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| New to keto, but don't know what to eat? Not new, but just need some new food ideas and recipes? Here's exactly what I ate to lose over 100 pounds, as well as what hubby and I still eat on low-carb today! |
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One of the main goals of switching from the standard American diet to a ketogenic diet plan is to learn how to make healthier food choices.
But let’s be honest.
Most of us were raised on peanut butter and jelly spread on a couple of slices of cheap, fluffy white bread, a glass of kool-aid, and a Ding Dong. At least, that’s what lunch was like for me when I was growing up. Day-old bakery goodies and high-carb entrees were a regular part of my life.
When I first became converted to low-carb diets at the age of 19, it was with a Big Mac in one hand and a large, sugary, Dr. Pepper in the other.
Although, high-fructose corn syrup was not yet a thing, when you’re 19 and overweight, the Atkins Diet works miraculously. Since your body is brand new to the alternative metabolic pathway, and has never had to create ketones to a great extent, a keto diet does exactly what it’s advertised to do:
- It lowers your insulin level quickly.
- It eliminates those nasty urges for sweets and other starchy goodies.
- Dramatically decreases your overall hunger level.
- And it starts to peel off the pounds without a lot of effort.
In fact, in the mid 70s, when I only had 40 pounds to lose, I lost all of those 40 pounds in 6 weeks! The diet phase was literally over long before I got bored with low-carb food.
Boredom is the kiss of death when it comes to carbohydrate restriction, so in this post, I'm going to share what I personally ate on a day-to-day basis to carve off over 100 pounds, as well as how hubby and I continue to eat today.
Dr. Atkins Original Low-Carb Diet was Different
Dr. Atkins original low-carb diet, often referred to as Atkins 72, was more strict than the Atkins Diet is today. Yet, it worked extremely well because you were not allowed to add low-carb foods back into your meal plan as quickly as you can with Atkins 20.
Atkins 72 basically worked like an elimination diet.
For your carbohydrate intake, you start off with only 2 cups of loosely packed salad a day, what Dr. Atkins referred to as biologically zero carbs, so you get into the state of ketosis very quickly.
Each addition can only have 5 to 8 total carbs (not net).
These additions to the standard Atkins 72 Induction enable you to evaluate how your body reacts to each food, as well as helps you to discover your personal carbohydrate tolerance level.
When I re-entered the low-carb game in January of 2007 and tried to follow Atkins 2002 by the book, (not Atkins 72), I ran into a brick wall. The newer version of the diet just didn't work as well as the original diet did.
As a result, I had to tweak the Atkins Diet to fit my:
- health issues (known and unknown)
- short height (I'm only 5 feet tall)
- age (post menopause)
- and fat malabsorption problems
They aren't.
And this post will show you why.
Low-Carb Diets are Not Necessarily Grain Free
The idea for this post originally came from a reader who was brand new to a low-carb diet. They sent me an email a few years ago asking if I would share a few low-carb menus with them.
At the time I received that request, I was a bit caught off-guard.
I didn’t exactly know what to say because at the time, I had been on a maintenance diet break for several months, while I was trying to figure out what foods I was reacting to.
Celiac disease combined with dairy sensitivity was a major problem for me back then, especially trying to mix that with a low-carb diet. I was also showing signs of being intolerant to corn, which made things even worse.
Despite the fact that low carb is basically a meat-and-vegetable diet, low-carb diets are not necessarily grain free.
They are also not as corn free as people think.
Corn is a grain, not a vegetable, and is as pervasive and hidden in the American diet as wheat and gluten are.
The request in 2012 prompted me to publish a series of posts called How to Tweak a Low-Carb Diet to Achieve Success.
In those posts, I talked a little bit about what I ate during my weight-loss phase, but the foods I ate were quite a bit lower in fat and calories than you'd find on a typical low-carb diet, so I honestly didn't go into the details in that series.
At that time, I wasn't as open with my beliefs regarding low carb as I am today. Plus, the amount of fat and calories I ate were specifically dialed in to fit my personal defects and sweet spot for fat loss.
