Stabilizing Weight On Keto: Strategies For Long-Term Success

The ketogenic diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet that has been adopted by many looking to lose weight and improve health. However, to maintain weight loss, it must be implemented correctly. Here are some tips to stabilize your weight on a keto diet:

1. Reduce your carb intake: To reach and maintain ketosis, a metabolic state where your body burns fat for energy, you need to drastically reduce your carb intake. Aim for around 5-10% of your total calories from carbs.

2. Eat nutritious foods: Consume unprocessed, whole foods like full-fat dairy, eggs, fish, meat, poultry, and healthy fats. Avoid processed foods, including keto-friendly options, as they are high in calories and low in nutrients.

3. Create a calorie deficit: To lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you consume. Be mindful of your portion sizes, as it's possible to consume too many calories on a keto diet.

4. Address any medical issues: Certain medical conditions, such as hypothyroidism, PCOS, and depression, can make weight loss difficult. Consult with your doctor to rule out any underlying issues.

5. Manage your expectations: Remember that weight loss varies from person to person. Aim for a consistent loss of 1-3 pounds per week, and don't be discouraged if you don't see immediate results.

6. Limit high-calorie snacks: While snacking on keto-friendly foods like nuts and cheese can be healthy, excessive consumption may slow weight loss. Opt for lower-calorie options like non-starchy vegetables or proteins to keep you full between meals.

7. Manage stress and improve sleep: Chronic stress and lack of sleep can hinder weight loss. Try stress management techniques like meditation and aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night.

8. Increase physical activity: Exercise is crucial for weight loss. Aim for 3-4 days of exercise per week, incorporating strength training and cardio to burn calories and build muscle.

Gradually increase your carb intake

When you're coming off the keto diet, it's important to do it gradually. This means slowly increasing your carb intake over time. Here are some tips to help you increase your carb consumption in a controlled and healthy way:

Start with an extra 10g of carbs per day

Begin by adding an additional 10g of carbohydrates to your daily diet. This can come from healthy sources such as whole grains, beans, fruits, and starchy vegetables. It's important to track your weight and how you feel during this adjustment.

Increase your carb intake weekly or bi-weekly

Depending on your goals and how your body reacts, you can increase your carb intake by 10g every week or every other week. This slow and steady approach will help you find the right balance without shocking your system.

Opt for nutrient-dense carbs

When choosing which carbs to add back into your diet, prioritise nutrient-dense options. For example, sweet potatoes are a great source of carbohydrates, but they also provide your body with essential vitamins and minerals. Other good choices include legumes, which are packed with fibre, and berries, which are rich in antioxidants.

Monitor your weight and overall health

As you increase your carb intake, pay close attention to your weight and overall health. If you start to feel unwell or notice significant weight gain, you may be increasing your carb consumption too quickly. In this case, reduce your carb intake slightly and assess how your body reacts.

Consult a registered dietitian

Remember that everyone's body is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to nutrition. If you're unsure about how many carbs to add back in or what types of carbs to choose, consider consulting a registered dietitian. They can help you create a personalised plan that takes into account your specific goals and health needs.

Be mindful of potential challenges

As you reintroduce carbs, be aware of potential challenges such as blood sugar highs and lows, and the return of sugar cravings. You may also experience a slight weight gain as your body adjusts to the new macronutrient ratio. This is normal, and as long as you're mindful of your overall calorie intake and continue to prioritise nutritious foods, you can successfully navigate this transition.

Switch to muscle gain

If you're looking to stabilise your weight on keto, one option is to switch your focus from fat loss to muscle gain. This isn't strictly weight maintenance, as it involves a slow and intentional weight gain. However, it's more like "fat maintenance", where you maintain a low body fat percentage while adding more muscle.

Building muscle has numerous health benefits, including improved metabolic flexibility, stronger bones, and a reduced long-term risk of type 2 diabetes. Additionally, having more muscle makes it harder to regain fat.

Resistance Training

To build muscle, you'll need to incorporate some form of resistance training, such as powerlifting, weightlifting, bodyweight conditioning, or bodypump classes. This will signal your muscles to grow.

Diet Adjustments

Along with your resistance training, you'll need to adjust your diet to fuel muscle growth. Here are two popular approaches:

• Add more calories and protein while keeping carbs low: This approach ensures you're getting enough calories and protein to support muscle growth without increasing your carb intake.
• Add more carbs around workouts only: This strategy, known as the Targeted Ketogenic Diet (TKD), allows you to consume your daily carbs around your workouts to enhance performance and aid recovery.

Regardless of the approach you choose, it's important to ensure your protein intake is relatively high. This is crucial for building muscle, and most studies suggest consuming 0.7-0.9 grams of protein per pound of body weight (1.6-2.0 grams per kg) is ideal.

Calorie Intake

To build muscle effectively, you need to consume more calories than you burn. Determine your maintenance calories (the number of calories you need to consume per day to stay at the same weight) and then increase your calorie intake by about 15% above that. For example, if your maintenance calories are 2,000 per day, aim for 2,300 calories per day to support muscle growth.

It's recommended to gain no more than 0.25-0.5% of your body weight per week to prevent accumulating too much fat. Adjust your calorie intake monthly to account for changes in your weight.

Tracking and Testing

To ensure you're on the right track, consider tracking your carb intake to stay below 50 grams per day and testing your ketone levels regularly to confirm you're in ketosis.

Other Tips

• Be patient, especially if you're new to keto, as you may experience an initial drop in strength and performance while your body adapts.
• Prepare for potential side effects like the "keto flu", which includes symptoms such as fatigue, nausea, irritability, and insomnia, during the initial phase of the diet.
• Beware of hidden carbs in beverages and condiments.
• Get plenty of sleep, as proper sleep is crucial for muscle gain and exercise performance.

