Ketogenic Diet FAQs

You might be wondering: How should I track carbs? How long does it take to get into ketosis? Read our Ketogenic Diet FAQs to find answers.

How Long Does It Take To Get Into Ketosis?

The ketogenic diet is not a diet that you can choose to do or stop at any time. Your body needs time to adjust and enter a state known as “ketosis.” 2 – 7 days, depending on your body type, activity level and what you eat. Exercising on an empty stomach, limiting carbohydrate intake to no more than 20 grams per day, and paying attention to water intake are the fastest ways to have a ketosis attack.

To increase the rate at which you get into ketosis, there’s a method called fat fasting. I wrote an article about fat fasting on the ketogenic diet and everything related to it. Be sure to make sure that if you use this method, only use it for a few days, otherwise it will hurt you.

Where Can I Find Low Carb Recipes?

Online is everywhere! There are recipes on almost every health website right now, so a quick look at the recipes you want will surely help you. You can even convert high-carb recipes with sugar or fruit into low-carb recipes with artificial sweeteners, or skip fruit at all.

This site even has tons of recipes, from breakfast to dinner, and even desserts, from which you can get inspired. Check out ketogenic recipes and get inspired in the kitchen!

Keto Diet Plan for Beginners

How Should I Track My Carb Intake?

The most common way to track carbohydrates is through MyFitnessPal and their mobile app. You can’t track net carbs on the app, but you can track your total carb intake and fiber intake. To get a net carb, simply subtract the total fiber intake from the total carbohydrate intake. I wrote an article on the MyFitnessPal website about how to track carbs.

Others choose to use FatSecret. This is an app I’m not familiar with, although I know you can track your net carbs. The choice is entirely up to you, up to your own free will.

Do I Need To Count Calories?

At the end of the day, calories matter. Calorie intake/consumption is such a simple equation that it will never hold true for any one person. Metabolic disorders, endocrine disorders, and food sensitivity also play a role in all of this. Does your job? Well, eat reasonably. Never run excessive deficits and never eat foods that are considered “bad.”

With a ketogenic diet, you rarely need to worry about calories, as fat and protein will fill you up and keep you full for a long time. However, if you exercise, you sometimes have to be vigilant. Exercise brings a bigger calorie deficit, and you have to eat to make up for it.

Can I Eat Too Much Fat?

In short, yes, you can eat too much fat. In the question above, I talked about calories and how important they are to us. Finally, in order to lose weight, we still need to keep the calorie deficit. Eating too much fat will make you exceed your calorie deficit and turn it into excess calories. While it’s hard for most people to overeat in a low-carb, high-fat diet, it’s still possible.

You can use the Ketogenic Calculator to calculate your macros and see how much fat, protein, and carbohydrate you should eat in a day. Remember, when you fill out this table, you can edit your protein and carbohydrate values (which should be edited based on your activity level). If you have any questions about this, please let me know in the comments.

How Much Weight Will I Lose?

How much weight you can lose is entirely up to you. Obviously, adding exercise to your life will accelerate your weight loss. It’s also a good thing to remove common “procrastination” reasons. Artificial sweeteners, dairy products, wheat products and their by-products (wheat gluten, wheat flour, and anything that contains recognizable wheat products).

When you start a low-carb diet, water weight loss is common. Ketosis has a diuretic effect that can cause weight loss by a lot in just a few days. While I hate bringing bad news, it’s not fat. But on the other hand (more aggressively) note that this indicates that your body is starting to tune itself into a fat-burning machine!

How Can I Tell if I Am In Ketosis?

The most common method is to use Ketostix. It is usually available at local pharmacies. But keep in mind that they are very inaccurate. Usually, they will tell you if you have ketosis. Any pink or purple color on the stick indicates that your body is producing ketones. Darker colors usually mean you’re dehydrated and the levels of ketones in your urine are more concentrated.

Ketothiothione measures the amount of acetone in your urine, most of which are unused ketones. The ketones your body and brain use to provide energy are called β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), and ketothiokeone cannot be measured.

To more reliably and accurately measure your ketones levels, you must use a blood ketone meter. This will show the proper amount of ketones in your blood that are not easily altered by hydration (or deficiency).

If you have a blood ketometer, this is what the reading means:

• Light Ketosis: 0.5 mmol/L – 0.8 mmol/L
• Medium Ketosis: 0.9 mmol/L – 1.4 mmol/L
• Deep Ketosis (best for weight loss): 1.5 mmol/L – 3.0 mmol/L

How Does Ketosis Work?

