#49 Tara Shimer – Keto Baking Company
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Episode #006 Julie Houle – The Power of Yes
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August 18, 2018MEET TARA:
Tara Shimer has struggled with her weight and symptoms of inflammation for most of her life. Having had no understanding of the correlation between the two, what began as her first attempt to lose weight, at age 13, swiftly morphed into what would become a decade-long battle with anorexia nervosa and exercise bulimia. Through adopting a ketogenic diet, Tara finally began to see that chronic cardio and undereating were only making the inflammation and chronic stress, worse. She cranked up her dietary fat intake, cut out the protein (grain) cereal, and high fiber bars, and attempted to grasp what a “moderate protein” level was – for her body. She made a lot of mistakes, but kept at it!
Over time, seeing no immediate weight loss, but experiencing lots of the many other benefits of a ketogenic eating style, she decided that no matter what, this was the diet for her – the way her body preferred to be nourished. Trusting in the process, while doing her own due diligence to uncover a deeper understanding of her body, (by interpreting her symptoms as her body’s only form of communication), she incorporated other little “bio-hacks” in order to further her healing – physically, mentally, and spiritually. Within 2 short months, 30 lbs had practically fallen off of her, despite that all the while, she was doing no cardio other than light walks, was lifting heavy, and by the end of those 2 months, had practically doubled her caloric intake of food. Her passion for the ketogenic diet is deep and unending; thus, she started a small food business in DC called The Ketogenic Baking Company, which she hopes will not only help other people see how easy the transition to keto can be, but also, to help her with her cost of living while she attends Naturopathic Medical school, which she will begin in Fall 2019. As a Naturopathic Doctor, she hopes to be able to play a greater role in spreading public awareness.
SHOW NOTES:
ABOUT TARA
- I am 29 years old
- I am currently working on my pre-med so that I can apply to SCNM
- I started a Ketogenic baking company last year, because I knew I was going to need to be doing something for money while I was attending school
- About 4 years ago, I started trying to manipulate my diet in the hopes of feeling better
- It was only this year that I started being enlightened as to where they are coming from
- When I started Keto 3 and a half years ago is when I started to see 90% improvement in my symptoms
- Having had an eating disorder since I was 12, I don’t think that being strict with dietary regimens is super healthy for me
- Instead, I just take the approach of “I eat what makes me feel good”
- I had hair-loss about 6 or 7 years ago and I had a pretty major long surgery due to a severe MRSA infection in my lung
- I was told that time that the hair-loss was due to stress of the body
- From there though, I started to have changes
- Changes to my digestion and changes to my weight,
- When I gained weight, I realized intuitively that I felt that there must be something hormonal going on. I just knew it
- Over time, the digestion got worse. I did not really have any consistency and I had a lot of pain in digesting food
- When I started Keto, I had a complete change of what was happening with my digestion. I had not have any solid matter coming out of me
- When I started Keto, it just went completely to the opposite
- Having been a student of nutrition about 15 years at that point, I made sure it was well formulated, yet somehow I just lost my menstrual cycle
- I did not lose any weight but I did feel better
- I felt I had energy and my brain fog’s gone
- The biggest thing that I notice was that, I’ve had ADHD probably my whole life and I have been on medication for a long time, but after the first few months of Keto, I was able to cut my medication in half which was amazing
- I knew from those things that this was worth it even if it’s not going to give me full symptom remission
- Over the course of about the next year, I pretty much had hold my symptoms going to remission, it just took time
- It took time, patience and it took diligence
- This is my lifestyle. I don’t want to ever go back to anything
- 90% of my symptoms were medicated and I was starting to get answers and it took about a year
- My message for people these days tends to be something about patience
HOW DID YOU FIND KETO AND HOW DID YOU FIND IT?
