Congratulations. If you’re reading this, you’re ready for Keto Diet Plan Week 3. Wondering how to start Keto? Totally confused by where to start? It’s easy to get overwhelmed. These posts break down how to start on Keto in an easy way. This is week 3 of keto tips.
Keto Diet Plan Week 3
This is a short series on how to start keto . Some of us want to jump into Keto cold turkey. Others might want to ease in. For those of you who are wondering how to start keto:
Congratulations. You made it through 2 weeks of the keto diet. Depending on how aggressive you’ve been, your body should have switched over, or be switching over, to burning fat rather than carbs. At this point, you might even consider testing your ketones with ketone strips to see if you’re in ketosis yet. If you’re not, continue to decrease your carbs this week and you should get into ketosis soon.
If by chance you haven’t started a keto diet or have just started thinking about keto read my Keto Diet Plan Week 1 post first. When you’re done with week 1, you can move on to the Week 2 plan to see just how easy it is to get started.
GET THE FREE PRINTABLE CHART FOR 4 WEEKS TO KETOSIS BY CLICKING HERE!
There are only four basic rules for week 3 of keto and most of them build on what you’ve already been doing. By now you should already have completely given up all grains, legumes/beans, and pasta/rice/potatoes. Additionally:
- Fruit. You should have already cut down to no more than 1 piece of fruit a day. Cut out all fruit this week. You will eventually be able to have berries in small portions, but for now, cut out all fruit until your body is comfortably burning fat instead of carbs and sugar.
- Increase fasting. You should already be fasting 4 hours between meals. Now, go at least 12 hours between dinner and breakfast, or breakfast and lunch. Do not eat snacks in between because eating causes insulin release. Insulin release = no fat burning. If you get super hungry, first drink water or your sugar-free beverage of choice. If that doesn’t work, eat a fat bomb. My book is a great resource for fat bombs: Keto Fat Bombs Sweets & Treats Going longer between meals will control your insulin and begin to prepare you for intermittent fasting if you choose to incorporate that into your keto diet in the future.
- Drink more. You should already be drinking 64 oz of liquids a day. Keep it up . If you get sick of water you can incorporate other options such as sparkling water or club soda, green or black tea, coffee, or bone broth. While beverages such as Diet Coke (or diet soda in general) are technically keto-compliant, several recent studies have suggested these artificially sweetened drinks may trick the body into craving the calories and carbs it believes it’s getting from the diet soda. When your body realizes it isn’t, you may make up for it by overeating. If you need to drink diet soda just do so in moderation and monitor if it seems to make you crave sweets.
- Start writing down your food intake. Find a food tracker you like and start keeping track of your carbs. Some options are MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, and Lose It. At this point, you will only track your carbs but eventually, you will track all of your macros. You might try a few different food trackers until you find one you really like and is easy to use.
How you might be feeling this week
By week 3 the keto flu symptoms should have abated. Hopefully the gradual deletion of carbs and sugar have minimized these. You’re probably starting to feel like you can handle this.
You’re not having to track your food like mad because you are becoming more comfortable with what you can and can’t have and you might start looking for substitutions for your favorite foods.
Many people report that they have begun losing weight by week 3, but if you haven’t don’t get discouraged; it will come soon. By week 3 many people are able to think more clearly, sleep more deeply and report having more energy.
Again, if you’re not there yet, don’t despair, just know that’s coming soon.
Keto Resources you need:
- Grab one of the BEST Keto Snacks On Amazon for those cravings you just can’t ignore.
- I’ve written two Keto cookbooks now that will take the guessing out of cooking while on Keto. Even non-Keto people love these recipes! Get Easy Keto in 30 Minutes and Keto Fat Bombs Sweets & Treats .
- I’ve put together a TON of my favorite Keto recipes into lists like Vegetarian, Soups, Holidays, Instant Pot, and more to make finding GOOD recipes easy for you.
That’s it for the Keto Diet Plan Week 3. Enjoy your meat, veggies, nuts, cheese, cream, bacon, avocados, and other yummies as before.
Recipes you will enjoy on Week 3:
- Keto Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars - these are AMAZING and will make you forget Reese’s exist.
- Keto Butter Chicken - you can make this in your Instant Pot or Slow Cooker and it’s an incredible meal no one will guess is Keto.
- Keto Meatloaf - the ultimate American comfort food made low carb and still just as delicious!
Don’t forget to check out my other Ketocookbooks.
Keto Instant Pot, Keto Fat Bombs, Sweets, & Treats , and Easy keto in 30 minutes.
Congratulations. If you’re reading this, you’re ready for Keto Diet Plan Week 3. Wondering how to start Keto? Totally confused by where to start? It’s easy to get overwhelmed. These posts break down how to start on Keto in an easy way. This is week 3 of keto tips.
