The holidays are traditionally a difficult time to stay on any diet. Last year I was a bit concerned about being able to do keto over christmas because of all the carbs and desserts and traditional holidays foods I would be missing out on. But I am keto for life, so the only real solution is to make my own new traditions. Pumpkin pie is an amazing traditional dessert that is so easy to "keto".

This pie was the by-product of me trying to recreate old favourites in a low carb way. It's more of a cheesecake but the flavours go together brilliantly, and all my non-keto family absolutely loved it. It freezes well and my parents were eating this for weeks after the holidays.

The fresh pumpkin I buy is 4.7g NET carbs per 100g, so the macros I have for this are based on that. I would highly recommend you work out your own because I've seen a lot of variation in the listed carbs in pumpkin.

If you are in the US, you are probably about to see this stuff EVERYWHERE and in everything. I have never had a pumpkin spice latte and I'm pretty sure I've never even had a real pumpkin pie. It's not a "thing" here. I was super intrigued by the concept of pumpkin spice and did some research into what went into it. I love spice. LOVE LOVE. I enjoy learning how to use spice in new ways, creating my own, bringing out the best flavours in foods. So, of course, I made my own pumpkin spice. It's actually quite easy.

I love pizza. Always have, probably always will. When I found out there was such a thing as keto pizza, I was the happiest diabetic ever. Skillet pizza, fathead pizza, cauliflower pizza, chicken crust pizza, meatza, so many variations. However, they all involve quite a lot of prep time. I wanted something that killed the craving and didn't take 3 hours of "is the dough supposed to look like this??"

Pizza bowls are easy to do, this took me 20 minutes to put together. If you prep it the night before it would make an epic lunch at work - all you need is a microwave. Whatever your pizza preference is, if you like anchovies on your pizza, asparagus, artichokes, spinach, avocado, bacon... it all works.

Suggestions for toppings:

• Artichoke hearts
• Spinach
• Asparagus
• Avocado
• Chicken
• Bacon
• Salami
• Ham
• Biltong
• Blue cheese
• Pepperoni
• Chorizo
• Onions
• Bell peppers
• Ground beef/lamb/pork
• Cherry tomatoes
• Chilli
• Rocket/Arugula
• Grilled eggplant

Keto is not easy. Such a huge lifestyle change is never going to be easy, even when everything is in your favour, it's quite an adjustment. Now imagine if your life suddenly decides to start doing some internal sabotaging. Work gets crazy, you are studying full time, you have a new baby, or you have to spend lots of time away from home for whatever reason.

There are many ways you could suddenly find yourself facing the choice of life or new "diet". I've been pretty lucky so far, I work from home, don't have kids and when I started keto I had a lot of time to experiment with new food. But I am more the exception than the rule.

A few people have asked me how to fit keto into a busy lifestyle. This is a list of ways to simplify keto and ways to manage a new way of life when you just don't have time. Keto hacks. This list is not all inclusive, and should be used as a guide, rather than a list of absolutes to follow