Low Carb Food Diary: Keto Meals & Simple Snack Ideas

There’s a lot of helpful information in this Keto Challenge Q&A post including what to eat, how much water to drink, what NOT to worry about & more…

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Happy Spring! 🌸

It seems like it’s been a long winter, doesn’t it? I absolutely LOVE spring when it starts warming up and everything starts blooming…

Spring inspires me to start my home workouts back up, get back to hiking, and get back in great shape!

Besides, it won’t be long now before we’ll be wanting to wear shorts and tank tops. Motivation indeed! 😉

Here’s a quick photo tour of what I’ve been eating over the last week, since the last daily keto food diary I shared with you…

I mentioned in my last food diary that I was going to make a roasted broccoli slaw (cold) salad, but I didn’t end up doing that.

I sauteed the broccoli slaw in butter and topped it with two seasoned hamburger patties for a quick low carb dinner.

This is the broccoli slaw I used. It’s 2 net carbs per serving, and you can find it in the produce section of the grocery store. I’ve always found it consistently at Wal-Mart and Kroger stores, but I’m sure other stores carry it too.

It’s great to saute in butter for a quick keto side dish, but it’s also great as a cold salad by adding a full fat dressing. I imagine it would be great with mayo and diced shrimp even for a cold seafood salad. 😉

There were four hamburger patties in the pack so for my next meal I seasoned & fried the burgers, topped them with colby jack cheese, and had those over the rest of the buttery broccoli slaw.

For snacks, I keep it really simple – usually nuts and cheese for a quick grab.

I don’t actually snack much but sometimes I only eat two good meals in a day and have a healthy snack to power through the afternoon in between.

Usually it’s just pecans or macadamia nuts, and just one serving weighed out on my little kitchen scale, with colby jack cheese sliced off the block. Simple! 😉

If you don’t have a kitchen scale yet, I highly recommend it!

Another quickie I like is cream cheese and almond butter – or peanut butter. They go so well together, like peanut butter pie. 🙂

It’s even better if you add a few raspberries or blueberries and chopped nuts or low carb cookie clusters of course. But sometimes I just go for quick & simple – especially on busy work days.

Speaking of quick & easy…

I was out one morning and grabbed a low carb breakfast plate from Burger King. They have their 2-for-$4 special so I ordered two sausage, egg & cheese (without the biscuit or croissant).

It’s only 1 carb each for these, so 2 carbs total (even with the cheese) – but it’s not my favorite low carb fast food. More like “it’ll do in a pinch.” I prefer the sausage and round eggs from McDonald’s for sure. 😉

I was on the road three different days last week taking my neighbor to appointments in the city for minor surgical procedures, which is a 3 hour round trip each time from where we live – just drive time, not including the appointments & such.

Of course I took that opportunity (being in the city) to grab my favorite Starbucks iced coffee two of those days. 🙂

This is the Starbucks order I recently keto tested. 😉

We left out super early all three days so I just kept FBOMB nut butter packets in my bag and had those on the road. These are SO convenient – very compact, and “real food” with super simple ingredients.

Use code LOWCARBTRAVELER for a discount on your FBOMB order.

I didn’t really eat much on the road those three days until dinner, but the FBOMB nut butters hold me over surprisingly well – like a quick & easy keto meal replacement even. That plus the heavy cream in the Starbucks. 😉

Beautiful Keto Restaurant Meal on Sunday

I had an early dinner at Legends Steakhouse in Smyrna TN on Sunday that was absolutely fabulous. They have a nice salad bar there too so I made a plate of finger foods from the salad bar while I was waiting on my dinner.

I got fresh baby spinach, raw mushrooms, shredded cheese, green olives and diced cucumbers. I dipped the spinach in a bit of ranch too – and cleaned this plate. 🙂

For my entree I ordered the 10oz ribeye with steamed asparagus.

I love simple plain foods with just a dash of salt!

I ate half the ribeye and brought the other half plus the asparagus home to finish the next day. Half the ribeye plus that salad had me satisfied. 😉

They had plenty of great options on the menu. Here’s my friend’s plate for example: grilled salmon & shrimp with cajun seasoning and steamed broccoli. I have no idea what’s in the cup but he didn’t eat it.

You can get the salmon & shrimp just plain too, without the spices/seasoning or without the glaze on the other salmon dish on their menu. I find it’s usually no problem at all to order your food without all the extras (spices, sauces, glazes, etc).

I had another one of my favorite Starbucks iced coffees on the way home too. Like I mentioned in this post, I usually only drink maybe half of it, then save the other half for the next morning.

Here’s my MyFitnessPal log for Sunday…

I was out all day again until that early dinner at Legends Steakhouse, so I just grabbed a peanut butter cookie I’d made with Good Dee’s Low Carb Mixes on my way out the door.

I didn’t eat much – or even enough – that day. I’ve mentioned a few times I haven’t had much of an appetite lately, so I’m thinking starting back up with my workouts might be a good solution for that. 😉

 

On Monday I had the rest of my steak and the steamed asparagus leftover from my dinner at Legends Steakhouse. Not sexy in this picture lol, but it was delicious!

Then I made the keto biscuits & gravy recipe from the Southern Keto Cookbook by Natasha Newton that evening, and had a serving of that for dinner.

It was another low appetite day but I did get 1,324 calories and 17 net carbs.