Keto Diet Plan Week 3
This is a short series on how to start keto . Some of us want to jump into Keto cold turkey. Others might want to ease in. For those of you who are wondering how to start keto:
Congratulations. You made it through 2 weeks of the keto diet. Depending on how aggressive you’ve been, your body should have switched over, or be switching over, to burning fat rather than carbs. At this point, you might even consider testing your ketones with ketone strips to see if you’re in ketosis yet. If you’re not, continue to decrease your carbs this week and you should get into ketosis soon.
If by chance you haven’t started a keto diet or have just started thinking about keto read my Keto Diet Plan Week 1 post first. When you’re done with week 1, you can move on to the Week 2 plan to see just how easy it is to get started.
GET THE FREE PRINTABLE CHART FOR 4 WEEKS TO KETOSIS BY CLICKING HERE!
There are only four basic rules for week 3 of keto and most of them build on what you’ve already been doing. By now you should already have completely given up all grains, legumes/beans, and pasta/rice/potatoes. Additionally:
- Fruit. You should have already cut down to no more than 1 piece of fruit a day. Cut out all fruit this week. You will eventually be able to have berries in small portions, but for now, cut out all fruit until your body is comfortably burning fat instead of carbs and sugar.
- Increase fasting. You should already be fasting 4 hours between meals. Now, go at least 12 hours between dinner and breakfast, or breakfast and lunch. Do not eat snacks in between because eating causes insulin release. Insulin release = no fat burning. If you get super hungry, first drink water or your sugar-free beverage of choice. If that doesn’t work, eat a fat bomb. My book is a great resource for fat bombs: Keto Fat Bombs Sweets & Treats Going longer between meals will control your insulin and begin to prepare you for intermittent fasting if you choose to incorporate that into your keto diet in the future.
- Drink more. You should already be drinking 64 oz of liquids a day. Keep it up . If you get sick of water you can incorporate other options such as sparkling water or club soda, green or black tea, coffee, or bone broth. While beverages such as Diet Coke (or diet soda in general) are technically keto-compliant, several recent studies have suggested these artificially sweetened drinks may trick the body into craving the calories and carbs it believes it’s getting from the diet soda. When your body realizes it isn’t, you may make up for it by overeating. If you need to drink diet soda just do so in moderation and monitor if it seems to make you crave sweets.
- Start writing down your food intake. Find a food tracker you like and start keeping track of your carbs. Some options are MyFitnessPal, Cronometer, and Lose It. At this point, you will only track your carbs but eventually, you will track all of your macros. You might try a few different food trackers until you find one you really like and is easy to use.
How you might be feeling this week
By week 3 the keto flu symptoms should have abated. Hopefully the gradual deletion of carbs and sugar have minimized these. You’re probably starting to feel like you can handle this.
You’re not having to track your food like mad because you are becoming more comfortable with what you can and can’t have and you might start looking for substitutions for your favorite foods.
Many people report that they have begun losing weight by week 3, but if you haven’t don’t get discouraged; it will come soon. By week 3 many people are able to think more clearly, sleep more deeply and report having more energy.
Again, if you’re not there yet, don’t despair, just know that’s coming soon.
Keto Resources you need:
- Grab one of the BEST Keto Snacks On Amazon for those cravings you just can’t ignore.
- I’ve written two Keto cookbooks now that will take the guessing out of cooking while on Keto. Even non-Keto people love these recipes! Get Easy Keto in 30 Minutes and Keto Fat Bombs Sweets & Treats .
- I’ve put together a TON of my favorite Keto recipes into lists like Vegetarian, Soups, Holidays, Instant Pot, and more to make finding GOOD recipes easy for you.
That’s it for the Keto Diet Plan Week 3. Enjoy your meat, veggies, nuts, cheese, cream, bacon, avocados, and other yummies as before.
Recipes you will enjoy on Week 3:
- Keto Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars - these are AMAZING and will make you forget Reese’s exist.
- Keto Butter Chicken - you can make this in your Instant Pot or Slow Cooker and it’s an incredible meal no one will guess is Keto.
- Keto Meatloaf - the ultimate American comfort food made low carb and still just as delicious!
Don’t forget to check out my other Ketocookbooks.
Keto Instant Pot, Keto Fat Bombs, Sweets, & Treats , and Easy keto in 30 minutes.
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Here’s a simple Instant Pot Halva recipe that will let you make this classic Indian Halva without having to stand, stir, control spatters or wonder if it’s done. Whether you call it Halva, sheera, sheero, or kesari, you will agree this simple farina dessert is delicious and when made in a pressure cooker, quite easy.
How To Make Halva
Okay, it’s actually not that difficult to make stovetop halva–IF.
