Eating well deliciously!
Of all the diets and ways of eating that I’ve tried in my efforts to lose weight, I only feel compelled to write about the keto diet. In all reality, I wasn’t impressed with my initial results after strictly following the keto diet for Read more
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After years of trying a multitude of diets and continuing my search for one that will finally give me the results I want, I learned about the keto diet. I did my due diligence to find out what was required of this diet and what sacrifices I would have to make to see results. I learned that keto is basically a high-fat, low-carb diet on steroids. I have done low carb before but this was on another level and this was going to be challenging.
Since I had no idea where to begin and there are so many versions of this diet available on the internet, I decided to try a 9-week keto diet that came with a complete daily meal plan. I thought that this approach was perfect because all I had to do was follow the meal plan easily. It turns out that having a meal plan is great but eating meals that are off-putting, not so much. I mean I had to eat a slab of butter for breakfast for chrissakes! Ick!
To wit this post. To prevent my fellow keto dieters from the fate of having to eat an entire wheel of brie or a slab of butter with cucumber for a meal, I’ll post an entire day of keto diet meal ideas and foods that are totally customizable as they are interchangeable. I promise you won’t have to scarf down unadulterated fat for any meal.
I have already published some breakfast keto-appropriate recipes on this blog and some of them are keto-friendly. I won’t go into full recipes for this post, but will rather offer some keto breakfast meal ideas using keto-approved breakfast foods. You can mix and match to come up with a varied and balanced keto breakfast for every day of the week.
Keto Breakfast Foods
Using the above list, you can come up with myriad keto breakfast meals or check out my recipes for some more ideas. I enjoy eating the same breakfast each day and don’t find it boring at all as I can always tweak it to make it more interesting.
What’s my usual breakfast? Almost every day I have 2 eggs, a handful of strawberries, turkey bacon, coffee with MCT oil, and/or creamer. That’s it. Sometimes I’ll change out the meat or the berries, add cheese to the eggs, or add a low-carb roll or biscuit. This simple breakfast keeps me full for upwards of 5 hours!
Use your imagination and enjoy all these healthy keto diet breakfast foods!
Coming up with a list of keto snacks is relatively straightforward with the easiest of all available options being nuts. Nuts are full of good fats and are energy dense so they will keep you sated for several hours. There is an amazing variety of nuts available and each provides different nutrients that support and replace the ones you may be missing by omitting/lowering carbohydrates from your diet.
In addition to nuts, you can try other energy-dense foods that don’t require cooking and preparation. Here’s a list of keto snack ideas that you can put together to come up with a flavor profile you enjoy.
Keto Snack Foods
You can mix and match any of these keto snack foods or enjoy them individually on their own. Just be sure to follow the serving sizes recommended by your version of the keto diet or what you require for your daily macros.
Keto lunches are usually comprised of a lean protein and a side of vegetables. Again, the beauty of keto is that you eat real foods that require minimal preparation to enjoy. You can also adjust the diet to omit foods you don’t like and add the ones you do. On my 9-week keto diet plan, for example, one of the keto diet meals for lunch included tuna fish. I don’t like tuna fish, so I subbed in canned salmon.
Keto Lunch Ideas/Combos
You get the gist. Select a protein and pair it with some kind of vegetable and you’ve got your quick and easy keto lunch.
Keto dinners are basically a repeat of lunch – that is a protein paired with a healthy, low-carb vegetable. From time to time I add a low-carb cheese biscuit made with Carbquick for a nice carby twist. I also sometimes have some homemade keto bark or keto chocolate mousse to round out my keto dinner.
Keto Dinner Ideas/Combos
The combinations of meat paired with vegetables are limitless so there’s no reason to be bored eating keto diet meals.
Many people are afraid to try the keto diet because they’re afraid of the amounts of fat that they’re required to eat or feel that they’d miss eating carbs. I understand this thinking as I thought so myself. I was concerned about eating all the fat that’s required for this diet, specifically saturated fat. Too much of anything is not good, but I still wanted the other benefits of the diet.
I have since learned that fats are not the enemy but I still didn’t eat a lot of the meals that came with my keto diet plan because they were too high in saturated fat for my taste. So while it’s great to have a built-in keto diet meal plan, it’s best to make keto meals that are both high in fats and healthy. I did this but substituting Earth Balance vegan spread for butter, eating lean proteins (I don’t eat pork and rarely eat red meat) and I use an ungodly amount of avocado!
In summary, I think it’s always better to adjust any standard keto meal plan by including foods you enjoy and that are intrinsically healthy. Do you follow the keto diet? Share some of your keto meal ideas with me in the comments. Happy eating!
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