4Feb

You all know that I am a huge fan of the ketogenic lifestyle and how I also endorse Intermittent Fasting (IF) for bariatric clients who are further into their journey.  

Join me this week in the IF challenge / week 2 in Fasting February is to Intermittent Fast for 17 hours and our eating window is for 7 hours.

Let’s have a little chat about a very common problem that I see with our clients who are doing Keto, especially when they are just starting out. It relates to the Keto “healthy snacks”.

Keto snacks are very bad for Keto!

Today Keto has become so popular that there are all kinds of manufactured snacks and foods coming on the market.  I highly suggest that you avoid these snack foods which contain the following ingredients:  

corn fiber, maltodextrin, dextrin, soy protein isolates, splenda, aspartame and tapioca starch – to name a few.

 Now why should we be avoiding these ingredients and these snacks in general?

You have low carb protein bars, keto cookies, beef jerky, keto chocolate, keto crackers, cheese crackers… these snacks may be low carb but what is so beneficial about lowering your carbs?

We want to lower our carbs because that will lower insulin levels.  Insulin is the hormone that will block and nullify fat burning but there is one additional piece of information that a lot of people do not know.  There are other factors that stimulate insulin secretion.

Gastro intestinal hormones almost double the insulin secretion following a meal.

Now that you understand a bit about insulin, let’s talk about the definition of a “snack”.  It is a small amount of food eaten between meals.

So very simply, every time you eat, you trigger insulin and you don’t want to have these frequent meals because you are going to raise insulin levels all day long and that is going to keep you from seeing the benefits of Keto.

If you decide that you want to consume keto snacks, then consume them as a part of your meal.  Don’t consume them between your meals as a snack.  

Eat high quality food, less frequently and you will see how the scale will move again.  This is where Intermittent Fasting comes in.  We eat for a period of time during the day (8 hours as an example) and the rest of the day we fast.  This ensures that your insulin levels are low and that enables you to lose weight.

Join me this week in the IF challenge / week 2 in Fasting February is to Intermittent Fast for 17 hours and our eating window is for 7 hours.

Let’s discuss Keto Snacking on my FB LIVE 3pm EST on Friday, February 8th.

If you need more help prepping for your bariatric ketogenic lifestyle, visit this link for meal plans and more:  Keto Program

About the Author: Sheri Burke is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Bariatric Surgery Coordinator at International Patient Facilitators in Tijuana and Cancun, Mexico. She has worked with bariatric surgery clients for over 10 years and especially enjoys providing nutritional guidance to pre and post bariatric clients.  In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two teens and cooking up a nutritional storm in the kitchen.

For high quality specialized plant protein for bariatric patients Bariatric Expert Protein Powders

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin ?  Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon:  Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Eat Like a Bariatric Expert with our Nutrition Plans.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

Stay motivated with Bariatric Wristbands – post your results online !

 

29Jan
You know what I really dislike doing when discussing any food plans with any of my clients?  I truly dislike talking about the things that clients should refrain from eating.  I always prefer to discuss what clients CAN eat.  It is a much nicer and kinder way to go about cleaning up their diet.
 
If I only talk about “restrictions”, my clients feel like they are eating in a restrictive fashion.  I want them to feel good and happy about their new meals plans so let’s discuss all the inclusions you will have when starting a ketogenic lifestyle.
 
Imagine that you and I are going grocery shopping together and we walk into the supermarket.  We are going to get hit first with the fresh produce section.  This is where we will purchase our low carb fruits and vegetables.  This is where the magic happens.
 
Let’s grab some lettuce – any kind of lettuce works because there are so many different kinds of wonderful lettuce.  Fill up your cart with all types of greens such as collard, kale, mustard, spinach, swiss chard and turnip greens.  
 
While we are in the produce area, grab some asparagus, avocados, bok choy, celery, mushrooms, radishes, tomatoes and zucchini.  See a pattern here? when living a low carb, ketogenic lifestyle, we are permitted to eat lots of low carb vegetables.
 
