How do I do KETO for one person? Struggling with meal planning

[onetwosteponmyshoe]

Hi there,

I was doing Keto, and relatively successfully for around 3 weeks a few months back but my accountability buddy - my mother - and the person I was doing it with (as I am staying with her until November) decided she does not want to do it anymore.

Can anyone advise as to how I can continue on, but also not waste lots of food as it seems really tricky to organise for one person only?

Thank you!

bump :)

The easiest ways is to have meals which are good for both.

Steak, chip and veg (you don't eat the chips)
Curry and rice (you don't eat the rice)
Stir fry and noodles (you don't... you get where I'm going)

And if it's something like stew and dumpling, which is impossible, you just make an omelette, tuna mayo with celery, or something else quick and easy.

I thought there was a more specific way that you could find and make kept recipes for one person whilst minimising wastage?

Just refrigerate what’s left and have it over a few days?

I do low carb, and I always have left over meat etc in the fridge.

Cook as normal but substitute cauliflower rice , mashed cauliflower , courgetti etc for rice, pasta , mash potato and don't have the root vegetables. Have a bowl of salad made up to substitute for chips etc .
It's the most sustainable way because you can also go out for meals and just ask them to substitute chips for salad etc. I also carry a plastic box for my dogs so stuff I shouldn't eat goes in there as a treat for them . Even at the Indian I have a curry or tandoori with salad and no rice or breads.
Have quick and easy things for dessert like berries and cream or Greek yoghurt , cheese and celery , nuts and dark chocolate.

but that's the issue - I then end up with around 4 days worth of the same meal. I don't think it's good for nutrient balance and it's certainly boring!

Thank you!

Things we've had for dinner this week (me, low carbing, DH not):

Steak with mushrooms and salad plus chips for DH

Roast chicken (small), bok choi cooked with garlic and ginger, and new potatoes for DH (we ate both breasts, the legs went into the fridge for my lunch the next day)

Oven-baked lamb chops (2 each) on a bed of quartered tomatoes, crumbled feta, sliced black olives and garlic, with fresh mint and oregano. Potato wedges for DH, cooked in with the rest of the traybake, all tossed with olive oil. Broccoli.

Pan-fried pork chops with oven baked new potatoes (him), peppers, onions and garlic

Tonight he's having a Tesco ready-meal lasagne (he likes them!) and I've defrosted a homemade chicken Madras for me, which I'll have with some shredded iceberg lettuce

HTH!

but that's the issue - I then end up with around 4 days worth of the same meal. I don't think it's good for nutrient balance and it's certainly boring!

The obvious answer is to cook less! I always have lunch the next day but almost never more than that. Certainly not 4 days-worth.

my greatest success at doing spells of keto have been when i cook double (or more) so i have a meal in the fridge ready to go the next day.

This. Not eight times the amount but twice the amount.

Or cook a bit less and freeze portions rather than putting them in the fridge. If you do that for a week with each meal giving you one portion to eat straight away and 2 to freeze then you'll have about 10 portions of food in the freezer with 5 varieties of meals. Then every week you have 3 freshly cooked meals and 2 from the freezer.

Do stuff where the carb is the side rather than the main event. Like:

roasts - just you don’t have the potatoes
turkish food like kebabs, marinated chicken etc, you have with salad - cous cous / rice on the side for the carb eaters
steaks - have with salad, chips for carb eaters
fish with vegetables, again potatoes as well for carbers
curry but you can have cauliflower rice as a sub

it’s easy when you get in the habit.

just steer clear of italian as that cuisine tends to be built more around the carb as the main event like pasta, risotto etc. It sucks to cook that stuff then have to do a whole separate low carb version.

i’ve done low carb mostly for 20 years (not super strict, just maintaining a healthy weight), it really is sustainable long term

I can't see the issue here.
Just add a side for the non keto people.
Fish in the oven plus a side of rice, potatoes.
Soup for everyone, extra cheese for you, croutons for them
Chicken casserole with veggies, carrots for them, spinach for you and so on.

You just go and buy meat and eggs and vegetables and salad…. then you eat them

we all eat the same but I have extra meat/veg and no carbs.

sometimes I’ll have a steak and give them pasta 😂😂😂😂😂😂

I do a lot of batch cooking and then freezing although I realise this can be impractical if you don't have a lot of time to do it. I would make something like a very low carb curry, bolognese, ratatouille or stroganoff (I got a lot of recipes online), have one portion that evening and freeze three or four portions. I know a lot of people would be appalled as they grate and create their own cauli rice etc, but I'm happy to heat up a ready-made packet/courgetti (you can buy it spiralised 😳). Mushrooms don't seem to do well in the freezer but the rest is okay. Sorry I can't be of more help.

I have an awful lot of cauli rice, mashed cauli and curries, chillis, chicken in creamy sauce with spinach etc . I don't eat keto as such but do frequently only have 35 to 50 grams of carb a day as it worked out and more protein as I also struggle with gluten- I'm not coeliac as such but a lot of gluten seems to aggravate my long covid neuro stuff

What recipes are you finding that you can’t make for one person? Sounds a bit odd. If you tell us what you were having for two, maybe we can tell you how to make less of it, or adapt it do it can be frozen - or altered for the “leftovers” portion to be a bit different.