Here's the Best Way to Get Into Ketosis

The best way to get into ketosis isn't always fast.

Sure, getting your carbs down low enough to trigger ketosis will quickly help you gain control over your eating habits and force your body to begin to use its fat stores, rather than glucose.

But if your mindset is on fast, rather than making healthy changes, you're probably not looking at low carb as a long-term investment.

Fast implies that you're looking for instant gratification and a reward for deprivation, instead of switching to a permanent, healthier lifestyle.

The aim is to eat in a way that helps you feel good and be healthier, as well as ditch your excess body fat.

Dr. Atkins, the cardiologist that brought low carb into the mainstream, was always saying that his approach to weight loss was an individualized nutritional approach. It isn't a one-size-fits-all weight-loss plan.

That means that what works for me, may or may not, work for you. You'll have to run some experiments of your own.

For me, low carb works better when I make subtle changes to my overall diet and ease into a lower carb plan, one change at a time, rather than just going cold turkey.

In a way, you can say, that what I'm doing right now is a low-carb diet in reverse.

I do use Atkins Induction from time to time because following a low carb regime works to keep my blood glucose level under control. At least, temporarily. That's why I come back to keto whenever I need to get my blood glucose level down quickly.

Since most dieters aren't interested in doing it that way, in this post, I'm going to share with you my own personal experience with the best way to get into ketosis – and stay there.

 

But First: What You Won't Find Here

There's a lot of confusion within the low-carb community regarding what you should or shouldn't eat during the first month or two on low carb.

You'll have lots of people telling you that from day one, you need to skip breakfast and eat the other 2 meals within an 8-hour window.

You'll have some people telling you that if you're hungry, cut way back on carbs and eat tons of fat.

You'll also have people telling you to moderate your protein intake, that eating protein is the same as eating a piece of chocolate cake, so you need to cut back on meat.

None of that is true, so you're not going to hear any of that from me.

Instead, I'm going to share what you honestly need to know to be successful on low carb.

How Do You Get Into Ketosis?

The state of ketosis is triggered when you seriously restrict your carbohydrate content to fall below what your brain needs to function on a daily basis.

According to Dr. Eades, a prominent low-carb doctor, that happens at about 120 carbs per day.

Go below 120 carbs, and your body has to supply ketones or make its own glucose to make up the difference. However, the brain can't just function on ketones. It needs a small amount of glucose every day.

Which is why most low-carb meal plans recommend that you eat 20 to 40 carbs per day. Or less.

The body can store about 80 carbs in your liver and a couple of hundred carbs in your muscles in the form of glycogen. When you restrict your carbs, that forces the body to use those glycogen stores. Lower glycogen, and the liver has to pull its calories from your stored body fat.

The idea behind getting into ketosis is that you want to go low enough in carbohydrates that it forces your body to use its stored body fat for energy.

That amount is not going to be the same for everyone, so what I'm offering you in this post is a way to make low carb work better for you.

First, Prioritize your Protein Intake

The foundation of your new lifestyle should be a liberal amount of:

• beef
• chicken
• turkey
• pork
• fish
• shellfish
• lamb
• game meats

This is what I'm working on right now myself.

These meats are carb free, so you need to give them the prominent place on your plate. But how prominent should that be?

Dr. Atkins recommended that you eat until you're pleasantly full, but don't gorge. That may, or may not, work for you.

Protein requirements, from a nutritional stand-point, is what you need to eat so that your body has all of the amino acids it needs to make repairs, hormones, white blood cells, and more.

I used to recommend .8 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass in my blog posts, but that's tough to calculate if you don't know how much lean mass you have. There's no easy way to determine your lean body mass, without special tests, so I've switched to a minimum of 1 pound of protein (by weight) per pound of ideal body weight.

I think that target will be easier to meet.

Since I'm 5 feet tall, I'll use me as an example.

At 5 feet, ideal weight is 100 pounds, so that would be 100 grams of protein, rather than the 72 to 90 grams I was eating on Kimkins before.

Although my goal weight is 120 pounds, due to age and bone structure, that's quite a bit higher than what the old life insurance weight charts used to recommend for my size.

These charts are what those of us on Atkins in the late 90s used to determine ideal weight.

Back then, 5 feet tall was 100 pounds for women and 110 pounds for men. Then, we added 5 pounds for every inch of height above 5 feet. And used that as our weight-loss goal.

So for 120 pounds, I'd need to be 5 foot 4 inches tall, which I'm not.

Right now, I'm just working on getting 100 grams of protein per day, or more, because protein kills my appetite.

While my mind might try to tell me that I need popcorn or Cheetos to go along with that protein, I've noticed that if I fry up a hamburger or make a simple tuna salad, when the mind is craving carbs, the craving goes away.

How much is 100 grams of protein?

On average, an ounce of meat, hard cheese, or 1 large egg contains 7 grams of protein. Divide 7 into 100 and you get 14 ounces. That's roughly a pound of meat, cheese, and eggs per day.

