Nowadays there are many types of diets. There’s the Zone Diet, the South Beach Diet, the Raw Food Diet, the Weight Watchers Diet, the Vegan Diet and the Atkins Diet. And probably another 100 more. All have proven to have health benefits. All proven to help you drop weight in a natural fashion in one way or another. The deciding factor is choosing a diet plan that best suits you and your body best.
There’s one diet, however, that has stormed to the forefront as the most effective — and most challenging. The Keto Diet, a.k.a Ketogenic Diet has slowly become the most popular amongst the novice to the seasoned gym goer. Studies from various health magazines have proven that the Keto Diet will make you lose the most weight of all the major diet plans. It was originally used in the early 1900s as a way to treat epilepsy successfully.
The exact definition of the Ketogenic Diet is utilizing a high-fat, adequate-protein and low-carb diet. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbs. Yes, it does sound a lot like the Atkins Diet, but with one difference: you are not exceeding more than 30 grams of carbs, daily.
This will allow your body to produce ketones in the liver to burn fat and use as energy. This will allow the body to work faster to burn fats, essentially jump-starting your metabolism. It’s all science, yo.
At first, the diet is demanding — it’s a huge lifestyle change. Many have started and stopped. Yet you don’t have to overthink it, and here are some ways to get over the hurdle and maintain the Ketogenic blessings.
Make Your Meals Fun
Still, you could make your meals fun. For instance, you could have all the bacon you want. Yes, you could eat burgers (minus the bread) and place it over lettuce to create lettuce burgers. If you want to drink, there’s club soda, water and lots of coffee. If you want to snack, then pick up all the pork rinds in the supermarket. This is a great substitute for chips. And you have free reign to all kinds of cheeses and dairy.
The Faster the Better
A lot of the successful Keto stories have occurred when you don’t eat. Many nutritionists have suggested that you incorporate intermittent fasting. For example, you don’t eat for a span of 16 hours, and then you eat all your meals within 8 hours. It is proven that your body will get into ketosis quicker. It will take a few days to get your body into this stage but if you maintain the intermittent faster push your body to maximizing the ketones.
Know Your Keto Foods
For most Keto beginners, the hardest part is mastering the meals. There are things you think you could eat but you can’t such as most fruits. Nuts have been a staple of most low-carb, high protein diets. With the Keto Diet, you can’t have all nuts such as cashews. Of course, you will have to completely cut out ALL heavy carbs like sweets, sodas. bread, potatoes, and rice.
At the same time, you will need to be careful of your protein intake as it’s critical to the Ketogenic process. That means you shouldn’t go past 80 grams of protein daily. On a side note, when you are checking the nutritional specs, you will need to make sure you minus the dietary fiber from the carbs. That has allowed vegetables such as avocados so critical to your Keto Diet.
Sleep, Sleep, Sleep
No matter how deep you are into the Keto Diet or how many days a week you go to the gym, you need to rest. Yes, when you are in Ketosis, you will find more energy. But the body requires heavy doses of sleep. For instance, according to nuvisionexcel.com, when you don’t sleep your stress hormones skyrocket. That means your blood sugar goes haywire. That means you knock yourself out of Ketosis.
Utilize the MCTs
The medium chain triglycerides are a gigantic part of your Ketogenic Diet. These are unique fatty acids that are typically found naturally. These oils help you stabilize your blood sugar and increase the ketones in your body. In fact, your body recognizes MCTs as it recognizes it as a carb rather than a fat.
There are many ways to find these oils. Just pick up plenty of coconut and palm oil at your supermarket or organic market. You could sprinkle the oils on salads (which you probably eat a lot in this process) or even in your coffee. Coconut and coffee are perfect makes.
Don’t Stray from the Gym
There’s no question you can’t skim on the gym. When you are on Keto, the gym is so critical to the weight loss. You should be at the gym at least 3 days a week but preferably 4. When at the gym, the best workout maximizes and maintain Keto is High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT).
The workouts are extremely active and help pull blood sugar out of the bloodstream. It should be performed every other day. Otherwise, you should be focusing on cardio and core. Another tip: put your cardio last and add intervals of walking and running. This will also pull blood sugar and burn more fat.
Don’t Forget to Cheat
Okay, this is the news you have been waiting for: you MUST, and repeat, MUST incorporate a cheat day every week. Everyone is different but Sundays seem like the best day. Regardless, there are no rules when you cheat. You could eat anything and everything you want.
This is the most important part of your Keto Diet because you are shocking your body’s metabolism. This may be the only time scarfing down three McDonald’s cheeseburgers will actually help you.
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