When it comes to fruit, we are going to stick with low sugar berries such as blackberries, raspberries and strawberries.  
 
When we turn the corner of the produce section, we are going to find our meat and seafood.  We can purchase some beef, chicken, lamb, pork, bacon, sausage, salmon, seafood and white fish.  
 
We can also pull up to the Deli Area and grab ourselves some good quality sliced chicken, ham, turkey, pastrami, pepperoni, chorizo and prosciutto.
 
After we finish at the Deli Area, we will find the Dairy Aisles.  Here we can get some grass fed butter, heavy cream, soft and hard cheeses, eggs, plain greek yogurt, sour cream and almond or coconut milks (no sugar added).
 
We try to stay out of the regular aisles in the supermarket.  That’s where all the processed foods reside.  We can enter those aisles for the following food items:  avocado oil, coconut oil, olive oil, canned fish and seafood, olives, hot sauces, mayonnaise, mustard and apple cider vinegar, seasonings, spices, dried herbs, soda water, coffee, tea and unsweetened beverages, nuts, seeds, and beef jerky.
 
We have a full cart of healthy ketogenic food.  We have enough to make meals for two weeks.  This is not a restrictive way of eating. It is an inclusive way of eating and we are moving towards real, live, natural, good quality food.

If you need more help prepping for your bariatric ketogenic lifestyle, visit this link for meal plans and more:  Keto Program

About the Author: Sheri Burke is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Bariatric Surgery Coordinator at International Patient Facilitators in Tijuana and Cancun, Mexico. She has worked with bariatric surgery clients for over 10 years and especially enjoys providing nutritional guidance to pre and post bariatric clients.  In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two teens and cooking up a nutritional storm in the kitchen.

For high quality specialized plant protein for bariatric patients Bariatric Expert Protein Powders

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin ?  Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon:  Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Eat Like a Bariatric Expert with our Nutrition Plans.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

Stay motivated with Bariatric Wristbands – post your results online !

 

22Jan

Are you getting ready to start keto but you can only think of a few meals and you are getting stuck ?

Are you having a hard time putting together meals which meet the ketogenic criteria?

Who has time to count macros? and what’s a healthy fat and where do you find healthy carbs?

This is the number one reason why people start eating a ketogenic way and then very quickly fall off the wagon. It’s why we hear that eating keto is not sustainable. I am here to tell you that it is sustainable but we need to think about food differently and we need to come up with a plan that works for us.

Sure, bacon and eggs are fun but do you want to eat them every day? Does that look like good health? Pouring cheese on everything cannot be healthy for us? Pepperoni sticks are yummy but does that seem like something we should eat each day.

This is why sometimes keto gets a bad reputation. People are not doing it correctly. There is such a thing as bad keto and good keto to make things even more complicated.

When we hear that there is a diet out there that will enable us to lose weight while eating rib-eyes and bacon and cheese all day, it sounds almost too good to be true. Let’s talk about a clean, healthy version of keto and how to plan meals a few days in advance.

Finding ketogenic foods “on the run” will be hard to do. Let’s make a 3 day menu together so that we can discuss how preparation is key.

Sure, you can “wing it” for a day or two but we shortly find out how the world is geared to “sugar burners” and not “fat burners”. Sugar burners reach for candy and chips and chocolate and sandwiches and french fries and things which are “convenience foods”. That is exactly what we need to stay away from if we want to be in ketosis and burning fat.

Let’s take Sunday like our food prep day and let’s prep together for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. What is that going to look like? Let’s take a tour of my kitchen and my personal food prep.

Remember, it’s January right now and I am in Canada so my food prep may look a bit different to yours. Lots of snow and cold so I like to use my crock pot a lot and I am partial to soups and stews this time of year also.

I am going to do my grocery shopping on Saturday in preparation for Sunday food prep. I cook for 4 people so I am going to get some lean ground beef, chicken breasts, turkey slices, and some small steaks. I will be sure to grab some low carb veggies fresh and frozen and some blackberries.

