Try these 5 proven methods for keto diet success
The best keto diet plan is the one you can stick with. I have talked to a lot of people that have tried but failed to stick with the ketogenic diet. Let’s discuss an easy keto diet success plan. When I explain the keto diet to newcomers I like to use the KISS principle. Keep it simple stupid.
Fatty cuts of meat, above-ground vegetables especially green leafy vegetables. Keto-friendly nuts, cheese, butter, eggs, avocados, and keto superfoods. Refer to this source for a complete keto diet food list.
Avoid all forms of sugars and high glycemic index starches. Do not eat bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, noodles, macaroni, corn, milk, tortillas, beans, chips, crackers, no grains and of course, no sweets.
Table of contents
- Try these 5 proven methods for keto diet success
- Commitment: Make a keto diet plan and stick with it
- Starting a Keto diet can be challenging
- Here’s a tip: take some apple cider vinegar after you eat
- You have to be patient and give your body time to get keto-adapted
- This new keto food pyramid might give you some ideas
- Keto is extremely popular for a reason, trust that it works
- I get asked for a free keto diet plan quite often
- I will give you three examples of a daily keto diet plan to make my point:
- Put your keto diet food list together
- Fight through the adjustment period for a successful fat loss diet plan
- Don’t believe the keto myths and misconceptions
- An easy keto diet plan is a lifestyle change
- Keto diet success cardinal rule: Eat plenty of fat in the beginning
- Here is a keto diet success tip to help you get into ketosis quickly
- Why are doctors still focusing on cholesterol alone?
- Here is a list of the best antioxidants to take to reduce inflammation and oxidation.
- Get your priorities straight when thinking about keto success
- How do you know when you are fat-adapted?
- Every easy keto diet plan must stress patience
- If I can do it, so can you. Here is the story of my keto transformation
- Eat healthy fats and take antioxidant supplements
- If you follow this easy keto diet plan you will have success.
Commitment: Make a keto diet plan and stick with it
Starting a Keto diet can be challenging
You have to make a commitment. There is definitely an adjustment period. Your body has to adjust to a different way of fueling itself. Instead of using carbohydrates for fuel, you are forcing your body to use fat as fuel.
Your body has rarely had to utilize fat for fuel because, if you were raised anything like me, you stuffed carbohydrates in your mouth all day long every day. As long as you have any form of carbohydrates in your stomach, you are not burning fat.
If present, your body will always use carbohydrates for fuel before it will use fat. So the science behind the Ketogenic diet is to restrict your carbohydrate intake so your body will be forced to start burning fat.
Here’s a tip: take some apple cider vinegar after you eat
It actually makes sense, but the problem is, your body and mind won’t like it. Your body really wants to burn carbs, you have burned carbs your entire life and your mitochondria have adapted to that fuel source.
You have to be patient and give your body time to get keto-adapted
Also, genetics have built into our bodies the ability to store fat so during times of famine we wouldn’t starve and die. Without this fat storage ability, the human race would have probably become extinct like the dinosaurs.
If you understand that the adjustment period will be difficult, you can mentally prepare yourself for it. Everyone reacts a little different and the adjustment period will vary based on your age and metabolic health.
According to Mark Sisson’s book, “The Keto Reset Diet” he coined the phrase “Reboot your metabolism in 21 days and burn fat forever.”
This new keto food pyramid might give you some ideas
So plan on a difficult, challenging adjustment for around 2-3 weeks. You might even get what they call the Keto Flu. You don’t really have the flu, but you feel terrible. I have answered the question of “How to Prevent the Keto-Flu” in this article. Part of it is your body adjusting to ketosis, but the other part is the lack of electrolytes.
Keto is extremely popular for a reason, trust that it works
During the first 10 days, you will quickly lose a lot of your excess water weight. The swelling will go down in your fingers, face, and ankles. Electrolytes will also be excreted with the water. A sugar-free, calorie-free electrolyte supplement (tonic) is highly recommended. There is a recipe for a good keto flu drink in this article.
I get asked for a free keto diet plan quite often
This is tough to answer because I don’t like to push people into any specific keto diet plan. Variety is the spice of life and everyone enjoys different combinations of foods.
Also, the keto diet changes depending on the level of your goals, experience, and ability. In other words, someone just starting out on keto will eat a little different than someone that has been doing keto for a while.
