Welcome to the forum, Bethany =).
Keeping your carbs at 20 grams or less is the most important thing for me personally (still this for me, even after a year of doing Keto), and eating enough =) of proteins, healthy fats, drinking enough water and electrolytes, no sugar and (for me personally, no sugar substitutes or I don’t lose weight and have cravings for them).
I had issues of heartburn, (used to take Tums often pre-Keto), high blood pressure, bad asthma, frequent headaches, stomach bloating, terrible, constant aches and pains in my joints -and other things, all Pre-keto — all of this has been resolved since Keto (my asthma is not gone but I rarely use my puffers and it has only been bad when I had a cold/flu thing for about 2 weeks).
I use a free app called cronometer.com to track what I eat.
I generally suggest for people just starting Keto to try to eat 3 meals a day and to try to not snack between the 3 (but eat enough at the three so that you don’t feel a need to snack) and then have at least 12 hours from your supper to breakfast, to give your body that time to burn the fats in your body --most of that time you will be sleeping ideally.
This is an idea of a day’s meals that should do this for you:
Breakfast:
4 scrambled or fried eggs (in 2 tablespoons of butter)
4 pieces of pork bacon
1 coffee with MCT powder and/or coconut oil and/or butter or HWC (if it doesn’t bother you, I am doing Dairy free atm so I cannot have this but I do love it, hehe). You could also use a Keto coffee creamer (there is a wide variety of them available on Amazon).
Lunch:
1 cup romaine lettuce
1 can of water packed tuna
2 tablespoons of Chosen foods or Primal Keto Mayonnaise (other mayonnaise has seed oils that we don’t want to ingest on Keto)
1 pickle, chopped up in little pieces (and/or 3 olives chopped up)
Coffee or tea if you want some --with a fat in it (as mentioned above in the breakfast).
Supper:
Protein of your choice: a nice steak, salmon, fish, chicken, lamb, pork, whatever suits your fancy =)
Low carb vegetables (bok choy, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, etc).
I love the Caullfower Rice that you can make yourself by grating cauliflower or buy already made (Costco sells a 6 pack of envelopes that you can cook in the microwave that is very delicious). I cook regular rice in my rice cooker for the rest of the family and a bag of that for myself. I live with 4 others in my family that are not doing Keto, so I just make all the food, and often the protein selection we can all eat. An example of this is last night I made Breakfast sausages, and then regular rice for them and I fried up cabbage for everyone =).
It is important that you are eating enough; after you are on Keto for a while, (a few months) and become Fat adapted, then you might not be hungry enough to eat 3 meals a day and will want to reduce this to two. I personally now wat my lunch at 1pm and supper at 4:30 and I “Fast” daily from 5pm until 1pm the next day -called TMAD (two meals a day) 20:4 (not eating for 20 hours a day, 4 hours I have the 2 meals, no snacking between) called IF (intermittant fasting). I didn’t do this until I was on Keto for months though and was fat adapted, and I built up to it as well. I did 12:12, then slowly increased the times until I got to 20:4 that I have been on for ages now and I am very comfortable with that. Don’t force anything, and take your time, though =). Keto is awesome but it is a slow and steady lifestyle change; not meant to be a crash diet to just lose and then regain it all, and be on the yo-yo cycle (that I was personally on from 11-54). Keto is freeing and and for life.
I wish you the best, and if you have any more questions, just post away and we will all tell you what we have found helpful and will be cheering you on =)).
