So you’re primed for a ketogenic diet, weight loss, and health enhancement. You’ve found the right spot. It can be difficult to make some major lifestyle or diet changes, particularly at first. There are a lot of new routines to master and to unlearn old habits. Yet we’ve seen again and again that keto becomes the new standard over time and the drastic effects are so worth it. What is the best way for a ketogenic diet to get started? Three steps to keto success will be outlined here, but first let’s describe what a keto diet is.
Simply put, it is a high-fat low-carb diet that is low to moderate in protein. The body will get into and maintain ketosis by dramatically limiting carbohydrates in your diet. A metabolic condition where a highly efficient substitute fuel called ketones is burned by the body.
The keto diet not only helps with weight loss, but recent studies also suggest that it can positively affect health problems such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease. Here are our top three main pieces of advice to start your keto adventure off on the right foot.
Eat the right foods, eat the right amount of those foods, and brace for the “keto flu”. Let’s get started on food. Your aim is to substitute high carb foods with keto-friendly foods on a regular basis. This will help you consume less calories than before, helping to jump-start and maintain ketosis.
Focus on meat, high-fat dairy products and healthy oils, leafy green vegetables, nuts and seeds, avocado, berries, and keto-approved sweeteners. You will need to avoid grains, sugar, fruit, and starchy vegetables altogether.
You will often focus much more on home-cooked foods than on frozen, processed, or prepared foods for keto. It’s important to remember that it’s not advantageous for you to discover out how to do it on your own. There are so many resources, including meal plans, shopping lists, breakdowns for the budget, and recipes. We’re going to show you how to avoid common pitfalls, how to read labels and nutrition facts, and which keto foods can be traded and substituted for off-limits foods.
You can be shocked by how many foods you can still enjoy, like bread, pasta, cookies, and ice cream, if you only learn how to make them keto-friendly. The basis of the diet is not just eating the right foods, although that is important.
You have to learn how much to eat as well which takes us to our second step. A keto diet can help you slowly and gradually decrease your calorie intake, leading to long-term weight loss, but if you’re not closely watching what you eat, it can be hard to do this. One way to find out how much you can eat on a keto diet is every few weeks to review your progress and change accordingly.
You may also use a keto calculator, which we consider to be a more reliable tool, if you’re not getting the results you want. You’ll also need your macronutrients or macros to be monitored. There are fats, carbs, and protein that need to be carefully balanced to keep ketosis in your body.
We recommend eating less than 35 grams of carbs a day as a general rule and try to get 70% of your calories from fat and 25% from protein. The keto calculator will allow you to dial in exactly what to aim for each day and keep you on track.
Finally, you must brace for the “keto flu” when you start out on a ketogenic diet. Your body will undergo some changes when you first cut back on carbohydrates as it transitions to your lifestyle.
The “keto flu” is one possible change, an umbrella term for the flu-like symptoms you can feel, such as exhaustion or mental fogginess. These symptoms typically only last a short time, but it is best to be prepared for them.
You will need to drink more water, increase your potassium and magnesium sodium intake, and eat more fat, especially medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs). Most importantly, check in with yourself from time to time and track changes in the makeup of your body and how you feel and make sure that the best solution for you is the ketogenic diet.
