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Summary
On episode 318 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Carolyn Ketchum, author of Easy Keto Dinners and creator of the popular low-carb blog All Day I Dream About Food.
Carolyn never struggled with her weight, but gestational diabetes with her third child pushed her toward low-carb eating after her blood sugar numbers started creeping back up. She taught herself to bake and cook low-carb from scratch, and it turned into a career.
The conversation is a practical guide to making keto sustainable: how to stock a pantry, when store-bought shortcuts are fine (and when “keto” labeling can’t be trusted), and why spices matter as much as macros for actually feeling satisfied at the table.
Links
- https://alldayidreamaboutfood.com
Key Takeaways
- “Easy” doesn’t mean “fast,” it means low effort. Carolyn splits her recipes into easy-fast (minimal active time) and easy-slow (a few minutes of prep, then walk away for hours), because a technically quick recipe that keeps you standing at the stove the whole time isn’t actually easy.
- Her own prediabetes diagnosis started it all. After gestational diabetes, her blood work looked fine at first, but retesting showed her numbers creeping up again, and her doctor confirmed prediabetes, which pushed her to research and adopt low-carb eating herself.
- You don’t have to give up your favorite foods, just remake them. She describes crying on her kitchen floor thinking her baking days were over, then discovering she could recreate the foods she loved in a keto-friendly way, taste buds and all.
- A stocked pantry and freezer beat batch cooking for her. Rather than committing to big batch-cooked meals, she keeps proteins like ground beef and chicken thighs frozen and ready, plus staples like coconut flour, so a meal is always within reach.
- Store-bought shortcuts are fine, but read the label. Pre-made bone broth or riced cauliflower can save real time, but she warns that many products marketed as “keto” contain hidden carbs or junk ingredients that can knock you out of ketosis.
- Spices, not fewer ingredients, are what make a recipe easy and satisfying. A well-stocked spice drawer lets you fake bold flavors, like her jerk chicken made without hard-to-find scotch bonnet peppers, and flavor itself helps trigger satiety on a high-fat diet.
- The book flags allergens and macros for every recipe. More than half the recipes are dairy-free or can be made dairy-free, and each one lists a macro breakdown so readers can quickly see if a dish fits their daily fat and carb targets.
- Rotisserie chicken is one of her favorite time-savers. A single store rotisserie chicken can stretch into two or three separate meals with almost no extra cooking effort.
- Cooking for yourself means knowing what’s actually in your food. Carolyn is wary of packaged “keto” products with erroneous nutrition labels and argues that home cooking with quality ingredients is the more reliable way to protect your health and stay in ketosis.
“The food we eat, it is health. And if we’re not doing that right, then we’re not taking care of ourselves.”
Carolyn Ketchum
