery. So I get it. The frustration at being able to nail down exactly what to do to lose weight is all too real in the face of all the information out there. One person says “eat more fat to lose weight!” And another person insists that juice cleansing is the way to go. And yet another person says eat a wholly plant based diet. So who is right?