Lazy Keto Benefits and Meal Plan

March 8, 2023

Curious about whether the ketogenic diet could help you reach your goals, but dreading diligently counting macros and calories each day? Then a “lazy keto diet” might be a good option for you.

This approach focuses most on limiting carb intake, while allowing for more flexibility in terms of how much fat and protein you eat. While this type of diet may not help you get into nutritional ketosis as easily as a stricter keto diet , many find it can still pay off in terms of leading to weight loss and other benefits.

What Is Lazy Keto?

Just like a traditional ketogenic diet (TKD), the lazy keto diet is a high-fat, very-low-carb diet, however it’s less strict overall. The goal of the diet is still to consume about 20 grams of net carbohydrates per day or less, but there isn’t as much emphasis on eating a certain amount of protein or fat each day, compared to a TKD.

Because carefully counting macronutrients (your “keto macros”) every day while on the TKD can be difficult and tedious for some people, lazy keto is a good alternative if weight loss and other benefits are desired, but being very restrictive and detail-oriented isn’t realistic.

Lazy Keto vs. Dirty Keto

What’s the difference between dirty keto and lazy keto? A “dirty keto” diet describes a high-fat, low-carb diet that includes a decent amount of processed foods. For example, foods like processed meats such as salami and bacon, poor quality cheeses and butter, and refined oils may provide a lot of someone’s daily calories while on a dirty keto diet.

When someone is eating dirty, they are typically only focused on minimizing their carb intake, but are not purposefully including healthy, nutrient-dense foods in their diet, such as vegetables. The opposite of a dirty, low-carb diet is a “clean keto diet,” which emphasizes whole foods such as non-starchy veggies, herbs, wild-caught fish, grass-fed meats, etc.

Lazy keto, on the other hand, isn’t necessarily an unhealthy diet. It’s not “lazy” because the person following the diet is eating tons of convenient junk foods, but rather that they aren’t carefully tracking their intake of fat and protein.

Can you still lose weight on dirty keto? It’s possible, since even a dirty, low-carb diet can reduce your appetite and, therefore, calorie intake. Protein and fat tend to be very filling, so many people find that they eat less when cutting carbs and sugar from their diet.

Still, this doesn’t give you the green light to forget about the quality of the foods you eat altogether.

Benefits

1. Can Help With Weight Loss

Assuming you aren’t eating a junk food keto eater and are getting most of your calories from keto fats, then weight loss is definitely still possible, even if you slack a bit when it comes to tracking your food intake. Because any type of low-carb, high-fat diet is usually filling and leads to reduced hunger, it can be easier to consume less calories.

That being said, keep in mind that using the keto diet for weight loss is most likely to occur if you follow a clean version, so be sure to focus on eating real, whole foods.

2. Less Restrictive, More Approachable, and Easier to Start

Starting a lazy keto diet can be less overwhelming and more flexible than a traditional keto diet, which means you may be more willing to give it a shot. Because it requires a bit less mental energy and hard-core dedication, it might also seem easier to sustain, therefore leading to more beneficial outcomes long-term.

3. Can Lead to Other Health Improvements

Because lazy keto is low in carbs, especially added sugar and refined grains, the diet can contribute to improvements in many health markers — such as blood sugar levels, insulin sensitivity, body weight, blood pressure, and so on.

Of course this really all depends on the quality of your diet; if you eat a clean keto diet that emphasizes plenty of low-carb, anti-inflammatory foods (like vegetables, quality proteins, and healthy fats like nuts, olive oil, and avocado), then you’re much more likely to experience benefits beyond just weight loss.

Food List

What can you eat on lazy keto? In a nutshell, the lazy keto diet is a very low-carb diet, which means foods like meat, fish, eggs, healthy oils and non-starchy vegetables should provide the bulk of your calories. Here’s a more detailed list of low-carb keto foods to include:

Healthy fats, including MCT oil, coconut oil, olive oil, grass-fed butter, ghee, avocado, and fats found naturally in meat, eggs and fish.
Quality protein sources, such as pastured eggs and poultry, grass-fed meat, wild-caught fish and full-fat cheeses
Non-starchy, low-carb vegetables, such as leafy greens, cruciferous veggies like broccoli or cauliflower, mushrooms, asparagus, artichokes, bell peppers, herbs, etc.
Fresh or dried herbs and spices.
Unsweetened keto drinks, including water, seltzer, low-sugar green juices, coffee, tea or herbal tea.
Monk fruit or stevia extract instead of sugar to satisfy cravings for sweetness.

