“Diet”, The Other 4 letter Word

Ugh….never do I want sweets so much as the very moment I’ve decided to diet! Ha! That’s not true at all! I’m fairly sure I was born with a sweet tooth! I am dieting and successfully I might add but really it’s not dieting at all. It’s a life style change.

The sticky portion of this is that any real lifestyle change has to be sustainable. The more you feel deprived, the more certain you are of not only giving up but returning to old habits.

I’ll be honest, there is no lifestyle I can imagine for myself where I’ll never have another cookie, a slice of cake, a soda, slice of bread, chips or potato. That’s what a diet is and what makes it a 4 letter word! I can however, maintain a predominately healthy diet with occassional treats and I can find healthier ways of enjoying old favorites.

So far, I have completely abstained from desserts save a cup of sugar free jello. I manage my sweet cravings with sugar free drink mixes and a keto hot chocolate made with Keto Cocoa, hot water, sweetener, coconut oil and butter. But tonight, let’s have cheese cake!

Mini Keto Cheese Cakes

Ingredients

Crust

1/2 cup almond meal

2 tbsp butter

Sweetener of choice, to taste

Cheesecake

8 oz. cream cheese

1 large egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp lemon juice

1 pinch salt

Sweetener of choice, to taste

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. To make the crust, melt some butter and mix into the almond meal and sweetener until it feels like crumbly play sand.

Take about a teaspoon at a time and press the dough into the bottom of 8 muffin tins. Tip: line your pan with cupcake liners for easy removal! Bake the crusts for about 7 minutes. They’ll come out slightly brown and crispy.

Then take your room temperature cream cheese and beat it with a mixer until creamy. Then add vanilla extract, lemon, egg and your sugar substitute. Beat until all combined.

Use an ice cream scooper to fill all the crust-bottomed muffin tin cups evenly almost to the top (the mini cheesecakes will rise while in the oven but will flatten while refrigerating).

Bake at 350°F for about 15 minutes. The mini cheesecakes should be slightly jiggly. Let them cool in the refrigerator for ideally 3 hours. But if you’re strapped for time, try putting them in the freezer for about 15 min.

Once the mini cheesecakes are done cooling, slide a knife around the edges of each muffin cup to loosen them up. Then use a fork and your hands to help them out cleanly.

Top with strawberry, blueberries or as I did by melting a Tbsp of coconut oil then mixing in Keto cocoa and sweetener and drizzling over the top.

Enjoy!

Always With Love – Laura💕

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