Simply put, ketosis is a state that our body enters when we don’t eat carbohydrates. This is one way our body uses fat, including body fat, as the primary energy we need. Not only is this good for our health, it’s actually used more effectively in our brains.

How do we get energy from fat? The “ketosis” state we are in allows our liver to break down fat into ketone molecules. These ketones provide the energy we need.

How did this become weight loss? With a calorie deficit, we don’t actually consume enough energy to sustain our bodies, so we have to tap into our own fat reserves to get the energy we need.

What About Heart Attacks From All This Fat?

The three main types of fats we eat are saturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, and monounsaturated fats. Saturated fat used to be widely believed to be bad for us, and there was a clear link between saturated fat and heart disease. In recent years, however, saturated fats have been shown not only not to cause heart attacks, but also to raise cholesterol levels. You can eat with confidence.

Polyunsaturated fats are a bit tricky. There are two sides to this story. Processed polyunsaturated fats such as margarine and vegetable oils are scary for us and often include trans fats. They do have a causal relationship with heart disease and should be avoided. However, polyunsaturated fats are naturally present in foods such as fish, which is good for us and raises cholesterol. Your job is to look for healthy fats and eliminate unhealthy fats.

Last but not least, there are monounsaturated fats. These are well known as “healthy” and are universally accepted. Olive oil is a classic example of a larger proportion of monounsaturated fats – beneficial to our health and lowering our cholesterol.

What Are Macros and Should I Count Them?

Macro is an abbreviation for macronutrient. The “big three” nutrients are fat, protein and carbohydrates. As mentioned earlier, calories are still important – it’s best to keep them all down at the outset. Not only does this allow you to develop a good habit, but it also allows you to see what you’re doing. You’ll be amazed at how many lies we lie to ourselves and how many unknown carbohydrates are in our diets.

If your weight loss program is stagnant, tracking your macro data can also help you. You can find out in your diet what might be causing this. When you track macros, make sure you are considering GRAMS. Don’t think about percentages. I see a lot of newcomers thinking “I’m eating 5% carbs, 20% protein and 75% fat – that’s perfect”, but it’s not. “Grandma” can more accurately describe what you’re eating, so use those words!

Keep in mind that if you deviate slightly from the macro, this is not a big problem. In most cases, you have room to increase or decrease 10-15 grams of fat and protein. If some days have passed, some days have passed, don’t panic. As long as you keep your calories under control and they don’t have too much deficit, you’re fine!

What Foods Can I Eat?

It’s a very common question to ask what you can eat. The most important thing is to stay away from carbohydrate In short, sugar, bread, pasta and rice. When you look at it that way, it sounds simple, but it’s not that simple. Potato chips, ketchup, and even salad dressings all contain carbohydrates.

Even vegetables contain carbohydrates, but they are an essential part of our diet, which is why we can consume up to 30 grams of carbs per day – and a small amount of remaining carbs from the foods we need, if you wish.

Do You Have a Sample Menu I Can Look At?

This is a difficult question to answer. For everyone, their diet menu will change. The amount of calories, fat, protein, and carbohydrates each person consumes is different, and a menu can’t satisfy them. However, I have developed a 7-day diet plan based on my own macro standards.

You can check out the 14 Innate Keto Diet Plan to learn about my daily diet and how it calculates your macros. Your job is to make it work for your own macro. This means adjusting the size of the portion to make the calories higher or lower. Adjust the fat content (remove the cheese, add the cheese), adjust the protein content (I have a high protein content, so most of you need to remove it), and adjust the carbohydrate content only slightly.

I think the carbohydrate content in the meal plan is pretty good, but if you don’t take a multivitamin, you can add some vegetables.

I Just Started and Feel Like Crap. What Should I Do?

When people start a ketogenic diet, headaches and “brain blur” often occur. Due to the diuretic effect of ketosis on our body, we will eventually urinate more than usual. Add to that the fact that our bodies continue to burn stored glycogen, and you’re in for a catastrophe. You urinate out of electrolytes and you need to replenish them.

Drink plenty of water and salt. Broths, salty foods such as bacon and deli meat, or salty nuts. These are great foods and drinks as you transition to ketosis and help keep your sanity and functioning.

Constipation, What To Do?

Irregular bowel movements are common for people who are just starting to take ketogenesis. Here are some suggestions for some common constipation or bowel problems.

