What Is Speed Keto
Speed Keto is a means of achieving faster ketosis and was created by Harlan Kilstein, who is not a medical professional or nutrition pro, but a coach, said Cynthia Thurlow, NP, who specializes in nutrition and intermittent fasting.
The Speed Keto program is similar to the traditional keto diet in that it requires individuals to eat a high fat, low carb diet.
Similarly, it also focuses on putting the body in ketosis, a metabolic state when your body burns fat instead of glucose for energy. When your body is in ketosis, its basically a fat-burning machine, thus giving keto its reputation as a weight loss tool.
The difference with Speed Keto? You can only eat one meal a day. The meal should follow the traditional keto guidelines of high fat and low carb macronutrients.
Its main goal is to attempt to become fat-adapted faster than a more traditional ketogenic diet, Thurlow told Healthline.
Fasting can help speed the process of getting into ketosis, explained Tony Castillo, MS, RDN, LDN, nutrition consultant for RSP Nutrition.
It can typically take 2 to 4 days to enter ketosis if you have less than 50 grams of carbs per day, he continued, pointing out that several factors, from what you eat to age and activity level, can extend the amount of time it takes to enter ketosis.
Even though you may enter fat-burning ketosis more quickly on Speed Keto, seeing a lower number on the scale might be misleading.
Intermittent Fasting And Keto In Human Evolution
For nearly two million years our ancestors lived in a world teeming with large prey . 3
When a hunt was successful our ancestors feasted, and when the hunt failed, they fasted.;
Over eons of human evolution, our ancestors whose brains and bodies functioned the best in fasted states were also the best at hunting and gathering foodand ultimately at surviving and reproducing. This means the genes that shaped their metabolism have been passed along to us.;
We see evidence of our bodies adaptation to cycles of fasting and feasting in the way we:
- easily store fat: Our fuel supply in-between successful hunts
- easily go into ketosis: How we convert stored fat and the fat we eat, into fuel during times when carbohydrates and calories are scarce.
- have reduced cognitive ability when not fasting, because our brains are hard-wired to function optimally during times of food scarcity.
Pros And Cons Of Practicing Both Diets Together
Like any diet, combination or independent, there comes pros and cons. These may not be the case for everyone. But, these are the positives and negatives that may occur for most participants.;
It is important to cover the pros and cons so that people can be aware if combining ketogenic and intermittent fasting is beneficial or right for them.;
| PROS |
| Reduces the risk of heart disease |
With those pros and cons in mind, you may have some more questions. Below are answers to the top most asked questions about combining the keto diet with intermittent fasting:
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Intermittent Fasting With Ketosis 10 Benefits Of Going Keto
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Both intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet have gotten a lot of attention lately.
Since Yoshinori Ohsumi was awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering autophagy a primary health benefit of fasting in 2016, intermittent fasting started to become socially acceptable .
Therefore, more and more people are discovering that intermittent fasting works with ketosis and that you can comfortably combine it with keto.
From being healthy to simplifying everyday life, regular intermittent fasting has many benefits. Furthermore, these benefits can be even more significant if you combine them with a ketogenic diet!
Does Intermittent Fasting Cause Ketosis
Intermittent Fasting and the Keto Diet often get lumped into the same sentence as two protocols that are similar or the same. With the field of Nutrition’s shift to focusing on actual fat breakdown vs. just calorie restriction, these two protocols fit the bill and therefore are commonly combined. BUT just because they both have the same end goal of increased fat burning, it does not mean they are the same thing.
Ketosis is a natural state within the body that both Intermittent Fasting and the Keto Diet tap into for many of the fat burning and mental clarity benefits.
Today, I’m going to be breaking down exactly what ketosis is and how Intermittent Fasting can help you achieve this “fat burning” state. Buckle up, we’re about to get EXTRA nerdy with the science-y deets in this one
Recommended Reading: Which Intermittent Fasting Should I Do
What Is A Ketogenic Diet
A ketogenic diet means eating high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-to-no carbohydrates.
When the levels of ketones in our blood get elevated, we enter the metabolic state called ketosisthe root of the term keto diet.
The calorie breakdown of a typical ketogenic diet looks like:
- 70-80% of calories from fat
- 15-30% calories from protein
- 0-10% calories from carbohydrates
Most ketones pack more energy per unit than carbs. They can also fuel the vast majority of your cells. For the few other types of cells that need glucose, your body will synthesize it from protein. This is a natural process called gluconeogenesis.