Last year, however, just before moving to Texas, I updated the series to go more into detail. I no longer care what people think about how I lost the weight. Low carb covers a huge spectrum that ranges from zero carbs all the way up to 120 carbs a day.
There's plenty of room for lots of different low-carb diets.
What most people call low carb is actually a very low-carb diet designed to help those who are severely insulin resistant. But there are others that are not quite so strict.
You'll find the new series of articles here: How I Lost Over 100 Pounds Tweaking the Atkins Diet. In that series, you'll get a lot of food ideas and the exact menus I used to ditch the weight.
My Confession:
I used to attribute much of my success to the original Kimkins diet, as posted to the old Low Carb Friends forum. However, a couple of years ago I became aware of a group over at the Reddit Keto forum that were doing something very similar to what I did.
In addition, listening to some of Dr. Phinney's videos over at You Tube opened my eyes to the fact that Nutritional Ketosis, as originally designed and taught by Dr. Phinney, is also what I was doing.
The original Nutritional Ketosis diet doesn't advocate that you eat a high-fat diet unless you're already at maintenance.
For weight loss, Dr. Phinney says you have to eat less fat than you body needs, so it will have a reason to tap into your fat stores.
How much fat you can eat and still lose weight will depend on how active you are, your genetics, and how much you weigh.
Despite what the low-carb community claims, the amount of fat you eat on a low-carb diet is used to control your calorie intake. I monitored my calorie intake to make sure I was eating at a large enough calorie deficit to keep the weight coming off quickly -- about 2 pounds a week.
But I didn't always eat that way. Initially, when I first returned to low carb in 2007, I ate much more fat.
What I Ate When I First Did Atkins 2002 (Now Called Atkins 20)
To help you see what's possible on a low carb diet, in 2012, I sat down and created a lengthy list of what I used to eat when I first returned to a low-carb lifestyle. For most people, a standard low-carb diet works just fine.
And by standard, I mean 30 to 40-net carbs a day.
At that time, I thought about separating the list into breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, but as I started to do that, I quickly realized that I never ate that way when I was doing Atkins, so I changed my mind.
While I did keep a running total of the carbs I ate throughout the day, and tracked my fat and calorie intake at Fitday.com, I didn’t eat breakfast foods for breakfast and dinner foods for dinner, so in the original post, I simply offered a list of what I ate without much explanation.
Today, I reorganized the list.
I separated out those initial ideas into categories:
- breakfast
- lunch
- dinner
- vegetables and side dishes
- low-carb desserts
This will make it easier for you to find exactly what you're looking for. However, please remember that you can eat anything that is assigned to any of the lists. You don't have to stick to a particular category.
When it comes to carbohydrate restriction, it's the carbs that matter most.
Don't get caught up in the trap of eating breakfast foods for breakfast, lunch foods for lunch, and dinner foods for dinner.
On low carb, there is no such thing.
Just focus on eating food that you love and is low in carbs.
Also keep in mind that low carb isn't just Atkins. Low-carb food is low-carb food.
No matter which ketogenic plan you're following, or even if you're on a more moderate version of low carb, the food ideas below will still fit in well.
The following ideas are some of the low-carb foods I ate to help me carve off 100 pounds, some of the foods hubby and I continue to eat today, and hopefully shows you the luxurious way of eating that a low-carb diet provides:
Breakfast Ideas for Keto
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| Low carb breakfasts are more than just bacon and eggs; here are lots of ketogenic breakfast ideas. |
When most people think of low carb, the image that pops into their mind is lots of bacon and eggs. Bacon and eggs are a low-carb staple for keto.
Today, hubby and I eat eggs almost every day. We absolutely love them, and hardly ever get tired of them. In fact, even when we go to Golden Corral for breakfast on the weekends, scrambled eggs are still a part of our low-carb breakfast there.
We simply top them with a few onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, and cheese sauce. I choose between grilled pork chops, bacon, sausage links, or ham to go along with the scrambled eggs.
Since we rarely eat lunch on weekends anymore, due to that hearty breakfast or visiting my kids, I often pick out two meats to accompany the eggs.