• Take a Magnesium Supplement
• Drink Plenty of Water
• Eat One Tbsp. of Coconut Oil
• Stop Eating Nuts (if you do)
• Eat More Fibrous Vegetables
• Try Eating Chia Seeds or Flax Seeds
• Try Coffee or Tea

Can I Drink Alcohol On This Diet?

It is okay to drink alcohol while eating ketogenic, but you have to be careful. Those hidden carbohydrates may invade again.

The most important thing is to drink liquor. Wines, beers and cocktails all contain carbohydrates. Sake is your best bet, but make sure you don’t drink aromatic sake as they contain carbohydrates.

I Stopped Losing Weight. What Can I Do?

Everyone goes through at least one period of weight loss stagnation. There are many things that can be problematic, but I’ll shorten this one. You can try different approaches to help you get rid of obesity – from cutting down certain foods from your diet to changing your eating patterns through intermittent fasting or fat fasting.

Here are some common tips that are generally recommended for those who have not lost weight:

• Cut Out Dairy
• Up Your Fat Intake
• Decrease Your Carb Intake
• Stop Eating Nuts
• Stop Eating Gluten
• Cut Out Artificial Sweeteners
• Look for Hidden Carbs
• Begin Cutting Processed Food from Diet
• Switch to Measuring Instead of Weighing

I Work Out, Should I Be Worried?

There are two kinds of people who work out. Running, weightlifting. If you’re a person who does a lot of aerobic exercise – running, cycling, marathons or similar – then you don’t need to worry. Studies have shown that a low-carb diet does not affect aerobic training (endurance training). I wrote a more in-depth article about ketogenic diet training.

Now, if you lift weights, it’s a different story. You have to know your ultimate goal. In short, carbohydrates do help with your performance and also help with muscle recovery. This means getting faster gains and better strength performance in your training. There are two routes here, TKD and CKD.

TKD is a targeted ketogenic diet where you consume enough carbohydrates before your workout to get rid of ketosis during your workout. It works by providing the muscle with glycogen for its use, and then once it’s used up after you’ve finished your workout, you’ll return to a ketosis state. You can read more about the ketogenic diet in the article I wrote.

CKD is a cyclical ketogenic diet and a more advanced technique. If you’re new to ketosis, or have just been trained, you shouldn’t use this. It’s more for bodybuilders and competitors who want to maintain a ketogenic diet while also wanting to gain muscle during high-intensity workouts. In this approach, you maintain a regular ketogenic diet for a period of time (usually 5 days) and then do what is called a carbohydrate supplement for a period of time (usually 2 days, or weekends). In CKD, you’re basically replenishing all of your glycogen reserves in preparation for your training for the next week, and your goal is to deplete that glycogen. You can read more about the ketogenic cycle diet in the article I wrote.

What Supplements Should I Take?

Sometimes, it’s common for people to feel cramps or feel uncomfortable after starting a ketogenic diet. Supplements that are generally recommended for people include:

• Multivitamin for Women
• Multivitamin for Men
• Magnesium Supplement
• Vitamin B Complex
• Vitamin D Supplement
• Potassium Supplement

Always check with your doctor before introducing vitamins into your diet.

Common Terms and What They Mean

• AS: This means artificial sweetener. It is often used to make our food sweeter, reduced or zero in carbohydrate content.
• BPC: This is known as Ketoproof Coffee. Usually, butter, oil, and coffee are mixed together with an emulsion blender to help you increase your fat content and give you a feeling of “fullness” in the morning.
• Fat Bomb: These foods are often rich in fats and can increase our fat content throughout the day. Some people have a hard time keeping up with their fat content, so they make a fat bomb to help them. They don’t have to be sweet – you can make them to your liking, or you can even make a salty version.
• HWC: This stands for Heavy Whipping Cream. Just ordinary cream that, for a lot of us, is a daily staple in our coffee and diet.
• IR: This is associated with insulin resistance. This is where the body’s cells fail to respond properly to insulin hormones.
• LCHF: Low Carb High Fat, the whole point of this diet!
• MCT: Medium Chain Triglyceride. These foods help boost your metabolism and are unique. When they are metabolized, they immediately become ketones.
• SF: This means Sugar Free. Many people eat a series of sugar-free foods that usually contain artificial sweeteners.
• WOE: Way of Eating.It’s just a term used to refer to their own diet.