I hope you’re having a nice holiday week! Slim and I are enjoying some snuggly, warm, quiet cuddle time before I head off on my next trip. 🙂
I’ll be in Charlotte, NC this weekend and I’m hosting a Keto Lunch Meetup there.
If you’re in or near the area, plan to join us! 🙂
To catch up a bit, I’ve put together a photo tour of my low carb meals lately. From restaurants to snack plates to easy keto dinners at home, these should give you some ideas on busy days – or meals you can easily make at home.
You can weigh in there, or leave a comment here on this post with your total number of pounds lost since we started on October 29th.
We’ll be kicking off a fun 2019 New Year Keto Challenge on January 2nd, so stay tuned for details! 😉
A Photo Tour of My Low Carb Meals
It’s been a full, FUN and busy month! I’ve really enjoyed the social side of December which included fun dinners with girl friends. Here’s a video from my lunch when I spent the day with Caitlin of Grass Fed Girl:
If you’re reading this by email that video ^ probably doesn’t show up so you’ll have to see this post online.
I had a great time spending the day with Caitlin aka @GrassFedGirl. We met through the local keto community here in Middle TN.
That’s such a great way to meet like-minded friends: by attending local keto book signings, low carb meetups & get togethers, etc. I feel blessed to have met Caitlin and to be able to call her a friend!
She’s currently eating Keto Carnivore, so we had great discussions on why we both stay in nutritional ketosis for health reasons, and how our health & weight loss journeys brought us to that point.
She had a beautiful steak (above) and I had the delicious Prime Rib at O’Charley’s (below) with loaded broccoli and grilled asparagus.
That was A LOT of food -lol.
I ate the prime rib and asparagus and brought the loaded broccoli home with me. Caitlin is eating “carnivore” (meat only) so she sent her broccoli and asparagus home with me too.
I put her steamed broccoli and asparagus, plus my loaded broccoli and 2 TBSP of spinach dip from the Kroger deli into a glass baking dish…
… then topped it with mozzarella for a delicious “keto veggie bake” for dinner the next day. 🙂
Loaded Broccoli is a FAVORITE low carb restaurant side.
I’ve been ordering my broccoli that way for 7+ years. You just ask for your broccoli “loaded, like a baked potato.” You can get bacon too but I usually just ask for butter, sour cream & cheese on top.
After our fabulous lunch, Caitlin and I went over to the Starbucks next door and enjoyed conversation over coffee. She has a hot coffee with heavy cream and I got my favorite Iced Coffee order.
I ordered a Trenta (31 ounce) iced coffee with no classic syrup, 1/3 cup heavy whipping cream, 4 shots of sugar free cinnamon dolce and 3 shots of sugar free vanilla. Delicious!
I had another fun dinner with an old friend this month. The food was great, but the conversation – the laughs, tears, shares – that was the REAL focus of our time together. 🙂
I ordered the grilled chicken with roasted broccoli & cauliflower:
Otherwise at home I’ve been eating super simple.
Here are some of my keto snack plates over the last few weeks…
Oscar Mayer rotisserie chicken slices, colby jack cheese off the block & raw pecans:
Pecans with Lolli’s Low Carb Granola make a nice crunchy keto snack!
That granola is delicious!
I’ve been adding it to my snack plates a lot lately.
Otherwise I could eat the whole bag, lol. 🙂
It also makes GREAT cereal. I expected it would get soggy in unsweetened macadamia milk or a little heavy cream – but it didn’t. It stays perfectly chewy & crunchy (like fresh baked nutty cookie chunks!) even in milk. 🙂
This is the limited edition Gingerbread Spice holiday flavor from Lolli’s Low Carb Granola (above). Here’s the package and nutrition facts/ingredients on that one:
My two FAVORITES are the Cinnamon Pecan and Peanut Butter Macadamia granola. 😉
I had an Applebee’s gift card so for one of my meals I grabbed dinner on the way home from their Carside-to-Go curbside service, which is super convenient.
I ordered a FULL rack of ribs (no sauce) with a double side of steamed broccoli:
I ate the ENTIRE rack of ribs lol, and ONE of the broccoli sides. 🙂
The next day for lunch I grabbed a Low Carb Thickburger from Hardee’s (called Carl’s Jr in some areas). They have the low carb burger on the menu, and you can “make it low carb” on any of their sandwiches to get it in a lettuce wrap instead of on a bun.
