Fail-Proof Your Kitchen
Starting a low carb diet changes us and our kitchen cabinets. No, we don’t mean resurfacing or new hardware. Take an honest inventory and make some changes for your new low carb diet.
- 7 Most popular low carb kitchen basics
- Adding bread and chocolate to your list
- Printable low carb grocery list
Carb-proof your pantry, overhaul your fridge and stock up with the right low carb kitchen staples. Use our printable low carb grocery list and you’ll shop with confidence.
Clear out the junk food! This means candy, chocolate, ice cream and high carb foods. No matter WHAT, the junk food has to GO.
It’s time to create a better healthier kitchen. Check the labels of all packaged and prepared foods and determine ‘net’ carb counts.
- Total carb grams minus fiber grams = net carbs.
What To Do with High Carb Foods
Packaged Foods
Unfortunately, a lot of those packages of processed cereals, crackers, rice and candy will have to go.
Be Brutal
You can still keep some packaged foods which are low in carbohydrates, but limit the processed choices.
Your Low Carb Foods May Have to Move
If someone you live with can use the high carb food you’re removing from your life, try making separate shelves in the pantry for them.
Don’t want anything risky in the kitchen?
Give away or donate your old favorites. A local food bank or charity that takes food donations is a possibility, especially for packaged and canned foods.
Doing a kind deed is a great way to launch a “healthier, better you” plan.
Low Carb Fridge and Freezer
On low carb you’ll eat more fresh produce, meats and other perishable foods. Your refrigerator and freezer will be fuller, and stocked with storage containers.
It’s time to get some better low carb grocery options in the house, and change what’s in your fridge.
Can’t keep the all foods you love? Maybe you can.
Forbidden Foods
Barbecue sauce? Usually loaded with sugar. Mustard? Usually not. Candy? Keep dreaming.
There are two choices when it comes to condiments, breads and sweets on a low carb diet:
- Severely limit or stop eating your old favorites.
- Replace these foods with new, low carb versions.
Bread and Chocolate
The choice is yours, but some low carb dieters can’t always give up easy lunches and sweet treats.
If you must eat them, here’s what to do about bread and chocolate:
Low Carb Bread Options
There are many excellent brands of low carb bread. Here’s a complete guide to eating bread and printable list of 30+ store-bought low carb choices.
The breads on the list are available in grocery stores and have 1 to 10 net carbs per serving.
Try low carb tortillas and pita (about 7 carbs per serving) for an easy lunch wrap.
Low Carb Chocolate
Fortunately, low carb chocolate is available in drugstores, grocery stores and online.
The best chocolate choices add healthy fats to your low carb plan and won’t derail your hard-earned progress.
7 Must-Have Low Carb Grocery Staples
Out with the old, and in with the new! When you change your way of eating, it’s best to have food in your kitchen that supports your new low carb mission.
One of the worst situations is to find that you are hungry without anything appropriate to eat.
If you’re starting a low carb diet, there are certain items that you MUST have in your low carb kitchen to whip up quick and easy recipes.
1. Water, Coffee and Tea
Water is the most important thing on ANY diet, especially a low carb diet. Aim to drink 8 glasses of water a day. Try a Brita filtered water container in the fridge, a pitcher on your desk or bottled water. Jazz up ordinary water with Splenda-sweetened flavored packets.
Did you know drinking coffee and tea speeds up weight loss, increases health, and adds rich antioxidants to your low carb diet.
2. Cheese Please
Choose a full variety of shredded and block cheese. Salami and sliced gourmet cheese makes a flavorful, new snack. Shredded cheese is quick and easy to add to any meal for flavor, extra protein or fat.
Adding cheese is a quick way to adjust your protein to fat to carb ratio, ensuring you keep more muscle, stay in ketosis and burn more stored body fat.
3. Staple Veggies
I’ve discovered bag-o-broccoli and bag-o-baby-spinach are extremely useful in a low carb kitchen.
