Chasing Kris

When I went down the ketogenic rabbit hole last year, it was because of the revelation that I had breast cancer and needed to do something about it.  There's a whole story around that experience, obviously, but for today's purpose let's just say it was a great motivator to find a way that my diet could fuel my recovery. My thought at the time was that with every bite of food I was either killing the cancer or helping it.  And I was not going to help it one bite. The cancer scare is gone now.  I've dealt with it and now I wait to see if my body will learn to better identify future cells and have the energy to kill them.  Everyone has rogue cells (cancer cells) every day.  The body has mechanisms to find them and destroy them that work great as long as there aren't other stresses like environmental factors or physical challenges that distract the immune system and let the little rogues set up shop. So the cancer threat was dealt with and ...

In the carb-centric dietary world, there are many factors to consider.  Should you be low carb?  How low?  All the way down to strict ketogenesis?  What's the difference and how do you choose? I'm not a scientist or a dietician, so I gather my information from multiple sources to understand multiple opinions and hear some of the science behind it all.  In layman's terms, my understanding is that "low carb" typically means a daily carbohydrate intake of 80-100 grams.  "Ketogenic" diets are more strict because the goal is to get the body adapted to creating ketones and fueling the brain from that source, so ketogenic diets are much lower in carbohydrates -- all the way down to 30-50 grams daily. One loaded up leafy green salad with some cucumbers, bell peppers and some shredded carrot could be your entire carbohydrate intake for the day on ketogenic diets! How you choose really depends on you.  What's your goal?  Are you just trying to...

It was a little more than a year ago that I was writing about my fight against breast cancer and how I used a ketogenic based diet to help my treatments be as effective as possible.  The learning curve to going ketogenic is a long arc!  Along the way, I've taken in and incorporated enough information to effectively change the way I see food and the things I feel are acceptable and unacceptable for me to eat.  But I'm not actually ketogenic now.  I'm not even low carb anymore. The process has forever changed some of my base notions about food.  It used to be that my husband would bring home donuts early on an occasional weekend morning as a treat for the kids.  He always remembered to grab an apple fritter for me, because that's a treat I love.  Now, that donut run just seems pointless.  Why bring home something that is going to cause stomach upset for one of my kids who is gluten sensitive, and give a massive sugar bomb soaked in oil that ...