Are you thinking of jumping into the keto diet today? It’s a good way to lose weight, but there are some things you should know first so you can be more successful. With keto life changes, your diet habits change completely, so it’s important to understand what it’s like to eat and live keto.
The ketogenic diet is a very low carb way of life. To achieve weight loss, individuals need to cut out most carbs from their diets and stick to high-fat, high-protein diets. While it can be tough to get into if you have always eaten carbs, many people are switching to this diet and posting their cheat recipes to make keto easier.
- Understand the Low-Carb Requirements
Most keto dieters try to eat 20 carbs or less, but you can actually eat up to 50 carbs per day. Is it a good idea to push this maximum? Experts say that it’s difficult to start and stay in ketosis, which is the main goal of anyone on a keto diet. Ketosis occurs when your body starts burning fat because you have switched to eating high-fat meals instead of carbs.
Extremely strict keto dieters may eat less than 15 grams per day. This is specifically for those on a therapeutic keto diet, such as epilepsy sufferers.
- Coconut Oil is Your Best Friend
Getting into ketosis is way easier with coconut oil in your diet. This is because coconut oil contains medium-chain triglycerides AKA MCTs. While coconut oil is not like other fats, the reason it’s different makes it the best thing you can eat on the keto diet. This is because MCTs are quickly absorbed and go to the liver directly, where they are immediately turned into energy. (armodexperiment.com) Studies have shown that consuming coconut oil is the best way to ramp up your ketone production, which is essential for staying in ketosis.
Most keto dieters eat a teaspoon of coconut oil a day for this reason
- Up Your Healthy Fat Intake
Boosting your fat levels is the key to starting and keeping your ketosis going. While eating low carbs is also part of the diet, eating healthy fats is what helps your body start burning fat instead of muscle. Up to 80 percent of calories in a ketogenic diet are from fat. Some healthy fats include avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, butter, and tallow.
- The Fast Track to Ketosis
Fasting is another way to quickly get into ketosis. Most people actually enter a state of ketosis between breakfast and dinner. This is because even a short lapse of 8 hours without eating can start ketosis. This is why intermittent fasting is sometimes utilized by keto dieters to start off their diet and keep ketosis persistent.
Did you know that epilepsy patients may fast for up to 48 hours before they go on a keto diet? This helps the body go into ketosis as fast as possible, and it reduces the risk of seizures drastically.
- Get a Ketonix Meter
Do you want to know for sure if you are in ketosis or not? You can get a Ketonix meter to measure the acetone in your breath. This is one of the ways in which you can tell whether or not your body has reached ketosis. Once you breathe onto the meter, the color will indicate whether you have achieved ketosis and what level you are at.
Ketosis can also be measured through your blood and urine, but these can be more difficult to test unless you have a glucose meter, which is common for diabetes patients.
- Prepare for More Protein
Ketogenic diets focus on high protein intake along with non-starchy vegetables and healthy fats. It’s important to continue to eat protein throughout your diet because it’s not healthy to forego. Your liver needs amino acids from protein to create glucose, which it provides to different organs and cells, including your brain. You also want to eat protein to keep your muscles mass balanced. In fact, consuming protein every day can preserve your muscles even though keto is a pretty strict low-carb diet.
