Help!

[Mumofboys2006]

I’ve been reading all about keto here and felt inspired after visiting a friend yesterday who lost about 2stone on it.
I looked at diet doctor which I know a lot of posters have recommended and felt completely overwhelmed. It’s full of recipes I don’t have the time to follow - the whole app was so confusing. I literally just want a simple meal plan - don’t have the time to build my own. I need spoon feeding basically. My life is too hectic to make different meals for myself when I have a whole family to feed as well - two teens an elderly parent and a dog and a cat mean it’s just not feasible on top of work.
My friend has a spreadsheet for all her macros etc. Eurgh. I go to bed too exhausted most days to read this stuff, let alone do a spreadsheet. It just all feels overwhelming right now.
Anyway I do need to lose weight so pls could someone make a suggestion- shall I just do a macro calculator thing and follow that?
i do exercise and am relatively fit but just need to sort my diet out without spending hours figuring it all out.
I’ve lost weight on 5:2 in the past. Also did the 800 cal thing but didn’t work for me at all.
TIA and sorry for the long post!

All that sounds very complicated! Simple it better. Make healthy choices - don't think diet, think lifestyle change.
I gave up bread, cheese, chocolate and other dessert products last July. Have eaten more fish, fruit, eggs and oat crackers. Small breakfast and dinner, proper evening meal and nothing after 6.30. weight has gone from 75.9 to 69.3. Thought no bread would be hard because I basically lived on sandwiches and toast but it's been okay and my diet is more interesting now. Good luck!

If you want to do actual keto instead of low carb it does generally need careful tracking/measuring at least initially.

You don't need a meal plan but diet doctor is good to get a handle on what kind of things you should eat.

Meals can be pretty basic ie. Chicken and loads of non starchy veg (just add potatoes for the carb eaters) or Spag bol but with spiralized courgette instead of pasta or shepherd's pie with cauliflower mash.

Breakfast can be things like Greek yogurt with berries, omelets etc

So your normally everyday foods but with slight changes. Also upping your fats like adding olive oil, avocados, nuts etc where you can.

I used carb manager app to track my macro, it's free and for me far easier than a spreadsheet.

Thanks both!

I’m on day 4 of keto - using net diary to track.

Had a slip last night - caved and ate an banana but otherwise all ok so far although very dull!

@Mumofboys2006 if you look on DD there are lots of easy basic recipes to follow to make it more interesting. Keto is quite restrictive but i found weight loss on it very easy.

You need a good understanding of what it is your doing as things like eating a banana will knock you out of ketosis which defeats everything.

When I started out I made fat bombs. Very easy to make and good for a snack in the beginning whilst your finding your feet.

Good luck