The first thing I do on Sunday is to marinate my steaks with lemon and garlic, salt and pepper and a splash of apple cider vinegar. I put those in a ziplock bag and those will be for dinner on Tuesday evening.

Next I make up a batch of ketogenic meatballs and instead of adding flour and breadcrumbs, I add some eggs and almond flour with lots of spices for flavor.

My chicken breasts will go into the crock pot on Sunday night so that they cook on low for 10 hours and they are ready to go on Monday morning.

This is what my Monday/ Tuesday and Wednesday meal-plan looks like:

MONDAY

  • Breakfast: two scrambled eggs with mushrooms and spinach
  • Lunch: large chicken caesar salad
  • Dinner: ketogenic meatballs served with zucchini noodles

TUESDAY

  • Breakfast: bulletproof coffee
  • Lunch: left over ketogenic meatballs with a side salad
  • Dinner: small steak with side salad and baked broccoli

WEDNESDAY

  • Breakfast: two boiled eggs and a half avocado
  • Lunch: turkey rolled up sandwich with lettuce leaves and mayo
  • Dinner: chicken soup with low carb veggies and avocado

My snacks will consist of pickles, good quality cheese and almonds this week.

I will also prepare a chia seed pudding with blackberries, chia seeds, coconut milk and stevia. There are tons of these recipes that you can find online.

We just prepped three days of ketogenic eating for four people. We used whole, live, natural, good quality, real food. This is a great way of eating for anybody. It truly is sustainable but you do need to food prep and you do need to stay away from pre-made and packaged foods.

If you need more help prepping for your bariatric ketogenic lifestyle, visit this link for meal plans and more:  Keto Program

About the Author: Sheri Burke is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Bariatric Surgery Coordinator at International Patient Facilitators in Tijuana and Cancun, Mexico. She has worked with bariatric surgery clients for over 10 years and especially enjoys providing nutritional guidance to pre and post bariatric clients.  In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two teens and cooking up a nutritional storm in the kitchen.

For high quality specialized plant protein for bariatric patients Bariatric Expert Protein Powders

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin ?  Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon:  Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Eat Like a Bariatric Expert with our Nutrition Plans.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

Stay motivated with Bariatric Wristbands – post your results online !

 

15Jan

Sticking to our January theme – January is ketogenic month!

It is a delight for me when clients reach out because they are interested in starting keto.  Sure, in the beginning it may be a bit of a “fad diet” that peaked their interest but I know that over time, if they adhere to the ground rules, they will feel so much better and it will turn into a long-term lifestyle.  

It doesn’t matter to me “why” they want to jump on the keto-band-wagon.  What matters to me is that they will most certainly improve their health and start to feel more energy and see the scale move and have a better nights sleep.

When all these benefits are discovered, weight loss will be a side-effect of cleaning up the diet and eating real food again.  For a deeper understanding of ketogenic lifestyle check out this link: http://arsadesarrolloweb.com/ipf2152021/keto-it-is-right-for-me-bariatric-edition/ 

Nobody comes to me asking about keto because they want to lower inflammation in their body or prevent age related diseases.  They come to me to ask about keto because they have stopped losing weight or they have had a regain.

Keto may be a “fad” word right now but it is also a real way to eat where people experience fantastic results.  What happens overtime is that we stop thinking about “keto” and we start thinking “low processed carbs”.  

The more we can get these “food-like” substances out of our diet, the better our health will be.  When people feel better, they start to understand the amount of inflammation was in their body when eating the Standard American Diet (SAD).  

Who wants to go back to feeling bloated and depressed and heavy and tired?  when they can feel happier with a flatter tummy and a better energy level.

