How an imperfect family shops for three:

I am here to show you what it is like to shop as an imperfect (very imperfect) family who is doing keto for a family of three. Today, I went to Walmart and spent $210.47. You can look here and see what $210 got us.

We are not perfect, so get ready for that. But I want to show how a family really shops and what they really do. Let's go through some of the items.

Let's start with things I know I'm doing poorly.

These are Atkins pizzas. I think Atkins are great products maybe when you're starting out, but as you get educated on keto, you start to learn that there are things in here that are not so keto, not so low carb. Like whole wheat flour, something you really wouldn't typically eat.

Let me tell you the truth, my kid is 11. She used to eat regular pizza and now I'm super happy that when I don't feel like cooking she eats these and actually likes these better now. Every once in a while my husband and I, who eat mostly keto and low carb, have these. We find that if we eat these a lot, we typically stall. But when we don't have the time to make fathead pizza and we have to have pizza, this is a good thing to check out.

This is a better choice if you don't feel like cooking, it's Atkins, it's chili con carne, and has 10 total carbs, as opposed to 28 total carbs here. They talk about the 11 net carbs, but really, you can see that it'll probably stall you at some point.

When my husband goes to work, he takes the train to work, so he shoves everything into his backpack. I like these pre-packaged salads. Just watch out for the expiration date, they stack them where the expiration date is going to be the soonest to the latest. Yes, it would be cheaper to pack a salad, but if you don't have enough money to buy these prepackaged ones, make salads and put them in a Ziploc container. I am lazy, and this week, I happened to have the money, so I'm all about it.

These are Bai, they are sweetened with erythritol. It says five calories, which says it sounds super good, they have one gram of sugar, so theoretically, not completely keto. But what I like to do is take these when I want something sweet and cut them with a lot of water, usually use a third or a fourth of this with water, and I really enjoy it. These are some new tea flavors that I like a lot.

This is a sweetener. It's pure, it's organic liquid stevia extract. On the back, you can see that it has zero carbs and zero calories. There's all kinds of different stevia. You're going for something more natural, zero carbs and zero calories is better. Even better than that is not to have any sweetener at all, but I am not perfect, so sometimes I have sweetener.

Club soda is a really great thing to have when you are fasting. If you're doing intermittent fasting, you can do club soda 'cause itmakes you feel full, but it also has a little bit of sodium in it, which helps things regulate when you're fasting.

We like to use half and half a lot, usually a tablespoon or a little bit more in our coffee. I like to make olive oil tuna salad with Starkist. Olive oil tuna salad. We have some middle to high carb veggies here. My daughter likes apples, we tend to stay away from those but it's low carb. Broccoli is a nice low carb treat.

I like Duke's products, original recipe, more natural packaged meats as opposed to not quite as natural if you're going here, more additives. But both are pretty low in carb, so check out your carb content. When you look at beef jerky a lot, it usually has a lot of sugar and you might want to stay away from that and go more to the little links. This is a really good thing I like, the prosciutto wrapped in cheese, and this one is the pepperoni. They have two carbs for two of the little sticks. They're good for parties.

This will tend to have one or two carbs per serving for hot breakfast sausage. As you can see, we eat a lot of cheese that has zero to one carbs per serving. We stick with fruits that are typically berries because they have the most fiber, and typically the lowest carb count and they're most filling. Tomatoes, we use sparingly. Avocados, we eat them all the time.

This is a really good taco seasoning that you can get in the South, it's called Fiesta brand, and it has zero carbs in it. Check when you make pre-made taco seasoning, some of them have carbs. When you're looking for cold cuts, and I know, we're trying to eat grass fed, we're trying to eat all these things, but honestly, sometimes, we are lazy and we have to grab food out of the fridge. Cold cuts, look for zero added sugars and less processing. We try to stick with the more natural stuff, this time today, I didn't. I just got the stuff that had zero grams of sugar.

Grass fed beef, we can talk a long time about this. But this says organic, grass fed beef. I got it at Walmart. What you'll notice is it does not say it was grass finished, which means these cows ate grass fed beef during their lives, but were definitely finished probably on corn or on other things at the end of their lives.

This is pretty good stuff, it does have one gram of carbs per serving, but I like to combine it with the ham. These are great snacks 'cause they don't have a ton of sugar and they have pretty low net carbs. They are Blue Diamond Almonds. Our 11 year old likes the salt and vinegar, we like the sriracha. If you can get around with just the natural ones, you're doing perfect. We need a little flavor. These are spicy buffalo and barbecue Mac's Chicarrones, pork skins. My kid really loves them. They have a minuscule amount of sugar and they're still at zero carbs with the flavor.

We eat a ton of bacon, can't survive without bacon. Here is some lamb in the natural section at Walmart, which we've been putting on the grill. We've got zucchini and asparagus and cauliflower rice, more low carb vegetables. Some Slim Jims, some anchovies for pizza or just by itself. I really like this brand of eggs, it's Vital Farms. They're pasture raised, and the chickens have a lot more space. I think the eggs taste a lot better. They're expensive but I think it's worth it when you can do it.

Sour cream for taco salads. And we've got some chicken wings to make lemon and pepper wing drumettes with avocado oil this week.

As you can see, we've been doing keto mostly for about 10 months. In a perfect world, I'd like this to be grass fed, natural, from the farmer's market, but we're a real family with a real budget. We go to Walmart and sometimes we're a little lazy. So, if you are imperfect when you're doing keto, I hope showing you this, you can relate.

Have a great week.