Looking for a Mentor

[Avi]

Hello All

I’m looking for a mentor on the forum to get myself into this lifestyle. I tried keto briefly earlier this year but got really confused about basic stuff and gave up.
I need to ask basic questions please can someone help?
Thank you!
Avi

[Tmdlkwd]

Welcome Back!

You will get lots of help and and support
This forum will be your Mentor

Stay Tuned
You will get lost of input and motivation coming up here shortly from others

Keep a close eye on you post

Onward an Upward

Good Luck😄

Start Here

[Avi]

Thank you! First of all where do you start? What is your basic shopping list?

[Katiekate]

Ask away!

Everyone here will be glad to help.

Just remember…if you are hungry, you are doing it wrong. Start by removing (give away or throw away) all the high carb stuff in the house. By high carb I mean more than 5 grams of carbs. Get rid of the prepackaged food and all sugars. Start reading labels in everything.

I made a LOT of prepared meals. I made a lot f deviled eggs, turkey legs (love cold turkey), cheese balls, fat bombs, etc. if I was hungry I would grab one of those.

Don’t worry about following any kind of the strict diet…just no carbs (well, as a goal try to do as close to no carbs as you can), forget calories… but concentrate on 70-80% good fats in each meal.

Whatever else you do…do not restrict your calories because it will slow down your metabolism. Eat!

[Katiekate]

My basic shopping list is… fermented cheese, uncured ham and pastrami, grass fed butter and beef for stew. Avocado. Olive oil and avocados oil. Coconut oil (unrefined, unprocessed). Walnuts (raw not roasted…they usually roast them in vegetable oil…which you want to avoid). I get philly cheese and almond flour for chaffles. Eggs. Wild caught fish. Salmon from Alaska is a favorite. Pork roast…this can be combined with other items for a couple days of meals. Real lard…not crisco! Eat animal fat. Use it for cooking along with the butter.

I don’t eat much chicken because there isn’t enough fat.

Since I don’t have any “trigger” issues with anything that is sweet…I buy Swerve…it is a combination of both erythritol and stevia. I make deserts with it. Beware of any “sugar” substitutes…some are just as bad as sugar. For some people it seems it can set off an eating binge.

[gingersmommy]

What is your basic shopping list?

Here are the things I eat in a week and that I have purchased right from the start. I buy everything - meat, cheese and veggies - in bulk from Costco, Sam’s or BJs and then take it home and freeze for later in the week.

Mayo, eggs, pork steaks, boneless pork ribs, high fat hamburger, chicken quarters (or just the legs or thighs, if you prefer one over the other), bacon, pepperoni, breakfast sausage, cheese, romaine, shredded cabbage, broccoli, olive oil and vinegar (for salad dressing). Save the bacon grease and melt a tablespoon of it over your hamburgers or the less fatty cuts of pork. Make chicken, egg or tuna salad. Add hard boiled eggs, shredded chicken, some bacon and cheese to your salads. Eat eggs and sausage for breakfast.

Just remember…if you are hungry, you are doing it wrong.

Very true. Eat three hearty meals a day to start. This will help satisfy your hunger and help alleviate any cravings for foods you don’t want to have. After a couple of weeks, you may find that you can skip a meal comfortably and that your breakfast will carry you just fine to dinner. Enjoy your food.

Lastly, familiarize yourself with the carb values in the foods you commonly eat. Make sure to keep your daily total under 20 g/day, or less if you can. Start to read food labels to check for carbs in a serving. Stay away from things that are too high, or limit the quantity you eat.

Good luck - please keep us posted and ask as many questions as you need.

[Avi]

Thank you all! This is helping a lot. So questions are- how are you coping for Xmas, going out with your family, restaurants? Second, seriously, so long as I stay within the parameters, no calorie counting? I have weighed and measured for as long as I can remember!

