Planning to embark on a healthy weight loss journey for next year?
Why not consider the keto (ketogenic) diet? It is no doubt one of the most popular health trends around.
For keto diet beginners, you may need to understand more about how the keto diet works.
How much weight can you lose in a month with keto? Can you lose weight on keto without exercise?
Keep on reading.
What Are The Basics Rules To Follow On A Keto Diet Plan?
Typically, a keto diet should consist of fat 75%, carbohydrates 5%, and protein 10 – 20% ratio.
That means you need to follow and focus on food high in healthy fat, very low in carbs, and a moderate intake of protein.
In the keto diet, fat here is king and although you have to watch your carbs intake within that 10 – 20% ratio (or 25 – 50 grams of net carbs per day), it is still an important nutrient for your body to function healthily. Note: As per American Health Association, if food riches in saturated fat, the fat intake should be just 13 grams or below per day.
To simplify, you are cutting off carbs (preferably under 25 grams per day) as much as you can in a keto diet to reach a metabolic state called ketosis.
1. Start cooking more often at home for your keto diet. Why? You can easily monitor and control the oil and sugar content in the food you are preparing compared to a restaurant. It does work this way!
2. Consume more fermented veggie foods such as miso (fermented bean paste), kimchi, sauerkraut, kefir, yogurt, or, pickles as they are super rich in probiotics food and great for supporting healthy bacteria in your gut.
3. Try to test for intermittent fasting (IF) with a keto diet plan. Popular ‘IF’ diet plans such as the 16-8 plan where you will eat normally during the 8 hours fasting window and then fast straight for the next 16 hours. Get advice from your dietician first before attempting this extreme fasting method.
4. Eat more non-starchy veggies such as broccoli, asparagus, or, spinach. Why? These types of veggies are high in fiber nutrients, low in calories, and keep your digestive systems more active. Try to have at least a cup of these veggies in your meal.
How Long Can You Often Stay On A Keto Diet?
For some people, the keto diet can be a long-term lifestyle for them to remain in healthy shape. For others, it works in losing weight in short term.
Wondering how long a keto diet will stick with you? Should it be long-term or until you have reached your fitness goals?
You should properly plan your keto diet. No rushing to lose weight. As per the CDC, a healthy and safer practice to lose weight for most adults over 19 years old is around 1 – 2 pounds a week (4 – 8 pounds a month). Some people may lose weight faster while others might be slower.
Set your goals crystal clear if the goal is to lose weight. Keep monitoring your progress, and track your carbs intake. Be always consistent as a keto diet will only work best if you stay focused on your weight loss goals.
If you are on a right track, you will begin to notice changes such as lower appetite, easier losing weight, or, even noticing blood sugar level improvement.
However, if another way round, then you need to re-access and do some health improvement experiments in your keto diet to see which way may work better for your body. Is the diet plan you had chosen not sustainable enough, less strict in carb or low-fat diet plan? This could be the reason.
A study back in 2004 had also shown that the keto diet is safe as a long-term (even up to a year) diet plan. It helps in losing body weight and BMI, especially among obese adults by reducing bad LDL cholesterol and increasing good HDL cholesterol.
There is no evidence suggesting that the keto diet in short or long-term periods had negative impacts on the carbs nutrient deficiencies concerns. Just as long as maintaining the proper intake of fat and protein as essential macronutrients.
How Fast Can You Lose Weight With A Keto Diet Plan?
How fast a person can lose weight with a keto diet is depending on many factors like,
1. Daily activity – Do you exercise regularly in a week? What kind of food you are eating? Are you eating healthily? Is the food high in carbs or keto-friendly food? All of these play a major role in your body burning fat.
2. Current fitness levels such as your body weight, metabolism levels (fast or slow), and health conditions could affect your hormone level.
3. How is your current body composition? Does it contain more fat than muscles? If you have more fat ratio to burn, a keto diet will help you to lose weight faster.
4. Your body does need time to gradually adapt to high-fat diet food. When your body reaches the ketosis state by forcing the fats, instead of the carbs to fuel energy, you will reap the weight loss benefits from the keto diet.
Why did I first gain weight on a keto diet? Can the keto diet make you fat?
Yes, you can gain weight on the keto dieting if you did it not correctly.
Why?
Keto dieters are required to restrict their carbohydrate intake to as low as 20 grams of net carbs per day (depending on the individual) to reach a ketosis metabolic stage.
You could be taking a lot of protein in your diet (more than 20 – 30%) which most likely causes the excess proteins to convert into amino acids and then to sugar glucose.
Some food like dairy milk and nuts although high in fat also contains carbs which are preventing achieving the ketosis process. Or, you are consuming too many calories more than required in the high-fat foods?
Don’t forget, the golden rule for a macronutrient ketogenic diet is fat 75%, carb 5%, and protein 10 – 20% ratio.
You should build a habit to check this macronutrient intake all the time. One way is by using ketone breath analyzers. From the information here, you can reevaluate by making dietary changes if needed so that it helps you to move forward to your weight loss success.
Does the keto diet reduce your belly fat?
Possibly can.
How?
But do remember, we cannot dictate where we want which part of the body to burn fat. It is mostly related to genetics and takes time to work. Your body will decide which and where it will happen!
However, don’t be discouraged here, studies(1) had shown a low-carb keto diet is effective in kicking off belly fat (visceral fat) although it is the most invisible fat loss part of the body.
Some dieters will gain rapid weight loss while others may not, even though they have reached the ketosis stage. Ideally, a healthy weight loss plan is to lose weight about 1 – 2 pounds per week.
How much weight can you lose in a month with keto?
