Can You Get Into Ketosis By Fasting

How To Get Into Ketosis As Fast As Possible

Many people starting a ketogenic diet, or maybe after eating something less than ideal, they often wonder what the fastest way to get into ketosis is.;

While Ill give you my best suggestions that will result in getting you in ketosis as fast as possible, even as short as 24 hours, know that it really doesnt matter how fast you get into ketosis.;

But more about that later.;

What is the fastest way to get into ketosis? The fastest way to get into ketosis is by depleting the glucose stored in your liver, also known as your liver glycogen. You can accomplish this through moderate- to high-intensity exercise besides a very low-carbohydrates diet or fasting.

In this article, Ill discuss the mechanisms on how one gets into ketosis, what ketosis is, how to get into ketosis in as little as 24 hours, and why you dont need to or shouldnt really care how fast it happens.;

• The Takeaway

Before You Try Intermittent Fasting

If you want to give intermittent fasting a try, make sure to discuss it with your doctor first, says Dr. Rimm. Skipping meals and severely limiting calories can be dangerous for people with certain conditions, such as diabetes. Some people who take medications for blood pressure or heart disease also may be more prone to imbalances of sodium, potassium, and other minerals during longer-than-normal periods of fasting.

Is The Keto Diet Good For Building Muscle

This is a mixed bag. Yes. You can build good quality lean muscle on a keto diet. But you can also build quality muscle on a diet that incorporates carbohydrates. If youre lean and trying to add muscle to a small frame, I suggest leaving carbohydrates in your diet.

Insulin plays a key role in shuttling certain amino acids into muscle tissue. And the extra carbohydrates help. But, amino acids generally elicit their own insulin response to a much smaller degree. But enough to do the job. Most individuals want to add muscle while staying lean. So, yes this kind of diet is effective for staying lean and adding muscle.

You May Like: What Can I Drink During My Intermittent Fasting

Keep Up Your Water Intake

During the non-feeding period, make sure you keep yourself hydrated by drinking a higher amount of water.

The rule of intermeeting fasting is not extended to water intake.

Hence, you can drink as much as water you want during the feeding as well as non-feeding period. No restrictions applied here!

This will prevent fatigue and keep you energetic throughout the day.

Significantly Reducing Carbohydrate Intake

Ketosis occurs when a lack of carbohydrate forces the body to use fat as its primary energy source instead of sugar.

A person looking to reach ketosis, whether for weight loss, to reduce the risk of heart disease, or to maintain and control blood sugar levels, should aim to reduce their carb consumption to 20 grams per day or less.

However, this is not a set number. Some people may be able to eat more carbohydrate and still get into a state of ketosis, while others will need to eat less.

Read Also: Can You Drink Alcohol While Intermittent Fasting

Muscle Growth And Repair

A study of healthy adults found that 48-hour fasting increased human growth hormone secretion by up to 400%. It also increased the frequency of growth hormone bursts throughout the day.;

HGH increases muscle mass and stimulates faster muscle repair. It may also speed up the healing process for wounds and more serious injuries. HGH is so effective that taking it externally is banned in professional sports and is considered doping.;

It seems counterintuitive, but occasionally going without food for two days may actually help you build muscle, not lose it.;

More Ketones For The Brain

Our brains can run well on ketones, and may even prefer them as a fuel source.

Keto adaptation allows more ketones to become available for the brain. This happens because as tissues adapt to low-carbohydrate availability, they get better at using fats for fuel. This is especially true for skeletal muscle, which can directly oxidize fatty acids to produce ATP.

As a result of more direct fatty acid oxidation by the skeletal muscles, more of the bodys ketones are made available for the brain.

This has several benefitsincreasing brain energy supply, reducing the brains reliance on glucose, and reducing the requirement for protein to help with gluconeogenesis. Volek2012

It could take anywhere from several weeks to months for muscle to become adept at using fatty acids for energy. Like all processes, optimization takes time.

You May Like: Is Intermittent Fasting Good For Endomorphs

Is The Keto Diet Good For Diabetics

A great deal of my education covered nutrition and disease. It dealt a lot with diabetes. I firmly believe that a ketogenic diet is one of the most effective treatments for the following. Insulin-dependent and non-insulin-dependent diabetes.

I cant disseminate medical advice. But eliminating the macronutrient that your body cant manage from your diet, is a no-brainer!

How To Get Into Ketosis Fast

The first thing youll want to do is to stop eating carbs. If you really want to get into ketosis in 24 hours, you want to cut all carbs if possible but you absolutely must stay under 20g in a 24 hour time slot.

These are the steps I use whenever I want to get back into ketosis after a carb up or if Ive simply been off keto for a while since I like tocycle on and off the keto diet.

