What to eat?

If you are here, we would like to also warn you that this type of diet is very hard to stick with unless you have a very, very, very good understanding of macro nutrients and what is in what. You should be able to eyeball food and guess with some degree of certainty how many grams of carbs something has, how much fat, and how much protein.

Remedial track – try 40/30/30 first

For this reason, I’d recommend the “40-30-30” diet with calorie control for 8-12 weeks before starting this. This means 40% of your calories come from carbs, and 30 from each fats and proteins. A gram of carbs is 4 calories, a gram of fat 9, and a gram of protein 4. What you are doing with the 40-30-30 is the PHYSICS-based approach, and with this – is not what I am advocating for. Once you start this, you may find weight loss is happening nicely. Maybe you were at 60% of your diet as carbs and the reduction has helped thin you out. Keep going with the 40-30-30 if it works for you. Of my weight lost, the first 75 in the first year was the 40-30-30. In fairness, this is also hard to sustain for a different reason: you need to weigh and measure every gram and ounce of food. You get pretty good at this, and you can then learn to eyeball plates and see which one is more carb friendly.

The first thing that comes to your mind is probably some fat guy eating bacon. But this is what this diet looked like for me:

This is what I mostly ate – really big salads with chicken, tomatoes, italian dressing (Primal Kitchen), romano/parmesan, and shredded cheese. I would also put an avocado in it, as well as some bacon bits on top.Below are some ideas for things I ate which I’m about to comment on

First picture on the left…

Primal kitchen dressings/mayo – made with avocado oil and no seed oils. Expensive, but doesn’t give you the horrible inflammation seed oils do
Chicken parm with zoodles. Use pork grinds smashed and cook in air fryer. May need some egg to bind it. The zoodles – you can get a zoodle maker. Not as good as spaghetti, but still pretty damn good.
Turkey – “always take the free turkey”. I get these with rewards points at my grocery store. You can make 16 meals with this. I would usually add SOME gravy for freezing. I’m not a massive turkey fan, but this can provide a lot of meals for people on this
Greek yogurt. Very low in carbs. Lots of protein. The one with more fat is more calories – but both may hit the same satiety button. I would add a packet of splenda, blueberries, and protein powder.
Ribeye and loaded cauliflower. One of my favorites. Will discuss the loaded cauliflower below
charcuterie board. Have lots of meats and cheeses with this – but this meat is also cured and preserved, so maybe be sparing with this
Chicken thighs and cabbage – on cold days, this hit the spot. Chicken thighs, chicken broth, cabbage, carrots, celery
Many pounds of chicken. I would make up 10 pounds of chicken in 2 batches, then chop up to cubes to freeze. This would be about 2-3 weeks worth for my salads – or eat with a side of cheesy broccoli
Cheese steaks – in low carb wraps. These pics are from 7-8 years ago, so the wraps have gotten far better than then. This gives you a nice cheese steak fix, and while you do miss the roll with this, it can tide you over
My giant chicken salad in a huge mixing bowl at the in laws
Chicken and cheesy broccoli (from a Green Giant pack)
Zoodles! I also would put mozzarella cheese on it – as well as Pecorino Romano
Pic with lots of zoodles being made
Big pile of eggs! Tabasco sauce is zero carbs and actually interesting with this. I can use REAL ketchup, just use it sparingly
Cheeseburger salad

Second pic on the left:

Right after the cheeseburger salad – This is a tray of chicken parm I made in the oven with pork rinds as the breadcrumbs
Eggs and toast. 647 makes some really good low carb bread. I would just not add the breads until maybe 3-6 months in
Chicken tenders made with pork rinds and dipped in low carb BBQ sauce
Chicken drumsticks seasoned with paprika
Wendy’s baconator without the bun (in a pinch)
Wendy’s Southwest Avocado Salad – I can’t seem to find this anywhere, anymore
Loaded cauliflower. This is really good. Cook bacon. Break apart the cauliflower florets and salt/pepper and roast at 350 degrees until cooked – like 20-25 minutes. Drizzle bacon grease over the cauliflower prior to putting in the oven. When done, take out, cover with cheese and bacon, stick back in until cheese is melty. Take out and put sour cream on it

Third Pic:

