Simple Keto Meals

One thing that I've learned while doing keto is that you don't have to go crazy with meals.  You do not need to have some over-the-top crazy meal that takes hours to prepare.

A lot of my go to meals are super simple and fast.  I tend to eat a lot of the same things over and over; but when you've found something you like, it makes things so much easier.

When I first started my low carb diet, I never knew what to eat for lunches or dinner and I'd spend hours on sites like Pinterest trying to plan meals.  However, everything seemed so complex and unnecessary.  Do I really need to make a elaborate zucchini lasagna every night or steak and egg muffins for breakfast every morning? Absolutely not.

So here are some of my go-to low carb and keto friendly meals, that will not take hours to prepare and are so simple that anyone can make it.

Breakfast

Keto Coffee - You can literally put any fats you like in this.  My current keto coffee is: coffee, 1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp whipping cream, 1 tbsp MCT oil and 1/2 tbsp coconut oil and I have this every weekday morning. This can also be done with tea!

Eggs - Make them anyway you want! Scrambled, boiled, omelette!

Bacon - you really can't go wrong with bacon.  This is a usual weekend breakfast for me.

Sausages - just make sure you check the nutrition label for added carbs!

Lunch

Lettuce wraps - fill with meat, pickles, mayo and anything else you may want!

Meatballs - this used to be a go to lunch for me.  Frozen meatballs with a bit of cheese and butter thrown in the microwave for 1 minute. Great for work, if you have access to a microwave

Sausage & Cabbage - another go to for me.  Cut up some sausage and fry it up with some cabbage.  Add some butter or Alfredo sauce for flavour!

Meat & Cheese - don't have access to a microwave?  Cut up some meat and cheese and have a snack plate.

Dinner

Bunless Burgers - get the frozen ones, cook them up and add topping of your choice! My favourite is sour cream, bacon and cheese!

Salads - Taco salads, Ceaser Salads,  Cobb salad.  All easy and filling!  I have a ceaser salad as a side dish most nights.

Meat and veggies - Chicken, steak, pork chops, ribs, whatever you like! Cook some meat up and eat with a side of broccoli, cauliflower or brussel sprouts.

Loaded Broccoli - This is more of a side dish, and great to add to the meat above.  Broccoli topped with sour cream, cheese and bacon bits. You can do this with mashed cauliflower as well!

Ground Meat & Cheese - Add some cauliflower rice and alfredo sauce and fry it all up in a pan for a quick meal.

Snacks

Whipping cream & Cream Cheese - Whip up some whipping cream with equal parts cream cheese for a delicious snack.  Add any sugar substitute of choice (or sugar free drink mix) to make it into a sweet dessert 

Fat Bombs - pretty much, just a mix of butter, cream, coconut oil and whatever other fats/flavours you can come up with!  Separate into balls and freeze for easy snacking! (Check out my Raspberry ones)

Cheese - cheese slices - what more can I say?

Dark Chocolate -  90% dark chocolate or low carb chocolate bars sweetened with Stevia are great for a sweet tooth


Finding low carb meal ideas really isn't that hard.  If you just stick with the basics, you will do fine! As you get more into the hang of the low carb lifestyle, it will become easier to come up with your own, more creative concoctions!  Just find what you like and stick with it

And of course, remember to check out my recipes and my Instagram for more meal inspirations!

My Zero Carb Meal Plan

Please note, this is what I ate for my zero carb challenge.  I am not a nutritionist nor a doctor, so I cannot determine if this meal plan would work for you.

My macro goals for this week were:

1,200 Calories

0% Carbs (0g)

75% Fat (100g)

25% Protein (75g)

Now, before I start, I do realize that products such as cheese and heavy whipping cream and probably the sausage and pepperoni sticks, do have trace carbs.  The tracker on MyFitnessPal does say I ate 0g of carbs, but I'm sure when all the trace carbs were added up, it was probably averaged to around 3g per day.

I did follow a mainly carnivorous diet, with the exception of 1/2 tbsp of coconut oil that I used in my coffee.

