Let’s Prepare for THE KETO Journey!!

I am a full time mother, wife and a food blogger who is trying to make it big.
Sadly, with food blogging; comes the massive amount of fat storage and chubby body to deal with.

My husband like I, is a foodoholic hence I love cooking. But he prefers oil free foods.

I was in need of some awesome foods(those cheese bursting pizzas, cheese loaded burgers. Crispy fries) for my food blog to take it up a notch. I wanted to feed my husband the good quality of oils and foods. Blog aside, a part of me also wanted my body to go slim and smart, like of those models.
Andddddd. I wanted to learn new techniques to improve my food along with it’s photography.

There was to much to achieve, to less time to handle it all.

Until I came across something that lead me to a complete bullseye mission
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The KETO Diet.

KETO diet is a fantastic diet if you wish to loose weight and improve the over all health of your body. I had plenty of recipes related to it to experiment on , making my blog bloom to a new level. I was beginning to achieve my target of a great body too.
However it’s the most toughest diet if you don’t plan your meals ahead. And when your better half is in NO OIL ZONE.

That’s what went wrong with me for a whole month on KETO. I was so busy in taking images of my first food in the KETO week that I almost didn’t had time to prepare meals for my husband on time or even if I did made him his meal, I for sure felt tired and used to cheat due to no strategy.

I begun to eat wrong types of fats, as well as increasing my proteins or I was unAble to count them on time. I noticed that I had few oil free options for my husband’s food.

I was just not getting even a single task done correctly. My weight increased despite being on a KETO diet.
It started to take a troll as everything was getting out of my hands.

I figured I had to formulate a plan.

I have to figure out how to take time out for my food photography, staying hydrated, making a complete meal plan for myself which can also work for my husband( if I remove the oil). Decreasing the cooking/ prepping time so that I can be on time. Feeding my four year old before he starts to whine and scream out of hunger.


In the coming steps I will explain you keto diet. However if you are on this project for meal preparation tips tricks you may jump to step 3

Ziplocks... gallon size ( a few)
250 ml size ( 50 pieces)
Keto allowed vegetables
Nuts allowed on KETO
KETO allowed non veg meats
KETO allowed veg meats
KETO calculator
Macros calculator (My fitness pal app)

For KETO diet you need
70-80% fats
20-25 % proteins
5 % carbs
Vitamins and minerals

Q) HOW WOULD ONE KNOW HOW MANY CALORIES DO THEY NEED?
Use the KETO calculator. ( search on google.)

Once you get your macros sorted according to the current weight. Download the calorie counter app ( e.g MyFitnessPal)

The first thing you need to do is to get yourself a print out of KETO allowed nuts, vegetables, meats fruits list.

Get a copy and a pencil.
Look carefully what do you like If you want this diet to work out for you in the long run.

Write down the favourite vegetables you can eat from the net carbs 1 option. ( spinach is the only one)
Write down the favourite vegetables you can eat from the net carbs 2 option ( you can choose 3-4 )
Write down the favourite vegetables you can eat from the net carbs 3 option. ( choose 2-3 )
And so on, making sure you decrease the number of vegetables you choose as the net carbs amount increases.

These are the vegetables you need to stock up,

Do the same with nuts, oils and meat.
In nuts choose ones with very less carbs, moderate proteins and high fat. E.g pecan, peanuts, macadamia, walnuts should be in your grocery list.

For the meat and non meat version. Pick what suits your life style.

Tip: Be easy on the budget. Make sure to add those foods more, which are affforable for you. E.g in India soy milk is affordable then the almond milk. Hence I choose soy milk.


For the husband.

Mark the foods which are husband friendly with a green marker. As well as include more food options for your husband e.g my husband don’t like red chili, as it’s not good for his health along with oil.

According to my body, I needed 1100 calories. 86 grams fat 20 gram carbs and 62 G protein
This was 70% 5% 25% ratio.

I took out my calorie count app and logged this new info.

After that I begun to plan my meals in my notebook
Writing down ingredients names only not the amount.( in images you can see the amount too because I took the picture once I selected the amount too) Making sure I was using the favourite allowed list foods more in my diet.
I wrote the ingredients of my favourite non KETO dishes in my copy under the dish names. Once my whole week breakfast lunch dinner were selected I begun logging the foods in my calorie app making sure it was starting Monday.

I had 14 dishes sorted out in total. Excluding breakfast and bullet coffee.
The reason I didn’t included them was so that I had tons of option for every day meal, and I can increase or decrease the fat intake in snacking according to my chosen dish. E.g if I needed to increase my fat/protein/carbs or decrease it according to my 14 meals.

Soo. For me I figured I needed to stock up following foods. ( the amount next to these foods describe how much I needed them according to my recipes) it includes hubby meals too.

