People are different in how much or how little they like to plan ahead when it comes to meals. Some like to avoid temptation by having everything planned and use a tracking system so they don’t go over their carb level.

Others like to have the freedom to eat whatever keto friendly carb foods they want throughout the day. It’s all up to you. But if you’re a planner, here are some things you can do to make sticking to this diet plan easier for you.

You can purchase keto foods to have on hand in your home at all times. Some recipes or meals call for unique ingredients and you want it to be convenient for you to prepare your foods. You can prepare your favorite keto foods ahead of time. Some people prepare their meals on a weekend so they have everything ready a week at a time. Others only prep everything the night before, so it’s up to you. 

Another way of planning is to think about what you want to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks and then enter them into your carb tracker the night before. That way, you know what you need to prepare meals and how many net carbs it will be. 

One way to plan ahead is to educate yourself about which foods are carb friendly, and which foods at your favorite restaurants are going to help you stay in ketosis. If there aren’t any, you can plan ahead on how you’ll order tailored to your needs. 

Some keto dieters even plan for temptations. Everywhere you go there will be the lure of carb laden foods. So you have to be ready to adjust. Some carry keto friendly snacks in case they’re put in an awkward situation where the only foods being served are those with too many carbs. For example, you can use bag of nuts, keto friendly snack bars or string cheese to satisfy your hunger.

If you’re active in outdoor activities, if you travel or if you have to be away from your home for any amount of time, you can take snacks along with you. Even if you simply drive a lot for work, you may want to have something on hand when hunger strikes. 

There is a side effect to the diet that you have to understand and watch out for. Sometimes your electrolytes can get out of balance. When that happens, you’ll end up not feeling your best and for your health’s sake, you’ll need to make sure that you get the electrolytes that your body needs. Eating low carb, especially under 20 carbs, means that the way electrolytes are processed in your body changes. 

These changes can lead to an imbalance along with dehydration. The biggest risk is right at the beginning of the diet, but it can happen at any time. Because you’re eating less carbs, you won’t be needing the same amount of insulin that you once did. 

Your pancreas will slow production of insulin. When that happens, your stored glucose ends up well below the amount you once had. You can even reach the point where your body is no longer storing glucose. 

Once the body reaches that point, you’ll experience a faster weight loss because your kidneys are eliminating more water, rather than keeping it. With a water weight loss, your drop in weight will be noticeable right away. 

You’ll see more pounds lost on the scale than ever before. While losing your water weight isn’t really a problem except that your electrolytes are being lost right along with the water. When you don’t have the right balance of electrolytes, you’ll experience headaches, pain, muscle cramps and digestive problems. Your heart can race and you might feel sick to your stomach and/or dizzy. 

Being aware of your electrolyte balance is something you need to take care of before it’s a problem. Make sure that you have plenty of  natural salt in your keto diet, such as sea salt or himalayan salt. Salt helps the body hold onto water and you need sodium when you’re on the keto diet.  

Include foods that are high in potassium. You need potassium for your heart. This would be something like bacon, or avocado. Also make sure that you’re also getting enough magnesium. If not, it can cause muscle cramps, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, fatigue, nervousness and poor bone health over time. If you need to, you can add natural supplements to help you body recover.

When it comes to the keto diet, people ask if they can eat fruit. The answer is that you don’t have to give up fruit completely just because you’re on this program. 

Fruit is a natural part of a healthy diet and they offer many health and nutritional benefits. But since the keto diet focuses on low carb eating, you have to choose the fruits that are low carbs. The best fruits to eat are: berries, coconuts, avocados, tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, lemons, limes, star fruit, rhubarb, cherries, oranges, peaches, olives. Most of the other fruits not listed here are high in carbs and sugar.

You have to find the fruits that are as low in carbs and sugar as possible. That means that some fruits are going to be better for your carb count than others are. There seems to be some advice going around that if you want to stay in ketosis, you have to avoid all fruits, but that’s not true.. 

You have to compare the fruits that you pick with the amount of carbs as well as natural sugar that they contain. Not all of them are high carb. You can choose to have tomatoes, which technically, though they’re often referred to as a vegetable, are really a fruit. You can have an entire small tomato for around 3 grams of carbs. Or, you can choose the small bite size salad tomatoes and have about 2 grams for every half a cup. 

You may not think of eating a lemon as part of the fruit you can have on a keto diet. Most people don’t consume the lemon that way. They add it to drinks to give it a sweet, citrusy flavor, but without the carbs. Avocados are another fruit that you can safely have on the keto diet. 

An entire avocado only has 4 grams of carbs. So you can either eat half or a fourth of an avocado and still not go over your net carb limit. You can have fruit in the berry family when you’re on the keto diet. Though they might seem high in carbs, they’re not. Just like with any fruit, though, you want to watch your portion size. You can have blackberries for less than 2 net carbs for ¼ cup. 

If you prefer raspberries, you can eat those on a keto diet. The carb count and serving size is the same for raspberries as it is for blackberries. You can have strawberries, too – although the carb count comes in slightly higher at 2 net carbs per ¼ cup. 

When consuming fruit, just remember that the keto diet isn’t so different from any other carb limiting diet. You want to eat the foods that give you the lowest amount of carbs and sugar for the best health benefits.