Food Freedom Friday Edition 205- Achieving Ketosis

The ketogenic diet is an effective way to lose weight, improve mental cognition, balance hormones and treat various diseases like diabetes and epilepsy. 

Achieving a state of ketosis can take time. Your body has been burning sugar for fuel your entire life. It will need time to adapt to making and burning ketones for fuel.

This transition could take anywhere from 48 hours to one week. The length in time will vary depending upon your activity level, lifestyle, body type and carbohydrate intake. There are several ways you can speed up this process

Cut Carbs

The general carb limit for the keto diet is around 30 grams per day. If you’re an athlete, this may increase to 100 grams.

When starting out on a ketogenic diet, some people find comfort in cutting out carbs gradually. However, if you want to get into ketosis fast, drastically reducing your carb intake is a necessary step. Track your carbohydrate intake during this time, not letting any hidden carbs slip onto your plate.

Carbs can creep up in your daily diet and prevent you from or knock you out of ketosis this tends to be most common reason many people feel they are doing everything right and are still not able to enter ketosis.

Hidden carbs can from:

·       Restaurant meals. For example, most sauces have sugar in them.

·       “Healthy” snacks. Most snacks, even those considered low carb, have cheap ingredients and syrups that raise your blood sugar and kick you out of ketosis.

·       Too many nuts. Nuts are a perfect keto snack, but some of them are higher in carbs than others. Eating handfuls of nuts without measuring can take you over your car limit.

Increase High-Quality Fats

Healthy fats make up a large component of any keto meal plan. If you’re new to keto, it may take time to transition to this way of eating. Make sure your fat intake accounts for 70-80% of your total calories. This will help your body transition to using fat as its primary fuel source, although if your goal is to lose weight, I recommend decreasing your fat intake slightly to allow your cells to burn fat stores instead of dietary fat.

Some healthy, keto friendly fats include:

·       Oils like coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, MCT oil or powder, avocado oil or macadamia nut oil

·       Animal fats including fatty meats, egg yolks, butter or ghee

·       Plant fats like avocados, olives or coconut butter

·       Nuts and nut butters (these are best limited)

Fast

Fasting is often used in conjunction with keto. It poses a number of health benefits, including improved concentration, faster weight loss, and reduced blood sugar levels. It has also been associated with decreasing symptoms of various diseases. When used in combination with a ketogenic diet, it can help you get into ketosis faster, and aids in fat loss.

Fat fasting involves eating low-calorie (usually around 1,000 calories), with roughly 85-90% of those calories coming from fat, for a few days.

Exercise

Exercise helps deplete the body of glycogen stores (stored glucose). When glycogen reserves are low, and not being refilled with carbohydrates, the body turns to burning fat for energy. Therefore, increasing your exercise intensity can help you enter ketosis faster.

Adequate Protein

There is no need to drastically reduce protein on a ketogenic diet.

Eating enough protein is crucial for feeling your best on keto. It provides many of the nutrients you need to be healthy, helps satisfy you, and helps prevent muscle breakdown.

Going into keto focusing only on fats sets you up for failure because you can begin experiencing negative side effects from the lack of nutrients that adequate protein as provides.

As a general rule, aim for at least 0.8 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass.

As an added benefit, high-quality proteins like grass-fed beef also provide healthy fats.

Hydrate

Many people experience a flush of water weight when they switch to keto from eating a standard, high carb diet to keto. This makes it even more important to stay hydrated. Hunger is also often confused for dehydration. Avoid this by drinking water often, especially when you experience cravings or hunger.

Take Electrolytes

Alongside drinking more water, it’s important to take electrolytes to help make up for the loss of fluids and replenish all the electrolytes being flushed out with it. Adding a natural rock or sea salt to foods will also help ensure adequate electrolyte levels are maintained and prevent flu-like symptoms.

Sufficient Sleep

Proper sleep is important for hormone function and repair of the body. Not getting enough sleep is challenging for the adrenal glands and blood sugar regulation. Try to get at least seven hours of sleep per night. If you struggle with quality sleep, create an environment that is conducive for rest. This could be keeping your room cooler, turning off all electronic devices one to two hours before bedtime or using a sleep mask.

Use MCT Oil 

MCT oil can boost your blood ketone levels significantly more than coconut oil, butter, or any other fat.

MCT oil can do this because the medium-chain triglycerides in it are quickly metabolized and used for energy by your cells, unlike long-chain fatty acids which take longer to be broken down.

Pantry Staples

Finding keto-friendly foods and easy recipes is key for sticking and enjoying your keto diet. The easiest way to fall off the wagon on keto is to not have safe keto options available when hunger hits and you need energy.

·       Go shopping for keto-approved foods and stock your fridge and pantry

·       Find easy keto-friendly recipes and use them

·       Choose healthier on-the-go keto snacks or commit to not snacking or implement a fasting or time restricted eating pattern

Snack Carefully

More challenging than being keto at home, is to stay keto on the go. When you’re at work, on the road, or the airport, it can be almost impossible to find keto-friendly foods.

Having the right portable snacks with you can make the difference between staying on track to becoming keto-adapted or falling off the wagon.

Some of the best keto snacks include:

·       Keto Bars

·       Keto Nut Butter

·       Low-Sugar Beef Jerky

·       Nuts and seeds

Take Exogenous Ketones

Exogenous ketones are supplements to help you get into ketosis faster. The most effective exogenous ketones are those made with beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB ketones). BHB is the most abundant ketone in the body, making up to 78% of total ketone bodies in the blood. It’s also a more efficient fuel source than glucose.

Taking exogenous ketones helps your body get into ketosis faster (sometimes in as little as 24 hours). You still need to eat a low carb, ketogenic diet, but supplementation can decrease the amount of time this takes.

When your body enters ketosis for the first time, it’s switching its preferred fuel source. This transition can cause flu-like side effects in some people, including fatigue, headaches, dizziness, sugar cravings, brain fog and stomach trouble. This is often called the “keto flu.”

Supplementing with exogenous ketones can help negate these unwanted symptoms.

Eat Out Smartly

When you’re eating out, making healthy swaps is easier than you think.

Most restaurants will accommodate requests for swaps, omissions and substitutions including:

·       Burger without a bun

·       Salad without dressing (dressings are often loaded with carbs and poor quality fats)

·       Tacos without tortillas

·       Unsweetened beverages

Once you get into ketosis, there is no guarantee you will remain in ketosis. If you eat a carb-laden meal, practice carb cycling, or increase your carb intake for athletic performance, your body may start burning glucose. To get back into a fat-burning state, follow the same methods you did to get into ketosis initially.