By this point, you have gotten used to eating keto foods. Again, we are displacing, not replacing. The focus here, at this point, is to highlight the keto items in your meals.
Think of it this way. You're in a big space, it's dark, and then there's a spotlight. There are several food items in the middle of the space. Instead of shining the spotlight on all the food items, shine it only on the keto items.
Now, this means that you're not cutting out all the other foods on your meal plan. You're just emphasizing, as far as your attention and your taste buds go, the keto-friendly items.
This is how you prepare yourself for the scale-down process. Otherwise, it's easy to just hit a plateau. Seriously.
I've seen this happen. I've advised a lot of people who transitioned from the standard American diet to a keto diet, and this is the wall they keep hitting. They can't let go of the other foods because they focus on all the items on their meal plans.
You have to start looking forward to the keto items. You have to start celebrating their taste profiles. Get yourself excited about these foods more than the diet.
This is a key change in your mindset because a lot of people who are pumped up about the keto diet are pumped up about the weight loss.
Let's be completely honest here. They couldn't really care less about the taste. A lot actually have misgivings, but they are excited about finally getting rid of that nasty spare tire they've been lugging around in their midsection since what seems like forever.
Believe me, I understand where these individuals are coming from. But until and unless you get excited about the food itself, instead of the diet or what you could get from the diet, you're going to have a tough time.
There, I said it.
Sure, you may lose quite a bit of weight. It may seem, at least from the outside, that you're doing well. But eventually, something will get knocked lose. It's only a matter of time until you go back to your old eating patterns because you focus on all the items in your meal plan.
Unfortunately, not all of them are keto-friendly. This is why it's really important to get used to eating keto foods and highlight them or focus on them more when you eat.
When you're looking forward to your next meal, get excited about the keto food items. Do this for several days, if not weeks, and then you will be ready for the scale-down process.
Start to Scale Down Your Carb Intake Dramatically
Please understand that our goal here is to trigger ketosis using diet. This involves a transition phase. But eventually, you must be fully ketogenic.
In other words, at a certain point in time, you must flip over to using fat as your main energy source instead of sugar. This is the point where things get real with the keto diet.
All the previous chapters that I've walked you through prepare you for this point in time. This can only happen when you start to scale down your carb intake dramatically.
How come? As I have mentioned in a previous chapter, if insulin is in the picture, you're not burning fat for fuel. Seriously. It really is that simple.
If you eat more than 12 to 25 carb grams every single day, your body will be producing insulin and you're mostly burning sugar throughout the day for energy.
At this point in time, you're going to have to scale down your carb intake dramatically so you can get below the 12 to 25-gram maximum daily carb intake threshold.
Thankfully, there are two wonder foods that you can rely on to get you there.
Your Keto Wonder Food #1: Eggs
I don't know about you, but I've always had a softness for eggs. They're compact, they're pretty straightforward, they're definitely easy to prepare, and they are loaded with nutrition.
Eggs are packed with all sorts of vitamins and nutrients, and they really don't pack much calories on a gram per gram basis.
Did you know that Weight Watchers no longer give points for eggs? If you don't know the Weight Watcher system, when you eat certain food items, you are given points. And you can only eat so much food until you hit a certain point threshold.
If you go over that maximum point threshold, you're going to gain weight. If you eat below it, you lose weight.
For the longest time, Weight Watchers was giving eggs points. Well, they've wiped those points out. Now, you can basically eat quite a bit of eggs.
This is in keeping with recent research that shows that eggs are not bad for you. For the longest time, eggs were demonized in the United States and elsewhere as these cholesterol bombs.
Well, it turns out, after decades of research, that it's sugar that is making us sick and fat. Not eggs. And definitely not dietary fat. Interesting how things change, right?
This is why it's a good idea to load up on eggs. Maybe you like them boiled, maybe you like them sunny side up, it doesn't matter. Load up on eggs. This is a great keto food.
One to two eggs should be fine. They fill you up and they make you feel fuller for a longer period of time.
Your Keto Wonder Food #2: Avocado
As I've mentioned earlier, avocado is not exactly a "default taste" for most people. It's not like you wake up one day and you just say, "I can't wait to enjoy a plain avocado." That rarely happens.
Either you eat avocado in the form of ice cream, or you turn it into guacamole. But as a fruit by itself, added into a salad of greens, that takes some doing. It definitely takes some getting used to.
But if you really want to take your keto diet to the next level and scale down your carb intake dramatically, load up on avocado. It's loaded in fat, but it also has dietary fiber and is loaded with vitamins. It's really good for you.
And it is actually easy to get used to because it's very versatile. You can mix it with all sorts of greens. You can mix it with egg. It's good stuff.
Your Keto Wonder Food #3: Cauliflower
I include cauliflower here knowing full well that it does have carbohydrates. This is why it's a good idea to use moderate amounts of cauliflower. Maybe you can prepare it once every other day, or a little more frequently.
I include cauliflower here because a lot of us veterans of the standard American diet are used to eating a significant amount of carbohydrates every day. In my case, I used to eat a lot of rice.
Cauliflower saved my life as far as my keto diet goes. Why? Instead of loading up on brown rice, red rice, or plain steamed white rice, I make cauliflower "rice." You just grind it up and then you fry it.
You can turn it into "fried rice" or you can serve it plain fried or sautéed. It has roughly the same consistency as rice, but it's loaded with protein instead of carbs.
Of course, you should only eat a moderate amount of protein daily. You can't go overboard with protein because, as I have mentioned earlier in this book, your liver actually turns protein into sugar. This is called glucogenesis.
You don't want this to happen because you want to minimize the amount of sugar, regardless of its source, in your system for ketosis to work its wonders.