In addition, we like:
- ham and eggs
- sausage patties and eggs
- Italian sausage links and eggs
- pork chops and eggs
- leftover steak and eggs
- leftover beef brisket and eggs
- cottage cheese mixed with blueberries or chopped strawberries
- smoked shredded pork, scrambled eggs, cheese
- chopped beef brisket, scrambled eggs, cheese
- chopped smoked chicken thighs, scrambled eggs, cheese
- omelets made with ham, onions, green chilies, and avocado
- hard boiled eggs dipped in fake honey-mustard
- French toast made with Atkins original rolls
- egg muffins
- protein shakes
You also might want to check out the article I wrote for Infobarrel: Low-Carb Breakfast Ideas for Those Sick of Eggs. It includes lots of recipes for the ideas and even a video that Kent Altena did giving his own ideas for low-carb breakfasts without eggs.
When I was in the weight-loss phase, I ate a lot of chicken breast for breakfast. Even before cutting down on fat, I ate chicken leg quarters or leftover hot wings. I love chicken for breakfast!
Basic Egg and Cheese Muffins
Ingredients:- 6 eggs
- 1/2 pound chopped cooked meat like sausage, bacon, or ham
- 4 ounces cheese
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- dash of pepper
You can use less meat and add some chopped vegetables like green onion, jalapeno, spinach, or broccoli if you like. Think of these as little quiches. Anything you can do with quiche, you can do to these muffins.
Breakfast Choices for Those Not Sensitive to Gluten
Before we went gluten free, I also made:- pancakes or waffles made with Carbquick Baking Mix
- waffles made with soy flour
- chorizo, eggs, and cheese in low-carb tortillas
- breakfast burritos in low-carb tortillas
- one-minute muffin using golden flaxmeal and fried eggs
A Word About Soy Flour
Soy flour is often contaminated with gluten, but it was a big thing back in the 70s and 80s because it's so low in carbs. There was no other alternative flours back then. It made a come back right after Dr. Atkins died, when a lot of low-carb products hit the market.
But yellow soy flour doesn't taste good, so the low-carb product fad didn't last that long.
Soy flour is quite bitter, in my opinion, so I used to grind my own soy flour with an electric wheat grinder. I used dried black soy beans instead of yellow. Grinding the beans myself gave me a soy flour that was free of gluten contamination, but also a flour that didn't rise very well.
At the time, I didn't know that I needed to combine different gluten-free flours together, and add some xanthan gum to get the proper rise, since low-carbers rarely do that.
By itself, black soy flour made some pretty tasty waffles. Even the yellow variety come out okay. It just didn't work well for pancakes without the vegetable gums.
If you want to give this a try, be sure to toss in some vanilla and cinnamon to mask the flavor of the soy. Hubby loved them that way. If you try grinding your own beans, you need to know that black soybean flour does make the waffles turn dark purple, as they cook.
To make the waffles, I used the recipe for our one-minute muffin and used soy flour for the flaxmeal in the batter instead of flaxmeal or almond flour.
If you want to give this a try, be sure to toss in some vanilla and cinnamon to mask the flavor of the soy. Hubby loved them that way. If you try grinding your own beans, you need to know that black soybean flour does make the waffles turn dark purple, as they cook.
Best Carbquick Pancakes I Tried
If you are not sensitive to wheat protein, carbquick baking mix makes the best low-carb pancakes, but only if you use the following recipe. The recipe on the box isn't as good as these are. If you don't have the Torani sugar-free syrup, you can use sugar-free maple syrup:Ingredients:
- 1/3 cup carbquick baking mix
- 1 packet Splenda
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon vanilla Torani sugar-free syrup
- 1 tablespoon melted butter
For additional breakfast ideas, check out our post on 12 Low-Carb Breakfast Ideas to make your mornings easier.
Low-Carb Lunch Ideas
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| You don't need bread. Just toss your sandwich filling into a few leaves of lettuce, overlapped, and rolled, and use parchment to hold it all together. |
I like to keep things super simple for lunch, since I'm normally writing at that time. However, many lunch ideas and dinner ideas will overlap. Anything listed for breakfast or dinner can also be eaten for lunch.
