Keto Diet - Learning to eat when out of town! FOOD ADVENTURE!

The last couple of weeks things have been pretty crazy. We have had a lot of family in town, along with a long family wedding weekend, and I went away to a teacher conference. So, having to eat out frequently has been a new exciting adventure and challenge to stay in ketosis! 😌

Thankfully, a calorie search is right at your fingertips with a smartphone!!

The app MyFitnessPal is really great for a quick search of food nutrients, and it also keeps track of your macros for you. You can set your daily macro goals which is an awesome help. However, the carb calculation doesn't take into account fiber in food, so it can be a little bit off. But, if you're looking for a quick estimation of where your macros are for the day it's a wonderful help. It even has a cool little pie chart for a visual of your macros! I love tables and graphs!! 😍

Just a couple of instances that a little pre-planning, MyFitnessPal, and/or a quick nutrient google search totally helped us enjoy these last couple of weeks:

Our first set of food challenges came with my Father-in-law's wedding weekend. My husband, Jon was his best man, so we knew it would be a busy and stressful three days. We packed a little cooler full of snacks, as we know there would be a lot of temptation to go over our daily carb goal (we try to stay under 25 carbs each day, just to be completely safe). So we packed some hard boiled eggs, a bunch of string cheese, some baggies with pre-measured almonds, a bag of porkrinds, some salami, and a few powerade zero bottles. This was a life-saver for a quick breakfast or lunch and snacks!

Challenge #1 - Rehearsal Dinner

Friday night we went to a Mexican restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. I LOVE Mexican food, so it was difficult to focus on my menu while everyone crunched on their warm, freshly made tortilla chips and salsa. If it hadn't been for my string cheese snack earlier, I would've crammed those chips in my melon without a second thought! But I was totally fine! On the menu I found a plate of fajitas that I could order, minus the tortillas, beans and rice! While everyone else ate their chips and salsa, I pondered how many times before, in a similar situation, I just ate the chips because, of course they were delicious, but mostly just because they were there... As everyone starting ordering their drinks, I did a quick carb check - someone ordered a bucket - yes a BUCKET - of beer for the table. I looked across the table and said to Jon, pretty excited, "Guess what?!?! Apparently this Modelo Especial only has 4 carbs!!" So we drank one! Half-way through Jon found another source that said it had 14 carbs. We didn't know which to believe, but luckily we were ok on carbs for the day anyway, so we TOTALLY enjoyed those beers!! Yesssssss!!!! 🍻

When our dinner came, I realized that a meal at a restaurant always has WAY more than a single serving SHOULD be, so we had plenty of food, even without the tortillas, beans, or rice!

Challenge #2 - The Wedding Day

Those snacks really paid off. Jon left for breakfast with the groom's crew and had bacon and eggs. I was left to relax most of the morning, so I had a hard boiled egg and some cheese. We both snacked a little throughout the day. And for dinner they served steak with veggies and mashed potatoes. It was REALLY tough having those potatoes stare back at me, but after I finished my steak and veggies I was full! And for the toasts, champagne is really low carb! We did it! 🍾

Challenge #3 - The Conference

This was a tough few days because the conference included breakfast and lunch as part of the fee that my district paid for, so if I ate anything else it was on my own dime and not to be reimbursed. We also flew, so I had to be strategic in my snack packing! I packed a little insulated lunch box with 3 hard boiled eggs, some salami, some seaweed snacks, some bacon, some string cheese, and some macadamia nuts.

The first day of the conference there were two viable options for me, avoiding the bagels and sweet fruit, there was a veggie tray and a frittata. I put cream cheese on my veggies - yum! And I tried my best to eat around the potatoes in the frittata... it was kind of sad, haha, but I was satisfied!

When lunch came all I could eat were slices of chicken encrusted in some type of bbq sauce, so I ate the inside, just like a little kid would eat inside the crusts on the pb&j! And I had my snacks, which perfectly filled in the blanks.

For dinner, a friend suggested a sausage place, so we stopped there for an appetizer! It was DELICIOUS! If youre' ever in Berkeley, you have to try Top Dog! I almost forgot, my coworker on the left there is gluten-free, so this made picking food places WAY easier for me, too!

After our sausages we went to Eureka! where I had a steak and some veggies!
All in all a very satisfying food day.

Day two there wasn't really anything I could eat for breakfast or lunch, so I had the food I had brought and was totally happy. We ate outside overlooking an amazing view of the bay.

As this would be our last night in Berkeley, we decided to have a fun girls night. On the way back to the hotel we picked up some things. It's amazing how well pork rinds, guacamole, and a rum&(diet)coke go together!!
We finished our appetizers and went out in search of a place for dinner and came across a place with a really cool outdoor patio and a jazz band playing, so we had our "second dinner." I had some meatballs and caprese. It was YUMMMMMY and I was stuffed!

Dinner both days was easy, as we were free to eat wherever. My co-workers were very obliging, even after I told them not to worry about me!

So, I learned a lot about how eating out can be just as easy as planning meals at home. It takes a little planning. It takes a LOT of asking your server what is IN the food, which we should all want to know anyway, right?! 😬 I went over my calories each day, but I gave myself a little grace. Keto is all still so new to me, so I didn't want to stress too much as long as my macros were ok, and I was with some fun friends on a fun trip in need of FOOD ADVENTURE! 💥

My previous posts on our keto diet progress:
#1 Keto Diet - Only a couple of days in!
#2 Keto Beer Can Burgers
#3 Keto Diet - Part 3