What can you NOT eat on the keto diet?

Grains and products made with wheat/grain flours
Most fruit (berries can be eaten in small amounts)
Legumes/beans
Added sugar of all kind
All desserts
Sweetened dairy products
Soda, juices and other sweetened drinks
Most starchy vegetables like potatoes, beets and butternut squash.

Recall from above that a dirty keto diet doesn’t distinguish between healthy, unprocessed fats and those that are known to be inflammatory. To get the most benefits from the diet, avoid things like highly-refined vegetable oils, pork rinds, bacon, sausage and processed cheeses.

Meal Plan

Now that you know which foods to include in lazy keto meals, let’s take a look at an example lazy keto diet meal plan:

Breakfast: Eggs cooked in oil or butter with sautéed veggies and sliced avocado. Another option is skipping breakfast all together and doing intermittent fasting on keto.
Lunch: Grass-fed burger with aged cheddar cheese, served over salad with dressing and pickled veggies.
Dinner: Wild-caught salmon, steak or chicken cooked in butter or oil, served with sautéed veggies cooked in more butter/oil.
Keto snacks (optional, if needed depending on hunger levels): Deviled eggs made with avocado, keto smoothies (made with ingredients like collagen powder or bone broth protein powder, cocoa and coconut milk), a handful of nuts, or “keto fat bombs” made with ingredients like nuts, seeds, cocoa powder and coconut flakes.

Although you won’t necessarily be tracking your food intake very carefully, here are some general tips to keep in mind to make sure you’re sticking to the correct keto macros:

Include at least 1–2 servings of healthy fats with every meal.
Aim to eat small amounts of healthy protein sources throughout the day.
Eat several servings of veggies per day, ideally including them with all meals.
Read ingredient labels carefully, this way you avoid added sugar and carbs, plus difficult-to-pronounce chemical ingredients.

Recipes

Even if your schedule is packed and you’re not big on cooking, there are plenty of easy, lazy keto recipes that can keep you satisfied.

Risks and Side Effects

While it’s not necessarily a “risk,” trying the lazy keto diet may make it harder to get into ketosis and to achieve all of the benefits of a traditional ketogenic diet. If you aren’t eating enough fat, and are consuming too much protein, then your body may struggle to make ketones, which are responsible for many of the unique benefits of high-fat diets.

If you’re following lazy keto and find that you’re not losing weight, you’re feeling sluggish, and overall you aren’t seeing the results you expected, then you have two options:

Try a stricter, traditional keto diet instead. This can help you to actually get into ketosis and to burn fat for energy, plus experience many other benefits associated with ketone production, such as reduced inflammation, more energy and appetite control.
Stop following a low-carb diet altogether, and instead focus on improving the quality of diet overall (i.e, eat more whole foods, cut out processed foods, watch portion sizes, etc.)

Final Thoughts

So what is lazy keto? It’s a high-fat, low-carb diet that’s a bit more flexible than a traditional keto diet. It focuses on limiting carbs, but otherwise not counting macros.
A lazy keto diet food list includes foods like olive oil, coconut oil, free-range eggs, grass-fed butter and meats, and wild-caught fish. Clean keto encourages you to eat lots of non-starchy vegetables everyday to obtain essential vitamins, minerals and fiber, plus to help keep hunger in check. High-antioxidant foods like sea vegetables, probiotic foods like fermented veggies, and bone broth are also recommended.
Examples of popular lazy keto diet recipes include: breakfast of coffee and heavy cream along with three eggs fried in butter with sautéed veggie; lunch of a grass-fed burger (no bun) with melted cheddar, greens and avocado; dinner that includes a protein like fish or chicken with buttered veggies and cauliflower “rice”.