Once you’re fat-adapted you don’t need to eat as much fat or eat as often. It’s easier to tap into your own fat.
I will give you three examples of a daily keto diet plan to make my point:
| For Keto Beginners | Intermediate Ketonians | Keto veterans (OMAD) | |
| Breakfast | Bulletproof coffee, cheese omelette with bacon | Keto coffee (bulletproof coffee) and fish oil capsules | Black coffee |
| Lunch | Chef’s salad with olive oil dressing, apple cider vinegar | Keto friendly nuts and pepperoni slices | Fast: One meal a day (OMAD) |
| Dinner | Salmon, cheesy, butter broccoli, avocado slices and zevia | Ribeye steak, cauliflower rice, avocado and carnitine | Chicken thighs (fried), brussel sprouts with heavy whipping cream |
Put your keto diet food list together
Your keto diet plan should include a list of keto-friendly foods and the above reference is a good place to start.
Don’t be afraid of salt, put some salt on a keto-friendly avocado and you’ll get your sodium and potassium. It’s also a good idea to supplement your diet with magnesium citrate to prevent constipation and muscle cramps.
Can you have butter on the ketogenic diet? Yes, try some in your coffee and start drinking bulletproof or keto coffee in the morning. The keto coffee will help you get adjusted to using fat as fuel.
Gain as much knowledge as you can. YouTube can give you tons of ketogenic information.
Here is an extensive keto frequently asked questions and keto diet for beginner’s guide if you’re looking for even more information.
Fight through the adjustment period for a successful fat loss diet plan
During the initial adjustment period to your keto diet plan expect to feel extremely drained and exhausted. You’ll feel cravings for bread and sweets. You’ll feel like your blood sugar is low and you might even get light-headed. Your blood sugar won’t really be dangerously low, it will just be a little lower than what you are used to.
Your body will try to convince your mind that you really need to eat carbs and sweets, but you don’t. As long as you are not a type 1 diabetic, your liver will normally make enough glucose on its own, even with no food intake. The liver’s ability to make glucose is called gluconeogenesis.
Some people get cramps and some people on Keto get constipated. You have to fight through that adjustment period and stay committed. I think that most of us would endure almost any hardship for a million bucks right?
Well, being able to burn fat for the rest of your life is more valuable than a million bucks. Isn’t being healthy and looking and feeling good invaluable?
Don’t believe the keto myths and misconceptions
You are eating completely different than you did before and you have to fight through the misconceptions that you have been told your entire life. You have to open up your mind to a new way of thinking.
There are a lot of negative keto myths associated with a Keto Diet Plan, so you have to do your research and think outside the box.
The ketogenic diet isn’t something that you do for short term weight loss. Would it work, sure, but most of your weight loss at the beginning is water weight.
To go through the adjustment period and gain the ability to burn fat as fuel, only to give that up and go back to burning sugar again doesn’t seem worth it to me. If you just want a short term diet it might be easier to go with Nutrisystem or Weight Watchers…..or just continue Yo-Yo dieting.
An easy keto diet plan is a lifestyle change
The best keto diet success tip that anyone could give you is to just change your mindset. You have to make a commitment to permanently change how you eat and fuel your body.
Keto diet success cardinal rule: Eat plenty of fat in the beginning
The ketogenic diet is not a low-fat diet, if eating fat scares you, then keto is not for you. Americans have been trying different versions of a low-fat diet since the early 1970s and it’s obviously not working. Currently, 65% of Americans are either diabetic or pre-diabetic.
When the low-fat dietary guidelines came out in the 1970s, people starting trying to reduce their fat intake, but the calories had to be made up somehow, so they replaced fat with carbohydrates and the metabolic conditions like diabetes and obesity started to explode. Get it out of your head that fat is bad because it is not.
Increasing your fat intake will help your body adjust to burning fat, and since fat is digested slower in your body, you will have sustained long term energy. But most importantly, fat doesn’t raise your blood sugar and spike insulin.
Insulin causes your body to retain and store fat. In a high insulin environment, your body simply cannot burn fat. In the beginning, your body needs to adjust to using fat as energy and the best way to do that is to ingest fat.