After loaded cauliflower – my cheesesteak salad. Cheese steak on top of iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, and ranch dressing
Peanut butter cookies – like three ingredients. Peanut butter, swerve, and egg (I think). Been awhile.
Chicken Salad (my giant salad with chicken in it)
More cheesesteaks on wraps
Smoothie – I used to make a giant smoothie prior to biking 45 miles. But this had SOME fruit in it like blueberries and bananas. Pre-workout. Protein. It was like 50g of carbs, but it would help me sprint and power up hills. On heavy days I was at 125-150g of carbs – but this was only like 45-90 mins before long and intense training sessions
This smoothie pic shows the ice, strawberries, and baby spinach going in it
Eggs, bacon, and a smoothie. This was a meal I would have on Sat mornings after Fasting Fridays. The last meal I would have is 6 pm Thursday and the eggs would be the first thing to hit my stomach.
Salad with chicken and the giant cheese shavings – I forget the name of that cheese, but really good.
Loaded peppers – they are ok – not awesome, but can get you some meat in you
Cheeseburger avocado salad
Chicken wings. Every now and then I would make these up. While they are zero carb, they also have a lot of calories. If you eat these too much, you won’t lose weight. Save these for like a football game, event, etc. Feel free to dip in ranch or bleu cheese

Fourth pic:

Top right – Caesar salad with double chicken and dressing on the side. The more chicken you get with this, the more satiety you get. This would be part of OMAD. I got this salad at Applebees.
Chicken thighs and cabbage
Taco salad – also one of my favorites. Taco meat on iceberg lettuce. Tomatoes, cheese, avocado, salsa, hot sauce.
Another salad with chicken
Another Caesar Salad
Ribeye, green beans, and mashed cauliflower. Mashed cauliflower is a pain to make, but incredible in taste. I buy frozen stuff now and add cheese, bacon, and sour cream to them.
Chicken parm and green beans
Raspberries, cream cheese, and sweetener. Don’t need much else!
Zucchini lasagna. A pain to make, but very tasty!
Mashed cauliflower and NY strip
Chicken parm and zoodles
Cheeseburger salad

Not pictured that I eat:

meatballs with cheese. Can eat them like that or throw in a low carb wrap for meatball sub
cheeseburgers on low carb wraps
“Burritos” on low carb (or now ZERO CARB) wraps. I make up taco meat and now add riced cauliflower to it – then add cheese and sauces/queso/sour cream to the top.
Whole chickens from Giant. Get one of those Rotisserie chickens in a pinch!
Brisket/Roast Beef – I get quarter cows now and make a ton of grass fed/finished beef up.

Snacks?

Many people for some reason need to “snack”. Well, if you need to snack, that is half the problem. When you are in ketosis, you don’t get very hungry. I would start to get a good deal of hunger around 4-4:30PM for my giant salad, then take like 30 minutes to make it and eat it.

“Net carbs”

You have to be a little careful with this. To start with keto, keep it simple for like 6 weeks. Meats, eggs, bacon, etc. I am now about 5 weeks complete and as of this writing, down 28 pounds in the past 3 months. I had lost some weight before keto as my meds allowed me to stop thinking about food all the time as well as stopped me from needing it to cope or to celebrate. Now, I’m able to – for the first time really in my life – to fuel my body for exactly what I need while EASILY fighting off demons. It’s the demons that have you keep going back to old ways, and these demons – for me – were part of my ADHD/OCD. Much of my thesis with this is that people like me CAN lose weight a variety of ways – but why do we keep putting it back on?

The way I describe this to people is sort of like food is heroin for a lot of us. Carbs also provide dopamine hits for us. The objective of doing a 40-30-30 first is to identify how many carbs you are actually consuming now, so you have a good idea of some of the foods you can cut back on.

“Cheat” days

One thing I baked into this is about every 3 weeks I allow myself 1-3 days to “cheat”. Now, YOUR idea of cheating and mine are two different things. What I miss most is rolls for things like cheesesteaks and cheeseburgers as well pizza. I’d say pizza is the number one item that is hard for me to turn down. Assume you have a party, a BBQ, or a wedding on your calendar. You can then plan those days INTO your schedule. Once you go over a certain line in the sand of carbs (you won’t know until it happens) – you will gain 5-7 pounds of water and be thirsty all to hell. You will wake up the next day feeling like dog shit. When you get back on the horse, it takes 2-3 days to pee out all of that. It most certainly comes back out.

What to look at?

Here is the keto pyramid to more or less give you ideas for long term success. While you are STARTING at VERY low carb in ketosis, you eventually increase carbs. Being in “ketosis” isn’t extremely important later on – just staying with under 125g or so of carbs is the big deal.