You may also notice that I did this entire week without the addition of eggs.  I do not like eggs so I did not eat them.  This meal plan just goes to show that you can do a zero carb challenge without eggs, but of course, if you do like eggs, add them in!  Just remember, like the cheese and cream, eggs also have trace carbs.

If you want to see my thoughts, experiences and results from following this meal plan, I will link that post here.

Day 1 - Sunday

Breakfast: None

Lunch: Chicken Breast from Nando's with 2 tbsp butter

Dinner: Pork loin strips with 1 tbsp butter and 60g of cheese of the side

**Notes: This day we do go out for lunch, I made sure to prepare ahead of time to make sure there was something I could eat (we went to the mall food court) and I packed my own side of butter to add extra fat.

Day 2 - Monday

Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 tbsp coconut oil, 1 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream

Lunch: 30g cheese, 50g garlic sausage, 1 mini pepperoni stick

Dinner: 8oz Steak with 1 tbsp butter

**Notes: I cooked a huge steak for dinner and save just under half for lunch the next day.  Weight was uncooked.

Day 3 - Tuesday

Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 tbsp coconut oil, 1 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream

Lunch: 5oz Steak with 1 tbsp butter

Dinner: 5 Cheese & Bacon Meatballs

**Notes: Lunch was leftover steak from night before. Weight was uncooked.

Day 4 - Wednesday

Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 tbsp coconut oil, 1 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream

Lunch: 50g garlic sausage, 30g cheese and 2 mini pepperoni sticks

Dinner: 140g chicken breast, 2 turkey lunch meat slices, and 1 serving cheese sauce (equivalent to 1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp heavy whipping cream & 15g cheese)

**Notes: Weight of chicken was uncooked.  I made 4 servings of sauce; 2 for my husband's dinner, 1 for my dinner and 1 for my lunch the next day.

Full sauce recipe is 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream and 60g cheese.  Melt everything in sauce pan on medium heat until smooth.

Day 5 - Thursday

Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 tbsp coconut oil, 1 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream

Lunch:  140g chicken breast, 2 turkey lunch meat slices, and 1 serving cheese sauce (1 tbsp butter, 1 tbsp heavy whipping cream & 15g cheese)

Snack: 30g cheese

Dinner: 2 chicken thighs with 1 tbsp of butter and 4 slices bacon

**Notes: Lunch was my leftover dinner from the night before.  Weight of chicken was uncooked.  This was also the only day that I had a snack. 

Day 6 - Friday

Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 tbsp coconut oil, 1 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream

Lunch:  2 chicken thighs with 1 tbsp butter and 15g cheese

Dinner: 200g ground beef with 1 tbsp butter and 30g cheese

**Notes: Lunch was leftover dinner from the night before.  Weight of ground beef was uncooked.

Day 7 - Saturday

Breakfast: Coffee with 1/2 tbsp coconut oil, 1 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp heavy whipping cream

Lunch: 60g cheese, 50g suasage, 2 mini pepperoni sticks

Dinner: 140g pork ribs, 4 slices bacon, tea with 1/2 tbsp butter and 1 tbsp heavy whipping cream.

**Notes: Weight of meat was cooked.

Zero Carb Challenge - Thoughts, Experience & Results

I just completed my first zero carb challenge and I've had lot of questions about my experience with it.  So this post is going to be all about the last week; how I felt and my thoughts on eating zero carbs.

If you are interested in what I ate during the last week, check out My Zero Carb Meal Plan.

What is zero carb?

Basically, it is what it sounds like.  For the last week, I tried to eat as close to zero carbs as possible.  This, of course, meant no vegetables, no sugar, no nuts, etc.  It is pretty much a carnivorous diet where you eat only from the animal planet.

Of course, there are some things like cheese, eggs and heavy whipping cream that are labelled as zero carbs, but they do have trace carbs in them.  Because of this, it's pretty impossible to eat zero carb, unless you strictly just eat meat.  This is not something I did, I gladly accepted cheese and heavy cream into my diet, at moderation.  I would say that I was definitely under 3g of carbs each day, when you add the trace carbs up, probably even less.

Why did I do this?

I felt like I've been starting to plateau in my weight loss.  I felt like I just couldn't get out of the 150's and there was even a week where I had a weight gain.

