Description: A ketosis diet is the best way to go if you want to lose a substantial amount of weight. Here are some methods that can help you achieve the ketosis state quickly.
What is a ketosis diet? Ketosis is a normal process that takes place when your body does not have enough carbs to be converted into energy. Instead, fat is burned to form the best exogenous ketones, which are used as an alternative source of fuel.
Today, the ketosis diet plan is considered as one of the most popular weight-loss strategies. This strategy focuses on using proteins for fueling the energy needs of your body. Apart from burning fat, it also curbs the feeling of hunger and aids in muscle maintenance.
For healthy people who are not pregnant or diabetic, ketosis kicks typically in after 3-4 days for eating a maximum of 50-grams of carbohydrates per day. This amount is almost equivalent to two small bananas, a cup of low-fat fruit yogurt, or three slices of bread; alternatively, you can also start ketosis by fasting as well.
When you are eating a balanced and healthy acid ketosis diet, your body will control the amount of fat it burns so that you do not have to make use of ketones. But when you cut to only carbs and/or calories, your body will activate the ketosis mode for energy. This also happens during pregnancy, or you exercise after a long time.
What Are Some Tips That Can Help Get Into Ketosis Fast?
The tips mentioned below can help you get into ketosis quickly. Once you have achieved ketosis, you can add small amounts of carbs into your diet.
Cut The Carbs
People who follow a low-carbohydrate diet are often in ketosis because the fastest way to reach ketosis is by cutting down on carbs. The human body will typically make use of glucose (or sugar) as its primary fuel source. Once the carbohydrate levels start depleting, your body will make use of glycogen, which is glucose that is stored in your muscles and liver. Glycogen gets used fast, and your body is forced to look for another source of fuel; in the end, fat is used to fuel your body.
Most people have no idea how many carbs they are consuming each day. Hence, you will have to keep a close eye on your carb intake when you are getting into ketosis. On average, the limit for most people is 30-grams of carbs per day.
For maintaining the carb limit, the ketosis diet foods allowed include vegetables like cucumbers, lettuce, zucchini, cauliflower, and broccoli to serve with your meals. These vegetables are all high in nutrients and low in carbohydrates. In fact, any vegetable that is green is mostly low in carbs.
Increase The Intake Of Healthy Fats
Perhaps the most significant part of a natural ketosis diet is the emphasis on healthy fats. Since most of the calories will be gained from fats, the fat sources must be of high-quality. You need to consume food products that have high-fat content and will boost your ketone levels. It will also aid in curbing your hunger and provides energy.
Some great food options that contain healthy fats include full-fat salad dressings, mayonnaise, egg yolks, olives, avocado, and fatty meats. For adding to vegetables and meat, you can use fats/oils like avocado oil, coconut oil, olive oil, and butter.
If you want to observe weight loss on a ketosis diet, you need to be mindful of the overall calorie intake while increasing your fat. Too many calories will stall your weight-loss efforts, even if you consume the right macro-nutrients for your keto diet.
Limit Your Protein Intake
One of the most challenging aspects of ketosis diet is getting enough amounts of protein. However, it is quite easy to get over the recommended protein levels, especially if you are getting from fats from fatty meats.
While there is a limitation on how much protein one can consume on a ketosis diet, it still needs to be high enough to allow your body to maintain specific life processes. For instance, parts of the brain and kidney and the red blood cells cannot make use of ketones as a fuel source; additionally, your muscle mass can only be maintained if your protein intake is high enough.
You should avoid lean meats at all costs. Instead, make use of fatty meat cuts that are cooked in healthy fats.
Include A Fat Fast
You can also include a fat fast to get to the ketosis state faster. However, you need to be careful; this method might prove to be dangerous, especially for people who are not metabolically resistant or those who are not on a weight-loss plateau. Consult your ketosis diet doctor for more information.
However, if you are trying to kick-start your ketosis diet in an extremely short period or have been experiencing weight-loss plateau for a minimum of two weeks, you can try a fat fast.
Additionally, you need to ensure that you do not pull the fast longer than five days; at most, 2-4 days should be ideal.