IF you’ve ever watched it being made, IF you’ve had a family member show you how, IF you’ve eaten vast quantities of it in your life so you know how to tell when it’s done and of course IF you have time to stand and stir and control the adding of water so you don’t get splattered and burn yourself.
But if you’d rather be doing something else, or if you just don’t want to mess with watching it closely, this Instant Pot Halva Recipe will be your friend.
What Is Halva
Note that this is an Indian Halva recipe. Quite different from Turkish halva, or a Mediterranean Halva or a Levant version of it. This one is made with cream of wheat or farina. If you want to know the difference between farina and semolina, check out my post on the Eggless Farina Cake recipe here.
How Is Sooji Halva Traditionally Made?
Traditionally, this recipe is made stovetop. First, you roast the sooji or farina. Then you add to it a sugar syrup you’ve prepared, along with lots of ghee and cardamom. Then you cover it and let it cook until done just so.
We’re not making it that way. We’re not going to roast the sooji for starters. This is the part that takes forever. It does make a slight difference to the taste but really, it’s not a huge difference and I’m okay skipping it.
We are also not making a sugar syrup and we are definitely not pouring the hot sugar syrup into hot sooji and watching it splatter all over our stove top and ourselves.
Where Can I Buy Farina?
This is going to be a lot simpler than you think. Either go to the Indian Grocery store and look for sooji. Or go to any grocery store and get some Cream of wheat.
Yup. Cream of wheat = Farina = Sooji.
If you’re at an Indian grocer, look for Roasted Sooj.
Tips And Tricks For Making This Halva Recipe
Tip 1: Use Pot In Pot Cooking
So I thought about this and decided to treat the sooji just as I would rice or any other grain. And I decided to make it Pot-in-pot so I could make a dry finished dish. If you’ve been struggling with getting perfect rice in your Instant Pot, I have a free download and a video that explains the best way to make perfect Instant pot rice.
If you’re not sure about Pot-In-Pot Cooking, watch this PIP video and you will understand not only what it is, but when and why to use it.
So in this Instant Pot Halva recipe, we are going to combine everything in the right proportions, cook it pot-in-pot, remove it and eat it.
No really. It will be that simple.
Tip 2: Grind Up Your Saffron
The other little hack I used for this was to grind saffron threads rather than soak them in milk, wait for them to soften, and dirty yet another dish to make it. I use this same trick to make Persian Joojeh kababs.
What you do is grind up some saffron with a little sugar in a mortar and pestle. Not only does this make the saffron easier to dissolve, but it also stretches that expensive saffron a bit.
So to recap, we are making this Halva recipe by mixing up sooji, sugar, water, cardamom, and saffron. And then we are cooking it pot-in-pot for ease and to ensure the right consistency.
Want More Authentic Indian Recipes?
- Butter Chicken
- Chicken Tikka Masala
- Rice and Dal
- Green Chutney
- Coconut Chickpea Curry
If you love this Instant Pot Halva recipe as much as we do, make sure you share it with your friends on Facebook and Pinterest so they can make it too!
Halva | Instant Pot Halva Recipe
Ingredients
- ▢ 1/2 cup ( 86.5 g ) farina , cream of wheat
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 50 g ) Sugar Or Other Sweetener Equivalent
- ▢ 1 teaspoon ( 1 teaspoon ) Ground Cardamom
- ▢ 3-4 ( 3 ) saffron strands + 1 teaspoon sugar , ground together
- ▢ 1/4 cup ( 45 g ) Ghee , or oil
- ▢ 3/4 cup ( 187.5 g ) Water
- ▢ Ghee for greasing pan , or oil
Instructions
- Grease a 6-inch x 4-inch pan and set aside.
- In a small bowl, mix together farina, sugar, cardamom and the saffron-sugar mixture.
- Add water and ghee and mix well.
- Pour the mixture into the greased pan and cover with a silicone lid or foil.
- Pour 1.5 cups of water in the inner liner of the Instant Pot. Place a high steamer rack on top of this. Place the cover pan on the rack.
- Set the Instant pot to cook on high pressure for 5 minutes. At the end of the cook time, let the pot sit undisturbed for 5 minutes and then release all remaining pressure.
- Using silicone mitts, remove the inner pot. Use a fork or spoon to fluff up the halva and stir it around really well. You’re doing this to spread the cardamom and saffron throughout the halva. As you stir, you will see the grains start to separate, and the halva takes on a yellow-orange tinge from the saffron.
- Once the halva has been broken up and the spices are mixed in, the halva is ready to serve.
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Nutrition
Want MoreInstant Pot Recipes?
Don’t forget to check out my otherBest-selling Instant Pot Cookbooks!
Indian Instant Pot , Keto Instant Pot, Instant Pot Fast and Easy , Healthy Instant Pot & Vegetarian Instant Pot .