One interesting thing here is that a lot of this stuff is also low in omega 6:3 ratios. For the beef, the closer you get to it eating its natural diet, the better. The same with chickens. The free range chicken eggs cost more, but in my opinion are far more nutritious and have more complete omega 3s.

The above is a KETOGENIC – meaning, to put and keep you in a state of ketosis. The ABOVE is your first 3-6 weeks, or more, if you can handle it with the cheats every 3 weeks.

After this – it’s up to you. I would advise looking at the glycemic index and with this, choosing foods with the lowest GI so you can control your insulin release.

Now – if you look at the brown rice up there, you have 41g of net carbs for just one cup of cooked rice. The first year I was doing 40-30-30, I was eating like 2400 calories. That is 960 calories of carbs, or about 240g a day. I would make up a lot of broccoli, chicken, and rice – and maybe I had 3 cups of rice with my chicken. But I was also lifting a lot.

Additionally, any meals you have that are elevated in carbs, it makes sense to do some hard efforts an hour later. At the very least, slow release carbs along with even a long slow walk could have you use liver glycogen and the carbs coming in are glucose immediately used or backfilling glycogen stores so you avoid the insulin spikes. Now, if you were going to lift heavy weights, having some carbs before and after it are good because you WANT the insulin spike to carry the protein to the muscles. You also need the carbs to backfill glycogen stores and the phosphate creatine systems. Additionally – heavy lifting creates an “afterburn effect”. While many will just tell you it’s burning calories – more specifically, it’s doing repair to your muscles and your muscles are then using the glucose being released to fill those stores.

So the overarching goals:

Understand what it is you are eating today
If you need time to understand your foods at the macro levels, do 40-30-30 for a period of time until you start to understand this more clearly.
Be strict to get into ketosis at 30g or less per day, and at week 2 maybe 35, week 3 40, and so on. Hold for maybe 6 weeks to ensure your body is “fat adapted”. Maybe have a cheat meal at 3 weeks.
You can STAY in ketosis, which I did for like 7-8 months, or you can start to add some carbs to go “low carb”.
If adding carbs, choose those with the lowest GI
If eating carbs, ensure you are doing VIGOROUS activity an hour later, and after that vigorous activity, have something like a banana and a protein shake.
Types of activities that could allow you to eat more carbs are HARD running, like sprints, zone 4-5, hills with running/biking, lifting heavy things – yard work CAN be considered vigorous activity, so do not think “well, I’m beat. But now I have to go to the gym?”
If NOT doing vigorous activity, stick with lower carb intake for the day. Walks are not vigorous until you add elevation or speed.

“Danger zone”

I have had many people try low carb, and fail for a specific reason. They don’t go TOO hard on low carb at first. Big picture is if they can’t get low enough in carbs to trigger ketosis – and hold it for quite some time, then the body will continue to look for carbs as its primary fuel source. This will lead you to getting cranky, being tired a lot, down-regulating your metabolism, and getting a lot of hunger pangs. You will know you are on the right path with keto when you start losing your appetite. My wife had tried “cutting carbs” several times, but could not hard commit to keep the carbs low. This isn’t something you can cheat and get away with. If you start at 70g a day, you may never get into ketosis and just be under fueling your body to use carbs.

Be careful of the gimmick diet foods out there. I will be sharing at some point what I eat and drink in a day which is pretty simple and easy to track. I usually eat just one meal a day. I might have a handful of peanuts or cashews, but I stay away from a lot of gimmick stuff.

My brother just posted something about Carbe Diem – a low carb pasta. Going to try that. One serving is 16g of net carbs for 2 oz, and my serving would probably be 2 of them. So maybe I have this on a day where I want to lift hard for an hour, and start lifting 1 hour after this meal. So I can eat those 32g of net carbs, with sauce, and meat. And parmesan cheese. That may take me to 45g. Maybe after I get done working out, I have a banana and a protein shake. That’s another 24g of carbs. But your body uses 130g of carbs to make glucose for your brain. Some of the protein from the pasta might be converted to glucose and refill your glycogen stores. I may also choose to go on a 20-40 minute walk AFTER I eat to help digest a little, reduce any form of insulin spike, and warm up for the lifting. This is how you eat carbs that are higher in count. The protein eaten will then be sent to your muscles using that insulin spike of the banana. In this case, I am triggering a little spike so I can feed my muscles and glycogen stores. \