Carbohydrate Intake: 20 Carbs per Day

Once you have your protein target down-pat, you can move onto the next step: your carbohydrate intake. If you're not already on low carb, that macronutrient is going to be quite high.

As a society, we've gone from getting adequate carbs from the 4 basic food groups to super-high carbs for every single meal and snack.

Granted, eating by My Plate (half a plate of vegetables, quarter of a plate of proteins, and a quarter of a plate of starches) is a better combination than the old food pyramid that recommended 9 to 11 servings of starchy carbs per day.

But how much you need to trim from your current carbohydrate intake to get the scales moving downward will be completely individual, just like Dr. Atkins said.

The recommendation for most people among low-carb experts is to start at 20 to 30 carbs. At that level, almost everyone will be able to get into ketosis within a day or two. However, some people can eat 40, or even 60 carbs, per day and still get into ketosis easily.

Everyone is not the same.

My advice:

Start with 20 carbs and see how it goes.

If you find that 20 carbs is uncomfortable, and you're bingeing or overeating at that level, then you can raise that number to something that works better for you. Over the years, I've found that I feel best when I eat 60 carbs per day.

Low carb works because it lowers your appetite, making it easier to eat at a calorie deficit, but you have to be eating enough protein and the right amount of carbs to make that happen.

Too little or too much both causes stress on the body, so you need to experiment to find out what works best for you.

What Should You Spend Your Carbs On?

Mostly vegetables and botanical fruits. Produce will help to supply the fiber needed to keep your blood glucose under control.

I learned this when I experimented with eating just protein for lunch and no carbs. My blood glucose rose to 169 at one hour after eating. When I added a healthy serving of vegetables, my blood glucose only went to 142.

While still high, that taught me how my body responds to the various macronutrients.

At only 20 carbs per day, the carbs you eat need to be nutrient dense, as well as high in fiber.

For example:

artichokes
asparagus
avocado
bok choy
bamboo shoots
broccoli
brussels sprouts
cabbage
capers
carrots
cauliflower
celery
chard
collard greens
cucumber
dill pickle relish
dill pickles
eggplant
leeks
lettuce
mushrooms
olives
onions
peas
peppers
pumpkin
radishes
salsa
sauerkraut
scallions
snow peas
spinach
string beans
spinach
summer squash
tomato
turnips

water chestnuts
wax beans
winter squash
zucchini

A reasonable portion size is about 2 cups of raw, salad vegetables and 1 to 2 cups of cooked vegetables per day. But that's also very individual. The key to success is to eat the low-carb foods that you enjoy the most, so you won't be tempted to jump ship when your weight loss slows down or stalls.

Additional very low-carb foods include:

• broth
• heavy cream
• herbs and spices
• lemon or lime juice
• low-carb yogurt
• mustard
• no sugar added ketchup (sweetened with stevia)
• sour cream
• vinegar
• worcestershire sauce

What you want to stay away from right now is most low-carb products. Especially those that contain sugar alcohols.

The Truth About Fats on Low Carb

The order in which the body uses fuel sources is:

1. alcohol
2. carbohydrates
3. proteins
4. fats

Yep. Fats are used last!

That's important information to know because most keto blogs, websites, and forums have it wrong.

The body sees alcohol as a poison, so all other fuel sources are stored when alcohol is present – until the alcohol is no longer a problem.

If there's no alcohol in your meal or snack, the body next uses the carbs you eat to refill its glycogen stores in the liver and muscles. When carbs are in short supply, the body will use protein for some of its energy needs.

But it won't keep doing that. Muscle wasting is dangerous.

It's only in the absence of alcohol, carbs, and protein that the liver turns to your fat stores to save muscle.

The goal on low carb isn't about weight. It's about using your excess body fat. So, don't get too attached to those no-carb fats because it will be more difficult to cut back on fat later on.

Instead, use just enough fat to make your diet work.

That way, you won't have to give up some of your favorite ingredients or recipes later on when you reach equilibrium, short of your goal.

Best Way to Get Into Ketosis

The best way to get into ketosis isn't putting butter and coconut oil in your coffee. It isn't cutting back so low on carbs that you go face-down into the chocolate-chip cookies before your first week is up.

The idea is to start building a permanent, healthy foundational diet from day one by getting plenty of protein and high-fiber vegetables.

Fats are necessary for good nutrition, but often come with your protein sources, so you don't need a lot of dietary fats. While butter, oils, and poultry skin are free of carbohydrates, you still need to be eating at a calorie deficit before the numbers on the scale will go down.

Start with upping your protein to 1 gram per pound of your ideal body weight. Cut back on carbohydrates to 20 carbs, or less. Add enough fat so you won't feel deprived, but also enough to give you a 1/2 pound weight loss per week, or more.

After 2 to 4 weeks, evaluate your progress and make changes, as needed.

Additional Posts You Might be Interested in Reading:

A Beginner's Guide to Low-Carb Diets 

Are You Eating Enough Protein to Avoid Protein Deficiency?

Can You be in Ketosis and Not Lose Weight?