Books on Keto Everyone Should Read

New to the keto diet and not sure where to start? Getting back on the wagon after a break from keto? Want to learn more about the biology behind the diet? We’ve got you covered with the best keto diet books on all of the above topics and more. From beginner’s guides to brain science, here are seven of our favorite keto reads.  

Simply Keto: A Practical Approach To Health And Weight Loss

Before she was a cookbook author, Suzanne Ryan was a blogger and YouTuber on a weight loss journey, like so many of us. In January of 2015 at 289 pounds, Ryan found herself overweight, zapped of energy and feeling worse about herself than she ever had before. She knew something had to change. 

All the diet plans Ryan had tried in the past hadn’t stuck, but she came across the keto diet and decided to give it a shot. What she found was a lifestyle that would not only help her lose more than 40% of her body weight, but completely transform her relationship with food. 

Simply Keto: A Practical Approach to Health & Weight Loss is the cookbook and personal narrative resulting from Ryan’s weight loss experience. If you’ve been in the same boat Ryan was in before she discovered the keto diet, her story will hit home. She shares how she dropped more than 120 pounds and adopted a practical approach to low-carb living that fits in with her life as a busy working mom. 

Simply Keto includes more than 100 recipes, grocery shopping tips and a structured 30-day meal plan which is perfect for keto newbies. Readers love her real-world approach to keto cooking, like using last night’s leftovers in today’s meals. The macros in her recipes are realistic, unlike some keto cookbooks that stretch the boundaries and push your daily nutrition limits with just one meal. 

It provides helpful suggestions on what to order while eating out, including Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and Italian dishes that are keto friendly or can be modified to be. This book breaks it down in a simple manner that’s great for keto beginners, but experienced keto dieters will learn plenty of new recipes that go beyond the keto standbys of meat and cheese. 

The Keto Diet: The Complete Guide to a High-Fat Diet

This keto guide zeroes in on the high-fat aspect of the keto diet. In it, nutrition educator Leanne Vogel of the popular Healthful Pursuit blog flips conventional wisdom about dietary fat on its head. The Keto Diet: The Complete Guide To A High Fat Diet challenges readers to change the way we look at fat, from a dietary evil that must be avoided to a natural, healthy macronutrient that provides clean fuel for our bodies. 

With more than 125 recipes and five meal plans to choose from, Vogel helps us understand how to customize the keto diet to suit our individual needs. For example, she covers how to do keto without dairy to reduce inflammation and offers helpful food sensitivity replacements like granola without nuts. 

Nearly half of the recipes in the book are vegan or include options to make them vegan. Simple yes/no food lists take the guesswork out of ingredients so you can grocery shop with confidence. 

The Keto Diet is about more than just losing weight through keto; it’s about gaining back your self-esteem, loving your body and banishing your fear of fat once and for all. 

Grain Brain

So many keto diet books focus primarily on how keto affects our waistline, but Dr. David Perlmutter’s bestselling guide details the diet’s relationship with a different part of our body: the brain. A board certified neurologist, Perlmutter goes deep on the detrimental effects gluten, sugar, and carbs can have on the brain and body based on the latest nutritional and neurological science. 

If you’re interested in the biology behind the keto diet, you’ll find Grain Brain to be a fascinating read. Perlmutter breaks down in layman’s terms the neurological benefits of using fat as a main food source, covering the latest research-backed evidence that a non-GMO, gluten-free, and low-carb diet is optimal for our cognitive function and long-term health. 

This book is a New York Times #1 bestseller with more than 1.5 million readers in 34 languages. If you’re interested in the keto diet not just as a means to lose weight, but to alleviate anxiety, beat depression, ease chronic health conditions and guard against neurological decline, it’s a must-read. For Perlmutter’s take on keto cooking, be sure to check out the complementary Grain Brain Cookbook. 

Easy Keto For Busy People

Jennifer Marie Garza was thrilled when she lost 55 pounds following the keto diet, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep the weight off if she had to rely on the same handful of recipes over and over again. Determined to make her lifestyle change a lasting one, she created Easy Keto For Busy People, an accessible and practical keto recipe book. 