Recommended Reading: Do You Have To Diet With Intermittent Fasting

How Long Does It Take To Lose Weight When Youre In Ketosis

The answer to this question will clearly depend on a number of factors like your weight, age and level of activity. You can read here my results after just one week of ketosis but it isnt abnormal for folks to lose up to 10lbs in their very first week.

Looking for a more complete guide to start or stick to the keto diet? My Ketogenic Diet 101 eBook;is a complete, all-in-one resource for the ketogenic diet. This book includes all the need-to-know info about the keto diet, how it affects lifestyle diseases like diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure plus over 45 recipes, checklists, and grocery list to get you started. Want the grocery list, quick start guide, and 7-day meal plan for free? Get it below.

Will I Still Lose Weight If Not In Ketosis

Usually, when a person does not lose weight on the keto diet, it is because they have not achieved ketosis. The most common reason for not getting into ketosis is not cutting back enough on carbs. According to a 2019 article on the ketogenic diet, carbohydrates should represent only 510% of a persons calorie intake.

Also Check: Can You Eat Anything While Intermittent Fasting

How Do You Know When Youre In Ketosis When On A Fast

Through the information in this article, youve decided that youd like to fast to speed up the amount of time it takes for you to enter ketosis. Perhaps youre on a standard intermittent fast or maybe you even tried fat fasting.

Short of stepping on the scale every day to see if the weight has come off, how do you know if youre in ketosis? You dont necessarily have to guess, as there are several ways to gauge the level of ketone bodies in your system at any time one.

Lets discuss these methods now.

Why You Want To Get Into Ketosis Faster

The sooner you enter ketosis, the sooner your body can get on with the job of burning fat at an accelerated rate. If it takes you two weeks to enter ketosis, thats two weeks during which your keto diet wont be working its magic. You WILL lose weight during this period, but most of that weight is water.

As your body gradually uses its onboard glycogen stores, the accompanying water is released. Youll know this is happening because youll pee more. Water is a heavy substance, and as you pee more, you will lose weight. Most keto dieters lose 5-10 pounds just getting into ketosis. However, until you enter ketosis, this weight is not fat.

In addition, as your glycogen levels start to fall, but you are yet to enter ketosis, you will probably experience some mildly unpleasant side effects. These side effects are collectively called the keto flu. Keto flu happens when your body is running low on carbs but has yet to make the shift to using ketones for fuel. The longer it takes to enter ketosis, the longer the symptoms of keto flu will last. Those symptoms include:

• Muscle cramps
• Heart palpations

The keto flu is no-ones idea of fun, and the sooner you get into ketosis, the sooner those symptoms will vanish. If you really want to get the most from the keto diet, it makes sense to try and get into ketosis as fast as possible. Use the following keto tips to reach ketosis in days rather than weeks!

Also Check: Is Fasting Good For Losing Belly Fat

Will A Keto Diet Help Lose Belly Fat

There is no magic bullet of a diet to cut fat from a specific region. We burn fat systemically . During periods of rest. Our metabolism uses fatty acids. They dwell within muscle tissue .

That fat is then replaced by subcutaneous fat from all over the body. Because of hormonal differences, men store more fat in the abdomen. And women store more fat in the thighs. Both locations burn off last, because of the higher percentage in those regions.

Faq Getting Into Ketosis Fast

Q: How Can I Get into Ketosis in one day?

A: The easiest way to get into ketosis in one day is to combine all three approaches: Fasting, Carnivore diet and exercise. All three will get the glycogen stores out of your muscles and have your body burning ketones in no time.

Q: How long do you have to fast to get into ketosis?

A: If you are doing an extended fast to get into ketosis, usually around 12 14 hours is all it takes. If you had been eating a lot of carbs prior to your fast it might take up to 24 hours to be deep into ketosis. A word of warning though an extended fast is really tough if your body is not use to ketosis. The hunger for carbs will be very strong so be prepared for this mentally.

Q: How Can I Speed up Ketosis?

A: Once youre in ketosis, you can speed up the results by going even deeper into ketosis. This can be done by reducing carbs even lower than what you are doing, introducing fasting and exercising while fasted. All of these things can speed up and deepen your ketosis.

Q: Is there any pill or shake to speed up ketosis?

A: It is not necessary to take any pills or shakes to get into ketosis fast. Supplements that contain ketones are no more effective than just reducing your carbs, despite their claims to be a short cut to getting into ketosis. Your body will happily switch to burning fat for fuel in just 12 14 hours by following the basics: reduce carbs, fast and exercise.

Q: How do you know when you are in ketosis?

Recommended Reading: Do Fasting Help You Lose Weight

How Many Calories Will You Burn

Most experts will tell you that weight loss basically comes down to calories eaten versus calories burned.

But water fasting ketosis can offer one huge advantage when it comes to melting away that stubborn body fat.

