1st week menu recommendation?

(Mike Kaufman) #1

Hi all,
Complete newb here. Been listening to the podcast and getting mentally geared up for the big plunge. I’m definitely carb-fueled, as I’m munching on maple cream cookies as I sit and type this. But I’m ready to toss out all the bad stuff and go grocery shopping. Here’s my problem: what do I buy?

First off, I don’t drink coffee. Not even coffee-flavored things. I just don’t like it. So, the bullet-proof coffee recipe for mornings/breakfast won’t work for me. However, I know that my body will still expect a breakfast/lunch/dinner combo.
So, I’m hoping someone can give me a menu, of sorts, that I can go shopping for and prepare on Sunday to get me ready for the week. There are a TONNE of recipes, true, but almost too much to wade through and find breakfast/lunch/dinner options.

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!!
-Mike

(Ellie) #2

Welcome and congrats for taking the plunge.
I would keep it really simple to start.
Bacon and eggs for breakfast - you can cook a load of bacon in one go and then reheat a few slices each morning.
Lunch - left overs from yesterday’s dinner, with or without salad with mayo or olive oil and apple cider vinegar dressing.
Dinner - depends what you like, but something like steak, pork chops, minced beef fried in butter, serve with butter or mix in some cream to the pan after cooking to make a cream sauce from the pan juices and serve a long side butter cabbage, or spinach. Make enough to have some sliced cold for lunch the next day.

Another idea is to make a big frittata with bacon, ham, sausage meat fried and then add a dozen beaten eggs and top with lots of cheese. Bake in the oven until the middle isn’t wobbly any more.
That would do me 4 meals and is nice hot or cold with mayo.

Good luck!

#3

Lots of green vegetables:broccoli, asparagus, brussels sprouts, chard, salad w/ apple cider vinegar and olive oil, eggs, meat:chicken thighs, burger, steak, franks, cheese:brie, blue, goat cheese, nuts:macadamia, walnuts, almonds, a few berries and cream for dessert: blend frozen berries with cream for an ice cream like texture. For snacks, cheese crisps: parmesan/cheddar, pork rinds.

(Mike Kaufman) #4

Thanks grinch!
Curious about nuts – I’ve seen macadia, brazillian, almonds mentioned quite a few times. What about normal peanuts? Or cashews?

(Danielle) #5

Here’s a typical day for me:

Breakfast:

Greek yogurt (not low fat) with three chopped strawberries

Lunch:

Can of tuna or salmon with mayonnaise on salad with low carb dressing. (Add some grated cheese to this if you’re feeling extra hungry)

Dinner:

Grilled piece of meat (ex. Steak, chicken, pork or lamb chop) with Caesar salad. Again, low carb dressing and no croutons.

If I’m craving something sweet, I will have one or two squares of dark chocolate (I buy a 90% cocoa bar), or some whipped heavy cream with a couple more strawberries. In your first week though, I would recommend avoiding all sweet things, even if they’re low carb. It’s tough, but I found that overall it meant the cravings for sweet things went away faster than trying to get rid of them using low carb sweets.

Finally, drink lots of water. It’s good for you, and helps with hunger.

#6

Great site for comparing foods and carb counts

#7

Follow the menu plans on the website Diet Doctor. There’s a beginner’s challenge with integral shopping lists, and there’s lots of other plans eg dairy free, veg, Italian inspired, keto on a budget, etc etc etc.

They are all calculated to keep the carbs below 20g per day.

However I don’t know how they calculate the protein - can anyone answer this? How does Diet Doctor allocate the amount of protein given that the little old lady and the strapping tall beefcake are likely to have very different amounts of lean body mass? And does it matter at the begging of keto?

Over the two weeks of the making and eating the beginner’s menu plans you can just observe yourself and all the things associated with beginning to eat keto.

(MelissaH) #8

When I first started my meals looked like this:
Fried eggs, bacon or sausage and a few handfuls of spinach sauteed with mushrooms. Dinner was a steak, fish, chicken wings, cobb or taco salad. I added a salad or green veggie to every meal. Lots of water and bone broth to keep the keto flu away.

#9

I’ve never liked coffee (or tea) and probably never will. Don’t need them.

My typical day of eating:

  • 9 am: “Everything” omelet, side of low carb fruit
  • 4 pm: My main meal, usually soup or salad or meal prep
  • 11 pm: Corned beef and pepper jack cheese roll-ups

If I do snack in between, it may be a handful of pumpkin seeds, a cheese stick or two, or a small serving of low carb ice cream. I typically don’t need them.

I live in a retirement community, where they provide breakfast and one other meal per day. They do a good “everything” omelet, and I could get sausage or bacon, but everything else for breakfast is carb-load – pancakes, waffles, French toast, bagels, toast and jelly, danish, sweet rolls, oatmeal, yogurt, chipped beef, sausage and gravy, cereal, juices, prunes, …

My main meal is taking home what they serve, without the bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, gravies, sauces, and such, and the using what’s left as an ingredient for my meal. For example, yesterday I took home two hot dogs (without the buns), added diced onions and sugar free pickle relish, topped it with Rao’s marinara sauce and shredded Italian blend cheese, then microwaved it until the cheese was nice and gooey.

One common meal I get from them is a large garden salad (no dressing), club sandwich (no bread), and two hard-boiled eggs. Then I make a Chef’s Salad out of those ingredients, using some spices, spicy mustard, and horseradish sauce as my dressing. That means I have ham, turkey, eggs, cheese, bacon, and tomatoes on my salad.

Another is just to get a hamburger (no bun) and make a simple bowl of chili out of it. Curries are easy too. It’s just a matter of how the “soup” is spiced. I’ve thrown things together often enough that I know what I like. :slight_smile:

(Teri Raia) #10

For shopping I would get:
Dozen eggs
Bacon
Cheese - hard, goat, feta, cheddar
Hamburger - the extra fatty one
Chicken breasts - I cook them in the crock pot and make salads, sandwiches ect with them all week.
Nuts - almonds, walnuts, macadamian
Butter, sour cream, cream cheese
Mayo, mustard, olive oil
Berries, blue and strawberries
Heavy whipping cream
Sugar free jello
These are my basics that can last all week if I meal prep. When I get fancy I buy almond flour and dark chocolate to make some treats. I also drink a flavored soda water instead of diet drinks. Good luck!

#12

It has adaptive menu plans and gives full cooking instructions, portion sizes and shopping lists.

Make sure you don’t go hungry - although that hunger will ease off as time goes by.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #13

From Benjamin Bikman’s lectures, I am starting to think it matters less than we have believed up till now. Professor Bikman is particularly keen on our need for additional protein as we age, since our ability to make muscle out of amino acids declines. And if Dr. Naiman is right about the protein-leveraging hypothsesis, people naturally tend to get about the same amount of protein, however they eat. So I suspect that the Diet Doctor client who needs less will automatically eat less and save the leftovers, and the client who needs more will eat more and perhaps increase the recipe the next time. Just a guess, but . . . .

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #14

@mkaufman811 To answer your original question, I like @Jacymac’s post. It’s exactly what I was going to recommend, except that I put blue cheese dressing on my salad, and cheese sauce on any vegetable that holds still long enough . . . :bacon::bacon:

(Ellie) #15

Or for the week 2 meal plan: bacon and cheese sauce on veggies!

(Blessed with butter ) #16

@OgreZed you are very creative! I love it!