Who wants to go back to being chained to the refrigerator all day long because we cannot stabilize our blood sugar levels and we feel hungry constantly?  Here is some more information on foods that keep us overweight:  http://arsadesarrolloweb.com/ipf2152021/foods-keeping-you-overweight-bariatric-edition/

Even if you don’t like the buzz word “keto”, give the plan a try on your own terms for 21 days.  Do the comparison for yourself before saying that it’s just a fad diet.  Give yourself a chance to feel better through food and nutrition.

Call it whatever you want to call it ,,, change the name from “keto” to “eating intuitively”.  If it comes in a package, don’t eat it.  Eat fresh, live, natural, good quality food.  This is sustainable.

Sometimes we just need to start somewhere and these are some steps to get you on the path to eating in a better way.

Eat carbs only in the form of “low carb veggies and berries”.  By getting your carbohydrate levels lowered, you are more than half way there!

Eat protein but not too much.  Eat a 5 ounce chicken breast or two scrambled eggs or a serving of shrimp or a protein shake but you don’t need to over-do it with the protein.  A regular serving of protein is all you need.

Eat healthy fat with each meal.  See how I said “healthy fat”?  Eat avocados and olives.  Eat coconut and olive oil.  Don’t be afraid of nuts and seeds.  Pass the avocado please.  Fat is our source of energy and it also keeps us satisfied for a longer period of time.  You don’t need to “get your fats in” when you are feeling satisfied.  Just don’t be afraid to eat them.  Don’t eat any low-fat items. 

Drink a ton of water.  Your body stores glycogen in your liven when you eat carbohydrates.  When you are living a low carb lifestyle, the glycogen is depleted from the liver and fat burning begins.  When you are storing less water, it can be easy to become dehydrated.  When living low carb, drink more water please.

This is a really good beginning for anybody wanting to start living a healthier life-style. You can call it keto or you can call it intuitive eating or you can call it eating sensibly.  Forget all the hype and do it for you.

If you need additional help, you can purchase the bariatric keto plan designed for bariatric clients.  There you will find smaller portions, correctly laid out for a smaller eater with a bariatric pouch in tact.  

Here’s to you and your health in 2019!

See you soon – Friday, January 18th at 3pm EST  FACEBOOK LIVE

About the Author: Sheri Burke is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Bariatric Surgery Coordinator at International Patient Facilitators in Tijuana and Cancun, Mexico. She has worked with bariatric surgery clients for over 10 years and especially enjoys providing nutritional guidance to pre and post bariatric clients.  In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two teens and cooking up a nutritional storm in the kitchen.

For high quality specialized plant protein for bariatric patients Bariatric Expert Protein Powders

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin ?  Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon:  Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Eat Like a Bariatric Expert with our Nutrition Plans.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

Stay motivated with Bariatric Wristbands – post your results online !

 

7Jan

Should bariatric clients adopt IF into their life-styles?

As I promised last week in my FB live video, the month of January 2019 is all about the Ketogenic lifestyle for post weight loss surgery clients.  A very popular theme in the ketogenic community is Intermittent Fasting so I do feel that we need to also discuss IF and get into the details of why it’s being promoted and who it’s for.

This is an extremely popular question today and Intermittent Fasting (IF) is getting more and more momentum as we learn more about nutritional science.  Can people who have had weight loss surgery add this important tool to their tool-box or should they go about IF in a different way?

I for one like, and use Intermittent Fasting.  I do believe that we are all biochemical individuals and that what works for one person may not be a great fit for the next person.  This is a very personal journey and if you do not think that Intermittent Fasting is something that could easily fit into your lifestyle, then that’s fine too.  

Let’s just dive a bit deeper into the topic of IF and see if it may be something you would like to try.

First of all, how does Intermittent Fasting work?

IF is a different way of eating where you are going to add some restrictions of time into your daily eating times.  The most popular way to use IF is to use windows that look like 16/8.  This means that we fast for 16 hours a day and eat for 8 hours a day.  This does not mean that we are eating for the whole 8 hours.  What we do is have two meals, or three small meals and possibly a snack during our eating window.  