On a fat fast, almost 90% of your calories will be coming from fat. Additionally, you are allowed to consume only between 1000 and 1200 calories per day. These 1000-1200 calories can be broken up into four or five meals throughout the day.
While you might feel the urge to consume heavy at first, this feeling will disappear once your body starts adjusting to the way that you are eating. Once you get into the habit, you will likely lose out 5-8 pounds every three days; this weight will be the combination of your water and fat weight.
After this fasting period, you can go back to your normal keto food habits. This ketosis diet results in gaining 2-3 pounds, which is completely normal.
Increase Your Physical Activity
You need to start exercising, especially if you have just switched over to no-carb diet ketosis; you need to focus on getting your body used to the keto diet. For beginners, you can start off with simple exercises like basic yoga and walking.
If you already have been exercising or only getting used to the new ketosis diet, you can increase your work-out regime to burn out the glycogen stores quickly. You will get into ketosis faster since your liver will increase the production of ketones when glycogen runs low.
Several high-intensity training exercises can burn the maximum sugar level with minimal efforts. These exercises are called minimal because while they are incredibly intense, they are quite short.
Since exercising while fasting increases the levels of ketone, you can work out in the morning before breakfast to kick things up a notch or two.
Observe Intermittent Fasting
In most cases, intermittent fasting means consuming your calories during a specific time of the day and not eating anything at all for a larger time window. While there are several different ways to do intermittent fasting, the most common is the 16/8 method.
This method means that you need to fast for 16 hours and eat within the 8-hour time window. For instance, you can eat from 2 pm to 10 pm and not touch any food outside these time limits. You might have to skip your breakfast and move your lunch to later on the day.
Thanks to intermittent fasting, you will become capable of starting a ketosis diet faster. This fasting will deplete your glycogen stores quickly, and your body will be forced to look for other fuel sources, rather than relying on carbs.
Most experts on the ketosis diet explained that for beginners, it is suggested that you drink a lot of black coffee (without milk or sugar) and water to suppress your hunger and appetite.
Test And Adjust Your Ketone Levels
Similar to other things like weight loss and nutrition, maintaining a state of ketosis is an individual process. You can keep track of your ketone levels regularly and adjust as you see fit. The three types of ketones include:
- Acetone
- Beta-Hydroxybutyrate
- Acetoacetate
Monitoring the acetone levels is quite easy and can be done via your breath levels. You can make use of a breath monitor for measuring the ketone levels. This method is simple and fast.
For measuring the beta-hydroxybutyrate levels, you can make use of a blood meter for measuring ketone levels. This device works almost similar to the glucose meter that patients with diabetes make use of. All you need to do is place a drop on blood on the strip and insert it into the meter. The only downfall of this is that the strips are quite expensive.
Lastly, you can make use of a urine test to measure your acetoacetate levels. The urine strips need to be dipped into your urine and, depending on your ketone levels, will change into different shades of pink.
Whatever method you choose from the above for triggering your ketosis diet, you need to maintain the consistency as to when you measure. The levels of ketones tend to be higher in the morning or after dinner.
Conclusion: Depending on your starting point (health, weight, etc.), you should be able to enter ketosis under 36 hours if you choose to follow this guide. You will find a lot of ketosis diet reviews and paths – pathological, nutritional, fasting, and so on! However, not all of them are healthy, and other approaches will take a lot of time.
Each one of us has unique bodies and will react differently to the diet; this is one of the toughest things about a ketosis diet. While one person will be able to lose 10-pounds in a single day, another will lose the same amount in just three days.
There is no single formula that can be applied to everybody. You might need to eat fewer carbs while your friend might need to incorporate exercise into their daily routine. For some, diet soda and ketosis might work while it won’t work for others.
The original idea behind keto is to get rid of sugars and lower the number of carbs that you consume. If you can focus your attention on these two aspects and let everything else flow naturally, you will get used to it in no time! What’s your opinion on the keto diet? Let us know in the comments!
Author’s bio: Adam Reeve is a nutritionist in San Diego, California, and started dealing with the keto diet when he first heard of it at Tim Ferris, a few years ago. He’s working with athletes and documents his journey online.