Here is a keto diet success tip to help you get into ketosis quickly
When you are in a keto-adapted state, circulating fats, blood ketones and the liver work together to provide 75-85% of your body’s energy. So yes, your cholesterol level will likely increase because eating more fat requires more of it pass through the bloodstream.
Doctors and pundits that show alarm over high cholesterol need to update their knowledge base. A good keto diet plan takes all the health measurements into consideration, not just LDL cholesterol.
Why are doctors still focusing on cholesterol alone?
The 2013 guidelines from the American College of Cardiology now offers a 10-year heart disease risk predictor that includes multiple biomarkers, not just cholesterol. This article explains that saturated fat is a healthy keto fat source.
We need to look at the big picture and evaluate how the Ketogenic Diet affects all the biomarkers as a whole. Inflammation and oxidation in the body are starting to emerge as a key indicator of health.
Here is a list of the best antioxidants to take to reduce inflammation and oxidation.
Here is a list of all the biomarkers that need to be evaluated when considering the prediction of future health issues:
- age
- sex
- race
- family history
- triglycerides
- total cholesterol
- HDL cholesterol
- LDL cholesterol
- Inflammation (C-reactive)
- systolic blood pressure
- diastolic blood pressure
- diabetes (A1C)
- smoking
- drinking alcohol
- medications
Get your priorities straight when thinking about keto success
The number one priority when you first start out is to focus on adapting your body to burning fat as energy. Your body needs time to “learn” how to do it. As you increase your fat and lower your carbohydrates, your body will gradually become more efficient at burning fat.
After you make it through the adjustment period, you burn fat very efficiently and have almost unlimited energy. That is commonly referred to as being fat adapted.
Becoming fat adapted is the key to your keto success and should be your number one priority, not losing weight. The weight (fat) will come off on its own as you get keto-adapted.
Another keto diet success tip is to take MCT oil (medium chain triglycerides) and conduct intermittent fasting and OMAD. An explanation of OMAD can be found here>>
How do you know when you are fat-adapted?
The cravings start to go away, you can skip meals without getting hungry and irritable. You don’t feel the need to snack. You can go longer and longer between meals and don’t feel the need to eat or drink before or after a workout.
The feelings of hunger become different, yes you still feel a type of hunger, but it’s soft and gentle. It’s kind of there in the background, but you can ignore it. You finally are in control of hunger and it doesn’t control you. It’s very liberating not to feel you MUST eat.
Every easy keto diet plan must stress patience
If you’re like me you’ve probably lived your entire life eating excess carbohydrates. There is a very good chance your cells have become resistant to insulin from all those years of excess carbohydrates.
If I can do it, so can you. Here is the story of my keto transformation
Your metabolism is likely damaged. It’s going to take time to repair.
To avoid or reduce a lot of the earlier discussed challenges like the keto flu, you have to ease into the Ketogenic Diet. Yes, eventually you need to lower your carbohydrate intake to 20-30 grams a day, but you don’t need to do it the first day.
There are different ways to do it, for example, the first week I stopped most starches, but ate chili (beans) and lentils and was still eating close to 60 grams of carbohydrates a day. Then the next week I cut out beans and lentils and boosted my fat intake.
I made keto coffee with grass-fed butter and MCT oil in the morning and started eating eggs, avocados, macadamia nuts, vegetables, olives and cheese, and low carb vegetables. Going into Keto slowly will prevent you from getting the keto flu.
Then the next week I started skipping breakfast and then lunch and by about 5 weeks I was fat adapted and the fat started melting off my body.
Eat healthy fats and take antioxidant supplements
This article covers the difference between good fats and bad fats. Eat as many of the good fats as possible and also it helps to take antioxidants. Antioxidants can help lower inflammation in the body and improve insulin resistance.
Keto can be a healthy, rewarding lifestyle if you take the steps to be successful. If you have questions about the Ketogenic Diet and are ready to get started please read 13 Beginner Tips for the Ketogenic Diet.
If you follow this easy keto diet plan you will have success.
Remember it’s not what you put into your mouth, it’s what you don’t put into your mouth. Just eliminate sugars and starches, eat meat and vegetables, workout once in a while and you’ll have long term success on the ketogenic diet.
If you have any questions or comments please feel free to join our Support Group and/or to contact me. Also if you have any keto diet success tips that have worked for you let me know and I’ll add them to this article.
