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One of the questions I get most frequently from people (both in real life and on social media) is “what do you eat in a day on a vegan keto diet?” It makes total sense that this would perplex people. Even I have difficulties articulating it because it’s so normal now. What do I eat? Food. Just plant-based food, and no gluten, and few carbs in general. To make this explanation a little easier (and to shine a happy little light on the variety that is available on a plant-based low carb diet), I started typing up these What I Eat in a Day posts.
Normally, these posts contain a lot more variety, but I think it’s more helpful if I show a broad range of foods and meals, including those meals/days where I can’t be bothered to cook anything. Yesterday was a perfect example of that, so I figured I’d include it. We ended up having kind of a busy weekend, and I really didn’t have time to prepare meals or even really plot out a reasonably healthy day. It was definitely one where I relied on low carb vegan convenience food. I can’t complain – it still tasted delicious, there just wasn’t as much pizzazz.
Breakfast
- Coffee w/chaga and reishi mushrooms
I had toyed with having breakfast regularly again recently, but I keep slipping back into intermittent fasting unintentionally. It’s just comfortable for me, and I tend to feel better when compressing my meals into a smaller window. I do enjoy having breakfast every once in a while – it’s novel, and fun in a social setting – but overall, I seem to function best when I start eating between noon and 2pm.
- Calories: 0
- Net Carbs: 0
Lunch
Remember how I said I was being lazy? Well, it got to around 2pm, and I started to feel hungry and had zero patience to actually make anything. So, I decided to eat the remainder of the coconut-pecan-raspberry cereal I made the other day. It basically ended up being 50g of dried coconut, 100g of pecans and 8g of freeze dried raspberries with a cup of Ripple unsweetened pea milk and a shake or two of cinnamon. Cinnamon is fabulous for low carb and keto diets, as studies have shown that it can aid the body in blood sugar regulation. It also tends to impart a sweeter flavor to foods, which is nice if you’re looking to avoid sweeteners.
While the pic below isn’t the EXACT bowl of keto cereal, it’s almost the same. Imagine about twice this:
- Calories: 1119
- Net Carbs: 12g
Yes, this meal was kind of hefty, but I was hungry! I also could have reduced the carbs by just not including the raspberries (or by not using so many), but I really felt like I wanted something tangy and fruity.
Dinner
It took me a WHILE to get hungry after that lunch, if you can imagine, so dinner was around 8 at night. Because I was feeling super lazy, I just heated up some Beyond Meat chick’n strips and ate those on a bed of (50g of) arugula with a low carb vegan rollon the side. I used the linked recipe, but had made them with sunflower seed butter instead, so the macros aren’t exactly the same. I also put a solid amount of Earth Balance on top of the roll, because I wanted to. On the side, I had about an ounce of Brazil nuts. I really like these nuts, as they are super low in carbs. They’ve also got over 100% of your RDA of selenium in just one nut, which is pretty neat.
Beyond Meat is my favorite as far as keto-friendly meat substitutes go. It’s gluten free, uses minimal soy (some of their products are totally soy free), and is pretty easy to find.
- Calories: 653
- Net Carbs: 9.72g
Snacks
I did end up having some snacks today. Since I was feeling too lazy to really do much, one of my snacks was a smoothie with about 75g of spinach, a half scoop of Vega Sport protein powder (it’s my go-to lately), and a scoop of spirulina. I also tossed some broccoli sprouts in there. When I have days where I don’t eat a lot of veggies, I try and at least get in a smoothie to feel like I’m at least eating SOMETHING healthy. I also ended up having a pegan bar from Julian bakery after working out. I try not to have these too often, but I’m lucky in that they really don’t kick me out of ketosis.
- Calories: 270
- Net Carbs: 7g
Most days I wouldn’t bother with these two things, they definitely added in a bunch of calories and carbs, but I had a solid workout in the afternoon and was feeling the need to eat a little more. Sometimes you have to listen to your body and give it some extra calories!
Totals
Despite the carb-heavy snack, I managed to stay under 30g. Most days I eat between 30-40g and can stay in ketosis (with exercise, which helps).
- Calories: 2246
- Net Carbs: 29.7g (12.1%)
- Protein: 94.1g (15.8%)
- Fat: 189.1g (72.1%)
Whoa. I definitely didn’t NEED that bar, but it tasted good, so no regrets.
