What’s up guys, Heather Hooker here from The Fit Mom Tribe and I’ve been doing this facebook live video challenge. I’m two thirds of the way finished and I realized that I really haven’t done that many videos on keto. So this week I’m going to be doing a video series, a facebook live video series about keto basics.
So let’s start today with one question that I get asked all the time and it’s What can I eat on Keto? And I don’t know. I don’t know what people are thinking. I don’t know if you think that you eat butter all day long or if you bacon for every meal. I’m not sure what people’s idea of keto is when you hear high fat, low carb. A lot of times I think people just kind of like freak out but it’s not that different that like a normal clean eating except it’s tastier, that’s for sure.
You’re going feel a lot more amazing than you are if you stick to a clean eating type of meal plan, which I did. I did a low calorie, low carb clean eating meal plan for a long time – the food is better and I feel better eating high fat. So let’s go over quickly what keto is, what can you eat when you switch to keto? So this is like this really cool. It’s called the keto food pyramid and it breaks things down. I think it’s easier to see and understand pictures, which is why I like to do videos. And also why I hate typing and texting so let’s look at this pyramid.
KETO FRUIT & NUTS
At the top is berries, you can still have fruit and you just want to stick to the low glycemic fruits which are the berries. So strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, you can have that as your carbs for the day. , and then you’re going to have nuts and seeds. This has peanuts. Peanuts actually aren’t the ideal. The ideal would be something like macadamia nuts. Those are actually perfect! Macadamia nuts are probably the best one. Costco has the best macadamia nuts in case you’re wondering, you get a whole bag for like $17.99, but they are roasted and salted. They are by far the most delicious macadamia nuts.
VEGETABLES
Green vegetables. Okay, so most of the vegetables that you’re going to be eating are going to be green. You’re going to want to stick to above ground green veggies for the most part, Zucchini, cucumber, celery, lettuce – those types of things. So you can add vegetables to your wraps. You can obviously eat salads every day for lunch. That’s a really great practice, no matter what diet you follow is you should be eating your vegetables. The easiest way to get vegetables in that I’ve always found as an adult is to eat a salad for lunch. That’s the easiest way to get them all in. So we’ve got that.
FATS
Some people can tolerate dairy. If you can tolerate dairy, cheese is a great way to get it in. Good fats with zero carbs. You can add a little sprinkle of cheese to everything if you can tolerate it. A lot of people are sensitive to dairy, so in that case you would just want to avoid that. So then we’ve got oils. So olive oil, butter, healthy fat. So you’re going to be adding avocado, avocado to your salads, add avocado to your wraps for lunch. You can even add avocado to your scrambled eggs for breakfast. You can add these like herbed butters, you can add plain butter, but you can also add herbed butters on top of your steak, on top of your fish, your salmon, on top of your chicken, just anything to add a little bit of extra fat at a little bit of extra flavor. It’s going to help keep you satisfied and full for longer and it, it’s going to help you avoid that insulin rollercoaster.
MEATS
And then we get down to the meats. And this is a common thing that I see. So a lot of people either think that you eat butter and bacon all day long, which is false, or they think that you eat meat all day long, which is also false. You want to pick the higher fat, the fattier cuts of meat. So you’re not necessarily trying to strip all of your meals of flavor in calories, you’re trying to keep in the good flavors and the good fats. As far as meats go, you’re going to want to eat bacon, not Turkey Bacon, throw that crap in the garbage. Fish shrimp, chicken with the skin on, like instead of buying the boneless, skinless chicken breast, which you still can eat those. I’m not saying you can’t eat those, but it’s going to fit into your macros better if you get the thighs with the skin on, like the bone in chicken thighs. And honestly they tastes a lot better. They’re not dry and crumbly like the boneless skinless chicken breast that most people think that they have to eat to lose weight. That’s not true. All right? And then red meat. So ground turkey is out – ground beef is in, steaks are in filets are great. Sirloins are great. If you’ve never had a salad topped with sirloin steak like you need to. What are you doing with your life?
FOODS TO AVOID ON THE KETO DIET
And then the NO list. The NO LIST is at the bottom. And this is where people, this is another place where people get hung up a little bit. So no bread and people have this whole list of things wrong with them – the whole reason why they are considering the ketogenic diet to start with is because they say:
- my clothes don’t fit
- my clothes are tight
- I need to lose 20 pounds
- I can’t sleep at.
- I’m on anxiety medication
- I have no energy or low energy
- I have rosacea or other obvious inflammation
but I can’t give up bread and pasta.
Trust me, you can. You can! You don’t even miss it after like the first three days are the hardest and then you don’t even miss it anymore. So no, bread. Drinking these ketones for 10 days are what helped me past that first initial hump and helped me get into ketosis faster. You can order a 5 or 10 day trial pack of the best ones HERE if you are a carb or sugar-a-holic and need a little boost!
If you’re doing like a dirty keto (where you’re just making sure that your macros fit) you can do low carb wraps. Instead of bread, you can use lettuce, you can make a lettuce wrap sandwiches, and then last week I went live on facebook and I was showing you this zero carb bread by thin slim foods. So there are more and more low carbon, zero carb alternatives to these things that are coming out as this way of eating, this lifestyle grows in popularity. I think that you’re going to continue to see more keto versions of these foods that we grew up with that we know and love.
Pasta there is Impastable, a zero carb pasta that same company makes that I still haven’t tried, but I think I’m going to try it tonight. Update: I tried it and it was delicious! Highly recommend! I tried the fettucine but its also available in penne and elbows – perfect for picky kids.
No sugar, so you’re not going to want to, you’re not going want to eat any sugar, stay away from sugar. Avoided like the plague that it is. There are lots of alternatives.
Stevia. There are drops that you can add into things, like your morning coffee, which is what I do.
Swerve is the best one. If you can find swerve, sweetener, that one is delicious. It tastes like sugar bakes like sugar. You can use it in anything that you can use sugar for and they just came out with cake mixes that are TO DIE FOR. There’s granular. What’s the other? Oh, confectioners, I mean there’s literally alternatives to everything that’s not going spike your insulin.
Milk. So milk is actually high in carbs. Surprise. You can do unsweetened almond milk or unsweetened coconut milk instead. Corn. So the carby vegetables, you’re going to want to stay away from. So that includes things like corn, sweet potatoes. just google the carb count, but basically you’re going to want to stick to green above ground vegetables. So no beans. Legumes are high in carbs and then no rice, which you would have to be living under a rock to not know that there is a thing that exists called cauliflower rice and you can turn it into just about anything.
So that’s it. That’s what you eat and there’s so many different versions of all of your favorite foods that are keto versions, keto friendly that are going help you get into that Ketosis, help you get into that fat burning mode, and once you get into that, once you feel how good you were designed to feel, I swear you’re not going to miss the sugar. You’re not going to miss the bread and you’re definitely not going to miss the pasta. So I hope that this is helpful. If you have been wondering what in the heck I’m eating, that’s it. That’s pretty much it. 🙂
