Plan Your Keto Meals In 3 Easy Steps

Many people find meal planning complicated, especially when planning keto meals. One of the reasons might be the lack of knowledge regarding which nutrients should be included. Another reason could be not knowing which products go together. Or, it could be not knowing where to start from.

Regardless of the reason, you need to learn how to plan your meals because the keto diet kind of requires you to cook your meals at home. It’s because rarely where you can find keto meals in restaurants and bars, except when buying things like a keto strawberry shake online. Although it sounds difficult, you can learn how to plan your keto meals. In fact, there are only 3 steps for successful meal planning. So, let’s have a look at them.

1. See What’s In The Fridge

Before you start planning your meals, in fact before starting your keto diet, you have probably bought many keto-friendly products. You might not have bought all of the suggested products found on the “Can Eat” lists, or resources like this blog https://www.drberg.com/blog online, but you certainly bought the main ones, such as eggs, meat, cheese, yoghurt, vegetables, berries, olive oil, and few others. So, start from there.

Before you even start planning what you are going to eat the following couple of days or week, check out what’s in the fridge and the kitchen. Who knows, you might find products you forgot you have from before. Then, write down all you have. This will serve you as a base for planning your meals

2. Know Which Nutrients You Should Include

As you already know, the keto diet is a high-fat low-carb diet. That means it focuses on eating products that are high in healthy fats, rich in proteins, and have a small number of carbs. But, that doesn’t mean anything if you don’t know which products have those nutrients in that ratio.

Therefore, the first thing to do is learn a bit about which products offer which macronutrients and in which amount. Moreover, you should know which products are sources of micronutrients, such as vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, folate acid, etc. Here are several main sources of fat, protein, and carbs to help you with meal planning.

• Sources of fat – avocados, eggs, butter, macadamia nuts, olive or coconut oil, beef tallow and fatty cuts of meat, full-fat dairies, heavy whippy cream, full-fat salad dressings and sauces.
• Sources of protein – eggs, chicken, beef, pork, sausage, fish, and cheese.
• Sources of carbs – vegetables such as spinach, zucchini, cauliflower, lettuce, mushrooms, cucumber, tomatoes, and celery. But you shouldn’t consume root vegetables, such as potatoes, corn, and carrots. Another source of carbs are fruits, such as berries, avocados, and other low-carb fruits.

The great news is that these products aren’t only rich in macronutrients but also in micronutrient. Therefore, you don’t have to write a separate list of products. Out of all these products, vegetables are probably the most vitamin and mineral-dense. So, eat as much as you want. Here’s a hint: in order to have easier meal planning, write down all sources of nutrients and put them on your fridge or somewhere in the kitchen where you can see them.

3.  Balance Your Food

Once you know which products are high in fat, low in carbs, and protein-dense, you can start the actual meal planning. When combining products, make sure you balance all nutrients across foods groups. That means that, although you should eat mostly fat (around 75% of your calorie intake), it shouldn’t come from the same 2 or 3 sources. For instance, you shouldn’t eat only chicken or beef to consume fat, but you can also include fish and other seafood, nuts, eggs, and butter. In that way, you will also ensure you consume different types of fats, including monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, saturated, and omega-3 fatty acids.

As you can see, meal planning can be easy. You just need to know where to start from, what to include, and how to combine different ingredients. However, if you can’t think of a combination or don’t have time to do that, you can always search for simple keto meals online. You can also use some apps and meal planners which make planning your meals a piece of cake.