While everyone may need to fine-tune their ketogenic diet every now and then, sometimes life calls for a complete overhaul.
Whether occasional slip-ups have turned into everyday events, or you’re just looking for a further weight loss boost, following this comprehensive guide to resetting your keto lifestyle will get you back on track quickly and painlessly.
Why You Might Need A Keto Reset
When you start any new diet, the excitement and promise of something new can energize you to feel like you can do anything. It’s not uncommon to go in with the perfect meal plan and workout, feeling like you’re on top of the world.
And then reality kicks in.
Those morning workouts start to feel like a chore, the food prep becomes monotonous, and saying no to your old favorites may start to wear on you.
When this happens, it’s easy to fall off your plan altogether. The better option? Do a keto reset diet. Here are a few very common circumstances where a keto reset may be in order:
- You’ve been following your keto diet to a T, and then you have a cheat day. Maybe it’s your birthday, a holiday, you were on vacation, or your mother sent you a package of those cookies that bring you back to your childhood. Whatever the reason, with keto, it only takes one cheat day (or meal, really) to kick you out of ketosis.
- You’ve been following a keto diet for a while, and you’ve slowly begun to notice that you no longer feel all of the benefits. It’s not uncommon to hit a plateau with keto and maybe even notice that your body fat percentage is creeping up. This can be due to metabolic shifts, or it can be due to the fact that you’ve slowly fallen off your routine. If you aren’t consistently tracking your ketones, it’s easy to slip out of ketosis without realizing it.
- You tried keto a while ago, but you gave up on it because life got hectic, or you just needed a break. Getting back into the keto lifestyle can seem daunting when memories of keto flu come rushing back. Not to mention the disastrous effects of carbohydrate dependency and the Standard American Diet.
By doing a keto reset, you are able to begin anew with a burst of vigor that you can apply to your nutrient plan.
If you’ve previously tried the diet or you plan to start fresh, use these suggestions to re-energize your metabolism and make the process of transitioning to burning fat more enjoyable. It won’t be long before you feel the benefits of better wellness.
Ways To Get Back into Ketosis
1. Dietary Guidelines
If you want to be in a state of maximum nutritional ketosis, you need to be dedicated to following a ketogenic diet.
It is commonly believed that following the keto diet requires certain limitations, however, the fact is that eating keto means you’re consuming food items that leave you feeling full.
Typically, the keto diet is composed of high fat, moderate protein, and low carbohydrate items. If you’re a seasoned keto dieter, you should already know what works for you — but here are some guidelines to keep in mind:
- Focus on healthy fats, which should make up around 55-60% of your caloric intake (no vegetable oils or other low-quality fats)
- Make sure your plate is full of high-quality protein, which should make up 30-35% of your daily caloric intake
- Minimize carbohydrates to about 5-10% of your daily caloric intake. Keeping carbs low is especially important during the beginning phases of getting back into ketosis because it allowed you to really chip away at those glycogen stores. Once you’re up and running on ketones, you can start to play with adding in small amounts of carbs like berries — but give your body the chance to jump back into keto first.
2. Exercise
Working out is an essential part of recovering your ketosis state. In order to activate your body’s fat-burning mode, your existing glycogen stores must be depleted, prompting your body to source energy from ketones.
If glucose continues to be present, the metabolism will still depend on it, avoiding the release of hormones that induce ketosis. Exercising is an excellent way to deplete your glycogen reserves.
Studies indicate that intense exercise is most efficient in utilizing glycogen, as it enables fast availability of glucose from stores to fuel high-grade physical activities.
If you’re looking to completely rid your system of glycogen stores, try engaging in activities such as HIIT (high-intensity interval training) or sprinting. Any physical activity can help, but these varieties of exercise are the most effective.
3. Manage The Keto Flu
You may or may not have signs of the keto flu when you start your ketogenic diet, depending on how well your body adapts to the metabolic changes.
If the keto flu proved to be an annoying annoyance during your first attempt, don’t let this stop you from attempting it again. There are a few tactics that can be utilized to make getting back into ketosis easier.
