Spoiler: It sure is! After years of success on keto as a meat-eater, I went vegetarian last year. I wasn’t sure how that was going to work – I really loved all the bacon, and chicken breasts, and sausages, and perfect steaks I got to enjoy on keto. Every meal had meat at the center, and I loved it. After a year and a half on keto as a vegetarian, it is not only possible, but I have hugely reduced the cognitive dissonance I felt as someone who loves animals, but was also eating them. 

A typical week in my vegetarian keto…

Weekdays:

• Fat bombs – nuts, coconut oil, and Swerve sweetener blended in a food processor and frozen. 
• Altas bars (like Quest bars but grass-fed cows) 
• A dinner of nuts, cheese, olives, pickles, and veggies

Weekends:

• Carbquick waffles and veggie sausage or veggie scramble for breakfast

Fun meal ideas:

• Beyond Burgers on a Franz keto bun
• A Thai or Indian curry with tofu (no rice)
• Mushroom soup
• Veggie sausage with peppers and onions
• A fun salad, even one with plant-based meat substitutes
• A burrito bowl with soy chorizo, cheese, veggies and a low-carb tortilla
• Chile rellenos
• Stuffed peppers
• All manner of zoodle dishes
• Spaghetti squash pad thai
• Carbquick veggie pizza
• Eggplant parmesan (just use almond flour for coating)
• If the season’s right – a gourmet meal of mushrooms, seasonal veggies, and a Carbquick biscuit
• Rebel ice cream for dessert (is this available everywhere? It’s the best low-carb ice cream there is, I hope you have it near you!)

Since it’s been COVID times since I went veg, I haven’t tested restaurants very much. Honestly it’s been pretty tough when I have tried. I’ve found Thai very accommodating – get tofu as your protein and skip the rice or noodles, and there are lots of stir fries, soups and curries that will work. I can get there with Indian if I choose carefully, although man do I miss lentils and chickpeas. Palak paneer, eggplant dishes (or “aubergines” as they say in India), and some curries are options. Veggie burgers are a crapshoot, since lots of them are made with grains or root vegetables. And nearly everywhere has a salad that will work…although I have to admit, a salad isn’t a very exciting thing to get when I hardly ever get restaurant food. I mean, I can make a damn salad. 

I’m excited to start touring Portland’s vegan and vegetarian restaurants once everyone around me stops getting COVID. I think, just as I found with meat-based keto, I will find that 80% of the menu is not an option, but I only need a dish or two. I always found something, and I always will. Especially if I’m not shy about special instructions (not my favorite part of keto in a restaurant, but after 6 years, I’ve gotten used to it as the price I pay, and just try to deliver my bewildering requirements in as friendly a manner as possible). 

There are very reputable keto websites that say that tofu, because it is made from soybeans, acts on your metabolism more like carbs. They say for strict keto, tofu doesn’t work. I haven’t done any scientific experiments, but in my limited experience, I have eaten tofu with enthusiasm and still maintained my weight loss (I’m not losing weight any more – sad face – but that’s because of my occasional binge eating more than my bi-weekly tofu, I assure you).

Every diet involves making choices about what you’re willing to live without, and what you’re not. Honestly, if I’d gone into keto without having so much yummy meat to eat, would I have done so well for so long? Probably not, the delicious food was a huge part of what enabled me to stick with keto so easily and so well. But after years of going carb-less and it being no big deal to me any more, it’s also been easy to adapt to the challenge of vegetarianism. I’ve quit a lot of unfortunate habits, by taking them one at a time, and getting used to living without this thing, then that thing, then the next thing. It all adds up to a lot of very happy behavioral change.