About

Welcome to The Keto Gourmet. I’m Irene, a lover and creator of delicious food which I enjoy cooking and sharing; beautiful, tasty, and satisfying Keto meals which don’t leave me feeling deprived or hungry. However, until recently such was not the case.

I have always had a penchant for great food and cooking with the freshest and best of ingredients, the result of having a mother who is an incredible cook and a father gifted with green fingers. My mother would lovingly create scratch made food daily, while my father’s organically grown produce provided the bounty of ingredients that inspired what would be on our plates. Processed, pre packaged, or “junk” food items were a rarity in my childhood home, such frivolous luxuries were not in the budget. This was my food norm while I lived at home, and even many years after I had left the nest, but over time things changed.

I can’t exactly pinpoint where or when the extremely subtle shift in diet occurred,  hazarding a guess, it was in my late thirties when I started to lose control over food and my waistline. There were  several futile attempts to regain control over the years as my weight bloomed before my eyes. Vegetarian, vegan, and raw foodist I have been in an effort to slow the rise on the scales, an immense failure for me in that regard. All I achieved for myself was a constant state of hangry and an obsessive craving for meat. Then I bought the fat-free, calorie free and sugar-free prepared diet foods and drinks; still I gained. I have juice fasted, cabbage soup dieted and even tried starving myself but to no avail. Each new guru my weight loss messiah, each new diet book my bible and still I continued to gain. I tried eating less and moving more but it just didn’t work for me, I felt doomed to remain obese and ashamed for being “a big girl”. I was in my heart and mind a failure. Some of you may relate to my feelings of pain and utter failure, have “been there”. I truly felt lost and out of control. However, due to the events of March 2nd 2017 and the month that followed my life changed forever.

March 2, 2017, my 49th birthday. Worst birthday ever,  there was a health crisis, a potentially fatal one, for my father. Dad ended up getting heart surgery, which saved and changed his life, as well as mine. It was during his recovery from illness that I took a long, hard, and truthful look at my health. The conclusion I came to was this: my diet was a diabetes inducing, obesity fueling, fatty liver producing, inflammation increasing, over processed and sugar laden mill stone about my waist which was going to rob me of life before I was 50 if things didn’t change.

So April 1st I vowed to do one thing and that was to give up sugar. My taste buds and sweet tooth were no longer in charge, to be given free rein to make my food decisions for me. I knew the change wasn’t going to be easy and it wasn’t. I have fallen down several times, fell off the wagon, but I keep getting up and that is the thing, keep getting up more times than you fall down. Each day without sugar was and is a victory but the cravings were terrible. Sugar addiction is no joke.  I cooked only whole foods, with a low glycemic index, but the sugar cravings and my still feeling hungry were about to derail me yet again. I was committed, I wasn’t going to let me give up this time. I did some research and found the Ketogenic way of life.

Hallelujah, the skies opened up and the sun shone down and my prayer was answered. Since finding this way of eating my sugar cravings are under control and I never feel hungry. The weight has come off effortlessly, 35lbs to date and still counting till I reach my goal. My creativity in the kitchen has increased, I cook more for myself now than I did in the last decade. I have found enjoyment in photographing my food and have been sharing via social media for a couple months. When I post a picture of my meals, I always get asked for the recipe, hence the birth of The Keto Gourmet. Come share the journey with me and I hope that my food and my posts will inspire you as well as encourage you to cook some great tasting food.

Thank you,

Irene The Keto Gourmet