These include:
Electrolytes
As your body returns to the state of ketosis, it is going to experience a noteworthy alteration in metabolism. It may require a couple of days for your cells to acknowledge ketones as an energy source after you start to utilize them again, suggesting that a portion of them will be discharged in your urine.
When ketones leave, they bring along electrolytes with them — resulting in an imbalance.
The simplest way to combat the electrolyte loss that is a result of returning to a state of ketosis is to use supplements to replenish them. It is remarkable to see the effects that a high-quality electrolyte supplement can have on your alertness, power, and overall feeling of contentment.
MCTs
If your body has been getting its energy from glucose, it could be a shock to it when this energy source that was easy to procure is no longer accessible.
Medium-chain triglycerides provide an outstanding option to glucose since they can be quickly digested by the intestines and are then quickly distributed to the liver to be used as an energy source.
MCTs can be seen as the “sugar” of fats – they are quickly taken up and give you energy fast, without the same blood sugar issues as carbs.
Exogenous Ketones
The purpose of ketosis is to alter your metabolic processes so you have a continuous source of energy, regardless of when you ate last.
Exogenous ketones can be a great help when going back into ketosis since they give the blood ketones, even if your body is not completely accustomed to the keto diet.
If you are feeling sluggish and worn out, take some exogenous ketones to get your levels of energy back up. Doing this is a favor to yourself.
You can give your body an advantage in the ketosis transition by providing it with exogenous ketones which will also reduce oxidative stress and inflammation.
Consuming a diet that is extremely low in carbohydrates is undoubtedly the most vital step in entering ketosis. The normal energy source for your cells is glucose, also known as sugar. Nevertheless, most of the cells in your body are capable of utilising other forms of energy, for example fatty acids and ketones.
The liver and muscles have the capability to stockpile glucose as glycogen. When you eat a very small amount of carbohydrates, stores of glycogen decrease and the amount of insulin in your body drops. This permits the fat in your body to be discharged from its storage places.
Your liver transforms a portion of these fatty acids into the ketones acetone, acetoacetate, and beta-hydroxybutyrate. Portions of your brain are capable of using ketones as a fuel source.
Every person’s requirement for restricting carbohydrates in order to enter into ketosis is different, and the amount can be impacted by many things like the kind of physical activity they do.
Some individuals should not consume more than 20 grams of net carbohydrates daily if they are trying to reach a state of ketosis, but others may be able to reach ketosis while consuming 40 grams or more of carbohydrates.
Therefore, the Atkins diet stresses that carbs must be limited to no more than 20 grams per day during the first 2 weeks in order to achieve ketosis.
Once this stage is reached, you can start to incorporate minor amounts of carbohydrates into your diet; however, be sure that your body is still in the process of ketosis.
Each person may have a distinct maximal carb consumption amount to stay in and reach a state of ketosis, which is contingent on their total caloric intake and their activities in a day. Typically, consuming 5-10 percent of one’s total calories from carbohydrates will induce ketosis.
In a research study, participants that suffered from type 2 diabetes had maximum limits placed on the amount of digestible carbs they could eat each day. The exact amount varied depending on the individual’s ability to maintain the right level of ketone in the blood.
It is recommended that individuals who are attempting to engage in a ketogenic diet in order to facilitate weight loss, regulate their blood sugar, or reduce their chances of developing heart disease should maintain specific levels of carbohydrates and ketones.
A type of dietary program designed to treat epilepsy and used in experimental cancer therapy typically limits carbohydrate intake to a mere 2-5% of the total caloric intake. Nevertheless, any individual who wishes to use this diet for therapeutic reasons should do so only under the guidance of a physician.
Eating a diet that is below 20 to 50 net grams of carbs each day has the effect of decreasing your blood sugar and insulin which in turn causes your body to burn fat from your liver, turning it into ketones.
coconut oil
can help you achieve ketosis. It contains fats called
medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs). Unlike most fats, MCTs are rapidly absorbed and taken directly to the liver, where they can be used immediately for energy or converted into ketones.
It has been proposed that taking coconut oil may be a great method of enhancing ketone levels in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease or other neurological issues.
