Atkins – Here's What I Think…

Wellness: Keto is a strategy. There are other strategies too.

When my son’s high school principal contacted me and asked if I would be willing to speak to the staff on January 3, 2022 at their annual Professional Learning Community Day for forty-five minutes on: “promoting healthy lifestyle choices” I jumped at the opportunity. She added that she has been following my own keto journey on social media and wanted me to share with the staff how keto has helped me. I was impressed with her vision (a healthy team performs better than an unhealthy one) and I was determined to share in such a way as not to alienate. You see, the keto diet has come in for much maligning from mainstream media. They claim it is unhealthy, they claim it is unsustainable, they claim it fosters disordered eating. All I want is for people to live their best lives ever (as I am doing!) and I KNOW that health & wellness are tied to living a life in alignment & finding purpose. It’s way more than simply looking good and being a certain size.

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?

Who says low-carb has to be boring?

So on a Sunday, I really throw down, in my kitchen. I plan my menu days in advance. Then round about noon I turn the radio dial to Fame 95 (retro…what else?!), fill a glass with ice cubes, add some rum and COOK! On any given Sunday I pull from the following items: braised ox-tails, baked chicken, curried shrimp, pot roasts of beef or pork, rice and peas, sitr fried veg, mac and cheese, fried rice, chow mein, baked plantains, garden salad…

But I’ve decided to go low-carb for a while, to reset my body and mind, so…sigh…gotta find a way to keep the fun in Sundays. So instead of rum, we do water. Yup. Water and a lot of ice. And I still blast my retro tunes. And here’s what today’s fare looked like:

I call it “Smothered Chicken with Steamed Veggies”.

The steamed veggies are simply broccoli and cauliflower steamed with garlic, parsley and basil and finished with butter (salted of course). Yum!

Here’s the main event:

4 chicken breasts
1 onion
2 stalks celery
1 cup coarsely cut button mushrooms
1 medium tomato
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small sweet pepper
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese

Flatten the chicken breasts. Wash with lime juice and season with salt, pepper, jerk-flavoured hot sauce, soya sauce and let marinate overnight.

Heat 2 tbsp veg oil in a non-stick frying pan and quickly sear the chicken on both sides. It should be just brown and the entire browning process should not take more than 3 min all told.

Remove from frying pan and place the pieces of chicken a flat baking sheet and allow to rest.

Chop all seasonings (onion, celery, tomato, garlic and sweet pepper) and add to the same pan you used to brown the chicken. Saute for 2 min. Add the mushooms and a pinch of salt and stir for another minute.

Turn on your broiler.

Spoon equal amounts of this mixture on to each piece of chicken breast already on the baking sheet.

Sprinkle equal amounts of cheese over the dressed chicken pieces and place the dressed and cheesed chicken breasts on the baking sheet under the broiler.

Broil for approximately 5 minutes, or until cheese is bubbly and just turning brown.

Remove and let rest for 3 minutes.

Serve hot with veggies.

Now…who says low-carb has to be boring? 😀