What is the keto diet, how do I create and follow a keto diet plan and how do I make a 1-day keto meal plan? This and delicious keto recipes all in one post.
What the heck is a Keto Diet Plan?
Let’s start by explaining what the keto diet is first, shall we?
The keto diet is a very low carb and high fat diet. You avoid carbs and replace carb calorie intake by fat calorie intake so the body produces ketones in the liver to be used as energy. Burning fat for energy burns body fat.
It can be referred to as ketogenic diet, or short: keto diet, low carb diet or low carb high fat diet (LCHF). To read more about this diet and get in depth information check out this keto diet info website. You’ll find tons of information and resources there.
Now to get to the Keto Diet Plan, you need to follow a very strict nutrition plan for this diet. Therefore, you’re best off having a precise keto diet plan. A keto meal plan either for the day or dinners of the week for example and accommodate the rest of your meals around those dinners.
I believe 1-day keto meal plans with delicious keto recipes prepared either one day ahead or right that moment following your keto diet plan are the easiest way to follow this diet.
1-Day Keto Meal Plan
The hardest about adopting a new way of eating is sticking to your goals. Meal planning is the number 1 thing that will keep you on track. That will make you reach your goal.
If all you have to do is grab your breakfast and grab your lunch and grab your dinner, how likely do you think you are to change your mind and go prepare or buy something else to eat?
You want to give the Keto Diet a try? Make a Keto Meal Plan that keeps you excited to stick with your goal. Plan a day at a time or a week at a time. Your choice. But plan!
Choose a Keto Meal Plan that is easy to execute, in your budget, and pleasing to your taste spuds. You won’t be able to follow a keto diet if you have only recipes on your list that take about 3 hours to prepare each. Recipes that cost a fortune. Or recipes that need to be swallowed with your eyes closed and pinching your nose.
The first thing you need to do for your Keto Meal Plan is calculate your macros. Everybody is different. We are all of different shapes and sizes and not only our dietary but also our nutritional needs should always be adjusted to OUR body!
A healthy keto breakfast as for a complete keto diet plan – unsweetened full fat greek yogurt topped with raspberries and sliced almonds.
Keto Calculator
For me as a 5’7″ (170cm) tall 122lbs (55kg) heavy 34-year old woman that is very lightly active throughout the day I’m supposed to eat about 1435 calories, from which 116g should be fat, 20g net carbs, and 78g protein in one day.
In this keto diet plan here I’m adding keto recipes that get me exactly to that goal. You might have to adjust your macros depending on your gender, height, weight and daily activity. Use this calculator to find out specifically what you need to be eating:
Defining Net Carbs
Net carbs are total carbs minus fiber!
This is suuuuper important because 20g of carbs are suuuper little and all vegetables have carbs because they have fiber. You need vegetables for vitamin intake and you need fiber for proper digestion.
If you consider overall carbs for your calculations you end up eating only protein and fat and that’s not healthy at all.
There are vegetables that are high in carbs and others low in carbs. The keto diet recommends sticking to the ones low on carbs but encourages you to eat a lot of them. Best vegetables are all green ones to make it easy. And vegetables that grow above the ground (e.g. lettuce) are always better than the ones that grow below the ground (e.g. potatoes)
It’s always good to eat a lot of vegetables, no matter what diet.
Fruits are rather limited in this diet because of their sugar (fructose) content and rather higher carb content. Fruits are healthy but vegetables are way more important in any diet.
If you love fruits stick to low-carb fruits like raspberries and strawberries.
A healthy keto lunch as part of a complete keto diet plan – chicken curry made with coconut oil and full fat coconut milk, topped with sesame seeds and baby spinach on the side.
Keto Diet the Healthiest Diet?
Is this the best diet for me if I want to be healthy? Short answer: Maybe.
Long answer: This depends on your health situation, your metabolism, your cultural understanding and upbringing, your personality, your goals, your current diet.
Who might not benefit from the keto diet?
Before starting ANY new diet it is always advisable to talk to your physician and/or nutritionist to see if the diet you choose to follow is safe for you.
From my research this diet is not appropriate for people with kidney disease; liver, pancreatic or kidney conditions; people with blood sugar issues such as diabetes; pregnant or nursing woman; and people suffering or recovering from an eating disorder.
Your metabolism might not be able to stomach the high fat content and requires complex carbohydrates such as whole grain rice or legumes to encourage healthy digestion.