[PaulL]

My food list is bacon, eggs, meat, salad greens, cheeses, full-fat yoghurt, pork rinds, broccoli, cauliflower, and occasionally nuts. When I cook, the main dish is some kind of meat, usually with gravy (made with heavy cream), either a salad or a vegetable (usually with a cheese sauce). I also make Fathead pizza from time to time, which is a cheese and almond-flour crust topped with tomato sauce, more cheese, and various meat toppings. Dessert is often full-fat greek yoghurt with heavy cream; if I need a snack, it’s cheese or pork rinds. I save the bacon grease to cook with, along with butter and lard. I am fortunate that I don’t need an extensive variety of different foods in order to enjoy eating.

For Christmas, the turkey is keto, there are plenty of keto stuffing recipes, you can make riced cauliflower or cauliflower mash as a substitute for potatoes. Add broccoli (topped with butter or cheese sauce), Brussels sprouts sauteed in bacon grease and topped with chopped bacon and fried onions, make sugar-free keto cheesecake for dessert, and you’ve got yourself a fancy Christmas feast.

It is chronically elevated insulin that traps fat in our fat tissue and keeps us from losing weight. A well-formulated ketogenic diet lowers insulin levels, because of the greatly reduced carbohydrate intake, thus allowing fat to leave the fat cells and be metabolised. But even on a low-carb diet, our body will hang on to its fat store if it thinks a famine is happening (because we cut calories). So the key is to eat enough food when we are hungry to satisfy our hunger. Eat only when hungry, stop eating when you stop being hungry, and don’t eat again until you’re actually hungry again. You’ll be surprised how well it works.

[David_Stilley]

Here’s a great orientation to starting KETO

Keto Is This Easy

Keto is this easy (aka Keto for beginners) Quick Version This is for Phase One—the starter phase. It’s still not complicated later, but this is the really easy-to-explain version which will help you no end. Eat under 20g of carbs a day (usually 20g net when starting, but for some people 20g total carbs works better). Don’t worry about the scale. All it tells you is weight, it tells you nothing about body composition, even the “smart” scales. Eat plenty of good food—fat and protein—whil…

I can’t make a shopping list for you because you need to choose from KETO foods that you enjoy so this is easy and sustainable for you personally. There’s no such thing as a required KETO food or supplements or products other than salt. Some use magnesium if it’s helpful. It was to me early on but I don’t supplement it any longer, 10 months now without it. I eat very close to Carnivore now compared to when I started 15 months ago. It’s a journey with tweaks along the way to fit your needs and goals. I wish you the very best on your personal journey and hope that you find the elegance and simplicity of the ketogenic lifestyle a great fit and a recipe for success meeting your personal goals and achieving the best you possible.

[Katiekate]

Going out to eat is always problematic no matter what time of the year.

I will select the roast ribs…ask them to be dry rubbed no sauce. You still might get some carbs in it, but not as bad as the sauce. I will pick a veggie, but skip everything else…I ask that everything be cooked in butter…no veg oils.

It still will put me of keto … but it’s not a binge…and I don’t go over by more than about 20 grams. And…I don’t do it often.

To recover back from a meal like that, I will not eat again for a day. This allows my body to get a good 18 hours of no insulin rushing into my blood…so helps me stay fat adapted.

Your goal is to become fat adapted. You will know when it happens because you will not be hungry all the time. Then, you can start skipping meals and keeping your insulin even lower. You will always get some insulin reaction no matter what you eat…so stretching out the time between meals becomes a big milestone. But, do it when you are ready…you will know it when you are.

[Avi]

Thank you all! Inspired. Please can you give me ideas for breakfast and lunch on the go? Dinner I can spend time cooking but I work full time and get two children ready in the mornings. Other than being super organized, any tips for ‘grab and go’?

[Momof5]

Hard-boiled eggs, Chaffle sandwiches, package of Piller’s German or Hungarian Salami, cheese in little plastic wraps, pepperoni sticks, bacon, a salad you can put in a container, celery sticks, anything that is low carb and you enjoy =).

[Katiekate]

Make some chaffles in advance…put them in your freezer. Pull a couple out and microwave for breakfast and lunch So many recipes to pick from…anything you can imagine. Blueberry, cinnamon, peanut butter, any kind of cheese. Include meats into the cooking… great for both meals.

