A Beginner’s Guide to Ketogenic Eating

If you’re here then you’ve probably decided or are on the cusp of deciding to start your Ketogenic lifestyle. Below are some tips for Ketogenic eating for those who are interested in getting started using common grocery items at home.

What You Need

• Protein: Your daily maximum protein intake should be 0.6 to 1.0 gram of protein per lean body mass per day.
  • There are a number of ways you can figure out what your lean body mass is. The two easiest ways are (1) going to the gym and asking a personal trainer to measure you or (2) by purchasing a scale that can measure your lean body mass and fat mass. If you have no access and the investment in a fancy scale is pricey ask someone who does know and extrapolate away.
  • Eat fatty animal fats if possible e.g. lamb, pork.
  • I weigh 195 pounds (need to remind myself to update this in a month) and 150 of that is lean body mass.  Therefore I can have up to 150 grams of protein per day. That’s a hell of a lot of IN-N-OUT hamburger patties a day. Each patty is 13 g of protein.
• Carbs: The average person should be eating less than 50 grams of carbohydrates a day. And the source of those carbs should be in the form of vegetables that are packed nutritionally and have a low glycemic load.
  • Dark leafy green vegetables like kale and broccoli which are two of my favorites.
  • Absolutely avoid any vegetables that have a high glycemic load. You should Google “glycemic load of [vegetable]” and anything that is higher than 30 I would suggest avoiding.
  • Do not bother having just a little of something bad because as soon as your insulin spikes you are done.
• Fat: Purchase any of the great sources of fat below.You can use your protein and carb intake as a measure to determine how much fat you need. Because you might just be now getting started with a Ketogenic Diet adjust your fat intake as you need or feel comfortable with until it is greater than 70% of your food intake.
  • Organic Salted butter for use throughout the day (highly recommended)
  • Avocados or guacamole available for ease of consumption
  • Macadamia nuts
  • Absolutely no trans fat, sugar or fruits

 

Simple Meals to Execute

I like to break down each item in Fat, Protein and Carbs

• 1 large Egg  5g Fat/ 6g Protein/ 1g Carb (Excellent)
  • 4 eggs is then equivalent to 20g Fat/ 24g Protein/ 4g Carb. Absolutely no starving required
• As much organic butter as you feel comfortable with adding to a cup of coffee (Fantastic)
• 1 avocado 29g Fat/ 2.9g Protein/  12g Carb
• 1 cup of macadamia nuts 102g Fat/ 11g Protein/ 19g Carb
  • 1/5 cup is 20.4g Fat/ 2.2g Protein/ 3.8g Carb (Excellent)

Check out what I had last Friday in this post or take a look at this to see what I had for lunch. Supplement your food intake with small slices of butter. Below is what I had for lunch today. We had sandwiches so I just took away the obvious items added the caesar salad with no dressing. Delicious.