Other types of Intermittent Fasts look like 20/4 or 18/6 or even OMAD (one meal a day).  You can try any of these fasts but I find the easiest way to go about it is to start out slow and then add one hour per day until you have reached a goal such as 16/8.  Once you get to 16/8, you may want to stay there for a week and then experiment to see if you would like to fast a few hours longer.  This is very personal and what works for one person might not necessarily work for another.

You don’t need to do this each and every day.  You can do a few days at a time and then go back to your normal lifestyle.  It is entirely up to you how you use this tool of IF.  You can skip breakfast one day and then the next decide to skip dinner.  You can have a 24 hour fast one time per week.  There are lots of different options to choose from.  

Bariatric clients who have had surgery a year prior or more can give IF a try. I don’t recommend it to somebody who is in their first year post surgery and still losing weight.  If you have reached a stall in your journey and you have a very nutritious meal plan in place, then IF could be right for you. 

If you do not have a good diet currently, then work to improve your diet before jumping into an intermittent fast. You want to be sure you are not experiencing any nutrient deficiencies prior to adopting this lifestyle and you need to be committed to eating high quality food when in your “eating window”.

Of course, I am pro-ketogenic diets so if you are already on or experimenting with or wanting to work a ketogenic diet, then hats off to you.  It will make your intermittent fasting windows so much easier as you will have more stable blood sugars and you will feel less hungry.

We need to remember that there are people who had bariatric surgery 15 years ago and more. Not everybody is at the beginning of their journey.   After a few years out, we have different needs and we require different tools to help us maintain our weight and not regain.  We are not all in the beginning of our journey and this is why I like to explore “everything nutrition” – to bring you the latest information and to give you more tools to use throughout your life.  This education empowers you.

The 16/8 Method is popular with the weight loss surgery community and this why … 

This is a very popular method with the weight loss surgery community because it helps to break bad habits with people who do some late night snacking and late night meals.  

16/8 Intermittent Fast is also popular because it enables post bariatric patients to still eat two meals a day and a snack and it also encourages a lot of water intake to prevent dehydration.  Remember, IF limits only food and not water so water intake can continue late into the evening and all day long. 

What I would like you to do is to give it a try to see if it is something that you like and something that helps you in your journey to weight loss and improved health.

What are the benefits to adding some IF into our daily lives?  The research is out and it says that practicing some IF may help with the following:

  • IF may increase our metabolism and help us to burn fat while keep keeping our muscles preserved.
  • IF may actually help us to reduce our total cholesterol (there are studies out that show up to 20% improvement)
  • IF can decrease inflammation in the body
  • IF can decrease inflammation in the brain and improve motor coordination
  • IF has the ability to reduce and to prevent diseases associated with aging.
  • IF can reduce insulin resistance and lower blood sugar and fasting insulin levels

The famous weight loss surgery plateau and Intermittent Fasting…

Intermittent Fasting has so many positive points and benefits with regard to our health but what is the first reason why bariatric clients want information about it?  It’s because they want to know if it will help with their weight loss goals.

Very interesting – the research is out and it shows us that during a fasting regimen of 16/8 or anywhere from 16 to 24 hours, on a cellular level, we go from using glucose as the first fuel source to FAT.  What this tells us is that our fat stores or “triglycerides” are getting broken down and then used for energy.

So in the weight loss surgery world, this tells us that if we are having a plateau with our weight loss, Intermittent Fasting may be exactly what our body needs to break that stall.

Worried about your protein stores and Intermittent Fasting? 

Worry not! Science has discovered that when we do an Intermittent Fast, we use our extra fat stores and not our protein stores.  We don’t start using our protein stores for fuel until 3 days of fasting has occurred.  This means that you don’t have to worry about losing muscle when doing your IF.  You are going to burn FAT and not muscle.

In summary, Intermittent fasting can slightly elevate or boost your metabolism while at the same time eating less calories.  It is a very effective way to lose weight and improve health.

