Keto Diet Hacks: 200 Shortcuts to Make the Keto Diet Fit Your Lifestyle

INTRODUCTION

It’s time to harness the amazing power of keto!

You have likely heard of keto before, maybe through a friend’s weight loss journey, or on a health blog. But what is it, exactly? The keto, or ketogenic, diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet designed to put your body in a state called ketosis, where it becomes extremely efficient at burning fat for energy. The keto diet has tons of benefits for your health, including weight loss, reduced blood sugar and insulin levels, lower blood pressure, better mood, and improved concentration.

Of course, adjusting to a low-carb diet can be difficult at first, but Keto Diet Hacks will help make the transition easy. Each hack that follows will guide you in creating and sticking to a keto diet plan that works for you, so you can reap all the benefits! Organized into topics such as eating on the go and optimizing weight loss, you’ll discover hacks for every situation, from how to successfully navigate a fast-food menu to how to satisfy a sugar craving without letting it throw your diet off the rails. You’ll even learn how to make keto work for you when you’re out with friends and just want to let loose a little bit.

Whether you’ve been eating keto for a while and are looking for more meal ideas or tips for sticking to it, or are dipping your feet into a low-carb lifestyle for the first time, this book is here to help you feel good for years to come!

Chapter One

MEAL PLANNING AND PREPPING

If you’ve ever followed any type of diet plan, you know that it’s practically impossible to wing it. No matter what your dietary needs or preferences are, the more prepared you are, the greater your chances of success will be. In the following chapter, you’ll discover easy hacks for planning and prepping your keto meals each week. These hacks aren’t only limited to strategies that you’d see with typical meal prepping either; they go beyond that to provide multiple different ways that you can plan ahead to help make your keto life easier.

#1

STOCK YOUR KITCHEN WITH THE NECESSARY TOOLS

Stocking your kitchen with all the tools you’ll need to prepare your keto meals and snacks will save tremendous time and effort. You might have to invest a little money up front, but if you take care of your tools, they can last for years. You may also be able to get things like a food processor, vegetable spiralizer, and pressure cooker on sale.

So, what are the necessary kitchen tools? Although this can ultimately depend on your food preferences and what you like to cook, there are some basic kitchen gadgets that will get you started. Once your kitchen is stocked with these essentials, you can work on adding more items as you need or want them.

The basic kitchen tools:

Large skillet

Chef’s knife

Measuring cups and spoons

Food processor or high-quality blender

Slow cooker

Vegetable spiralizer

Parchment paper

Storage containers

Mixing bowls

Baking pans and trays

Muffin tin(s)

Spatulas

Freezer bags

Things that can make your life easier, but aren’t totally necessary:

Pressure cooker

Mandoline slicer

Silicone baking mats and molds

Waffle maker

Immersion blender

Ice cream maker

#2

FILL YOUR PANTRY WITH THE ESSENTIALS

Make sure you have everything you will need to make delicious keto recipes without a trip (or three) to the store. To be clear, you can successfully pull off a healthy, balanced keto diet with minimal ingredients, like meats, vegetables, fats and oils, and some spices. But if you want to make things like keto pancakes and waffles or keto desserts, or create a delicious keto breading, you’ll need to expand your pantry supplies a bit.

Fortunately, you’ll be able to pull off a lot of keto recipes with the same basic pantry ingredients, so once you stock up with these essentials, all you’ll have to do is refill them as you run out.

Some of the most-used keto pantry ingredients are:

Almond flour

Coconut flour

Nut butters (almond, peanut)

Oils (avocado, olive, coconut) and ghee

Low-sugar sweeteners (erythritol, stevia)

Spices

Baking soda and baking powder

Chia seeds

Flaxseeds

Pork rinds

Unsweetened shredded coconut

Aside from these staple ingredients you will use to make keto baked goods and treats, there are some other pantry essentials that can make your life much easier. These additional items are:

Canned tuna/salmon

Beef sticks

No-sugar-added ketchup

Mayonnaise

Buffalo sauce

#3

WRITE OUT A WEEKLY CALENDAR

When you write out your entire week’s worth of meals, you take the guesswork and unknowns out of your meals and start each week armed with a plan. But it’s not just about convenience: Studies show that meal planning is associated with more food variety, better diet quality, and a healthier body weight. That’s because when you can see a template of all the meals you plan to eat in the week, you tend to include more variety in your choices and less junk food. You’ll also know exactly how many net carbs you’ll be eating that week and where there may be a little wiggle room.

While planning out a weekly meal prep calendar does take some time and patience, the more you do it, the faster it will go, especially if you stick to similar meal templates each week or month. For example, you could come up with four separate weekly calendars and rotate through them every four weeks. If you need more variety, come up with eight or twelve or however many you desire. The point is to put in the extra time up front so you know exactly what you’re doing and when.

Of course, there may be times when you eat off plan, like if you have an unexpected dinner date or your coworker brings you a keto-friendly lunch, but for the most part, having a plan will keep you on track.

#4

SCHEDULE A SPECIFIC DAY FOR MEAL PLANNING AND PREPPING

Set aside a specific day, or a couple of days, each week for meal planning and prepping. While you can certainly do a little bit whenever you have the extra time, this can get old quickly. Prepping here and there, and constantly having to clean up after yourself, takes up way more time than dedicating a specific chunk of time to meal planning and prepping.

A common trend for meal prepping is to do it on Sundays, but it’s up to you! Pick a day that works best for you and set aside about two or three hours to get everything done. Of course, the day doesn’t have to be set in stone: You can switch it up and pick a different day each week if your schedule isn’t consistent.