- I am actually in recovery from addiction and I had contracted hepatitis C
- It’s been 7 years but I have this disease and I had to get a routine blood work, constantly checking on my liver function and such when I was being treated for it
- I was cured
- Through out this 6 months, I was having this blood work done every week
- My doctor told me one day that my sugar was high. She told me it was 177
- That was about 6 hours after eating half of a quest bar
- I would consider quest a pretty low carb option, and yet my sugar was that high
- I did have a grandfather who had type 2 diabetes, and so something in me broke
- On the other hand, there’s something that’s much greater in me that wants to heal and to find the truth
- I could not just take that and accept that this is what my body is doing and it is just in my genes. I don’t believe that
- People say that I should stop controlling everything. Well, I do give up control when necessary, but I believe that I could control this to some degree
- Form there, I started doing some research
- What happened was, I came across Keto. That was February of 2015
- I am one of those people who starts things right away
- So, I found it and watched some Youtube videos for maybe 2 or 3 days
- I bought Jimmy Moore’s book, Keto Clarity which was the only Keto book at that time, I read it and I started it
- I made mistakes the first week or two
- I would not be really mindful of my macros through out the day, and come at the end of the day that I realize that I haven’t eaten enough of fat
- I was not coming from my anorexia by any means, but having been an anorexic, I had that so deeply ingrain with me that eating fat produces fat on the body
- So that was probably my biggest mistake
- Just from the reading and researching, I started to learn that I needed to give it a whirl
- Another big mistake that I made was eating too little protein because I was already testing my blood glucose and blood ketones multiple times a day because I really want to have data as to what was affecting my hormones
- Having very high glucose still, made me think that I have already cut the carbs, now I have to cut the protein
- So, I went about a month eating 3 grams of protein a day which was not okay
- When I started Keto, I did not know how many calories I should be eating
- I was gaining weight eating low carb which was very bizarre
- I took the metformin for my PCOS and that did not do anything
- I did read to take hormonal birth control for a month but that did not work for me
- I did eventually realize that I needed to put more effort and stop doing cardio
- About 4 or 5 months after starting Keto, I really eliminated cardio. What I did was a distressing type of walk
- I started implementing intermittent fasting
- I started out just for 6 or 8 hours and that was sufficient
- I cut out cardio, I started doing intermittent fasting, a month and a half I lost 30 pounds
- There was a part of me that if I was going to try to eat more, I’ve got to be kind of myself and just eat what I try to eat because I am hungry
- My menstrual cycle vanished for 3 years, and people would say that maybe my body would just want to be on higher weight
- And I did not like that
- My higher self really knew that I needed to take a break completely from exercising
- There was something about it that was triggering
- A year later my menstrual cycle returned. I did gained some weight which bothers me, but I am happier when it comes to self acceptance
- I am a happier person because the Ketogenic diet lead me on this path
- I may not lost a 100-pound but my inflammation is gone
- I am still struggling, but I can feel that I am a lot in a better place and I a start lifting weights again
- And I feel better, even better that I did before
- I think I just need to be patient
THE KETO BAKING COMPANY
- Leanne Vogel, a recipe of hers inspired a granola that I made
- It was memorial day of 2017 that I made this granola
- And then, I put it on the fridge.
Few day later, I forgot I’ve done that
- I was making a snickerdoodle cookie dough and my grandfather was not on the kitchen and so I was ready to bake it
- I looked in the fridge and I saw my granola was still there and I just put the cookie on top of the granola and bake them together
- And actually end up to me the best think I ever made
- I was baking and creating my own recipes since I was 3 years old
- I have to sell it to my non Keto friends to get their approval first and once I did that, I decided to start this company
- It’s a cookie granola
- It’s a nut seed and coconut mixture with lots of extra virgin coconut oil
- We use stevia extract for the sweeteners
- I would not serve anyone that I would not eat
- I actually eat my products
HOW CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU?
- Website: ketobakingco.com
- Ketobakingco Instagram: @ketobakingco
- Personal Instagram: @tarabakesketo
FAVORITE KETO RECIPE
- Classic Fat Head Pizza with Flax Seeds
FAVORITE QUOTE
- Compare yourself to yourself and not to anyone else
FAVORITE BOOK
- Catcher in the Rye
MOST GRATEFUL FOR
- My capabilities – everything
GUILTY PLEASURE
- Eating half a bag of my granola
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE VACATION SPOT?
- Los Angeles
Tara’s favorite Fat Head Pizza
Crust:
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
2 tbsp room-temperature cream cheese
1 egg
1/2 cup almond flour
3 tbsp golden flax seed meal
To taste: garlic powder, onion powder, Himalayan pink salt
Toppings:
1/3 cup Rao’s tomato sauce, or substitution sauce of choice
mozzarella cheese of desired amount
toppings – whatever else you like!
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
3. Using a microwave-safe bowl, melt mozzarella & cream cheese in the microwave – about 1-1.5 minutes.
4. Add the rest of the crust ingredients, and then knead together with hands until fully combined. 5. Using a 2nd sheet of parchment paper, flatten the dough on top of the parchment paper lined baking sheet. The crust should be about a 1/4 inch thick.
6. Leaving the 2nd sheet of parchment paper on top of the crust, place the baking sheet into the oven and let bake for 10 minutes.
7. Remove from oven, flip, and bake for another 2 minutes.
8. Remove from oven once again, this time to add the sauce and the toppings.
9. Place back into the oven until cheese on top is melted, and other toppings are cooked to your preference.
10. Remove from oven one final time, let cool, then eat!
Check out my previous podcast with Kyndra Holley here
