When I first started my keto journey I believed there was no other way to do it than just plunging all in from day one. So that’s what I did. Reflecting back on the first few weeks I now know that I could have chosen to ease into a keto diet, but that just doesn’t match my personality. When I commit to something I’m in it 100% from day one, so I am happy that I chose to start keto by plunging in and cutting the carbs all at once.
As I explained in my previous post, starting a keto lifestyle is like getting into a cold swimming pool. There are two ways: jump all in or slowly ease into the water. For a detailed explanation of the differences between the two ways to start keto click here. If you have decided to gradually ease your way into ketosis you may want to check out my previous post: 5 Easy Steps to Ease Your Way Into a Ketogenic Lifestyle. If you have decided to cut the carbs cold turkey and jump all in on a keto diet continue reading.
Whether you’ve chosen to ease in or plunge all in you’ll notice that the five steps to achieving ketosis are extremely similar. There are slight differences in how you will complete each step based on how you are starting your diet. The main difference in easing in vs. plunging into ketosis is when you ease in you’re going to take one step at a time. When you plunge all in you’re going to complete all five steps at the same time. This is going to take a bit of multitasking on your part but if you stay committed, you’ll succeed!
5 Easy Steps to Plunge into a Ketogenic Lifestyle:
- Download and Learn to Use a Tracking App
- Restock with Keto Friendly Foods
- Track Your Calories and Carbs
- Fine Tune Your Macro Ratios
- Beat the Keto Flu
1. Download and Learn to Use a Tracking App
For this first step you’re going to choose a tracking app that you enjoy, download it, and learn to use the key features.
Two of the most popular tracking apps for keto are Carb Manager and Cronometer. Both of the apps are free to use with the option of upgrading to a premium annual subscription. I’ve used both apps before and can tell you they are very similar and easy to use. The free versions on both will track your calories and macros (carbs, protein and fat) in slightly different user interfaces. I would suggest starting out with Carb Manager initially as Cronometer is highly detailed so it can easily become overwhelming at first, especially if you’re not easing into keto. If you are concerned about getting enough of a particular nutrient or vitamin Cronometer is a great app to keep track of your vitamins and nutrients. These are just the two main apps I am familiar with that I would recommend. As always, I suggest you also do you your own research and find out for yourself which app suits you best.
Unlike easing into the keto diet approach, for this step you’re going to choose the app you want to use and just start using it. Keep this in mind when you’re making your plans to start your keto diet. You will need to give yourself a few extra minutes each day to plan out your meal and also a few minutes at each meal time to input your food if you don’t do it ahead of time. There is a bit of a learning curve for each tracking app so don’t be discouraged if you feel like it’s taking too long to input information right away. You’ll get quicker at it as you become more and more familiar with the app.
Tracking Tip: Items found in the food database are entered by other users. This means they are not always 100% correct. People make typos, input incorrect information intentionally to hit their macros, and nutritional values of items change in different locations across the world. When inputting a food item ensure that all of the nutritional values and portion sizes match the items you are actually using.
2. Restock with Keto Friendly Foods
For this step you’re going to remove the non-keto items from your home and restock them with keto friendly foods.
Start with going through all of the food in your home. Consider whether you are going to continue to eat each item on keto and remove the items that you will no longer be eating. This sounds like a daunting task at first but I found that once I dove into it I had accomplished two very important things.
First, I got to really look at the carb levels and ingredients of everything I had been already eating and saw how much of my food really was considered healthy by keto standards. I am a numbers person, so for me it was looking at the calories and the carbs that stuck in my memory. Knowing these numbers gave me a baseline to be able to go to the grocery store and compare the new items I purchased to what I had existing in my home. It turned my initial keto grocery haul into a more positive experience as I felt a sense of accomplishment in knowing that I now had healthier options on hand.
Second, the act of physically relieving myself from the unhealthy food was like drawing a line in the sand. Giving me a definitive stopping point and providing a fresh start. Not everyone needs this clearly defined point, but I felt that I would be far more successful with a set day to just stop eating all the carbs and the day I went through my cupboards provided me with that much needed definition.
As far as what to do with all these non-keto items that you are ridding yourself of you have a few options. You can give unopened and unexpired items to a food bank, give items away to friends and family that will eat them or throw items in the garbage. I was highly against throwing items away at first but once I started going through the cupboards I was shocked at how much food we had stuffed in the pantry or back of the fridge that was opened and/or expired. We ended up throwing away two full garbage bags of food that was no longer edible on top of the multiple boxes of food we gave to family members.
Unless you are planning to convert your entire family to keto at this time you may still need to keep non-keto friendly foods stocked up in your kitchen. I have segregated these items to a small shelf in my pantry and one drawer in my fridge. This makes it easier to just skip past these areas when I go search the cupboards and fridge for a snack as I know these items are higher carb foods for the kids and I cannot eat anything in these areas so I don’t even bother looking at them.
Once you have cleaned out the unhealthy food it’s time to go shopping! While you are out shopping focus solely on purchasing keto friendly items. If you come across an item that you would not eat when you start keto leave it at the store. After a few rounds of keto friendly shopping your home should be left with very few high carb foods, if any at all.