I needed to reset my diet and I need to get some craving out of my system.  I was definitely eating too many Lily's Chocolate Bars and Halo Top, as well other 'sweet' treats.

I may have also been sneaking bites of my husband's carb-loaded treats.

I knew that I needed to start to be more strict and what a better way to restrict myself then take all carbs out of my diet?

Note, I also eliminate artificial sweeteners during this week.  No flavored syrups in my coffee and no diet sodas.

My Experiences

Overall, I felt pretty good over the last week.  I felt like I had more focus while working and the days seemed to be going by fast.  I wasn't having those mid-afternoon shut downs, like I usually did before.

I also noticed that I was being to eat more intuitively.  I was able to do intermittent fasting for around 16 hours, the fast being broken by a fatty coffee around noon.  I would then have my lunch around 3:30 and finally dinner around 7-8.  I wasn't even snacking this week (with the exception of one day where I had a piece of cheese).  Some days I would even forget about eating because I wasn't hungry.

I kept my calorie goal the same (1,200) and I felt like it was very easy to meet this goal throughout
the week.  Some days I would even be 100 or more calories less and I wouldn't even be hungry for more.  There were only two days that I went over my goal; one days was over by 46 calories and the other over by 79 calories. 

Before this last week, I would only last until around 9 or 10 before having my coffee and I would snack at least twice throughout the day.  My calories would often go past 1,300.  The snacking was definitely my problem before and this zero carb week helped me to see that.

The only problem days were probably day 2 and day 7, and those were very slight problems.

For day 2, I started to get some headaches.  This was probably a slight 'keto flu' symptom.  I'm not somebody who often gets headaches, so even though they were only small, probably insignificant headaches, it was something I definitely noticed was new and due to my change in diet.  The headaches continued a bit into day 3, but were completely gone by day 4.

For day 7, I did start to get some leg cramping.  This would have definitely been due to the lack of electrolytes in my diet.  Even though I was eliminating artificial sweeteners during this week, I did end up drinking a Powerade Zero to get my electrolytes up, as well as taking a trace mineral supplement.  By the afternoon, I was feeling much better.

Another thing that I noticed was that I was thirsty all the time.  I usually don't drink enough water, however, since I was avoiding artificial sweeteners this week, water was all I had to drink.  I drank way more water than usual, but I still always woke up with a dry mouth and a need for water.

I will also make a note on constipation.  Having no fiber in your diet would definitely not help with your bathroom habits.  I must admit, I was a bit constipated during the week.  I didn't end up going to the bathroom until day 7.  I also have to put in a note, that even on my regular keto diet, I only go every few days and that's why I say this week I was only slightly constipated.

Results:

My starting weight on the morning of Day 1 was 152.8lbs and 27.3% body fat.

My weight the morning after Day 7 was 150.0 (ugh, so close to the 140's!) and 26.6% body fat.

During the month of May, I had been losing about 1 pound a week, except for one week where actually gained a pound.  So to see almost a 3 pound weight loss this week was a great result for me.  The body fat percentage is measured by my scale, so I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it's always great to see that number go down as well!

I'm also going to point out that this weight loss has put me at a BMI of 25, which is 1 point away from being in a 'healthy' weight range! I know BMI is the best way to meaure healthy weight, but right now I'm going to take it.  When I started my journey last year, I was in the 'obese' range so I'm happy that I've been able to bring that down to almost healthy.
 

Will I do this again?

Honestly, yes I would.

I think it was a great reset for my body and it was a great learning experience.  It was good to learn to that I can survive off three meals daily and I don't need to snack between meals.  Also, intermittent fasting was so much easier, and I want to continue doing that going forward.

Eating zero carb proved to me that it really isn't that hard to cut carbs out and I want to continue to have at least 2 of my 3 meals to be zero carbs, so I can continue to limit them as much as I can.

I honestly am excited to eat some vegetables though.  It's a strange thing to crave, but I can't wait to eat a salad soon!

I also want to cut down on the sweeteners, as I think that has lead to most of my cravings and has caused most of my calorie increases.

Overall, this was a good experience, which helped me to see where and how I can improve in my weight loss and ketogenic journey.