How to start keto? Easy-cheesy. A well-formulated ketogenic diet is the easiest diet to start. First, you want to get yourself prepped with the right foods and mindset.
Everyone is different but most likely you are here because you wish to lose weight on a keto diet. Congratulations! If you have yo-yo’ed around on other diets you about to embark on one that truly does the job.
First off, don’t let everyone tell you how bad the diet is. They don’t understand. Some dietitians and doctors still confuse ketogenic diets with ketoacidosis. Not the same.
Nutritional ketosis and ketoacidosis are different degrees of ketones in the blood. Magnitudes of degrees. Only diabetics who don’t control their insulin can go into ketoacidosis.
Well, insane levels of exercise and dehydration can get you there as well. You won’t be nearing acidosis if you don’t run a marathon after drinking a fifth of bourbon.
Naysayers will tell you the diet isn’t sustainable. Keto is as sustainable as you make it.
There are type 1 diabetic medical doctors who run marathons and have been ketosis for 10 years. (((A Sweet Life: Dr. Keith Runyan)))
What a well-formulated keto diet is not is eating a bunch of meat and fat. You might have heard about this great diet that lets you eat junk and lots of fat as long as you don’t eat bread.
That’s not what you are after. (It would work, but yuck…)
If you want to start keto you should be ready to give the diet 30 days to test it. Most are rewarded with very fast initial weight loss in the form of water retention from the carbs you will burn out of your body.
Each gram of carbohydrate you store inside holds onto roughly 3 grams of water.
When you deplete your body of carbs it burns off the ones you have and then the fight begins.
Since you have eaten glucose all of your life it takes time to switch over to burning fat for fuel.
How to Start Keto – Entering Ketosis
Day one you figure out your protein intake. Take your estimated lean body weight (your weight at what you want to arrive at ultimately) and multiply that by .6 on your calculator.
So say you healthily should weigh about 145 lbs. Multiply by .6 and you get 87. That is your protein target. 87 grams of protein. You don’t need more until you start body-building for a year or two. Then multiply by .7.
Any more protein is just harder on your kidneys. Plant protein is the easiest on your kidneys so go and buy the lowest net carb pea protein you can find. Usually, it’s at your healthier stores. We use Now brands. (Vanilla Toffee flavor is a fine desert splurge…)
Speaking of net carbs, you will want to stay under 20 grams per day for the first 30 days. This will make sure you adapt to burning fat as smoothly as possible.
Net carbs are total carbs minus dietary fiber and sugar alcohols. Take spinach for example. 100 grams of spinach has roughly 3.6 grams of total carbohydrates. But wait, 2.2 grams of that are dietary fiber.
Therefore, subtract that fiber from the total and you get 1.4 grams of net carbs. That’s doable. And spinach is your new best friend.
If you do this right, in 30 days you will have eaten more vegetables than you have in the last year.
When it comes to fat you are going to need some at first. Go and buy some organic virgin coconut oil and some MCT oil from the healthier store.
One of the biggest mistakes I made when I was figuring out how to start keto was also restricting my calories. As a result, for me, this made the transition more difficult. If I could do it again, I would not restrict calories for the first 30 days.
To keep this article short (and not give out all my secrets just yet) I will return to it and add links to new upcoming articles with more information on keto.
As far as how to start keto just keep this list in mind.
- Hit your protein macro
- Limit your carbs to under 20 grams the first month
- Eat healthy above ground leafy plants and cucumber and celery
- Snack on pork-rinds and roasted-salted pumpkin seeds
- Don’t limit salt unless you are on a salt-restricted diet
- Drink bullion cube soup with “No Salt” substitute added when you feel like you are going to lose it
- Eat some fat (whatever form) when you feel you need to
- What fat burned that’s not on your plate will come from your body
- If it doesn’t have carbs or sugar in it- eat it (first 30 days)
- Replace your sugar with stevia for now (like in your coffee or tea)
- Forget about dessert for a month
- If a product says low-fat you don’t eat it
- A great treat is Lilly’s Stevia-Sweetened Chocolate Chips
Now here is the good news. Even from the beginning you most likely will not crave much.
Eating out of the pantry (processed carbs) makes us constantly hungry. When you stop eating carbs and instead eat healthy salads with lots of yummy (low carb) dressing and you have healthy meats from time to time and eggs and healthy fats you stay satiated.
There are much more aspects to how to start keto with a well-formulated diet. I will be back with more info you can use.
In the meantime, just start. And don’t over-complicate keto.
Here’s a link to this article in the forums so you can ask questions!