Foods To Eat On The Keto Diet
The keto diet places a huge emphasis on healthy fats as the primary component of your diet. The simplest way to say it is high-fat, moderate protein, very low-carb. But those terms can be vague. So having a list of go-to foods that you know you can eat can be super helpful.From there, you can get creative, and even try making some keto treats with keto-approved sugar-free sweeteners. This isnt an exhaustive list of food choices, but its a great place to start to get the ball rolling, and you can use this list to give yourself guidelines to follow when creating recipes or ordering from a restaurant.
Read Also: Can You Get Into Ketosis By Fasting
Why Would You Do Intermittent Fasting On The Keto Diet
Basically, intermittent fasting might add to keto’s fat-burning effects, says Kelly Roehl, R.D.N., an advanced level dietitian at Rush University Medical Center.
In fact, Roehl adds some people use intermittent fasting to jumpstart ketosis. Intermittent fasting may drive blood-sugar levels down, which can promote or enhance ketosis when someone’s no longer in itfrom, say, deviating from the diet, she says.
Keep in mind, though, as hard as it is to maintain the keto diet, it’s even harder to maintain intermittent fasting on the keto diet. Unless practicing both works for your lifestyle and is something you can stick to, its not going to be sustainable.
Intermittent Fasting On A Low Carb Diet: How It Works
Intermittent fasting can be a helpful tool in your weight loss toolbox. Learn from our decades of experience how to pair intermittent fasting with Atkins and how to avoid common pitfalls.
Intermittent fasting is becoming increasingly popular, but if youre already adapted to a low carb dietor considering starting oneyou may not need to rely on it as your sole diet. The truth is: Atkins diet plans offer many of the same benefits intermittent fasting does, all on their own.
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What To Eat While Intermittent Fasting
During your fasting window, you shouldnt eat anything. During your eating window, enjoy nutrient-dense keto foods like healthy proteins, vegetables, and fats.
Avoid breaking your fast with processed foods, carb-heavy meals, and dirty keto foods, as these can hinder the health benefits of fasting in the first place.
How Long Should You Intermittent Fast
How long is intermittent fasting sustainable? When it comes to intermittent fasting for beginners, 24 hours or fewer is a safe limit.
Those more experienced with fasting may go 48-72 hours, or even longer however, youll have to experiment and work up to a long fasting window, and stop if it doesnt feel right or keeps you from doing daily tasks.
You can incorporate some form of fasting into your schedule every day, as long as you stay healthy and nourished with the right foods during your eating windows.
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First What Exactly Is Keto
Keto is a high fat, low-carb diet often mistaken for a high protein diet because so many of its popular recipes include bacon and other types of animal products, but the focus really is on fat.
The goal of the keto diet is to eat meals that are 60 to 75 percent fat, 15 to 30 percent protein, and 5 to 10 percent carbohydrates. Doing so puts you into a state of ketosis, where you can burn ketones from fat instead of glucose from carbs, speeding up your metabolism and increasing the potential for weight loss . Between burning fat during ketosis, and losing water weight that you’d normally hold onto to store carbs for energy, you may drop quite a few pounds on keto.
Normal staples of a keto diet include healthy fats , meat, and dairy products. Foods that are off limits are any kind of pasta or bread, starchy veggies like potatoes, beans, and anything that contains sugar, including many cocktails.
There are some variations on the standard keto diet, and some of them include sneaking some carbs in. The cyclic keto diet involves eating keto five or six days out of the week, and then eating a small amount of carbs on the other day or two to replenish energy stores . There’s also the targeted keto diet, common in athletes as well, in which you basically carb load less than an hour before strenuous exercise for a burst of energythe object is that you’ll burn off the carbs before they’re stored as fat in the body.
What Is Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting is a way of recreating our ancestral eating patterns in modern life.;
This means cycling between daily periods of not eating, and windows for eating.;
When done properly IF has been shown to 234:
- regulate blood glucose
- reduce the risk of cancer, and more
Heres an example of a popular 16:8 fasting method:
Also Check: What Is 14 10 Intermittent Fasting
The Possible Health Benefits Of A Keto Intermittent Fasting Diet
There isnt research on the health effects of doing keto and IF together, but its clear that ketone levels increase when the plans are combined. This may help accelerate weight loss, says Dr.;DAgostino. Still, everyone responds differently, so this may not be true across the board, he says.
Shemek has all of her clients use keto or the IF and;keto combo. My clients are typically all prediabetic and overweight. Once they see and feel what eating in this way does for them including regulating their blood sugar levels they are able to stay on an IF and;keto plan easily. The success of the combined approach reinforces their committment, she says.
One interesting way that low-carb IF diets are being studied outside of weight loss is for cognitive health. Richard Isaacson, MD, director of the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYorkPresbyterian in New York City, says that doing a low-carb, time-restricted IF may be beneficial for calming down insulin pathways and letting the brain benefit from cleaner burning fuel, which may offer benefits for people with Alzheimers disease.