Depending on individuals, a new keto dieter may start,
1. Losing around 2 – 8 pounds (that’s a lot!), some even reaching 10 pounds. Why? Because during this transition period, the water weight loss is caused by lacking carbs in the diet. This also explained why some dieters are having diarrhea issues.
2. Then, probably followed by a consistent fat weight loss of around 1 – 2 pounds a week for the next few weeks. Although, this can be seen slower but is considered a safe weight loss plan for a long-term basis (but not on a permanent basis).
3. After into few months onwards or longer-term, you may be not losing weight in any week or losing a few pounds in a week! Don’t worry too much, you are still on the right path so long you are focusing on the correct rules of eating an appropriate right amount of fat, protein, and low carbs!
How Do You Start A Keto Diet Plan To Lose Weight?
Starting to shift to a healthy keto diet plan doesn’t necessarily have to be difficult.
Your main focus is to monitor carefully the carb intake per day and at the same time increase the fat and protein intake.
The golden rule here is carb intake must be low at about 20 – 25 grams of net carbs per day to reach a ketosis state. Some people may achieve a ketosis state with a higher intake, but in general, the lower the carb intake, the easier it is to reach ketosis.
Start making a plan now. Check the food in your kitchen. What do you have most as of now? Bread, pasta, sodas, canned foods, French fries, or packs of cereals?
Oh man, that is going to be a disaster. You need to restock a whole bunch of new keto-friendly low-carb food. Transition into a new healthier lifestyle now!
Although I don’t recommend beginners to do this, fasting can be a faster way to reach ketosis mode. Depending on individuals, overnight fasting can make you reach ketosis mode quicker. Do speak with your healthcare experts about this option before attempting to begin.
You need to be a little smarter each time you are hitting the grocery store. Check the carbs, protein, or, fat information on the food labels. Alternatively, you can use the ‘net carbs (NC)’ method.
NC method is calculated by subtracting fiber from the total carbs content. Don’t worry, studies(1) has shown that fiber does not in any way have negative impacts on your blood sugar level.
What To Expect On The First Week As A Keto Dieter?
Are you ready to experience what you are most likely to expect on your first week as a keto dieter?
1. In terms of mental and physical, you are just fine on the first day of keto dieting. During the next 2 – 3 days afterward, your body starts to feel foggy, cloudy, and, tired.
Why? On the first day, your body still has sugar glycogen storage left to burn fat. However, in the next 24 hours later, the glycogen will gradually burn off. This is when the cognition functions start to slow and nerve cells stop receiving energy needed for burning.
How do overcome this? Restrict the net carbs intake to less than 10g per day in the first week as this will force glycogen storage during this time to burn faster and eventually enter the ketosis state much quicker.
If you can handle more extreme ways of fasting, try intermittent fasting (IF), an effective fasting method into reaching ketosis quicker.
Or try to eat more low-carb veggies such as spinach, broccoli, or, asparagus as the nutrient minerals (iron, manganese, potassium) in them are vital for (#Ad)mental clarity. Plus, food with high MCTs fatty acids gives your body more fuel to burn when the glycogen level is low.
2. You could end up with constipation or possible diarrhea. If you are getting diarrhea during this time, probably is due to your body flushing out excess water through the digestive tract.
Constipation issues occurred due to insufficient fiber intake resulting in slower bowel movements. All these digestive issues are resolved once the insulin levels get reduced, and the stools will gradually become more solid and less runny.
How do overcome this? Drink plenty of water to stay hydrated all time to balance back the digestive tract. Also, eat plenty of low-carb veggies high in fiber to prevent constipation.
Don’t stress too much during the first few days into keto dieting. Try workouts such as yoga or meditation and have enough sleep every night too.
3. If you are currently on regular workouts, especially high-intensity workouts, your physical strength and, endurance will drop. Depending on the individual, this can last up to a month before the muscle’s body slowly adapts to burning energy from fat and ketones.
To overcome this possible scenario, try to change your workout regime temporarily if you are into high-intensity training. Trim down the repetitions or duration to half per set.
Give your body ample time to adapt and try to re-access a month later with the original workout regime to see if you are still struggling or not. Speak also with your healthcare expert or dietician if you need to.
Can You Lose Weight On Keto Diet Without Exercise?
Yes, it is possible.
Remember, your weight loss result with a keto diet is determined by what you are eating.
Even if you are on keto dieting without exercise, your body is still burning fat just as long you are in the ketosis stage and following the keto rules accordingly by eating low-carb food.
Of course, if you can implement any exercise together with the keto diet, you are bound to lose weight faster. In my opinion, exercise is acting as a booster to speed up your weight loss process.
What is the Keto-friendly food list to shop for? How to make a healthy keto diet weekly meal plan?
Read more on my blog post on the Keto diet weight loss meal plan.
My Overall Conclusion: How Much Weight Can You Lose In A Month With Keto
Keto dieters will start to experience lesser hunger, healthier weight management and ultimately improve overall health.
Don’t forget to constantly track your macronutrient progress so that you’ll know where you are standing and to adjust your diet if necessary to ensure a greater weight loss achievement.
In general, the Keto diet is safe for weeks or months for healthy adults. However, it shouldn’t be following you for too long (not for the rest of your life!) as our body needs carbohydrates and nutrients in the long haul.
The Keto diet may or may not work for everyone. It may work for short-term weight loss but possibly not permanent.
Overall, don’t be too harsh on your carb, protein, and, fat intake.
Do whatever you think is right for your body for safer and sustainable long-term health.
As usual, leave me a comment below if you have and I will be back within 24 hours.
To another awesome exploding Home Workout!
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