It was actually our oldest daughter, Brianna, who suggested it. She wanted to see what it felt like and Christina and I agreed because we wanted to experience what it would be like for our entire family to do it. Billy and Alyssa were less enthused. The trial was for two weeks – long enough for all of us to get into and maintain a state of ketosis. And, long enough for all of us to get into a rhythm.
OUR CURRENT DIET
Christina and I already eat a low carbohydrate diet filled with high quality animal fats and protein. While the amount of protein in our diet is higher, and fat lower, than a typical keto diet, a transition to full keto was not a big step.
For our family, however, it required a little more of a change – Our Modern Stone Age Diet approach focuses on HOW we eat and pays less attention to WHAT we eat.
We realize that our bodies are not designed to eat almost everything we consume and the power lies in food processing technologies that make foods safe, nutrient dense, and bioavailable for our incredibly inefficient human digestive tracts. We believe that when we are in tune with our bodies and are faced with real food processed properly we can rely on our bodies to guide us through the decision making process when deciding what to eat.
That said, for our three teenage kids, we do allow grains and other carbohydrates under the condition they have gone through the proper processing. For example, wheat is fermented using a long-slow, wild fermentation that relies upon a combination of wild bacteria and yeast. Maize is nixtamalized using an alkaline fermentation to make available all of its nutritional value.
So, going full keto in our family meant completely removing foods like sourdough bread and maize tortillas.
Not a huge struggle, but this experience required some changes in our kitchen, pantry, and dinner table.
BENEFITS OF GOING KETO
- The guidelines for how to eat keto are simple to understand and there was something comforting in that – especially for the kids. This resulted in less “discussions” around what they could or could not eat.
- The focus on high quality fat and protein is directly in-line with our approach.
- There are a lot of recipes available online to cook delicious keto meals and the kids enjoyed searching for keto versions of dishes we have not allowed in our house in a long time, for instance keto “mac-and-cheese” using cauliflower (which was delicious by the way).
- Our youngest daughter, who loves to bake, began to focus on full meals and cooked the majority of our keto dinners!
- The pee keto test strips served as constant “checks” to determine how successful we were.
- Everyone in the family lost a little weight and felt great.
Here’s a sampling of our Keto family dinners
DRAWBACKS OF KETO FOR OUR FAMILY
- We all missed something. The kids missed sourdough bread and Christina and I missed beer.
- We tried some recipes using some of the more popular keto-approved sugar substitutes. This only reinforced my dislike for them. Not only do I find them bitter, they go against everything for which the Modern Stone Age Diet stands. Our approach is to rely upon ancestral technologies to make food as safe, nutrient dense and bioavailable as possible. By doing so, we transform our food into something so easily recognizable to our digestive tracts that we can rely on our body’s signals to inform our dietary choices and eating practices. Everything about artificial sweeteners is the exact opposite. Instead of making food safe, nourishing, and recognizable to our bodies, artificial sweeteners come with a list of negative side-effects, provide absolutely no nutrition whatsoever, and are designed specifically to be unrecognizable to our bodies so that they pass directly through our digestive tracts.
BIG TAKE-AWAYS
- It was simple for our entire family to understand the “rules” and therefore to follow them.
- The pantry and fridge only contained “keto-approved” foods and, as a result, no arguments or deep-discussions were needed when someone grabbed for something to eat.
- If you are looking for a diet that is based on sound principles, has easy to follow guidelines, will produce great results, and is supported by a ton of online and in-print resources (recipes, tips and tricks, etc.) then give this a try – especially if you can stay away from the artificial sweeteners.
“UNRESTRICTED” DAY TO ENJOY ANYTHING
We promised the kids that at the end of two week we could have an “unrestricted” day. Everyone could eat what they wanted. No judgement. Despite what you may think, this was the absolute best thing we could have done. This hedonistic celebration reinforced everything we had learned over the course of our keto experiment – refined, unfermented carbs make us feel like crap. And, with this, we could sit down as a family and have an informed discussion about how we would proceed as a family.
MODERN STONE AGE DIET FOR US!
We decided to return to our Modern Stone Age Diet approach. We would continue to focus on high quality animal-based protein and fat, but would reintroduce more vegetables (especially wild ones), limited amounts of grains, and other carbohydrate-containing foods as long as they are processed properly. All natural sweeteners could be used sparingly, as long delivered something in addition to sweetness such as vitamins and minerals with maple syrup and probiotics with raw honey.
We are glad we “went keto” and learned a ton. And, we now have a few more recipes under our belt – the Cauliflower Mac-n-Cheese was delicious!
MODERN STONE AGE DIET FAMILY STYLE SERIES WITH ROBERT & CRYSTAL SIKES
If you’d like to learn more about Keto, listen to our interview with Rob & Crystal Sikes, founders of Keto Bricks!
Robert & Crystal Sikes of Keto Brick
Robert Sikes (Keto Savage) and his wife Crystal Sikes (Lady Savage) are two ambitious people. From nothing to something in a matter of just a couple of years, Robert and Crystal launched their business Keto Brick in March 2018 and recently launched their apparel line Live Savage Apparel. Robert is a lifetime natural bodybuilder using only the ketogenic diet within the past 5 years. He received his natural pro card using keto in 2017. Crystal competed and won her first ever bodybuilding competition in 2018 having only been weightlifting after starting her ketogenic lifestyle. These two have a strong heart to please people and bring only greatness to the world.
Together they bring a unique perspective sharing insight on:
- Their ideal diet for optimal health and value of eating a ketogenic lifestyle,
- How to take an idea for your own health and transform it into a profitable business.
- How to structure your sleep and work-out schedule for top performance.
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