Just like how you adhere to certain rules when you are a school student join sports or start going to a gym, the keto diet plan has keto diet rules. Following a set of rules when you get into the ketogenic diet will help in reaping its benefits faster.
In a keto diet, you have to be careful about what to eat. The ketogenic diet follows the principle of ‘maintaining ketosis’, a metabolic state that uses fat and protein to produce energy rather than glucose sourced from carbohydrates.
Ketogenic diets have been found to be particularly beneficial for weight loss, mainly due to their appetite-suppressing properties.
How to speed up weight loss in ketosis?
While the keto diet plan may look like the most beneficial one among many others, it has its reasons as to why some people fail to see desired results.
The best foods to eat on keto are anything with a higher fat value like seafood, olive oil, fatty fish, eggs, avocados, meat, cheese, etc.
Get enough sleep, minimize stress, increase activity, and eat complete, healthy, low-carb foods wherever possible to maximize weight loss on a ketogenic diet.
How much weight can you lose in a week on keto?
This type of weight reduction varies depending on your size and how much water weight you’re carrying. People have reported losing anything from 1 pound (0.5 kg) to 10 or more pounds (5 kg) in the first week.
The keto diet, for beginners, works wonders in the first 3-6 months of transitioning to it. However, achieving a state of ketosis is not as easy as it sounds. You don’t get to sit back and indulge in yummy meats. If you want to lose weight, you have to do some planning, put in enough effort, and only then can you reach your weight-loss goals.
Here are 7 keto diet basic rules for beginners to follow for better and faster weight loss:
1. Eat healthy fats
The keto diet busts the age-old myth of fats being the villains. While the diet promotes a high-fat diet that must be low on carbs, it is also important to know what kind of fats are safe to consume.
Eating fats is not the goal. Eating healthy fats is. The keto diet suggests that you consume more monounsaturated fats found in plant-based foods like avocados, coconut oil, olive oil and flaxseed oil. Along with its weight loss benefits, they also help in maintaining a healthier body.
The American Heart Association, for example, recommends that you consume no more than 13 grams of saturated fat each day.
2. Increase physical activity
Exercise is the next in keto diet rules. It helps in the depletion of glycogen stores in the body. When a person consumes carbohydrates, their glycogen stores are restored in the majority of cases. Since your carb intake is cut down on the keto diet, your liver increases the production of ketones, thus, providing an alternative fuel source from fats.
Though being physically active helps in getting into ketosis faster, it may take a few days or weeks for your body to adjust to this sudden shift. During this time, you may experience fatigue.
3. Try fasting
Fasting or going without food can help you reach a state of ketosis faster. This usually happens between two meals like dinner and breakfast. Usually, when people fast, their body runs out of fuel from carbs and starts to burn fat for energy.
Reader’s choice: Intermittent Fasting – All You Need to Know
Intermittent fasting helps you achieve ketosis faster through its regular short-term fasts. Another type of fast that induces ketosis is ‘fat fasting’, which involves consuming around 70-80% of calories just from fats for not more than 2-3 days.
4. Be careful of carbs
The keto diet’s fundamental rule is to reduce or restrict the level of carbs intake in order to attain ketosis. If you want to get into ketosis, you should limit your carb intake to 20 grams per day or less (this may vary according to individuals).
To lose weight faster, you must focus more on consuming healthy carbs like brown rice or oats in the place of processed carbs like cookies or crackers.
5. A lot of coconut oil
One of the many keto diet rules is to consume a lot of coconut oil. According to a study, including coconut oil in your diet plan will help in increasing ketone levels.
Coconut oil contains fats called MCTs. Compared to other fats, they are quickly absorbed and transported to the liver, where they might be used for energy or transformed into ketones.
6. Maintain protein intake
The keto diet plan recommends breaking down your daily calories into around 70% fats, 20% protein, and 10% carbs. Though not much, consuming an adequate amount of keto is needed in the keto diet.
Low carb diets with protein intake in this range have been reported to initiate and maintain ketosis in weight loss studies.
Consuming protein also helps in maintaining muscle mass during weight loss that would have dropped due to the low carb intake.
7. Include fermented foods in your diet
Consumption of fibrous foods like legumes, whole grains, beans and starchy vegetables is forbidden in the ketogenic diet. So, the next obvious consequence is constipation.
Adding fermented foods to your keto diet plan acts as a probiotic and supports healthy bacteria in your gut and keeps your bowel movements intact. Include foods like kimchi, pickles, sauerkraut, kefir, and yogurt.
Also Read: Dehydrating Foods – What You Need to Know
The keto diet rules of weight loss, for beginners, might be a little too restrictive and those restrictions have their own drawbacks. For those who have adopted the ketogenic diet, getting into ketosis in the first few days or weeks will be hard since it will take time for the body to adjust to the sudden change. However, following certain keto diet rules and keto diet plan like consuming healthy fats or ramping up physical activity can help you reach there faster.
