Started my first list:
Avocado
Butter salted
Chicken/steak
Garlic
Greenridge beef sausage
Cheese Sticks/slices
Eggs
Spinach
Bacon
What are good starting items to have at home? Also, I’m a snacker with a sweet tooth…
Please note… I’m in my first week
Hey Nick, me again! You gotta kick that sweet tooth to the curb! The longer you do without it the easier it gets. Keto changes our taste buds and we become more sensitive to sweet flavors the more we do without. You will begin to taste the natural sweetness in cabbage, broccoli and other vegetables you never thought of as sweet.
Your list looks great. Just to add some variety
Salmon, bacon, salami, pepperoni, low carb hams (look at carb content on all food labels when shopping) olives, dill pickles, pork rinds.
Full fat dairy (sour cream, butter, cream cheese, real hard cheeses like Parmesan, Cheddar, Gouda, Swiss, Blue etc. Look for 0-1g. carbs per ounce) Heavy Cream if you like coffee creamer or cream sauces.
Watch out how much garlic and onion you use, they’re okay but carb heavy if you use too much.
There’s tons of KETO treats recipes that I think best avoided, cakes, cookies and fat bombs. And nuts, berries and dark chocolate too. The same for daily diet sodas or more than the rare alcohol (hard spirits are the most KETO friendly but alcohol causes a temporary stall). I wouldn’t recommend experimenting with adding those things early on, they can be problematic and if you are getting off a snacking or sweets habit they might be harder for impulse control. I myself after a year only enjoy these things occasionally and not for days in a row. Try to eliminate snacking as soon as you are comfortable with it, better to consume more at meals to hold you through to the next one.
In the beginning when I was still snacking and switching over I used to have pork rinds, string cheese, tea with cream, dark chocolate, chicken granules for broth, salami with cream cheese, pickles, pickled peppers. Now I keep bars of 95% chocolate for snacking “emergencies”. I got to the “not hungry for snacks” phase fairly quickly.
To me, that is the most AMAZING aspect of keto!!! To go from hungry ALL THE TIME and grabbing snacks all during the day (and gaining weight) to go to eating when convenient for ME instead of being a slave to my hunger pangs…
CHAMPIONSHIP!!!
Lindt?
Locally I would only see 90%
NOW, 95% started appearing at stores
I’ll get what ever one is in stock
I do prefer the 95% though 
I agree with @David_Stilley you will feel much better if you can kill the snacking habit and the sweet tooth.
When we snack we cause a spike of insulin which is the fat storing hormone. If we want to lose weight effectively we need to be in fat burning mode which means we need glucagon to be working. Insulin suppresses glucagon, so every insulin spike puts us out of fat burning mode.
There are many variations between individuals, but I find that eating on a 16:8 pattern works for me and minimises insulin spikes.
Yes, Lindt. They always seem to be on sale (I wonder why 
).
We use 100% unsweetened bakers chocolate, 3 tbsp coconut oil, a little sweetener to taste. Microwave it, stir well and store in a plastic squirt bottle. When ready, warm for 30 seconds and drizzle on whatever. If you drizzle on something cold it forms a nice chocolate crust
Hi @FailedFormation,
This looks like a pretty good starter list - I especially like to see no artificial sweeteners (which generally just keeps a low-level carb addiction going)!
Finally, I would encourage you to focus on one other thing besides the list to start. It might be difficult but, if you can accomplish it, it can be very helpful to “lock you in” at the beginning.
That is to clean out the kitchen. Every pack of noodles, every grain of rice, flour, sugar (of course), every can of soup, every box of mac and cheese, all non-healthy oils, every non-zero-carb condiment in the fridge, all non-water drinks, all your frozen processed foods (pizza, lasagna,…) etc. - anything that has a shelf life - anything not serving your new WOE (way of eating).
Some might be temptations but the main point of the exercise is to burn your bridges that might lead you back to a bad way of eating. You’ll feel good about it if you haven’t done it already (if so, congratulations!).
Don’t let this be your identity or you’ll constantly be battling it on your journey.
Change:
to:
I would love to reply to all of you individually, but I just can’t currently. Thank you all so much for you tips and tricks. Very appreciative of how helpful and genuine everyone has been here so far!
If you can avoid sweets, the sweet tooth siren song should start to fade, but in a pinch you might try Rebel ice cream or sugar-free Jell-O with homemade whipped cream (I put Swerve in mine).
On my usual shopping list is:
Avocado and/or guacamole
Romaine (lettuce wraps)
Broccoli (sometimes cauliflower)
Spinach
Cheese (blue, string, cheddar, cream)
Avocado mayo
Kerrygold butter
Eggs
Shrimp (and fish)
Beef
Chicken
Bacon
Almonds (if you can tolerate nuts)
Tuna
Coffee
Good luck. Enjoy the board here. You can search pretty much anything you wonder about!
This is a great point Rob, it’s cathartic, empowering and asserts your new choice for yourself. I threw things in the garbage and donated 7 large boxes of food that I decided wasn’t serving my new way of eating. It was a dilemma giving away food I viewed as unhealthy to people in need, but I decided it was better for families with nothing to have it so it felt good for me and some people in need.
It removed temptation and made room in my pantry and freezer for keto friendly choices.
With the exception of pork rinds and a couple of other items we just “shop the edges of the store”.
Meat, dairy, produce - all the processed crap is in the middle.
I crossed off the avacado on my initial list, because I don’t like them!
I added:
Mayo
pepperoni
breakfast sausage
bacon (save the fat)
pork steaks or pork (if too lean, add bacon fat!)
broccoli (with butter or bacon fat)
cauliflower and dip
salad (with eggs, full fat dressing, olives, cheese, couple of grape tomatoes, cukes, etc. - unbelievable)
cole slaw (w. mayo and vinegar)
Eat enough at meals (3x/day until you physically don’t feel like eating that often), try not to snack. Stay away from artificial sweeteners.
I started off 8 months ago as a snacker too! I also eat cheese, pickles, and pork rinds if I feel snacky. I try to not snack but those help, also almonds sparingly. The snacking will reduce the longer you do keto since your appetite will go down.
@FailedFormation welcome. Your list looks good. Don’t fall into the trap of buying 3939939292929 dollars worth of food and end up wasting most of it.