There’s a bit of a story to this low carb food diary, which is two full days of VERY easy keto meals – and how I mysteriously got back into ketosis quicker than I ever have before! 😉
You should join us if you haven’t yet!
I decided to kick myself out of ketosis for this challenge so that I could “restart” with all of you.
That wasn’t exactly my original intention because I rarely EVER eat off plan anymore…
It all started with this odd exchange at McDonald’s on my way home from Charlotte on Tuesday. I stopped to grab a coffee and do a bit of work (wi-fi!) before I headed out for my 6-hour road trip.
I originally ordered a black coffee, then changed my mind and said “I’ll have a large iced coffee with sugar free vanilla.” But when I got to the window and sipped it… I said, “Are you SURE this is sugar free??”
It tasted a little TOO good to me. He asked the lady, she said yes, he said yes – but then winked and said “But a little cheat won’t hurt now and then.”
I still don’t know if that coffee was REALLY sugar free or not, lol – but he planted that seed in my head and I pondered on that for awhile.
I considered being on the road alone for 6 hours. What if I were diabetic, epileptic, etc? In that case, a little cheat WOULD hurt – and could hurt other people if you’re driving in an unstable condition.
I stay in nutritional ketosis for health reasons myself, but fortunately mine is less severe. I have a lower back injury with inflammatory arthritis that flares up into extreme pain, fibromyalgia like symptoms and swelling of the legs and feet.
Anyway, I decided to go just go ahead and do the deed with a new challenge starting the next morning. And sadly I didn’t even knock myself out of ketosis with anything GOOD lol, just a sandwich of all things. 
By the time I got home after six hours on the road, my toes were puffy and my feet and ankles were swollen like I was 13 months pregnant. Ack!
I’m so glad I didn’t knock myself out of ketosis before my trip to Charlotte – or it would have ruined my three nights of dancing! 😛
Here was my Blood Ketone Reading the next day (Wednesday at 3:37pm to be exact). “Lo” meaning ZERO – or that my ketone levels were too low to even be detected:
I use the Keto Mojo meter. See my post on 4 Ways To Improve Your Ketone Levels to learn more about it and about ketone levels.I have a 15% off discount link for the testing kit too. The discount is coded into my affiliate link here. Handy little gadget! 😉
That catches us up to the start of the challenge on Wednesday morning, and here is what I ate for the first two full days…
And wait until you see what happened to my ketone levels!
My Low Carb Meals on Wednesday
After being on the road for 5 days, it was back to work full speed first thing Wednesday morning – starting with an early interview for the GCTV 6 morning show.
If you click that link you can listen in to the first 20-25 minutes where I talked about “getting back on the wagon” for the New Year, plus a little about my own low carb lifestyle & journey. 😉
I grabbed 2 ounces of Peanut Butter Macadamia Low Carb Granola and a cup of coffee and hit the ground running. 
I actually had five smaller meals spread out over the course of the day.
Once I got a little break from work I whipped up a big plate of cheesy eggs – with five eggs and almost 3 ounces of cheese scrambled in a full TBSP of real butter.
I made two smaller meals out of that. 😉
For dinner I had more of Lolli’s Low Carb Granola, this time as a bowl of cereal – which was SO good! 
This one is the Limited Edition Gingerbread Spice. Not my favorite flavor, but still delicious! I normally use Milkadamia but I was out so I just used 1/3 cup of half & half.
Later that night I had a quick snack – some new “keto chips” that aren’t out yet, that I got to taste-test as part of the R&D panel before they’re released publicly.
They’re very good, by the way. 😉
I warmed them up a little and dipped them in ranch, which was a great snack!
I also had four coffee’s with Coffee-Mate Sugar Free Hazelnut Powdered Creamer.
Here’s how I logged those meals…
Wednesday’s MyFitnessPal Food Diary
2037 Calories
18 Net Carbs
Protein: 72 grams
82% Fat, 14% Protein
How To Get Net Carbs In MyFitnessPal (Free)
You’ll notice that Protein is only 14% of my total daily calories, yet I had 72 grams of protein. The recommended daily amount of protein for women is 46 grams a day. So while I’m eating “high fat” I’m also getting *plenty* of protein.