Tuesday’s Low Carb Meals

Tuesday started at 4:30am and the day ran long, so while I still didn’t have much of an appetite – I managed to get plenty of food in.

The “less than 900 calories” on Sunday bothered me, so I made it a point. 😛

I’m a big believer in “eat when you’re hungry and don’t eat when you’re NOT.” But I know my lack of appetite lately (or my lack of desire to eat, even when I *am* hungry) is attached to stress/mood and I have a history of either overeating or NOT eating when I’m upset – which is something I don’t want to let get out of hand.

That’s one of the reasons I did a little meal prep on Sunday evening, including the full recipe of keto biscuits & gravy – so I would have plenty of meals on hand, ready to eat.

So that’s what I had for breakfast Tuesday morning… (YUM!)

I had to get on the road around lunch, and I was in a rush (as usual! lol) so I grabbed a Macadamia Coconut Fat Bomb and had that on the way.

coupon code: LOWCARBTRAVELER

I love those SO much. After a big breakfast, that was the perfect “quickie” to keep me satisfied until dinner!

Keto Takeout For Dinner

Nothing really sounded good and I’d had a super long day, so for dinner I got take-out that I knew would be good as leftovers if I didn’t finish it.

I ordered grilled chicken with roasted broccoli & cauliflower from the local Gondola Pizza & Steakhouse.

I ate one chicken breast and about half the veggies and picked at the side salad I ordered with it. Meaning: I picked all the good stuff out and dipped it in ranch. 🙂

That wasn’t really a lot of food, maybe around 300 calories including the few salad bites, so later that night I made a yummy snack bowl when I got hungry again.

It’s two Double Chocolate FatSnax Cookies (their newest flavor and my favorite) layered with cream cheese and drizzled with Macadamia Sea Salt nut butter. Not too sweet, but a perfectly delicious TREAT. 😍

Here’s how I logged my meals on Tuesday:

I don’t sweat it if I go over my “20 net carbs max” by a bit some days, given most days I’m under that. Plus it was nice to FEEL like eating that day, so it seemed best to just go with it. 😉

How To Get Net Carbs In MyFitnessPal (Free)

Keto Macros & Tracking Made Simple

Do you use MyFitnessPal too?

This week I hit a fun milestone in MFP: 1200 consecutive days of meals logged! Regardless which app or method you use, I do find tracking really helps me with mindful eating.

I log my meals before I make, order or eat them. That makes it easy to stick to the portions I logged, because I can’t be bothered to go back and edit it (lol). Plus it really helps me stick to my goals!

 

While I was doing a bit of meal prep Sunday night I also made a blueberry egg loaf. I put it away to fry up like “french toast” so that’s in the refrigerator to enjoy this week along with what’s left of the biscuits and gravy, since I made the whole recipe.

Oh, and on top of it being the first day of Spring yesterday… I found out it was also a special day for Lolli’s Low Carb Cookie Clusters. Sherry celebrated her “one year in business” anniversary!

I’m really excited for her, that’s a FUN milestone – and her keto friendly cookie clusters have been a BIG hit with everyone I know. 🙂

I love to eat her low carb cookie clusters as cereal with unsweetened almond or macadamia milk. My two favorite flavors are Cinnamon Pecan and Peanut Butter Macadamia – but as a cereal, after trying both, I definitely like the Cinnamon Pecan BEST for cereal.

It’s even better when you throw in some raspberries or blueberries! ❤

The Peanut Butter Macadamia cookie clusters are still my personal favorite as a snack, or in fun no-bake dessert combinations like this one:

That’s macadamia coconut butter & cream cheese w/blueberries. Yum!

She has a 10% off discount for you. Use coupon code LOWCARBTRAVELER at https://lollisclusters.com for a discount at checkout! 

When Things Get Tough…

I personally called this “the collage of bad pictures of me” lol. They were taken on Sunday and I wasn’t feeling great, but I doubt anyone could tell that just by looking at the pictures. (I can, though.)

There isn’t always a solution to problems you might be having. There’s certainly no food that’s going to solve a problem. 😉 But there ARE things you can do to get out of a funk or lift your mood – or just FEEL BETTER when things aren’t going so great…

 

Eating off plan (ie junk food) would just make me feel WORSE so I’m being mindful of what I eat. Exercise and sunshine always help of course, even if it’s just a 15 minute break in the afternoon soon or a quick walk when you can squeeze it in. But I’m aiming to get back to my FUN hikes & home workouts (too). 😉

Other things that really help me are 1) shutting everything down and just watching a good movie, and 2) rearranging rooms or organizing & cleaning. There’s nothing like rearranging & organizing my office, or cleaning the entire basement floor, to work out a mind full of “there’s nothing you can do about it” kinda stuff. 😛

Anyway, I hope that gives you some meal & snack ideas to consider when you need something different to try. Even my restaurant meals are good inspiration for something different you could make at home.

When it comes to restaurant meals though, I always like to consider what will make good leftovers – and often get two meals out of one. Especially if I add a salad, because restaurants serve such big portions!

Funny, I used to could eat an entire plate PLUS the salad and something before and after lol. Being in ketosis is a natural appetite suppressant though, so you’ve probably discovered you eat WAY less now too, yes?

How are things going with you?

Leave a comment and let’s chat!:)

Best,
Lynn Terry,
aka @LowCarbTraveler

 

 

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