Keto grocery shopping, and more running music

I recently went through the painstaking process of cleaning my pantry and refrigerator.  For most, I don't think it's all that difficult of a concept, but I was raised in a household that believed you should always have enough food in the pantry to survive a zombie apocalypse, space and convenience be damned.  So, my natural train of thought after cleaning it out was, of course, to fill it right back up again. 

Since starting keto, I've done my research on what the best staples to keep on hand are, and decided to go to Costco for a bulk shopping trip. Here's what I ended up with, in convenient photo form. 

In no particular order whatsoever, let's break it down...

Meats - steak strips (in a beef jerky snack like form), prosciutto, rosemary ham - I also had previously purchased Costco sized bags of frozen grilled chicken strips, which are great for salads (or pretty much anything requiring grilled chicken strips)

Dairy - Gruyere, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, mozzarella sticks, eggs, heavy whipping cream

Produce - kale, avocados, Brussels sprouts, and bagged Caesar salad mix (just nix the croutons or give to your 6 year old daughter, who will eat all of the "crunchies" for you)

Miscellaneous - almond butter (only ingredient - almonds), parmesan Whisps (basically, parmesan chips), and, um, an umbrella. Which is not keto. Or maybe it is, but I just included it here because it made it into one of the photos. 

So far, I've been pretty happy with my purchases (which totaled - for the food, minus the umbrella, just under $140).  There have been a lot of ways to mix and match what I've gotten, and I've done quite a bit of food prepping as well: making kale chips, hard-boiled eggs, cheese wrapped in ham or prosciutto, and so on.  This makes it easy to meal plan, combined with the Green Chef keto dinners, which take the dinner planning out of the equation. 

More on Green Chef and their keto dinners in another blog; but suffice to say, I've been very happy with what they've offered, and find the recipes creative, easy, and filling. 

Lastly - although I know some proponents of keto and working out say that they'll do carb-loading days to offset hunger/lack of energy, I'm avoiding that to stick with the original intent of the program for now, even though I work out once a day, with two-a-days thrown in as I prepare for a half marathon in a few weeks.  Pool running is still the workout of the day, at least until my PT clears me to run on dry land again next week (I hope). 

And so, the running playlist for yesterday's workout looks a little like this:

Look What You Made Me Do - Taylor Swift (yes, many people hate this song, but I don't)

Ready For It - Taylor Swift (I really like her new sound, no shame)

No Diggity - Black Street

No Scrubs - TLC

Ridin' - Chamillionaire

Crush on You - Lil' Kim

Yeah! - Usher

Crank That - Soulja Boy

Garden Grove - Sublime

LYD - INOJ

Thnks fr the Mmrs - Fall Out Boy

Where My Girls At - 702

Dinosaur - Ke$ha (does she still use the dollar sign? No?)

Happy eating and running, friends.