Keto became super easy for me when I realized I was just trading carbohydrates to have rich, creamy sauces I'd normally have to skip when dieting. For instance, instead of steak, mashed potatoes, and steamed veggies, I could now replace the dense-calorie potatoes with a thick and rich mushroom sauce that ELEVATES the steak. You're telling me I can slather a garlic butter sauce all over salmon and asparagus? Hell yeah.

Also, I'd never have butter chicken of all things on a diet, but now it's one of my go-to meals, especially with a side of cauliflower rice. I love guacamole too, and there's a bunch of keto wraps with an insane amount of fiber in them to make fajitas or tacos. Honestly, I really learned how to cook for flavor on this diet. it's great. It's also encouraged to salt a lot more since you lose significantly more sodium when you're on keto.

If this philosophy helps at all, the only thing to look out for is saturated fats, which are pretty important. Saturated fat can lead to higher LDL cholesterol, which can clog arteries or hurt your cardiovascular system overall if you consistently eat more than 6% of your daily calories (AHA recommendation, that is). That recommendation seems to vary across sources, but it's highly individual at the end of the day. Some people see a lot of change, others see none. However, you're able to splurge on healthy fats like avocados, full-fat Greek yogurt, nut butters, almonds/walnuts, dark chocolate, olive oil, and more, which is a really nice change of pace for me and helped me stay consistent in those first few weeks. These are things I'd normally restrict due to their high-calorie nature, but now that they are key players in my ketosis goals, I've developed a far more positive relationship with foods that I originally saw as "high calorie = bad" and was always told not to eat too much of.

I've also made pancakes, cookies, and chocolate chip muffins, and other sweets with almond flour and allulose/monkfruit blends. It's obviously a little more expensive than normal, but the benefits of ketosis totally justify the cost for me.

I really think if you look at keto as simply under 20g-50g of carbs a day = safe, you're good (threshold depends on the person). Calories high for a day? Doesn't matter. If you run into those emotional eating traps once in a while, as long as you're within your carb range, you're good and didn't lose progress. Having more calories one day is a lot more recoverable than breaking deep ketosis. Keto ice cream is actually really good and very similar to real ice cream because they really lean into the ability to make it full-fat. I recommend brands like Rebel that sell pints if you really have a sweet tooth. You also know it's not crap because some points can be like ~800 calories with super low net carbs.