Your first keto friendly grocery haul is a great way to learn more about your new tracking app. Pull your phone out and check the nutritional values of food in the database and whether they match the nutritional labels on the packages.
The main items you are going to purchase are:
- Meats
- Eggs
- Butter (grass fed if possible)
- Healthy fats
- Low carb vegetables
- Pickles/sauerkraut
- Keto friendly sweetener
- An easy to grab zero/low carb snack (pepperoni sticks, cheese sticks olives, etc)
- A zero/low carb sweet treat (no sugar chocolate, no sugar baked goods, sugar free ice cream, etc)
While there are many other keto friendly food items you will gather along your keto journey just stick with the basics for now. Don’t overwhelm yourself with trying to acquire every single keto friendly flour or testing out every no sugar snack bar at this point. All those extras will slowly be acquired as you decide to experiment along the way.
Start cooking yourself simple and quick meals that contain a meat, a vegetable and a healthy fat. If you’re hungry between meals grab one of your easy snack options you chose at the grocery store, such as a pepperoni stick or some pickles. If you feel like you need something sweet have a few bites of whatever sweet treat you found on your shopping trip. The idea here is to keep it as simple and familiar to you as possible so you are not overwhelming yourself with the millions of keto recipes out there. Remember that this new diet is not a typical crash diet that is over in a month. It is a slow and steady process to beginning a new lifestyle for your health. You will have plenty of time to experiment with all those complicated recipes in the future, for now just get comfortable with your new low carb meal structure.
3. Track Your Calories and Macronutrients (Carbohydrates, Proteins and Fats)
To reach ketosis you need to eat under 30g, and in some cases even under 20g, of carbs per day. Your app will have a calculator to input all your personal information and goals when you begin and it will recommend calorie and macronutrient targets to reach your goals.
A sustainable and effective carbohydrate target is to stay between 20g and 30g daily to reach ketosis. You can go below this if you prefer, which will most likely lead to speeding up your weight loss. However, if you go above 30g of carbs per day you are far less likely to reach ketosis.
You lose weight when your body is running on a calorie deficit. This means that your body is getting fewer calories than it requires to function each day. Stick with your target calorie intake targets, which will have been calculated for you based on your measurements and weight loss goals input when setting up your app.
4. Fine Tune Your Macro Ratios
At this point you will be juggling a few tasks with learning to use your tracking app, getting used to a new way of eating and figuring out how many calories and carbs are in everything you eat. You now need to do some fine tune adjusting of your macro ratios. Generally the target macro ratio for a ketogenic diet is 5% carbs, 20% protein and 75% fat. We’ve covered the carb ratio in step three and will now need to start focusing on the fat and protein ratios. This step is going to be what keeps your body healthy and your diet sustainable.
We have all grown up with the fear of eating too much fat. It comes natural to us that we replace our carbs with protein rather than extra fat as that’s what we subconsciously consider to be the healthy option. At this point you’re going to focus on upping your fat ratio. Replace some of your protein with additional healthy fats into your meals until you reach the 5/20/75 macro ratio. At first a meal comprised of 75% fat can appear completely unhealthy to anyone used to eating a high carbohydrate diet. As long as you are eating your goal carbohydrates and calories you can play around with fine tuning your protein and fat ratios over the first few days or even weeks of your keto diet.
Start including extra butter, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil and any other healthy fat to your vegetables and meat. Stay away from the bad fats, which include vegetable oils, margarine, soybean oil, palm oil.
5. Beat the Keto Flu
As you transition into ketosis some people develop minor flu-like symptoms while their bodies adjust, this is known as the keto flu. The keto flu is a real and unfortunate consequence of cutting your carbs for many people. I get the keto flu each time my body starts getting back into ketosis, but my boyfriend doesn’t get it at all. Everyone’s body is different and you won’t know if it will effect you or exactly what symptoms you will experience until you start a keto diet. Symptoms of the keto flu vary and can include nausea, headache, sleeplessness, and difficulty exercising. It will usually last a couple days to a week.
Most of the keto flu symptoms are caused by dehydration so the main strategy to combat keto flu is to keep yourself hydrated and increase your electrolytes. Ensure you are drinking lots of water, include additional electrolytes to your water by making a homemade ketorade, salt all your food and lighten up on your regular exercise routine while you are experiencing symptoms.
Setting Your Expectations
We’ve all read the hype about losing 10-15 pounds in a week on the keto diet. Usually these results are from people who went cold turkey on the carbs and jumped all in from day one. By plunging into a keto diet it is very likely that you will also see these results. It can be very encouraging the first few weeks to watch the numbers decrease so rapidly on your scale. You do need to remember that this lost weight is mostly your body shedding stored water and isn’t necessarily fat loss. The fat loss happens gradually over time. Once your body has lost all that added water weight and you start getting into ketosis you’ll start losing fat and consequentially weight. This fat loss will happen slower than the initial water weight loss. More like 1 to 2 pounds per week. Compared to many other diets this is great progress and you should be proud of your accomplishments on your journey to becoming a happier, healthier version of yourself.