- Low carb vegetable bags of broccoli, peas and cauliflower are perfect for side dishes and stir fry.
- The baby spinach bags quickly transform fresh salads and burritos.
4. Snacking Veggies
Whether it’s carrot sticks, celery sticks, cucumber slices, eggplant circles, zucchini slices or cauliflower, keep a variety of vegetable snacks in your low carb kitchen.
- Enjoy crunchy veggies raw with dips.
- Steam veggies and top with cheeses, spices and sauces.
5. Cooking Veggies
When possible, use olive oil for cooking Roma or cherry tomatoes, fresh green beans, asparagus and any other low carb veggies you enjoy.
Not sure which veggies are low carb enough? Check the Atkins low carb fruits and vegetables list for net carbs.
- Have a good supply of herbs, onion and garlic on hand.
- Limit canned veggies. Most lack nutrients and some are high in sodium. Read every label, and check for added starch and gluten.
6. Fresh Meat
Be adventurous! Stop by the market and try something new. Low carb kitchens don’t have to be boring.
- Salmon is high in healthy omega 3.
- How about some extra lean ground beef or pork chops?
- Grab some steamed shrimp for a cocktail or get smoked salmon for breakfast.
- Avoid hot dogs containing nitrates, and sliced deli meats with gluten and starch fillers.
7. Special Ingredients
I like to keep some special low carb products on hand. It makes life a lot easier, especially when trying to “de-carb” favorite meals, to have some low carb substitutes around:
Low Carb Tortillas/Low Carb Bread
- Low carb tortillas are perfect for making lunch wraps and breakfast rolls. They also hold all sorts of hot, low carb dishes.
- With 7 net carbs per tortilla, tortillas are a “prepared” low carb item that I use almost daily.
Sweet Low Carb Treats
- To satisfy carb cravings try Unreal Candy. It’s an all-natural, healthy low carb choice with 6 to 11 net carbs per serving, and no artificial ingredients or sugars.
- Keep plenty of cream cheese on hand for a quick, Atkins-friendly low carb cheesecake.
- Whipped heavy cream flavored with vanilla, lemon or mint is a unique topping for the cheesecake or an after-dinner coffee.
- How about homemade low carb ice cream? Try a low carb ice cream or sherbet recipe, or a keto pop, Icee, Frosty, fudgsicle or frozen yogurt.
Low Carb Foods Grocery List
Starting a low carb diet requires making different choices at the store. With a low carb grocery list, these foods are easy to select without sabotaging your results.
A simple grocery list organizes your trip – saving you time when you hit the store.
Almost Zero Carb Meal Plan
Enter deep ketosis, break your stall, recover from your cheat day, or reset your diet in three days using this aggressive technique, first made famous by Dr. Robert Atkins over 40 years ago.
Science-Backed and Powerful
The Almost Zero Carb Meal Plan is a powerful tool, allowing metabolically-resistant dieters to reach deep nutritional ketosis quickly.
What happens when you follow the plan? Incredibly rapid fat loss.
Ditch the Nervous Carb Counting
Choose from 150+ easy recipes and food combos (with special macros and almost no carbs), plus a special Holiday Recipe section!
- Break your toughest diet stall.
- Lose fat quickly for a special event.
- Recover from an accidental cheat.
- Avoid plateau completely: Use once a month.
- Reach a deeper state of ketosis over the weekend.
- Finally access and burn stubborn, stored fat.
- Restart or reset your low carb or keto diet.
- Add healthy fats effortlessly.
- Decrease hunger naturally.
- Sharpen your sense of portion control.
If You’re Doing Everything (but Nothing’s Working)…
Take three days off. Create a personalized plan that works, with a decadent variety of workhorse recipes you’ll keep eating long after reaching your goal.
Go Almost Zero and start burning fat with your next meal. Fit in those jeans again. In three days.
Category: First Month, Strategy