If you have questions about IF or about anything bariatric, reach out to me.  If you decide to try some Intermittent Fasting, reach out to tell me how your experience has been.

Here’s to you and your health in 2019!

See you soon – Friday, January 11th at 3pm EST  FACEBOOK LIVE

 

About the Author: Sheri Burke is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Bariatric Surgery Coordinator at International Patient Facilitators in Tijuana and Cancun, Mexico. She has worked with bariatric surgery clients for over 10 years and especially enjoys providing nutritional guidance to pre and post bariatric clients.  In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two teens and cooking up a nutritional storm in the kitchen.

For high quality specialized plant protein for bariatric patients Bariatric Expert Protein Powders

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin ?  Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon:  Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Eat Like a Bariatric Expert with our Nutrition Plans.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

Stay motivated with Bariatric Wristbands – post your results online !

 

2Jan

Going into the New Year with big resolutions is something that a lot of us do but the reality is that it is not so easy to follow through.  Even though we have the very best of intentions, we often slip and that’s because we don’t have what we need to succeed.

Hands up if you have attempted a ketogenic diet and found it easy to follow for the first two days and then very difficult as you tried to navigate it past that point?

Hands up if you have already heard about the benefits of IF (Intermittent Fasting).

If you have real serious goals for 2019 then I really suggest that you learn how to get “fat fueled” with me on Friday Jan. 4th at 3pm EST.  Let’s dig into the nitty gritty details and how to reach your short and long term goals with a ketogenic lifestyle and a bit of IF (Intermittent Fasting).

How many of you know how wonderful a ketogenic lifestyle feels and how it gets the scale moving again?  I know that many of you have tried eating this way and you already know the vast number of benefits.

I know that you know the benefits of eating whole, live, natural, good quality food but it’s also so easy to go back to bad habits as soon as you run out of ideas in the kitchen.

How many of you believe that rolling your hotdogs in nacho cheese is the way to go? Or that piling your plate with bacon is a good idea?  

How many of you decide to make the switch to a keto diet and the scroll for hours upon hours on YouTube trying to understand the in’s and out’s of high fat/ low carb?

Want to get even more frustrated and pull your hair out?  Join a few Keto FaceBook groups and get hundreds upon hundreds of “opinions” that make zero sense and will set you back again.

A Keto lifestyle doesn’t have to be hard if you truly understand it.  If you want to make the lifestyle change and join me on the path to eating in a way that fuels your body, helps you lose weight and balances your hormones, then join me on my FaceBook live on Friday Jan. 4th at 3pm EST.  

We are going to dive in together and talk about high fat/ low carb and how to live a realistic ketogenic lifestyle with some IF for even bigger results.  I am going to give you a two day bariatric beginners ketogenic guide to follow for free and I am going to give two lucky winners the entire online bariatric keto plan for free.  

Let’s start this New Year together in a BIG way and crush our goals quickly.

See you soon – Friday, January 4th at 3pm EST  FACEBOOK LIVE

If you want to go ahead and purchase the entire Bariatric Ketogenic Plan to get ready right now, go ahead and visit this link:  Bariatric Keto Program

About the Author: Sheri Burke is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist and Bariatric Surgery Coordinator at International Patient Facilitators in Tijuana and Cancun, Mexico. She has worked with bariatric surgery clients for over 10 years and especially enjoys providing nutritional guidance to pre and post bariatric clients.  In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and two teens and cooking up a nutritional storm in the kitchen.

For high quality specialized plant protein for bariatric patients Bariatric Expert Protein Powders

Time for a “bariatric expert” multivitamin ?  Here is a perfect way for bariatric patients to get it now on Amazon:  Bariatric Expert MultiVitamins.

Eat Like a Bariatric Expert with our Nutrition Plans.

Feel free to share your victories and struggles in our Facebook Group. I would love to connect with you.

Stay motivated with Bariatric Wristbands – post your results online !