Finding carrots to be the most wonderful thing on my dinner plate is not something I ever expected to experience, but I made roasted carrots last night. And wow. They were a luxury.

This recipe clocks in at 5 net carbs and 5 grams of fat per half cup serving. I had not had anything even remotely resembling what I think of as a “carb” for four days and that’s been hard especially with my workouts at Orangetheory. So these carrots were extra special.

Simple roast carrots:

• 3 large carrots, cut in the diagonal
• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon herbes de Provence (or thyme)

Preheat the oven to 400. Chop your carrots at a diagonal. Mix all the ingredients together and put into an oven safe pan. I love cast iron pans for this. Everything browns so nicely. Roast for about 40 minutes at 400, stirring once about half way through.

I served these with a ham dinner and then again for a breakfast side with a western scramble.

Definitely keep these in mind if you are looking for an easy side dish, especially if you want carbs and are trying not to have them.

I’m on day 5 of the keto experiment and it’s still going ok. I’ve been a bit overtired today and somewhat irritable. Perhaps this is the keto flu I’ve heard so much about. I also had my first half week back at work and Orangetheory after my staycation. Three days in a row of tough workouts has made me incredibly sore. My whole body hurts. I would really like to be less cranky, but I’m trying to be zen about it.

On day 4, I did much better about hitting my target macros. I smacked on some cheese and got my fat grams a little higher. I ended day 4 at an estimated 45 of 45 net carbs, 100 of 130 grams of fat, and 110 of 113 of protein.

I read a suggestion of snacking on coconut to get fat amounts up and that is like a dream come true for me, so for lunch today I had 1/8 cup, macadamia nuts, 1/8 of unsweetened coconut, and 4 ounces of ahi poke. I also bought some avocado, but it wasn’t ready yet. This was really fantastic and I’m looking forward to having it again.

This combo was 2 net carbs, 27 grams of fat and 29 grams of protein.

From day 2 to day 4, I’d lost two pounds and my scanner scale showed that as all fat loss, and an actual gain in muscle and water. I’ll report in again on that next week, but this appears to be working as advertised in all aspects. I can’t tell you how strange it is to be trying to figure out how to eat more fat.