Coconut oil is composed of four different types of MCTs, but lauric acid makes up close to half of all its fat content.
Studies have indicated that fatty sources with a greater concentration of lauric acid might lead to a more long-term state of ketosis. This is because it is processed at a slower rate than other medium-chain triglycerides.
The use of Medium Chain Triglycerides has been implemented as a way to to bring about ketosis in youngsters suffering from epilepsy. In a diet high in medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs), ketosis can be achieved without cutting back on carbohydrates as drastically as in the original ketogenic diet.
Research has uncovered that MCT diets with about 20% of calories being sourced from carbs can produce results that are very similar to the traditional ketogenic diet. Classic ketogenic diets offer less than 5% of the total caloric intake from carbohydrates.
It is recommended to incorporate coconut oil into your diet gradually, as this can help to avoid digestive issues such as abdominal discomfort or loose stools.
Incorporating coconut oil into your diet enables your body to have access to medium-chain triglycerides. These triglycerides are quickly broken down in the liver and converted into ketones.
Another method to achieve ketosis is to do an extended fast and abstain from eating for multiple hours. Quite a few individuals experience a slight state of ketosis between supper and breakfast.
Traditionally, children with epilepsy have abstained from food for anywhere between 12-72 hours prior to commencing a ketogenic diet. This approach often required supervision in a hospital.
Non-fasting protocols are more commonplace now. Nevertheless, fasting can help guarantee that certain children enter into ketosis speedily so that convulsions can be minimized sooner.
Periodic fasting, an eating regimen that includes occasional short periods of abstinence, might also cause ketosis. In addition, “fat fasting,” which imitates the impacts of fasting, is another technique for increasing ketone levels.
Consuming a diet of approximately 700-1,100 calories a day, with 80 percent of them being fat-sourced, is what this requires. This mixture of eating a minimal amount of calories and an abundance of fat may help you enter ketosis in a shorter amount of time.
This type of diet should not be followed for more than 3-5 days because it does not provide an adequate amount of protein or essential vitamins and minerals. It may be hard to stay committed to this for more than two days.
Switching to an intermittent fasting pattern and a “fat fast” can both easily lead you to enter a state of ketosis.
Getting into a state of ketosis requires an adequate amount of protein, not too much or too little. The standard ketogenic diet employed in those with epilepsy limits both carbohydrates and protein to reach the highest level of ketones.
It could be beneficial for people with cancer to consume the same eating plan, as this might impede tumor proliferation. Nevertheless, it is not advisable for most individuals to reduce their protein consumption drastically in an effort to produce more ketones.
A critical aspect of consuming an adequate amount of protein is to guarantee that the liver receives enough amino acids to convert into glucose through gluconeogenesis.
In this process, your liver supplies sugar to the limited number of cells and organs in your body that do not have the capacity to use ketones as fuel, including your red blood cells and different areas of your kidneys and brain.
Consuming protein in sufficient quantities is paramount when reducing carbohydrate intake, particularly when attempting to lose weight in order to maintain muscle mass. Although slimming down often means losing a combination of fat and muscle, you can help maintain muscle health by eating adequate amounts of protein on a high-fat, very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet.
Studies have demonstrated that the most efficient outcomes for keeping muscle mass and physical stamina happen when protein intake is 0.55 to 0.77 grams for each pound (1.2 to 1.7 grams for every kilogram) of lean mass.
You should aim for a daily protein intake of 0.45–0.68 grams for every pound (1–1.5 grams per kilogram) in order to preserve muscle mass while slimming down. Investigations on shedding pounds have revealed that utilizing diets that are hugely low in carbs and that have a protein intake inside the indicated boundaries can activate and keep up a state of ketosis.
To figure out how much protein you need to consume on a ketogenic diet, take your ideal body weight in pounds and multiply it by between 0.55 and 0.77 (or 1.2 and 1.7 in kilograms). If you desire to weigh 130 pounds (59kg), your protein consumption ought to be between 71 and 100 grams.
A lack of protein in the diet can cause a decrease in muscle mass, while an excessive amount may put a stop to ketone production.
