If you’re coming from a standard American diet, looking over the skimpy variety of foods allowed for the first three days might look a bit scary. A ketogenic diet is going to be a major lifestyle change, so take it slow. Don’t panic, and don’t make it overly important right now. You are definitely going to make mistakes. Just assume you will, and forgive yourself before you make them. The name of the game isn’t perfection. The name of the game is change.

  • Day 1
    • Breakfast:3 eggs, fried, scrambled, poached, or hard boiled 4 slices of bacon coffee, tea, diet soda, or water
    • Morning Snack: 2 ounces hard cheese
    • Lunch:6 to 8 ounce hamburger, without the bun top with mustard or mayonnaise small lettuce salad with full-fat salad dressing diet gelatin tea, diet soda, or water
    • Afternoon Snack: can tuna mixed with mayonnaise
    • Dinner:Baked chicken legs or thighs, seasoned with herbs and spices small lettuce salad with full-fat dressing diet gelatin with real whipped cream tea, diet soda, or water
    • Evening Snack: hot chicken broth with minced chicken and celery
  • Day 2
    • Breakfast:3 scrambled eggs with chopped ham 2-ounces hard cheese coffee, tea, diet soda, or water
    • Morning Snack: chicken broth with minced chicken, celery, and egg dribbled into the broth
    • Lunch: 2-cup salad topped with can of tuna, celery, radishes, and cucumber full-fat dressing or mayonnaise diet gelatin tea, diet soda, or water
    • Afternoon Snack: Deviled eggs
    • Dinner: 8 to 12-ounce broiled steak topped with a pat of butter celery sticks, cucumber circles, and radishes with ranch dressing diet gelatin with real whipped cream tea, diet soda, or water
    • Evening Snack: Mixed cold cuts and cheese with mustard
  • Day 3
    • Breakfast: 3-egg omelet; fill with 2-ounces grated cheese coffee, tea, diet soda, or water
    • Morning Snack: Cucumber slices with ranch dressing
    • Lunch: Chicken salad with bacon, celery, mayonnaise wrapped in lettuce leaves instead of bread diet gelatin tea, diet soda, or water
    • Afternoon Snack: mixed cold cuts and cheese with mustard
    • Dinner:2 pork chops sauteed in butter small salad of radishes, celery, and cucumbers full-fat dressing or mayonnaise mixed with mustard diet gelatin with real whipped cream tea, diet soda, or water
    • Evening Snack: Beef broth with chopped meat, celery, and egg dribbled into the broth

Additional Tips — Start on Saturday
Photo of Hot and Spicy Chicken Wings Start on Saturday and Make Any Substitutes You Like

There is nothing magical about the order of the menu above. You can switch the days around, or make substitutions using other meats if you like. If you can’t do dairy, simply substitute hard boiled eggs, chicken legs or wings, lunch meats, or whatever you can have for the cheese, and leave the whipped cream off of your gelatin. In fact, if you don’t like gelatin and would rather skip it, you can do that too.

This 3-day low-carb diet is merely a SAMPLE of what you can have. You don’t have to eat this much food if you’re not hungry, and if you are, you can certainly add more food. The aim is to keep your carbohydrate content as low as possible and stay active.

Since this is a very restrictive, radical change to what you’re probably used to eating, the above menu was designed to start on a Saturday. That way you’re free to add additional foods to the menu and snacks as needed to satisfy your hunger. You should also be firmly into ketosis by the time you arrive at work on Monday, which will make that third day much easier to get through.

A typical low-carb diet isn’t as limited as this is, so don’t let this sample 3-day menu scare you off. You don’t have to do the radical 3-day ketosis diet. This is just for those who want to do it that way, so, in my next post, I’ll give you a sample 7-day Induction plan that you can move into after you’re in ketosis, or start off with if you’d rather.