Your diet when you were a child and how your culture understands nutrition might have a strong impact on wether you can implement this diet into your daily life. It’s hard to go agains everything you knew and everybody else knows and follows.
Which leads us to your personality. You need to be VERY strong willed to follow this diet. It follows very strict rules and you need to be able to commit to this. It makes it hard to eat out with friends or eat with friends in general. It’s hard to find food that fits this diet in common restaurants, but and this takes us to the next point, your health goals might be more important.
Who might benefit most from the keto diet?
If you are on what many people refer to as Standard American Diet, you most likely are much better off following a keto diet plan, regardless of any of the points above.
Eating extremely high processed foods is never a healthy option. If the keto diet helps you stay off highly processed foods and makes you feel healthy and strong and marvellous, YES it is the healthiest diet!
Make a keto diet plan and try it out. Write down the effect it has on your body and both physical and mental health and find out for YOURSELF if this is the best and healthiest diet for YOUR body.
If you’re not sure after your initial test, explore other healthy diets such as clean eating and always have in mind that your number 1 goal should be to avoid overly processed foods (keeping this definition fairly broad of course, as we live in the 21st century and have to adapt to modern age as well, where hardly any of us have time to spend 12 hours a day evolving around food production, gathering and cooking).
A healthy keto dinner as part of a complete keto diet plan- butter lettuce, avocado, hemp seed salad with mayonnaise, a soft boiled egg and cherry tomatoes.
Keto Diet Plan
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup raspberries
- 1.5 Tbsp sliced almonds
- 2 Tbsp coconut oil
- 1 clove garlic
- 1.5 Tbsp yellow curry
- 1/3 cup full fat coconut milk
- 180 g chicken breast
- 80 g baby spinach
- 1 Tbsp fish sauce
- 1 tsp sesame seeds
- 70 g butter lettuce
- 1/2 avocado
- 8-10 cherry tomatos
- 1 egg
- 2 Tbsp hemp seeds
- 2 Tbsp homemade mayonnaise
- sea salt
- pepper
Instructions
- Breakfast: add yogurt to a bowl, top with raspberries and sliced almonds.
- Lunch: pat dry chicken and cut into cubes. Lightly (!) salt and pepper. Heat a skillet over medium heat, once hot add coconut oil and fry chicken cubes until brown from all sides. Remove chicken, and add crushed garlic, curry paste and fish sauce to pan. Stir until fragrant and remaining oil in pan and curry paste are well combined. Then add coconut milk and whisk until well combined. Simmer and reduce sauce until desired consistency (1-3 minutes). Pour sauce over chicken and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Serve with baby spinach.
- Dinner: In a small sauce pan bring 2-3 cups of water to the boil. Cook a large egg in rolling boil for 5 minutes, then transfer to ice bath (a bowl with cold water and ice cubes in it). Wash and spin dry butter lettuce, top with sliced avocado and hemp seed. Serve soft boiled egg with cherry tomatoes, butter lettuce salad and mayonnaise as dressing.
Nutrition
* this post contains affiliate links and I might earn a small commission at no added cost to you if you purchase the product.
The Ultimate Low-Carb Stir-Fry
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Carrie teegarden says
I am trying to lose weight , I weigh 292 and I want to get down to 190 and I don’t drive so it’s hard to go to the gym to work out and its to cold to walk outside and its hard to know what to eat and what not your eat
Lorena says
Carrie, I highly recommend a support group. I personally know a woman “Amanda Rose” who recently lost half her body weight through the Keto Diet and intermittent fasting. You should totally join her Facebook Group. It’s called “Eat Like a Bear” and you can find it by entering the group’s name in the Facebook search bar. She is so amazing and so supportive for people struggling to lose the weight.
Jenny says
Hi, there are lots of videos on youtube you could look into to start getting some exercise at home. I do not drive either and I love using youtube to get my exercise in!! You can do a search for workouts at home for beginners!!
Kim Warner says
Search menus online through keto groups. There are thousands so just google them. Youtube also has free workout videos for people of all fitness levels.
Grace says
hi. made a new friend yesterday called Roose who is touring kenya n looking at the keto it looks healthy n great.