[Avi]

Ok, sounds good. How about dessert. Do you have some berries with clotted cream every evening? Can you? I realise that the whole idea is to wean yourself off sweet things, but is this ok?
Where can I find keto approved sweeteners?
Thank you all

[gingersmommy]

I literally check the fridge and throw anything together that is available. I can make breakfast in less than five minutes - scramble some eggs with lots of butter and microwave a few slices of bacon and/or link sausage. Add a slice of American cheese. I could eat that every morning and it was quick and easy. Lunch could be tuna, egg or chicken salad, or romaine salad with egg, cheese, chicken, tuna or ham, if you have it, any combination of those and some pepperoni chunks. I make a double batch of cream soup with sausage and cheese that is delicious and fatty enough to be satiating. Just have 1.5 c. of that in a container nuked at work. The possibilities are endless but don’t have to be difficult. You want to make sure you keep the fat high and the carbs low. After you’ve been on this a while, you may find that you are just fine having two meals a day - or even one - just don’t force it. It will come naturally.

[Avi]

Will do,thank you. Does anyone have sweet cravings? Dessert berries and cream after dinner?

[Knnn]

Desserts - Chia puddings in many flavours.

Typically I mush up 2-4 cups of strawberries or raspberries, 1 can coconut milk and 4 cups cream, add 1/2 cup chia seed and stevia sweetener to taste. Mix cool and let set. Add more chia to make thicker.

Alternatively replace fruit with juice from 4 lemons and zest from 2, tablespoon of tumeric (for colour) with a little artificial lemonade water flouring (such as mio). Very nice sweat and sour dessert.

Not sure there are any “approved” keto sweeteners. I personally use stevia and consume drinks with sucrolase and the Mio water flavouring. Many folks will shy away from artificial sweeteners, however I have not seen any conclusive evidence that they cause harm or cause any change in blood sugar or insulin levels (also based on n=1 blood glucose and ketone testing).

The strawberry and lemonade ones are very palatable and can be used as additional flavouring for the chia pudding:

https://www.makeitmio.com/en/original

These sour/sweet peach rings are very tasty:

Peach Rings

Each bag has 33 g of carbs (everyone gasps in horror!), but 28 g are fibre and only 3 g sugars. Just dont eat more than 1 pack otherwise the soluble fibre may upset your stomach.

[Avi]

Excellent, thank you. Sorry to be a pain, can I eat these every day?

[Knnn]

As long as you generally keep below 20-30 g of carbs a day, it should not be a problem. But like anything its probably best not to binge on only one or two items. Also YMMV depending on insulin resistance and biochemistry. For example I know that I can get away with 50-60 g of carbs in a day (but not consecutive days), as long as the foods do not contain particularly high glycemic carbs and I will remain in Ketosis, again based on my own blood testing.

Another example, if I have only eaten meat and dairy during the day and had almost zero carbs, I can enjoy a small bag of popcorn (carb content varies with manufacturer so check before you buy) with my coke zero watching a movie because the net carbs are ~26 g and I only see a small increase in blood sugar.

I am going to try out a continuous blood glucose meter to find out exactly what foods and carb content do to my blood sugar.

PS You did not mention why you are trying keto. I mention 20-30 g of carbs a day as a target, if you want or need to be in nutritional Ketosis. If not and you are only generally looking to improve your health and/or control weight then just low carb under 100-120 g a day will work.

PS nuts can be a nice snack, but be wary as they can be irresistible and can be over consumed and the high fat will slow or stop weight loss (if that is a concern to you). I have found pecans to have the least glycemic response. Too many almonds (as in 2 cups a day) also caused me arthritis pain in my hand.

PPS Old dutch Bac’n Puffs are a satisfying saly snack with zro carbs. Not sure if they are available in the US.

Amazon.com: Old Dutch Bacon Puffs Pork Rinds, 100g (Imported from Canada)

[Avi]

Hi Ian, thank you for your response. I would like to lose weight primarily. I have tried every diet under the sun and am now pre diabetic. It all works for a few weeks and then I plateau very quickly and lose motivation. This leads to a a spectacular fail. Always the same roller coaster. I liked the keto lifestyle before but don’t think I did it properly. I am in the UK so if there is are any UK websites that would be appreciated.