Martina Slajerova - The Beginners KetoDiet Cookbook: Over 100 Delicious Whole Food, Low-Carb Recipes for Getting in the Ketogenic Zone Breaking Your Weight-Loss Plateau, and Living Keto for Life

My Story

I changed the way I ate in 2011, when I was diagnosed with Hashimotos, an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid. I had no energy, and I found it more and more difficult to maintain a healthy weight. Even though I was taking prescription medication to help control my condition and I was hitting the gym almost every day, I was gaining weight, not losing it. The irony was that, like so many other people, I used to follow what I believed to be a healthy, balanced diet. I avoided most fatty foods in fear of clogging my arteries and putting on weight. I based my diet around whole grains and vegetables, and I limited my intake of animal products. I did exactly what the general dietary recommendations advised: I exercised more and ate less. Still, nothing worked. Finally, I got tired of dieting all the time, and I was determined to regain my health by following a different approach.

Thats when I decided to quit sugar, grains, and processed foods, and I started following a whole foodsbased ketogenic approach to food. After we witnessed the incredible benefits of low-carb eating firsthand, my partner and I created KetoDiet, a tracking and planning application with hundreds of low-carb recipes. It is now one of the best-selling apps on the App Store and Google Play. Then, in 2012, I launched my KetoDiet blog, which helps more than two million monthly visitors follow a whole foodsbased, low-carb, ketogenic lifestyle.

Switching to a keto lifestyle wasnt easy at first. It took some time for me to get used to eating fat and to give up carbs: after all those years of dieting, it was only natural that I was having trouble eating more fat without worrying about consuming all those calories. And to make things even more complicated, there was too much conflicting information available, and I didnt know if I was doing the right thing. But I figured it out for myself.

When I started to eat keto, my cravings went away after just a few weeks. I didnt feel hungry, and I had loads of energy to devote to my busy lifestyle. Best of all, for the first time in years, I didnt even think about food. It was so liberating! So these days, when people ask me which diet I follow, I simply reply, Its just the way I eat every day. Thats becausefor me, at leastketo isnt a diet: its a lifestyle. The word diet suggests a pattern of eating thats both temporary and difficult to stick with, and thats definitely not the case for my approach to eating keto.

I hope this book will give you some clarity about what a truly healthy diet is, and that youll be motivated to keep learning, do your own research, and listen to your body. I truly believe that a whole foodsbased keto diet that reflects your individual needs has the potential to help you achieve your goalswhether thats long-term weight loss, dealing with certain health conditions, or simply improving your overall well-being.

What Is the Ketogenic Diet?

To understand what the ketogenic diet is and how it works, we need to understand how our bodies use carbohydrates. All carbohydrates from the foods we eat are broken down into glucose, which, in non-keto-adapted individuals, is the bodys primary source of energy. If you eat more carbohydrates than your body can use immediately, it will store the excess glucose in the liver and muscles as muscle glycogen, which can be used for energy. But when your glycogen tank is full, your body stores extra glycogen as body fat.