Carol says
Hi , I’ve been reading lots on Keto diets and meal plans I would love to know more I already fast , I do workout and I’ve got to say I get some inspirational ideas off Instagram would love more information and advise x
Lorena says
Hi Carol, I am by no means an expert but I am working on a Keto Meal Plan as we speak. It’s a lot of work because I am doing a lot of research reading first to make sure I’m doing this right. I’m also testing, testing, testing recipes to make sure they all work. It will take months though before I can publish it. So stay tuned :)
Sam says
Hi, what do u think if reduce the fat in keto diet, in other world what would be the effect of low fat keto diet? This mich fat sounds scary. Thnx
Lorena says
Hi Sam, it won’t work. You will be incredibly hungry and you won’t have any energy. The idea of the keto diet is to get your body used to use fat to burn energy not carbs. Since you won’t be eating carbs energy has to come from “something” and it can’t be protein. I can’t recall what happens when you have too much protein when doing Keto but it was something scary. In general, I do not recommend the Keto diet without some sort of supervision by your doctor or nutritionist that can watch your process and progress.
Roy Walker says
Ketogenic diet is high fat moderate protein and low carb, use fats that you great grandmother would have used, such as animal fats olive oil, and coconut oil, not modern seed oils. eat whole eggs, the high fat ground meat, any fatty cuts of meat, and fatty fish, chicken thighs. Eat green vegetables, salads, brassicas. Cheers.
Danielle says
This is great! I’m having a hard time finding simple, clean keto recipes online. Everything is gooey, cheesy, and creamy. Do you have any more? Thanks!
Lorena says
Hi Danielle, yes, most Keto Recipes I’ve seen on social media don’t look very appealing to me either. I have a Keto Breakfast Casserole and a Green Smoothie on the blog you can use the search bar in the menu, just enter “keto” and they’ll all appear. I am also working on a 21-Day Keto Challenge e-book at the moment. If you’re interested in being notified when it’s ready I recommend signing up for my newsletter, safest way to not miss it.
Rosemarie Mullenix says
Very informative,direct to the point and good eating recipes Thank you! Rosemarie Mullenix
Lorena says
You are so very welcome :)
Keto Diet says
Greate post
Christina says
Hi Lorena, i love your post its so easy to follow. I have started my own keto blog and would like to share some recipes with you to post on your site that i found to be delicious!
Would you be ok with me sharing? :)
Lorena says
Hi Christina, thank you for your lovely comment. I don’t accept guest posts on my blog at this point. All the very best for you blog and your business though. I’m sure it will do really well. Lot’s of people need Keto recipes. You will be an inspiration for them.
christine says
Hello!
do you recommend the keto diet for type 2 diabetics?
Lorena says
Hi Christine, I’m not a doctor or nutritionist so I can’t recommend any diets for any kind of health issues I’m afraid. I highly recommend talking to a health professional AND nutritionist with experience treating people with type 2 diabetis.
Sloane says
Hey there,
The containers you have in your pictures look like they might be ones with lids (i.e. travel containers) would you be willing to tell me what kind you used?
Lorena says
Hi Sloane, yes of course! They are reusable and recyclable natural fiber bento boxes and you can find them here: https://amzn.to/2SGwSOU (this is an affiliate link and I might earn a small commission if you buy the box through that link, at no extra cost to you).
Sharla says
When do you use the fish sauce?
Lorena says
Hi Sharla, sorry, didn’t realize I forgot to add that info in the instructions. Just updated the recipe card. You add it at the same time as garlic and curry paste :)
Sharla says
Oh no worries!!! That’s what I did and it’s delicious! Thank you for all your help!!
Elizabeth says
Love the simplicity! Following you from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Elizabeth
Lorena says
YAY!!!! I love that I’m reaching people from all over the world!!!
Sharon says
Greatly appreciate your input, am new to keto and looking for ideas/recipes.
Lorena says
You are very welcome :)
Laura Jason says
Thank you for the info. I’ve been looking for practical advice like this for ages as I really want to do Keto and stick to vegan food only.
April says
what a timely post – definitely looking for a healthier eating plan after christmas. the holidays always kick my butt. thanks! <3
Lorena says
Wonderful April. New year, new life!!!
Kristen Chidsey says
I have bookmarked this to share with my friends who ask about Keto. Such an informative post.
And meal planning is key for any healthy diet!
Lorena says
Thank you so much for sharing with your friends Kristen. My goal is to help as many people as possible finding the best diet for them :)