What To Eat When You Eat Low-Carb

Starting a low-carb diet, like the Keto diet, can be intimidating at first. 

Especially if you’ve been eating a standard American diet for your entire life. What is there to eat if you can’t have bread, rice, pastries, cereal or potatoes?

An awful lot, that’s what.

It does take some experimenting, but to make it easier for you, here are some meal and snack ideas, borne from my own experience eating low-carb.

Breakfast

Ahhh, yesss. 

This one is pretty easy. Take away the pancakes and hashbrowns and you’re pretty much left with the low-carb Mecca:

-Eggs, hard boiled or cooked in butter/coconut oil
-Sausage (check for additives)
-Bacon (yes, really! Try to find bacon that wasn’t cured in sugar, though)
-Tomatoes
-Mushrooms/spinach sautéed in cream and butter

-Full-fat greek yogurt, mixed with almond butter

Lunch

Shrimp! Yummy!

Low-carb lunch is a bit harder, especially if you’re used to carrying a cute little brown bag with a sandwich and an apple in it to work every day. It takes a bit of Sunday meal prep, but here’s some ideas for lunch:

-Grilled/baked chicken. You can bread it in almond flour (ground-up almonds) if you’d like!
-Grilled shrimp on a salad of dark leafy greens and cheese
-Roasted cauliflower with curry powder and olive oil
-Low-carb broccoli and cheese soup (or other ones here: Low-Carb Soup Recipes)
-Tunafish salad (make your own mayonnaise to omit the sugar! Mayo Recipe)

Dinner

Cheesy Cauliflower Casserole. 

Dinner is by far the easiest, not only because it’s typically the most carb-light meal, but because you can probably cook it at home.

-Steak/Pork/Chicken/Fish, etc. grilled or baked
-Roasted broccoli, Brussels sprouts, zucchini
-Cauliflower rice (steam cauliflower, pulse in food processor. Voila! “Rice!”)
-Spaghetti squash, mixed with olive oil and garlic

I freaking love almond butter. And squats. 

Snacks

You’ll find, on this diet, that you’re not really all that hungry in-between meals. That’s because your blood sugar isn’t being spiked, and the fat is keeping you satiated. But just in case, here are some options:

-Pork rinds
-Nuts (careful, though, some, like cashews, are high in carbs)
-Hard-boiled eggs
-Beef jerky (if you want to really go crazy, buy a dehydrator and make your own!)
-Guacamole! (Eat with a spoon or some veggie sticks)

-Almond butter, right off the spoon. Peanut butter is okay, but it’s higher in carbs

It's like pie filling. Delicious!

Dessert

No sugar, so what the heck are you supposed to have for dessert?! Plenty.

-Whipped cream, homemade without sugar. Add some vanilla extract!
-Berries, either raw or cooked down on the stove in some water
-Sugar-free jello
-Unsweetened coconut flakes
-Cream cheese mixed with peanut butter
-Unsweetened cacao nibs (like super duper dark chocolate)

If you are absolutely dying for something bready, there are low-carb wraps out there. I personally try to stay away from any wheat-based product as a rule, but if that doesn’t bother you, go for it!

You can also wrap some lunchmeat and cheese in a seaweed sheet as a faux-wrap!

Search online for some low-carb recipes. There are a bunch of great blogs out there (like ibreatheimhungry.com) and Pinterest is full of ideas.

Last point: Although low-carb is a great diet, it doesn’t replace calorie counting. Calories still matter, even without carbs in the mix.

Got any ideas of your own? Share them with us below!

katy.hajzer@gmail.com

Lift. Eat. Love. Repeat.