I do like to eat leftovers for lunch, though.
We have a smoker, and try to keep smoked meat in the freezer for salads or quick meals. When there are no leftovers available for lunch, I'll toss some cooked meat and cheese over a lettuce salad, fry up a burger, or bake some chicken thighs. Cold smoked chicken is also a favorite of ours.
My favorite lettuce wrap is a BLT - bacon and tomato, with mayonnaise, and wrapped in lettuce.
Additional lunch ideas are:
- egg salad with jalapeno and grated cheese
- grilled chicken salad or taco salad over assorted greens
- baked chicken legs, thighs, or breasts with seasoning salt and garlic powder
- chicken breast baked and topped with crispy bacon, fried onions, and mushrooms
- tuna mixed with onions, celery, jalapeno, and mayonnaise
- tuna mixed with sour cream, jalapeno, cheese
- chicken salad with bacon, cheese chunks, and mayonnaise
- lettuce salad with salad bar fixings and homemade dressing
- lunch meat ham spread with cream cheese and rolled
- lunch meat turkey filled with a cheese stick and rolled
- chef salad with ham, cheese, hard boiled eggs, and olives
- hamburger with cheese and bacon, no bun
- hamburger topped with a fried egg and cheese, no bun
- vegetable soup or chicken vegetable soup
- lettuce wraps: chicken, bacon and tomato
- sandwiches made with Atkins original rolls
- hamburgers made with Atkins original rolls
When I don't have time to eat, or forget to eat, (and yes, on low carb forgetting to eat is a thing), I'll grab a few homemade cheddar cheese sticks and a Carbmaster low-carb yogurt for lunch. Carbmaster is a Kroger brand yogurt that comes in 6 ounce containers, 40 cents each, instead of 4 ounces.
I don't do nuts anymore. Most brands are contaminated with wheat. Even hubby's cashews from Costco are now made on machinery that also process other products that contain gluten.
Lunch Ideas for Those Not Sensitive to Gluten
Before we went gluten free, we used to have:
- macaroni salad with ham, and made with Dreamsfield pasta
- tacos with leftover meat, cheese, low-carb tortillas
- quesadillas with leftover meat, cheese, low-carb tortillas
Ketogenic Dinner Ideas
Dinner is where I spend most of my time. If I eat something more involved for lunch, it's usually leftovers from dinner.
Lately, I've been experimenting with low-carb casseroles, which have turned out to be simple and satisfying, so I'll be posting the recipes for some of those casseroles in future posts. Just as soon as I remember to take pictures.
I've also been working on coming up with a decent pizza crust made from almond flour and/or coconut flour and cheese. The flatbread is sort of biscuit like, so I'm sure I can figure out how to do that as well.
Experiments are few and far between, however, due to the way I react to fibrous foods. Almond flour and coconut flour are heavy on fiber, which is why they are so low in carbs.
Experiments are few and far between, however, due to the way I react to fibrous foods. Almond flour and coconut flour are heavy on fiber, which is why they are so low in carbs.
Typical low carb dinners for us include:
- chicken kabobs, marinated meat in herb/garlic mix
- baked salmon with homemade caper-lemon sauce
- chicken strips breaded with crushed pork rinds and baked
- fish breaded with crushed pork rinds and Parmesan cheese
- alfredo bake (chicken over broccoli)
- heroine wings or hot wings
- turkey burgers or meatballs
- organic black soy beans cooked up into chili
- meatloaf made with egg and crushed pork rinds
- meat balls simmered in spaghetti sauce and served over zucchini
- pizza chicken bake
- BBQ chicken legs or ribs
- chicken or beef fajita bowl
- slices of smoked brisket
- pork chops marinaded in a citrus mix, and grilled
- hamburgers made with Atkins original rolls
- roasted turkey or chicken
- smoked pork ribs seasoned with garlic, McCormick steak seasoning, and rosemary
- chicken, bacon, and green bean stir-fry
- marinated chicken thighs in garlic and herb marinade, baked
- braised chicken legs or wings in water, garlic powder, and salt (crock pot)
- chili cheese dogs without a bun
- Herb-Butter Chicken Breast
- chicken breast cubes sautéed and tossed with garlic chili sauce
- chicken breast cubes marinated in soy sauce and stir fried with vegetables
- lasagna made with eggplant
- variety of low-carb casseroles made with meats, alfredo sauce, and different vegetables
Grilling
Since it's summer, and barbecues are the norm, I thought I'd mention that our favorite marinades are:
- McCormick Grill Mates Garlic, Herb, and Wine marinade
- McCormick Grill Mates Baja Citrus Marinade
- Weber Just Add Juice Citrus Herb marinade mix
But we ran into a windfall at WinCo a few weeks ago and picked up a ton of marinade mixes for 10 to 49 cents each, so I'll be experimenting with more of them.