This is why you can’t go by grams, but rather have to go by ratios or percentages. See this link for a detailed explanation & illustration of proper macro ratios:
Keto Macros & Tracking Made Simple
My Low Carb Meals on Thursday
Thursday was another FULL work day so I had to grab something to eat at my desk and dig right in.
I had 60 grams of raw pecans and a Laughing Cow creamy swiss wedge – plus my water and coffee.
Someone on Instagram asked me how much 60 grams was. It’s half cup – but pecans don’t fit in a measuring cup right. 😛
Investing in an inexpensive Ozeri kitchen scale was a game changer for me! I realized I was cheating myself out of several good bites more often than not, lol.
I didn’t have much time between consulting sessions so for lunch I just made a quick plate of Oscar Mayer rotisserie chicken slices with colby jack cheese sliced off the block:
By dinnertime (which was a LATE dinner) I was famished and craving meat and vegetables, so I ordered take-out from a local Greek/Italian restaurant called Gondola.
I ordered the Philadelphia Chicken (2 breasts smothered in mozzarella & sauteed mushrooms, no onions) with roasted broccoli & cauliflower. 
I also had 5 coffee’s with Coffee-Mate Sugar Free Hazelnut Powdered Creamer.
Confession: I could NOT stay out of that granola (lol) so you’ll notice two servings of it snuck it’s way into my food diary! 😉
Here’s how I logged those meals…
Thursday’s MyFitnessPal Food Diary
1612 Calories
21 Net Carbs
Protein: 87 grams
73% Fat, 22% Protein
Confession #2: I ended up having two MORE servings of the Keto Granola later – after I took that screenshot of my food diary.
So add two more net carbs (1 net carb per serving).
This stuff is addictively delicious! 😉
Interestingly, I fully “keto tested” all four flavors of this low carb granola before I recommended it. I did a full 72 hour “clean test” on each flavor, eating only super simple foods otherwise and getting my body at optimal ketone levels – then keeping a close eye on my ketone levels before and after.
With every single flavor and every single test, my blood ketone levels would rise – they would actually IMPROVE – from eating the granola! 🙂
Between Wednesday late afternoon to late Thursday night (1:17am), less than 36 hours later, I went from ZERO ketones to being fully back in ketosis.
Anything 0.5 or higher is IN ketosis.
That is the FASTEST that I’ve EVER gotten back into ketosis. It usually takes me close to if not a full 72 hours (three full days).
I don’t know what else to credit that to other than the amazing granola, lol.
Everything else I ate was my super simple normal daily foods when I’m at home and busy at work. Plus I’ve seen those same results consistently every time I’ve tested it. Go figure!
My absolute FAVORITE flavor is the Peanut Butter Macadmia Granola. It’s like fresh baked cookies and delicious as a snack straight out of the bag – and absolutely perfect as keto cereal!
I think I could live on that stuff, lol
This is my discount link, by the way. It’s not cheap, but gosh it’s a nice treat!
Anyway, that’s what I’ve been eating for the last two full days and how I logged everything that I ate – meeting my ideal keto macros in MyFitnessPal.
I hope that proves helpful, both to give you some simple low carb meal & snack ideas, and also how to log them.
2019 Gratitude Challenge
I wish I could remember where I found this idea! I think it was from Dominic of NoBunPlease.com – but I loved it and saved it!
Let’s ALL do this all year long. 🙂
Are you in??
Obviously between the water weight, swelling & inflammation, and just being out of ketosis in general, my weight shot up to a whopping 151.4 pounds.
After these first two full days of the New Year Keto Challenge (and my meals above), my weight is already back down to 148.8 now that I’m back in ketosis – for a quick drop of 2.6 pounds.
Yay! 🙂
How are things going with you?
I would love to hear if you’re participating in the keto challenge, how things are going so far, or if you have any questions about the ketogenic low carb diet.
Leave a comment and let’s chat!:)
Best,
Lynn Terry,
aka @LowCarbTraveler
p.s. Did you see my Keto Diet Q&A post yesterday? There’s some helpful information in that post, taken from questions I’ve been getting so far this week. 😉
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