As a wife and mom of two, Garza knows how important it is to save time in the kitchen. If you’ve been a keto follower for a while, you may know her from her wildly popular Facebook page Keto Friendly Recipes, which has over half a million followers. With Keto For Busy People she’s taken the same straightforward, simple approach to cooking tasty keto meals and transitioned it to book form. 

As one enthusiastic reader puts it, “Jennifer’s cookbook is for the average person shopping in the average grocery store who has a limited amount of time to prepare meals.” Sounds like most of us!

In addition to attainable ingredients and recipes, Garza makes helpful recommendations for kitchen tools to make keto meal prep easier and pantry items keto followers should always keep on hand.

Keto Answers

It’s easy to get the gist of the keto diet--high fat, low carbs--but that still leaves a lot of questions. Should you count net carbs or total carbs? How much protein is the right amount to eat? Is keto safe for the long term? What happens when you fall off the wagon?

Written by two well-known keto thought leaders, Keto Answers tackles all of your most pressing keto questions and helps demystify some of the most confusing parts of the diet. It’s co-authored by Dr. Anthony Gustin of the popular keto resource Perfect Keto and nutrition science researcher Chris Irvin. Together the duo has spent more than a decade using keto to overcome health issues and achieve optimum physical performance. 

One of the best parts of this book is its layout; with a textbook-like format it provides a short answer and a long answer to each question, which is great for skimming and jumping between topics you’re interested in. Each question is helpfully organized in an index. 

Gustin and Irvin also dive into topics that aren’t widely covered elsewhere. A chapter dedicated to keto for women, for example, discusses the nuanced ways men and women’s bodies react differently to the diet. Even if you’re already successful with the keto diet, you’ll find useful information to expand your understanding and take your results even further in this book. 

The Keto Guido Cookbook

What do the MTV show Jersey Shore and the keto diet have in common? (Bet you’ve never heard that question before!) The answer is Vinny Guadagnino, the likeable Italian-American who was amazed at how his body and health transformed when he started the keto diet. 

Growing up in an Italian household didn’t exactly lend itself to a low-carb lifestyle. Going keto was a learning process for Guadagnino, and one he enjoyed documenting for his friends and followers on social media. After many requests to develop a guide for others, he created The Keto Guido Cookbook. 

Sprinkled with fun stories and family anecdotes, Guadagnino shares keto-friendly versions of Italian favorites like Italian sausage breakfast casserole, zucchini roll manicotti, baked chicken caprese, and even keto tiramisu. With more than 100 recipes and a 7-day meal plan, this highly rated keto cookbook will help you find the joy in home cooking without all the heavy carbs.

The 30-Day Ketogenic Cleanse

If you’re brand new to keto or are getting back on the wagon after some time off, The 30-Day Ketogenic Cleanse will reset your system and help your body get into the swing of using ketones for fuel. In this easy read, Emmerich shows readers how realistic it is to use keto to heal your body from the inside out, resulting in more balanced hormones, improved sleep and better overall quality of life. 

Many people fail at keto before they even really get started because it’s tough to get over that initial hump. Author and wellness expert Maria Emmerich offers a diet plan designed specifically to kickstart ketosis and ward off undesirable early symptoms like the “keto flu.” 

She offers a Whole30 compliant meal plan as well as a chapter dedicated to slow cooker meals, which are awesome for hectic weekdays. Convenient grocery lists for all meal plans make shopping easy. 

About Left Coast Performance

The resources don’t stop here. Find more information about the keto diet and answers to your keto questions on the Left Coast Performance blog. We’re passionate about helping our customers transform their lives through the keto diet, with high quality products like protein powder, MCT oil and electrolyte supplements to support you on your journey. 

Our products contain only the finest ingredients and are never made with artificial flavors, colors or fillers. All orders come with free shipping and a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Shop now by visiting www.leftcoastperformance.com and follow us on Instagram for even more keto lifestyle tips.