I have to go to my boyfriend’s family Christmas dinner today. They eat like SHIT. Today’s meal is lasagna and breadsticks. Always a minimum of 5 desserts (usually a couple pies, cake, fudge). I have no problem eating a nice keto meal before going and I can resist the meal and dessertsno problem. My problem is going to be how to fend off his pushy family. I’m dreading this meal. Have been since the date was set for it. They are very pushy with food. I’m dead set against eating any of it and I know they’ll be dead set against letting me “go hungry.” They will NOT understand anything I say. Even if I say I’m diabetic (which I’m not) they will come up with something to say. I’m frustrated to say the least 
My boyfriend will be on my side and stick up for me of course, but it’s just upsetting to me. I know it’s my choice what to eat/not eat.
Keto Etiquette
“I have a sensitive stomach today. I don’t think I can keep anything down. I’ve been know to projectile.”
I’ve been with him almost 2 years. He’s the love of my life. No way he’s going anywhere. I can put up with them as inlaws.
It’s less stressful for me to just eat beforehand than to pick at food and ask 1,000 questions. The last thing I want to do is show up hungry to an event where there might be nothing on-plan that I could eat and then have to make (possibly bad) choices on a hungry stomach.
It’s just easier to eat a steak before the party and fast through the event. I still have a great time visiting with my friends.
When it’s somewhere that I don’t want to go into explaining the keto thing, I’ll sometimes just smile and put my hand on my tummy and say, “Oh, no thanks. My stomach is a bit off today.” and nobody has ever questioned me further.
Parties where there is a meat & cheese tray along with maybe some pickles and olives, are nice. Might even be some veggies like sliced cukes or celery sticks. Finger food that is pretty keto friendly and something to put on a little party plate and nibble on. It might take very little to make it look like you are eating. Most of it probably wouldn’t be very substantial but that’s OK. It’s mostly about the social interaction anyway. You might could walk around with a little smattering of a number of things you never do eat while you slowly nibble a few olives.
I made lasagna for my brother’s birthday…and I ate a piece along with the family. I just left behind the noodles. LOL The meat, cheese, and sauce were all keto for me, so unless some of those noodle carbs “infected” the sauce, it worked. The noodles are just fillers anyway for all the good stuff. 
So maybe that’s a choice? Put the lasagna on your plate, but then pick out the meat and cheeses…
Noodle-free Lasagna. I may have to make that. What? Some ricotta, sugars free red sauce, Italian sausage and cover with cheese baked in the oven. Sounds easy enough. I’ll bet $50 (not really, just saying) that my son Wouldn’t even know that the noodles were absent.
Crisis averted, folks. She prepared a giant salad with olives to boot. And she set the table with a salad bowl for me while everyone else got plates. I don’t know what I was so worried about.
Turns out my mother (who will be catering my sons wedding next year as their gift) is making vegetarian lasagna so this was a trial run for them to taste it and make suggestions. I didn’t know that going in. My son isn’t vegetarian but that’s what they want. I tried a bite of the stuffing (sans noodles) and it was tasty.
True. I live by “Expect the worst, hope for the best”. It’s good to be prepared.
I could make some suggestion about not going, but you might not like that.
In future, perhaps you can contribute a meat and cheese tray, or some deviled eggs or a salad, to share? You can put small amounts of lasagne, etc., on your plate, and push it around so it looks like you ate some.
Of course it would be better if we could just be assertive and fend these people off, but not all of us are good at that.
Once I went to a party where a kid had something on his plate that looked like delicious lasagne. He announced that he was going back to the kitchen to get some lasagne. I asked what was on his plate. It turned out to be hot taco dip: a layer of cream cheese (sliced), a layer of ground beef with taco seasonings, and a layer of grated cheese. I got some and it was super. I’ve made it several times since. I use tomato paste to thicken the meat mixture.
I don’t see why you couldn’t make a lasagne version of this with Italian seasoning and mozzarella.