Learn how to stay in ketosis : 6 ways will guarantee that you’re in ketosis all the time. Keep your body working as a fat burning machine that gets you losing weight quickly
Health and weight loss benefits of ketosis
To benefit from all the weight loss and health gains of the keto diet you need to achieve ketosis and stay in that healthy state for as long as possible.
If you’re not properly in ketosis, you will not be burning fat for fuel. By becoming fat adapted through ketosis, you will be able to achieve the maximum amount of weight loss.
Further, being in ketosis has multiple health benefits for your body including the elimination of dangerous chronic inflammation and visceral fat.
How to stay in Ketosis: #1. keep to low carb foods
The keto diet works by restricting carbohydrates to 20g net each day. This means 20g net of complex carbs.
You can calculate net carbs by subtracting fiber from the total carb count of any food.
You cannot consume simple carbohydrates at all. These include:
- Sugar
- Flour
- Grains
- Rice
- Most fruits
- Root Vegetables
- Pasta
- Baked goods
- Most ready meals and pre bought sauces
Another important point is to always track and weigh your food. It’s far too easy to go over your carb allowance if you’re guessing the amount you’re eating.
For more details on exactly which carbs to eat and which carbs to walk away from see here.
# 2 Use MCT Oil
MCT Oil is a great addition to any keto diet. MCT oil will help you to reach the high fat consumption which is required while following this low carb way of eating.
This is because MCT oil differs from other oils. MCTs are processed directly by the liver where they are converted quickly into ketones.
Due to this speed, MCT oil is not converted into fat but is instead used to give you extra energy.
Furthermore, there are several studies that demonstrate the ability of MCT’s to increase the body’s ability to burn fat. (1) and this study (2) also concluded that MCT helped with weight loss.
For full details about the benefits of MCT oil read here.
#3 Eat only healthy fats
Although the keto diet requires you to eat at least 70% of your diet in the form of fats, not any fat will do.
While some fats are super healthy, others should be avoided completely.
Examples of healthy fats are:
- Olive Oil
- Butter
- Ghee
- Tallow
- Lard
- Coconut Oil
- MCT Oil
- Avocado Oil
These should be used to add taste and to help you to leave the table feeling full. These healthy fats are satiating, and can also help to prevent you from snacking in between meals.
Further, by making sure that you’re getting enough healthy fats you will be achieving a balanced blood/glucose level which will last all day.
Not only will you have more energy once blood/glucose levels are stable, you won’t get that after lunch slump which comes with eating too many carbs.
Fats to avoid
Avoid margarine, this is a man made product, and should not be eaten. Replace this with healthy butter, oil or ghee.
Also, on the list to avoid are seed oils. These are so unhealthy that you should consider walking away from any product that includes seed oils in its list of ingredients.
These oils and toxic and are heavily processed. They include:
- Canola Oil – rapeseed
- Crisco – cottonseed
- Soy Oil
- Peanut Oil
- Corn Oil
There is a lot of evidence about the negative health impact of these oils. For more information about seed oils read here
#4 Stay well hydrated
Once you’re in ketosis, you’ll be releasing your stored fat to use for your immediate energy needs.
While this is a good thing, unfortunately it does mean that you’ll be releasing a lot of water at the same time. You may have noticed this already, as you’ll be making more bathroom visits than normal.
Due to this, it’s important that you take care to keep yourself well hydrated. You can choose from any unsweetened drink, although water should be your go to liquid.
Other good choices are:
- Tea – regular tea, green tea, tea infusions. No sugar or milk/cream
- Coffee – black or try one of these keto boosting ways to take your coffee.
- Water – plain or fizzy. You could add a few drops of lemon juice or something similar to ring the changes.
Make sure that you’re getting enough to drink, you will almost certainly need more fluids than normal. This is especially true when you’re still new to the keto diet.
#5 Stay in Ketosis by forward planning meals or snacks
This is super important. Many great keto diets have come unstuck because of a failure to plan ahead.
Always make sure that you have enough keto friendly ingredients in your home to make a few meals. Better still, learn to prep your favourite meals ahead of time.
This will prevent you falling off the keto wagon just because there wasn’t anything suitable available and you were hungry.
The same goes for snacks. Although you shouldn’t need to snack very often, it’s a great idea to make sure you have some on hand.
Read here for some great ideas about keto snacks. These are the type of snacks that take little or no kitchen time, and can quickly help you to overcome the urge to eat too much.
On the other side, never, ever buy or store anything in your house that is not keto friendly.
This is the surest way to ruin your keto diet. If it’s not in your kitchen ( or hidden in your cupboard) you’re a lot less likely to eat it.
Make things easy on yourself by leaving cake, cookies and other off limit foods in the store.
#6 stay in ketosis with exercise
While it’s certainly true that you can’t outrun a bad diet, taking some exercise will help you stay in ketosis.
Even more than just weight loss, by exercising you’ll be maximizing your chances of living a long and healthy life.
On top of this, exercise will increase your muscle mass, and will help to increase your metabolic rate.
HIIT
HIIT( High-intensity interval training) is a form of Anaerobic exercise is characterized by shorter bursts of energy, such as strength training or CrossFit.
When you’re following the keto diet, this form of exercise can be a little more challenging, but it has multiple health benefits. Try to take part in this type of exercise once or twice each week.
Weight training (resistance training)
Resistance training is the best type of exercise that you could include in your keto diet.
It’s an amazing way of building muscle mass, and building and maintaining bone density.
Resistance training will help you to stay in ketosis plus offer many other benefits such as:
- Build muscle strength and tone
- Build muscle size
- Improve bone density and strength – reduced risk of osteoporosis
- Improve joints
- Improve flexibility
- Improved mobility and balance
- Weight management – as your muscle to fat ratio improves, your metabolic health will increase.
There is no need to spend hours in the gym each day, once or twice a week will be all you need.
The take home message:
By following these 6 great tips, you will be maximizing your chances of staying in ketosis for as long as possible.
If you follow these, there is no reason for you to accidentally push yourself out of ketosis and lose all the health and weight loss benefits that you’re looking for.
You should be able to keep your weight loss at it’s fastest possible rate, as well as achieving greatly improved health.
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