Marinades do add a few carbs to your meal. They average about 1 carb per teaspoon of dry mix, and I use about a tablespoon or two of mix per recipe, depending on what I'm marinating, but those carbs can add a super-rich power punch if you're bored and need a little flavor to help you stay on plan.
Instead of the orange juice called for in the marinades, I use orange, pineapple, or coconut flavored Torani syrup instead and add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to replace the acid that is missing in the orange juice.
The last time I went to replace the orange syrup, they didn't have orange or pineapple, so I picked up a bottle of peach. But I haven't tried that flavor yet.
The last time I went to replace the orange syrup, they didn't have orange or pineapple, so I picked up a bottle of peach. But I haven't tried that flavor yet.
These marinades make kebobs simple and fast to do.
Low-Carb Dinner Ideas for Those Not Sensitive to Gluten
Before we went gluten free, we used to eat:
- Chicken alfredo over Dreamsfield pasta
- spaghetti or other pasta made with Dreamsfield pasta
- lasagna made with Dreamsfield pasta
- tacos, enchiladas, quesadillas with low-carb tortillas
Vegetables and Side Dishes
I don't go to a lot of work when it comes to vegetables or side dishes. I like to keep them simple -- mostly steamed or lightly boiled vegetables. Sometimes, I'll spend the extra work and top the vegetables with a tasty cheese sauce if the entree I'm making is simple, like baked chicken.Otherwise, you won't find a lot of fancy ideas here:
- guacamole with cheese crackers, almond thins, or pork rinds
- homemade or original-style jerky
- deviled eggs with bacon and jalapeno
- steamed asparagus, broccoli, or green beans
- canned or fresh green beans mixed with bacon
- coleslaw with tangerine juice, grated tangerine peel and pecans or walnuts
- jalapeno poppers
- cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus with cheese sauce
- pork rinds with sour cream dip or salsa
- American cheese crackers with salsa
- steamed or stir-fried cabbage and onions
Low-Carb Desserts
I haven't experimented with a lot of low-carb desserts yet, either. We prefer fresh fruit, ice cream, pudding, or cheesecake.My baking background is with gluten-free diets, which tends to be rather high in carbohydrates. I'm only in the very beginning stages of experimenting with almond and coconut flours, so I haven't learned how to blend the two worlds yet.
But, we do enjoy the following:
- cupcakes or Bundt cake made with Atkins original rolls
- strawberry shortcake made out of Atkins original rolls
- CarbSmart ice cream or ice cream bars
- sugar-free chocolate pudding pie made with heavy cream, almond flour crust
- baked custard sprinkled with cinnamon
- sugar-free instant pudding mix made with heavy cream
- sugar-free non-bake cheesecake with almond-flour crust
Check Out Our Recipe Box
These ideas do not include ALL of the many recipes I have tried over the years since I've been involved in the low-carb movement. They are just a few of our favorites, and what we tend to eat on a regular basis.
If you need more food ideas, check out the recipe section here at the Kickin' Carb Clutter blog for recipes of additional ketogenic food ideas that we have tried and enjoyed. Everything posted there has been fine-tuned to be the best low-carb recipe it can be.
We also have a lot of food posts and links to some specific menus in the recipe box, as well.
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