Eating fat does not create a state of ketosis. Low blood glucose causes ketosis.
The fastest way to get in ketosis is to not eat anything. Period. Metabolically healthy folks will get into ketosis within a few hours. Metabolically deranged people may take a day. Barring medical conditions, everyone will be in ketosis within 48 hours of their last meal.
When I’ve eaten above my carb tolerance, I fast to reach my desired level of ketosis. Then I resume eating in a manner that maintains it.
I was having a problem including enough protein during my 1st 3 months. It’s hard for me to eat that much protein. I’m used to eating mostly vegetables and a lot of fats, but not huge amounts of meat… Maybe I need to up my protein levels?
Wow, really? How long do you usually have to fast? I do intermittent fasting, but I’m usually so hungry in the morning, that I’ll have tea with cream & monk fruit and MCT oil to tide me over. Is this where I’m ruining my fasting?
I know everyone has their own ideas about how much protein is best, but I keep mine pretty conservative. And it doesn’t always have to be meat. Eggs go a long way.
More wouldn’t hurt, moderate is recommended by most of the experts.
If you prefer a more vegan based diet here’s a guide that might help you along. I will also add that there’s a woman who has a YouTube channel and she swears she’s lost over 50 pounds in a year just eating mostly eggs for breakfast and dinner. So I won’t say your choice of foods won’t work, I just think variety is a much more healthy option.
I agree with you, Carl. I would never want to just eat eggs all the time!! Thanks for that link. I do prefer eating more veggies and less meat, so this might help a lot.
If I’m totally out of ketosis (GKI> 9) then I fast until it’s under 2, which can take 2-3 days. If I eat below my carb tolerance, I can do 18:6 IF.
Tea with cream, oil, and sugar is a meal. It is definitely not fasting.
sigh
Ok. I have been trying to figure all of this out. Thanks to everyone for your very kind advice.
I have been trying to do my intermittent fasting without drinking any of the above mentioned items. I really don’t want to fast for a few days because I’m an active person who needs to eat to fuel my body. And that’s really just not how I want to live my life. I like eating. From what I’ve read all over the web, it doesn’t sound like full-on fasting for days is how most people get into ketosis. I understand that that will probably work just fine, but I don’t want to approach it in that way. Also, I’ve read that fasting for days will contribute to muscle loss.
So, now I am waiting until about noon to eat my first meal. I got some protein powder, gelatin, and keto base powder that I put in water and drink in the morning. I don’t know if this is messing up my fasting? I just started on this yesterday. But before this, I was trying just water and apple cider vinegar until lunch. It’s been almost 2 weeks since I had a cheat day and I CANNOT get back into ketosis. In the morning, my breath meter reads .07, but later on in the day, it reads .04.
I’m realizing that I am having an incredibly hard time tracking my macros. I have been kinda guessing in the past because I don’t really know how to do it and now (after people said I might not be eating enough protein), I’m trying to get better at tracking. But I’m totally at a loss. I’m going to start a new thread about how to track becaus that’s a whole other subject…
For now keep it really simple. Only track carbs until you’ve been in ketosis for at least a month. Have <20 net grams per day. Also, your diet is filled with non real foods. Ditch the protein powder, the sweetener and even the MCT oil until you figure out how to get into ketosis. Basically, if it comes with a label with multiple ingredients you don’t want to be eating it right now. Further, you want to be eating your fats as part of real meals not drinking them.
Someone else recommended using cronometer to track. It’s an excellent piece of software, even the free version. Don’t forget to track every gram of carbs even the ones in your cream,in your cheeses, and in every vegetable.
I am all about the real foods and only have bought things like protein powder because I can’t get into ketosis and I’m trying everything. I actually bought the protein powder because of advice on this thread because someone said that I’m probably not getting enough protein and I can’t eat enough meat to make my macros each day. I’ve heard many different opinions on this… Some people say that you need to have the right macros to get into ketosis, and some say that you can just track your carbs. I don’t know who to listen to, but I’m going to at least try all the things and see if anything will work for me…
Protein is an important macronutrient that you should get enough of, but has nothing to do with getting into ketosis, although too much seems to stall it in some people.
The only macro that matters with respect to getting into ketosis is carbs. If your body isn’t actively trying to burn glucose for energy it must burn fat, and burning fat is what produces ketones. Nothing else produces ketones.