Are They Safe Together
In short, yes, it is safe to do intermittent fasting and keto at the same time. The trick is to make sure you are getting enough nutrition and calories to maintain function while still entering ketosis.
In ketosis, the body is ramped up into fat-burning mode and is feasting on all of those extra stores that accumulate around the body.Keto eliminates unnecessary carbs from the diet, so its easier to get all of your required vitamins, nutrients, proteins, and healthy fats.
The trick is to focus your keto diet to only include the good stuff. So eat lots of lean proteins, red meat, and dark, leafy vegetables.
Also Check: What Is The Advantage Of Intermittent Fasting
May Smooth Your Transition Into Ketosis
Keto is about switching your body from using carbohydrates for energy, to turning fat into ketones. The typical way to do this is by cutting carbs and increasing fat intake in your diet. For many people this transition can take some time and it comes with a number of unpleasant side effects known as keto flu.;
IF speeds up ketosis and smooths the transition. When you fast, your insulin levels drop, causing your body to use its stored carbs . Once these are depleted your body begins using fat for fuel. 12
Think of fasting as a way to jump start ketosis.
Improved Blood Sugar Control And Insulin Sensitivity
By giving your body an occasional break from calorie consumption, you can also help improve blood sugar levels and enhance the insulin sensitivity of your cells. One clinical trial found that intermittent fasting may even be a better strategy than maintaining the same calorie deficit with six meals per day.
When combined with the keto diet which also has been found to help with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes the two dietary strategies may work synergistically for improving blood sugar control. However, more research is needed on the effects of using them in tandem.
Also Check: What Can I Drink During My Intermittent Fasting
/5can You Try Ketogenic Diet And Intermittent Fasting At The Same Time
The Ketogenic diet and Intermittent Fasting are two of the most talked-about dietary trends on the internet and carry amazing weight-loss aiding properties, apart from additional health benefits. The speedy results the diets offer has made many wonders if combining the two can actually accelerate results.
Actor Arshad Warsi, who lost over 6 kilos in a single month was also somebody who hopped on to the trend and saw weight loss results.
But, how safe is it to follow both Keto and Intermittent Fasting together? Are there benefits?
We give you a low-down on the same…
The Keto Intermittent Fasting Connection
The ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting share many of the same health benefits because both methods can have the same result: a state of ketosis.
Ketosis has many physical and mental benefits, from weight and fat loss to improved stress levels, brain function, and longevity.
However, its important to keep in mind that if you take a milder approach to keto intermittent fasting for example, eating within an 8-hour window you probably wont enter ketosis .
Not everyone who tries intermittent fasting aims to enter ketosis. In fact, if someone who fasts also eats high-carb foods, theres a very good chance theyll never enter ketosis.
On the other hand, if ketosis is the goal, you can use keto intermittent fasting as a tool to get there and improve your overall health.
If youre new to the keto world and would like some helpful tips about how to start, here are a couple of beginners guides to help you with your first steps:
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Why Intermittent Fasting Whats The Fuss
One of my answers to people who ask Why do you fast? Are you religious? is Because it can work for your goals!
Its a no-brainer that restricting your calories plays an integral role in weight loss.
But heres the thing when you fast, youre making this caloric restriction a walk in the park, especially if you use your sleeping period as a time to fast.
When done correctly, a healthy person can experience consistent weight loss.
Here are some other reasons why intermittent fasting is the way forward!
What Else Do I Need To Know Before Trying Intermittent Fasting On The Keto Diet
Make sure you’re paying special attention to those keto ratios .
After that, make sure you’re eating more nutritionally-dense foods , says Roehl. “Keto diets are sometimes portrayed as bacon and cheese, but these foods are quite low in certain nutrients that we absolutely know promote health,” she says.
The bottom line: Doing intermittent fasting on the keto diet can speed up fat burn and weight lossbut as always, the healthiest, most sustainable diet is one you can actually stick to, and intermittent fasting on the keto diet can be tough to maintain for an extended period of time.
Also Check: How To Lose Weight Fast Fasting
Who Should Try An Intermittent Fasting Keto Approach
Anyone who has been on keto for more than two weeks and with the okay from their healthcare team would like to add IF may do so. But the keto diet has become popular for those who have prediabetes or diabetes, though asking these patients not to eat for a significant amount of time can be dangerous, says Kwasnicka. If you have chronic kidney disease, a history of eating disorders, are undergoing active cancer treatment, or are pregnant or breastfeeding, its unlikely youre a good candidate for this combined diet plan. Even the individual diets may not be recommended for these populations. Check with your healthcare team.
Also, if youre currently following the keto diet and are happy and feel good with the way youre eating, you do not have to add in IF, she says.
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