#5

SHOP AND MEAL PREP ON THE SAME DAY

You might think the best approach is to split grocery shopping and meal prepping/cooking into two separate days, but when you do this, you actually add a separate step: putting the groceries away. While you can certainly leave nonperishable items, like canned goods or jarred sauces, out on the counter until you’re ready to start your prepping, you’ll have to put perishable items away in the refrigerator or freezer until then.

To save yourself time and energy, plan to grocery shop and meal prep on the same day. That way, as soon as you get home from shopping, you can start prepping and cooking instead of needing to put any groceries away, figuring out how you’re going to fit them all in your refrigerator or freezer. You’ll end up with at least a week’s worth of meals without having to shop or cook again for another seven days!

#6

STICK TO THE BASICS

Part of the fun of keto is finding new recipes and new ways to re-create your favorite non-keto dishes so they fit into your new lifestyle. But after a while, the novelty of making complicated recipes with lots of different ingredients can wear off. If you don’t find a way to simplify things, your chances of throwing in the towel increase exponentially.

While you can include some fancy recipes in your weekly or monthly rotation, keep most of your meals as simple as possible. For example, you can throw a bunch of steaks, chicken thighs, and fish on the grill and some trays of fresh vegetables drizzled with olive oil in the oven and have your entire meal prep done in a couple of hours.

A basic keto meal template consists of protein, healthy fats, and some fiber-rich vegetables—that’s really all you need for most of your meals. Save the more elaborate recipes for when guests come over or when you’re really craving a specific dish. Some choices to get you started include:

Protein: chicken, beef, fish, pork

Fat: olive oil, olives, grass-fed butter, ghee, coconut oil, avocado

Vegetables: zucchini, spinach, broccoli, asparagus, leafy greens

#7

PUT YOUR PHONE ON AIRPLANE MODE AND SET A TIMER

The phone is a huge distraction. If you’re stopping every few minutes to answer a text or check an Instagram notification, two to three hours of meal prep can quickly turn into an entire day. When you go into the kitchen to start meal prepping, set your timer for two or three hours, put your phone on airplane mode so you’re not tempted to check it when it dings, and get to work.

Bonus points if you not only turn your phone on airplane mode, but you leave it in another room entirely. Studies show that even if your phone is turned off, simply having it in the same room can decrease cognitive performance and your brain’s ability to focus on a specific task—a phenomenon referred to as a brain drain.

You’ll be surprised at how much you can get done in a short amount of time when you’re fully focused on the task at hand. When your timer goes off, you can take a break and check in with your phone and then get back to work or call it quits for the day, whatever fits best into your meal prepping plan.

#8

CREATE A LIST OF YOUR FAVORITE GO-TO RECIPES

While they do say that variety is the spice of life, that is not always the best approach when it comes to meal prepping and planning. If you incorporate too much variety or complicated recipes, it can get confusing and take more time and money, discouraging you from sticking with the keto lifestyle. As you get into the keto groove, you’ll notice that you start regularly gravitating toward specific recipes. Instead of just making a mental note of which recipes you like best, make an actual note. Better yet, print the recipes out (or make copies of them if they’re in a book) and put them all in one easily accessible place, like a three-ring binder. You can make notes on each recipe about any changes you’ve made and the best ways to prepare and reheat it. This will serve as your go-to keto recipe handbook.

If you do this regularly, you’ll eventually have dozens of recipes that you know you love and can go back to again and again. You’ll also have a source of recipes that you know work well and come together every time. And since keto ingredients can be costly, you’ll avoid having to experiment all the time and risk throwing out a failed dish, saving yourself a ton of money.

#9

BUY PRE-SLICED OR RICED

It may be more cost effective to buy whole vegetables and prepare them yourself, but buying riced cauliflower or pre-spiralized zucchini noodles can save you tons of time during meal prep. While these types of specialty items used to be nearly impossible to find, they’re available practically everywhere now. Many major food companies offer frozen riced cauliflower and riced broccoli that you can find in your local grocery store’s freezer section, right next to the regular frozen vegetables. Trader Joe’s also offers refrigerated riced cauliflower and broccoli that you can use right away. More and more grocery stores are jumping on board and offering pre-spiralized vegetables, like zucchini and beets, in the produce section.

Keep in mind that pre-prepped vegetables usually expire faster than whole vegetables, so if you’re going this route, make sure you plan to use them up as soon as possible. If you’re shopping a week or two in advance, it might be better to buy vegetables in their whole forms and cut them closer to when you’ll be using them.

#10

CLEAN THE KITCHEN FIRST

Never underestimate the power of a clean kitchen! Studies show that having a clean workspace can increase productivity, allow you to concentrate on the task at hand, and help reduce stress. On the other hand, a dirty or cluttered space makes it more likely that you’ll overeat. That could mean picking at meals as you make them or snacking on something totally separate as you work.

Since meal prepping and cooking generally take a few hours, the best approach is to make sure your kitchen is clean and ready to go the night before you plan to do your prepping and cooking. You’ll cut down on time, and it will feel so much better to work in a clean space without having to fight through clutter.

#11

MULTITASK

Normally when you cook, you follow a recipe step-by-step, but when you’re meal prepping, multitasking can save you hours. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to simultaneously cook three different recipes—but you can do your prep work at the same time. For example, if you’re cooking five recipes, and among them you need three peeled-and-diced onions, peel and dice the onions all at once and set them aside. If you need 6 cups of riced cauliflower among three meals and you’re making it from whole cauliflower