Favorite Foods
Welcome to November, the start of holiday eating. Holiday season has an amazing ability to knock people right off the healthy diet and lifestyle train. We have so many memories and emotions wrapped up in holiday festivities that it’s easy to fall into old patterns. A lot of emotion is around food. We all tend to enjoy special foods at holiday times, foods we believe to be rare and unavailable at other times of the year (hint, they’re not, you can make them anytime). This feeling of rarity encourages that mentality of now or never or just this one or “I always”. I am not immune to any of this. I’m pretty sure I say all of those things and many other very convincing statements when it comes to rationalizing how to fit certain foods into my diet/life.
Don’t Deprive Yourself
One of my BIG mantras is ‘don’t deprive yourself’. Deprivation always leads to failure when it comes to food. The trick is to avoid feelings of deprivation but ALSO be good to your body. This is where the idea of substitution comes in. Figuring out ways to enjoy your favorite foods without creating blood sugar and insulin surges. Enjoy without creating cravings and the inevitable spiral into a sugar binge, gut disruption and regret.
Fun Food
For the month of November I’m going to share recipes that I’ve collected. These are recipes that take the high-carb/high-sugar out of traditional holiday fare. I call these fun foods because they’re not foods you should probably eat all the time. Some might be o.k. but a lot will use nut flours instead of traditional flours and a lot will be probably be desserts. These foods are great for those times when you know you’ll be indulging. They are to be enjoyed. However, if you have a weight loss goal, they shouldn’t be staple foods. Nuts and cheese, two ingredients that are often the base of recipes that have been ‘low-carbed’ or ‘ketoed’ are energy dense and lower in nutrients. They won’t cause blood sugar spikes but they can result in over-eating and ultimately excess calories.
Stuffing
One of my favorite foods at Thanksgiving is stuffing. I LOVE stuffing. Below you’ll find a few recipes that I’ve found for low-carb/keto versions of stuffing. I haven’t decided yet which one I’ll be using, they all look super yummy. Take a look and see if any might work for you. The rest of the month I’ll share more low-carb/keto recipe roundups for holiday foods.
This first Keto stuffing recipe is from It’s Simple, How To This and That and looks delicious. Based on the nutritional information provided it appears to be 6 net carbs/serving. You do need to have a keto or low-carb bread handy to make this. If you go over to my Pinterest page I have a board that is dedicated to Keto Breads and Crackers.
This second stuffing recipe is from Delish and uses cauliflower as a base. Unfortunately, they don’t give the carb count for the recipe. You can bet it’s lower than traditional stuffing since there isn’t any bread ; )
This third recipe is from Keto on a Dime and uses a cornbread mix that I hadn’t heard of (exciting!). She uses Good Dee’s Sugar-Free Sweetness, Corn Free Bread – Low-Carb Baking Mix (you can buy this here at my amazon affiliate account). My husband has been dreaming about corn bread, guess what I just bought ; ) This stuffing looks amazing, ‘cornbread’ and sausage. The recipe doesn’t give nutritional information but the Dee’s package says it’s 1 net carb/serving. Cool!
This final stuffing recipe is from one of my favorite recipe sites, All Day I Dream About Food. This stuffing is a sausage and bread stuffing. Based on her nutritional calculations it looks like about 3 net carbs/serving. One thing I can say about the recipes from All Day I Dream About Food is they are ALWAYS delicious!
Choices
So many choices! My guess is, they are all delicious. I think I’m definitely leaning toward a bread based stuffing. Really looking forward to trying that cornbread mix. My stomach is rumbling. I can actually SMELL stuffing. Time to redirect and think about something else.
I hope these recipe ideas have inspired you and given you ideas about sticking with your health eating even during holiday season. Next week I think I’ll focus on pumpkin recipes, another favorite of mine.
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If you try any of the above recipes let us all know, comment and give us your review.
Be well,
I’m Amy a board certified holistic nutritionist, certified functional nutritionist and lifestyle practitioner and certified Life Coach. I help women in midlife understand the changing needs of their body so that they can stop dieting and lose weight permanently. At 56 I live what I teach. Don’t believe the story that your best years are behind you. They are not. Your best years are just starting!