I ordered the Frisco Burger low carb style:
I really wasn’t in the mood for the lettuce wrap, or for the mayo dripping down my arm (lol) so I brought it home and chopped it all up together with that serving of steamed broccoli I had leftover from Applebee’s:
That made for a delicious meal! 🙂
Speaking of easy meals, I picked up this pre-made Taco Meat at Kroger the same day I got the spinach dip from the deli there:
The ingredients aren’t the best, but it IS convenient – and tasty. 🙂
This did NOT turn out pretty, but I just mixed in two TBSP of spinach dip with the taco meat (because it was too spicy for me!) and topped it with Daisy sour cream:
That would have looked a lot better if I’d dressed it up with lettuce, tomato, avocado & cheese… but I was going for “just feed me” lol. 🙂
Some other Kroger finds include these easy freezer-to-table items: grilled salmon, creamed spinach & loaded mashed cauliflower:
The salmon was GREAT. The picture doesn’t do it justice, but it was as good as salmon I order out at restaurants.
The creamed spinach was good too, I’ve always liked that one. The mashed cauliflower was meh – I ate it, but just because I already logged it. 😛
I had the other grilled salmon and more of the creamed spinach for dinner the next night too.
As for the mashed cauliflower – I think it would make good “hash browns” or fritters. 😉
My lunch on the road last week was a quick stop at a Cracker Barrel restaurant for a simple plate of thick-cut bacon and eggs scrambled with cheddar cheese.
They don’t put anything in their eggs (just eggs). 😉
Another quick take-out meal was “just the meats” at breakfast hour from a little locally owned restaurant.
I got grilled tenderloin and bacon.
I worked there briefly as a teenager, as the short order breakfast cook no less (! lol), so I feel comfortable ordering considering I’m familiar with their kitchen & sources. 🙂
One of my favorite low carb fast food meals on the road is McDonald’s sausage patties and round eggs – especially now that they do all day breakfast!
The sausage actually has less ingredients than the store bought sausage I cook at home, and the round eggs are cracked on site – so it’s a safe meal.
Four of each makes TWO meals for me, btw. 😉
I also decided to try a new keto fast food meal last week…
The “Bunless Baconator” from Wendy’s ordered, “No bun, no ketchup please.”
I also got the Southwest Avocado Salad from Wendy’s too. It’s 7 net carbs without the dressing – and honestly the avocado/guac “dresses” the salad well enough on it’s own.
Their classic ranch or southwestern ranch packets are 2 carbs each, and one is plenty.
There was A LOT of salad packed in that bowl! I had a hard time finishing that one. 😛
Ooh, I know this looks like dessert – but I called it breakfast! 
It’s cream cheese, Legendary Foods Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Nut Butter, a crumbled up Stoka Bar – all topped with Salted Chocolate Macadamia Nut Butter (FBOMB brand).
The Stoka Bars are amazing. I had the Coco Almond bar crumbled up in the bowl above, but the Vanilla Almond is definitely my favorite of the two flavors.
They’re crunchy like a granola bar, only 4 net carbs, delicious(!) and they also make GREAT cereal if you crumble them up and pour Macadamia Milk over them. 🙂
The Milkadamia is what I used on the granola too. It’s SO much better than almond or coconut milk!
The Stoka Bars make a great keto meal replacement too. Sometimes on busy mornings I’ll grab a Keto Shake & bar so I can eat on the go or at my desk.
You really do NOT want protein shakes and protein bars. 😉
I use the Ketologie keto shakes, and in the morning I love it mixed with hot coffee instead of water for a quick BPC-style coffee without all the mess & fuss:
And we can’t forget my favorite at-home keto meal of cheesy eggs…
Which I enjoyed on a Christmas plate this week. 🙂
I hope that gives you some ideas for keeping it keto on the go, when dining out, or easy low carb dinner ideas at home. You can easily make your own mashed loaded cauliflower and loaded broccoli for example!
I’m keeping it simple at home this week while I wrap up work and year-end tasks… and get ready to hit the road for Charlotte. I really look forward to some delicious meals on my trip – and especially to meeting up with low carb Charlotte friends!
I’m prepping to do another big “keto test” on some low carb chocolate bars…
Oh, and next I’ll have to share my results of the Bunless Big Mac ketone testing experiment. 😉
Stay tuned for that…
How are things going with you?
Don’t forget to weigh in this week!
Leave a comment and let’s chat:)
Best,
Lynn Terry,
aka @LowCarbTraveler
Netrition – The Internet’s Premier Nutrition Superstore!
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