We live in a day and age where everyone wants instant results. They want to lose weight in a week, they want financial success in a month… and they want to go into ketosis overnight.
Unfortunately, unlike instant text messaging, the body works on its own clock and is unperturbed by how anxious you are to see fast results. When you embark on a ketogenic diet, it can take anywhere from 4 to 7 days to go into ketosis.
It all depends on the individual’s body and their compliance with the diet. That said, there are a few ways to ‘encourage’ the body to go into ketosis sooner rather than later. Let’s see what they are.
20 grams of carbs a day or lower
While the keto diet recommends a carb intake of 20 to 50 grams (never exceed 50g), it’s best to be on the more conservative side and not consume more than 20 grams of carbs a day.
This will reduce the amount of glucose in your blood and your body will go into ketosis more readily.
Do cardio
Light cardio is the answer. Walk for about 30 to 45 minutes daily. This will not only clear up any remaining glycogen in your body, but also help to burn calories and encourage the body to burn ketones for fuel.
One of the reasons why so many people in the fitness industry hail fasted cardio as a fantastic way to lose weight is because the body’s glycogen stores are low, and the body has no choice but to tap into the fat stores for fuel.
Don’t stress yourself out
During the keto diet, you must stay relaxed and patient. Stressing or being too anxious will raise cortisol in your body and this in turn will lead to hunger cravings and so on. Stay calm and let your body do its thing. Less is more here.
Do not consume too much protein
The keto diet states that about 20 to 25 percent of your calories should come from protein. Do not exceed this amount. Excessive protein consumption raises insulin levels.
This is one reason why people on high protein diets struggle to lose weight. There’s too much insulin in their body.
Get sufficient sleep
When you sleep, your body is in a fasted state and gets rest. Both are ideal conditions for promoting ketosis.
Increase fat intake (up to a point!)
While the keto diet recommends a calorie intake that’s 70 to 75 percent fat, you may go up to 80 percent in the first week to speed up ketosis. Eating more fat and less protein will ‘force’ your body to burn fat for fuel. However, this is only for the beginning. As your weight drops, you need to reduce your fat intake since you don’t need to train your body to burn it and you want it to use your own body fat for fuel.
Intermittent fasting
Fasting is a wonderful way to reach ketosis, but it requires discipline. In fact, fasting alone can put your body in ketosis. So, when it’s combined with a ketogenic diet, it becomes even more effective and speeds up the entire process.
Clean up your diet
It goes without saying that you should (need to!) avoid processed and junk food. All your efforts will be multiplied just by sticking to natural and nutritious foods. You want to get single ingredient foods.
For example, bacon is a single ingredient food. So are salmon, macadamia nuts and broccoli. You know exactly what’s in these foods.
The same can’t be said for foods like cereals, sausages, etc. These have been processed and additives have been added to them. They’re NOT single ingredient foods.
So, clean up your diet and follow the keto principles closely along with the tips mentioned above and you’ll reach ketosis much faster. To wrap things up, always remember Benjamin Franklin’s quote – “He that can have patience can have what he will.”
Ketosis will come. Wait for it.