You see, according to science, water fasting ketosis can help you burn as much as 325 extra calories a day!

And that’s on top of everything you’ll burn because you’re not eating food.

Why does this happen?

Well, your body has to “work” much harder to extract the needed energy from your own body fat reserves .

In other words, your body will need to spend extra calories to extract, convert, and distribute the energy stored in your body fat reserves.

Which means that once you enter water fasting ketosis, you should be burning hundreds of extra calories per day.

How Long Does It Take To Go Into Ketosis When Fasting

In case you are on a ketogenic diet, you already are in ketosis when fasting and burn fat for energy efficiently. On the other hand, if you follow a standard American diet , you will not get into ketosis in 16 hours since carbohydrate stores are full. In this case, you would need to go cold turkey with a prolonged fast to have a chance to enter ketosis

Don’t Miss: How Does Fasting Help You Lose Weight

How To Avoid Keto Flu On A Low Carb Diet

People with insulin resistance usually have excessively high levels of this hormone, because it doesnt work properly. We are seeing an increasing number of patients who have been diagnosed with insulin resistance by their own doctor, yet they dont fully understand what this term means. Early clinical signs can be detected by an observant producer.

Acetone And The Breath Test

Acetone is found in your breath, and studies have confirmed testing acetone breath levels is a reliable way to monitor ketosis in people following ketogenic diets .

The Ketonix meter measures acetone in your breath. After breathing into the meter, a color flashes to indicate whether youre in ketosis and how high your levels are.

You May Like: How To Use Fasting For Weight Loss

So How Does One Get Into Ketosis

To make a lengthy story short, your body has two main reservoirs of carbohydrates. You can think of these reservoirs as storage garages for carbohydrates to be used when needed. These two main reservoirs are:

• Your Liver
• Your Muscles

Both your liver and muscles act as a storage depot for carbohydrates, almost like a fuel reserve. These stored carbohydrates, referred as glycogen, serves to maintain blood sugar levels and provide energy when needed. 1https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK21190/

So our goal is to deplete liver glycogen sufficiently to induce ketone body formation.;

Ketosis Mistakes Youll Make

Recommended Reading: Did Intermittent Fasting Work For You

Why Is Keto Right For You

Old perceptions about high-fat diets have changed. Health benefits from ketogenic dieting continue to grow, from everything to weight management to diabetes control.

Continued research is necessary to understand the full benefits, but some people are using keto to reverse diabetes, to maintain blood sugar levels, for endurance performance, for improved cognition or for longevity. The list continues growing. Everyone is different- some people dont get along with keto, but for others it is transformative, so this diet certainly deserves consideration

If you want to get into ketosis fast, follow our steps. But understand its a processit will take some time for the body to fully adapt to this lifestyle. But overall, the process isnt difficult. It takes dedication, but will be worth it in the long run.

How Do You Get Into Ketosis

So now that you know how ketosis works, youll probably want to know how exactly you get into it, and if there are any hacks, shortcuts, or even roadblocks that youll need to look out for. Ill try and answer the most frequent questions I get here, and will provide the absolute fastest ways to get into ketosis next.

• Is it hard to get into ketosis?

The difficulty of getting into ketosis unfortunately depends on a wide variety of factors that can be difficult to boil down. Every body is different, and some bodies are simply more inclined to enter a state of ketosis than others, but that doesnt mean that its not possible for everyone.

Ketosis is widely achievable, and once youve gone through the first few phases and become fully fat adapted, your body will have a much easier time maintaining ketosis, as well as getting back into it if youre ever kicked out of it.

People that switch from extreme high carb diets to ketosis will often find this transition the most difficult, and their bodies may enter starvation mode before they actually enter ketosis. Thats why its recommended for new beginners to try and not worry about calories at all, and just focus on hitting their macro targets.

• How do you stay in ketosis?

• How quickly can you lose weight when it ketosis?

Weve all seen the success stories of rapid weight loss for people that switched to keto, but whats a realistic number?

The question itself is a bit loaded, and the answer is more complicated than you might think.

Recommended Reading: Why Should I Do Intermittent Fasting

Implement Coconut Oil Into Your Diet

We already talked about how coconut butter can be a healthy source of good fats, and so too can coconut oil. The fats within it, or medium-chain triglycerides, go straight to our liver. They then become ketones or can be sourced for energy.

There are different types of medium-chain triglycerides, and coconut oil has up to four kinds. One source that comprises half of all medium-chain triglycerides in coconut oil is lauric acid. Thats quite important, it turns out. Theres a potential for your body to maintain ketosis by having higher lauric acid levels since it metabolizes slower.

Do be aware that too much coconut oil can lead to diarrhea and stomach cramps, so dont go all in immediately. Instead, ingest a teaspoon daily and then consume no more than three tablespoons every day once your body adjusts.