Vegetables
Spinach (500 grams)
Mushrooms( 250grams)
Broccoli (250 grams)
Cauliflower (250 grams)
Tomatoes ( 100 grams)
Green chilies (100 grams)
Coriander
Turmerind


Meats

Chicken (1 kg)
Mutton mince (500 grams)
Beef chunks (500 grams)
Soy bean chunks (100 grams)
Paneer (200grams)

Fats

Olive oil
Butter
Ghee
Full cream
mozeralla and cheddar cheese

Lindt chocolate


I cut my vegetables in small portions. And zip locked them. So they stay fresh in freezer as most of them were seasonal and it is tough to buy them every day. So I kept a week supply according to my meals.

You can see I cut broccoli, cauliflower florets so I can easily measure them when I need.

I chopped the spring onions and spinach.

Sliced cheese in 20grams rectangles.

Froze the premade chutney of coriander and turmerind in small ice cubes tray of approx 10 gram each cube.

Divided.
Mutton mince in 100 grams on individual ziplocks. As well as dissected chicken pieces according to days.

This was the basic meal prep. So it took me 20-30 minutes to prepare my meal if I am Free or if I’m trying a new dish which has to be photographed.
Their were some of my favourite dishes which I figured were already KETO friendly So what I did was to make them in advance so I can simply heat them up.. I.e microwave them while I am working on hubby’s lunch or posting a meal’s image

So basically I make those meals *ahead* which do still taste scrumptious after being frozen.

I am going to give Recipes of a few in coming steps. Rest you can surely find on my blog..

ingredients
Olive oil for frying
Paneer 100 grams
Add following spices
Coriander powder
Cumin powder
Turmeric
Fenugreek
Black salt
Mint
Raw Mango powder
Salt
( I added 1gram Of each) you may add as much your macros allow.
Egg white 5 grams.
Onions 6-10 grams
Capsicum 10 grams
Peanuts 20-30 grams.


Mix the spices and egg white in the paneer and fry them up. Add vegetables ( chopped and freezed) at the very end and remove it to cool down. Add the meal to ziplock bag and freeze.
Don’t add roasted peanuts. Keep them stored in another ziplock. Mention the meal they are to be eaten with.

add Frozen vegetables as well as chicken according to how much you need each of (check macros)
I used spinach, mushrooms, capsicum, red bell pepper, and boiled chicken ( 100grams) which was left while I was making the chicken broth. Salt pepper or seasoning of your liking.. make sure not to add onion powder and garlic ginger powder to much.. or the store bought seasoning which has a lot of hidden carbs.
Mix them all. Stuff in cabbage leaves. Steam as shown. Enjoy with soya sauce and vinegar dressing. Making sure to add oil in your dressing for complete keto meal.


You can even freeze the the final product (minus the cabbage leaf)

This dish is husband friendly.

You can make this meal with an already cooked chicken leftover, or boiled chicken as well as raw marinated chicken.

If boiled , season it and pulse it in the blender to form a paste and form a patty out of it. Fry and serve with fried egg, lettuce, slice of tomato, cucumber and cheese. U may add bacon etc.


Served this with poached egg for my husband. We were eating same meal but different diets

You can make the pitta and freeze it

1. bake it in the oven with your toppings for pizza
2. Fill it with cashew chicken recipe for a tasty wrap.

You may freeze the cashew chicken recipe too.

I normally add the husband no allowed and my allowed foods at the very end so that I can get what I want without making same dish in two different pans

This is an excellent dish for both of us. I simply increase my cheese and oil for complete keto meal.

Freeze it and reheat it with aluminium foil on so that the moisture stays intact. Make sure to heat it up in convection oven ( don’t microwave)


One more thing which you may do is to cook the chicken breast and freeze it. And layer the cheese and spinach before eating and heat them up in the microwave covered

I love this dessert. And it’s very quick to make when I need a dessert pick me up.
You need
1 piece of Lindt 85 %
1 tsp olive oil
50-100 gram Chilled heavy cream ( according to macros)
Stevia drops

Warm up your chocolate in a microwave with the oil. Once melted add the stevia and heavy cream. Mix it and then whip it up.

It’s ready to eat.

So this is a dish which I make for myself along with my husband. It’s oil free and red spice free.

Pulse green chili, garlic and salt pepper in a blender.

Apply it on the chicken thighs with little bit of apple cider vinegar.

Steam it up or cook it on low flame with its own water / slow cooker. And grill it for the charcoal flavour.

Perfect for hubby as it’s oil free and perfect for me as I can drizzle olive oil on top with some spinach or cream etc

This post is already on my instructables and it’s an excellent dish for my husband as well as for me. And it’s freezer friendly

I believe that keto is an excellent diet plan if you think is through. And meal ahead is an excellent strategy to make it work