For as long as I can remember, I was both blessed cursed with a ‘Big Sweet Tooth’ and hated carbs.
Soon after starting Keto it didn’t take long to realize...how a tiny midnight snack (aka Cheat Meal) could quickly throw my perfect plan into a spiral.
Out of ketosis!
A full week’s progress gone in one night.
And it wasn’t for lack of determination. Two years ago this is how my days played out…
Black coffee with no milk or sugar. Salad for lunch 5 days in a row (no dressing, obviously). A couple pieces of celery sticks for dinner.
I even had days where I'd fast until lunchtime before eating.
If this sounds familiar you can probably guess what came next…
I’d roll in bed for what seemed like hours, trying to “Hush My Hunger”...but there was no ignoring those ‘Midnight Munchies!’
So I’d make my way to the kitchen thinking I could grab a celery stick or crunchy carrot, and that’s when I'd stumble on...
…a pint of Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer!
Pure pleasure I’d almost forgotten.
“Just one spoonful,” I’d tell myself.
Yet it only takes a quick minute for that spoonful to turn into a full pint. It doesn’t stop there…
...out comes a bag of tortilla chips and salsa and God knows how long we’ve hid those Oreos in the pantry.
Damage done! Falling off the Keto bandwagon (again!) :(
Some nights all I wanted to do was break down and cry.
...I hated hiding behind flowy tops and baggy pants.
...I hated ‘wishing I wasn’t there,’ anytime someone pulled a phone to take a selfie (“God, how will l look”)
But that was two years ago...my story has a happy ending.
Choosing any kind of outfit is a pleasure now.
I’m here to tell you that having a ‘Big Sweet Tooth’ doesn’t have to mean suffering endlessly anytime you catch sight of a brownie, or smell fresh cookies.
It sure frustrated me that no amount of willpower could satisfy those crunchy cravings. Yet I knew there had to be a better way…
In my experience, it’s easy to start a diet...but staying on it? That’s a whole other story.
So how did I go from eating plain grilled chicken breast and broccoli every night, wanting to bang my head against the wall...to rocking Keto with a smile for 2 years now?
The Big “Ah Ha!” That Changed Everything For Me
The “answer” I’m about to tell you may sound obvious… but it took me a long time to figure out why it doesn’t get easier the harder we try.
When I started trying to ‘stick to Keto,’ I would always tend to focus on the list of no-no foods I must avoid.
I went cold turkey.
Depriving myself of all my favorite treats.
I went from 300g carbs per day down to 15.
So, I tried to ‘hang in there’ to get through the initial cravings.
Some days I’d whizzed through.
Other days I’d catch myself thinking about food too much!
And no matter how hard I tried…
…ignoring my midnight cravings was like asking me not to scratch an itch on my back.
Why Ignoring My Cravings Was a Handicap!
Research shows that 39% of American adults overeat (unhealthy, junk food cravings) because of stress. What’s worse, nearly half of those who stress eat report feeling guilty.
And feeling guilty leads to ____?
You guessed it…
Stress.
There’s 3 ways to push the breaks on this stress-eating downward spiral:
#1 Unwind and de-stress. In a perfect world I’d cut the workday in half to relax in a hammock.
#2 Go on a recipe hunt. Like coating chicken with crushed nuts for a bread-free crunch or kale chips. But I quickly realize how some of us can’t munch on kale chips every night because we miss that cheesy goodness. So I moved on…
How about crispy parmesan tomato chips?
Recipe looked delish. I love fresh tomatoes but I’m no whiz in the kitchen. Slice thin, bake for 3 hours on 200 degrees. One batch burnt. Another turned out soft instead of crispy. Next…
…I had my mind set on baking cucumber chips when I realized:
This too would require 3 hours of baking (maybe I’d have time on a Sunday)· And, 16 chips are 3.2g net carbs.
All this got me wondering:
What if I quit pretending that celery sticks were as tasty as chocolate…
“If Only I Could Have My Carb Fix Without All the Carbs”
Two years ago, I quit pretending that cauliflower recipes, celery sticks, and nuts were my fav midnight snack.
And instead, my fiancé Dylan and I decided to...
...re-invent all our childhood favorite snacks into healthy, guilt-free versions.
- Cut the carbs
- Cut the calories
- Keep that CRUNCH!
I thought to myself, if I could somehow eat chocolate cereal in front of the TV every night like I did growing up, I could be on Keto forever.
This one simple shift in thinking took me on a brand-new direction. Maybe there was a way to…
Start Obeying My Appetite Without Falling off the Healthy Bandwagon?
So I went through the grocery store and tried looking for a cereal without the carbs and sugar.
I spent an hour flipping through all the labels on the back of cereal boxes.
Nothing, nada.
I went home that night and turned my kitchen into a lab.
I started whipping together all the ingredients I had to make “cereal.” It was a massive fail. The concoction was soggy and tasted of disappointment.
But I kept trying for several months, and one day. Ta-dah! Perfect sweetness...I even got the the elusive *crunch* right!
I gave my partner Dylan a spoonful (I didn’t tell him it was low carb or sugar-free) and he gave me the thumbs up.
That’s when I knew I was onto something…
Escaping Food Drama.
Finally, I could quit being at the mercy of food and sweet tooth cravings.
Instead of thinking of all the things I couldn’t enjoy everyday, my thoughts started shifting to all that cocoa cereal I could have at night again. While I was at my desk during the day, I knew that my Netflix & Cereal session was waiting for me at home.
It Was Like I Was Cheating Every Night, Without Cheating at All!
And every night, my cereal satisfied my sweet tooth so that I wasn’t even craving *actual* junk food anymore.
I spent the next couple of months finding and working with a manufacturer to bake and package small batches of my cereal recipe. I made a website, and before long, I was getting orders of my Keto Cereal faster than I could ship out packages!
Fast forward a year....what started in my kitchen has become a nationwide phenomenon.
People started telling their friends on Facebook, and before long...I was selling a bag of cereal every 4 seconds to over 200,000 fanatic customers!
5000+ Five Star Reviews Later...
And I Couldn’t Believe What Happened Next...
My fans started asking me to make low carb version of other snacks they were craving too.
That’s when I went back into the kitchen and created our Keto Cheese Puffs (in Cheddar Cheese and Flaming Hot).
These were so popular, our first batch sold out in a record 10 days.
“But Helen...How Can I Get My Hands On These If You’re Always Sold Out?”
As you're probably aware, we’re not some big company.
We bake our products in small batches and it takes time, which means we have limited inventory available.
In fact, due to the lead times to source quality ingredients and schedule production runs, it can take up to 3 months just to get our products back in stock when we sell out.
At the time of writing this, we’re sold out of several flavors of both our Keto Cereal and Keto Cheese Puffs.
But if our snacks are sold out when you visit...first, I just want to say I’m really sorry.
Thanks for your patience as we deal with these growing pains.
We’re working on expanding our production and warehousing capacity, but it will take several months before we can keep up. In the meantime, we’re working around the clock, so if you don’t catch us in stock this time, please keep coming back and checking!
-Helen (Co-Owner, Schoolyard Snacks)