Transition to low-carb paleo

Transitioning from keto to a low-carb paleo diet can be a good way to maintain your weight in the long run. Here are some tips for making the transition:

Know the Difference

The main goal of a low-carb diet is to minimize carbohydrates, usually for weight loss. On the other hand, the paleo diet focuses on making nutritional choices that align with our evolutionary history. While you can do a low-carb version of paleo, simply cutting carbs does not make a diet paleo. Paleo is about a holistic set of food choices, not just carbs.

What to Remove

If you're transitioning from keto to paleo, you should remove the following foods from your diet:

• Vegetable or seed oils, such as canola/rapeseed, peanut, and soybean oil
• All grains, even tiny amounts in things like soy sauce
• All legumes, even low-carb ones like soy
• Artificial sweeteners and low-carb processed foods

What to Add

Add these foods to your diet:

• Sweet and white potatoes
• Fruit, including starchy fruit like bananas and plantains

How to Add Carbs

When adding carbs back into your diet, do so slowly. Don't start eating meals composed entirely of sweet potatoes or other starchy foods. Instead, replace some of the fat in your meals with more carbohydrate-dense foods. For example, instead of eating a big pile of cheese on your salad, try having a banana on the side. Instead of having an avocado with dinner, opt for a sweet potato.

What to Expect

In the first week or two of a moderate-carb paleo diet, you may experience:

• Water weight gain: You may gain 3-5 pounds of water weight as carbohydrates make you retain more water. This is normal and not a cause for concern.
• Energy changes: You may experience an increase in energy and mood, or a strong drive to be active. You may also feel physically warmer.
• Hunger changes: You may feel more or less hungry, and your meals may seem bigger since carbs are less energy-dense than fat.
• Other changes: Everyone's body is different, and some people may experience digestive changes or an adjustment period when eating more carbs and fiber.

Experiment with intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting is a strategy to help you maintain your goal weight after you've achieved it through the keto diet. It is a way to deal with the feeling of "I've worked so hard! Now I deserve to relax!".

Intermittent fasting is an eating pattern that involves rotating between periods of fasting and normal eating. It is mainly used as a weight-loss technique, but it has been shown to have other health benefits, such as reducing inflammation and improving brain function and blood sugar control.

There are several ways to practice intermittent fasting:

• The 16/8 method: This involves eating during an eight-hour time frame and fasting for the remaining 16 hours of the day. This is one of the most popular methods of intermittent fasting.
• The 5:2 method: This involves five days of normal eating and two days of extremely low-calorie fasting.
• Alternate-day fasting: This involves eating a calorie-restricted diet every other day.
• Time-restricted eating: This involves eating only during a certain time window, usually eight hours, over a single day. For example, you might eat only between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and fast for the remaining 16 hours.

When it comes to combining intermittent fasting with the keto diet, there is a lack of rigorous research, and it has not been proven to work for weight loss. However, it may be safe for most people to try this combination, and it could offer some benefits.

One benefit of combining intermittent fasting with the keto diet is that it may help your body reach ketosis more quickly. Intermittent fasting boosts metabolism and promotes thermogenesis, or heat production, which may lead to increased fat burning. Additionally, it can be an effective way to reduce hunger and promote feelings of fullness, aiding in weight loss.

Before starting intermittent fasting, it is important to consult your healthcare provider, especially if you have certain health conditions or are taking medications. Combining intermittent fasting with the keto diet may be too restrictive for some people, and it is not necessary to reach ketosis. Simply following a healthy, well-rounded keto diet is sufficient for improving health by cutting down on carbs.

Reduce stress and improve sleep

Sleep and stress are both important factors to consider when trying to stabilize your weight on the keto diet. Here are some tips to help you reduce stress and improve your sleep quality:

• Exercise regularly: Regular exercise can help relieve insomnia and speed up ketosis and weight loss. However, avoid exercising close to bedtime as it may interfere with sleep. Aim to stop exercising at least 4 hours before bedtime.
• Practice relaxation techniques: Incorporate relaxing activities into your bedtime routine, such as reading, listening to soft music, or taking a warm bath. These activities can help lower your heart rate, reduce tension in your body, and calm your mind.
• Avoid caffeine close to bedtime: Caffeine increases wakefulness and brain activity, so it's best to avoid consuming coffee or other caffeinated beverages within 6 hours of bedtime, especially if you're experiencing insomnia.
• Limit the use of electronics at night: The blue light emitted by electronic devices suppresses melatonin, which is crucial for regulating sleep. Try to turn off all electronic devices at least 2 hours before bedtime or use blue light-blocking glasses.
• Stick to a consistent sleep schedule: Establish a sleep schedule and stick to it. Choose a specific bedtime and wake-up time, ensuring you get the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep each night.
• Address insomnia: If you're experiencing insomnia, it's important to address it. Insomnia can be a temporary symptom of transitioning to the keto diet, but if it persists or becomes chronic, seek professional help.
• Manage stress: Stress can negatively impact your weight and overall health. Find healthy ways to manage and reduce stress, such as through meditation, yoga, or other relaxation techniques.
• Improve sleep hygiene: Practice good sleep habits, such as maintaining a consistent sleep and wake-up routine, ensuring your bedroom is quiet, dark, and relaxing, and avoiding large meals, caffeine, and alcohol close to bedtime.
• Stay hydrated: Dehydration can lead to sleep issues and is associated with shorter overall sleep times. Drink plenty of water throughout the day, but try to reduce fluid intake closer to bedtime to avoid disrupting sleep.
• Consider supplements: Some supplements, such as magnesium, have been found to increase melatonin levels and improve sleep quality. Always consult with your healthcare provider before taking any supplements.

Frequently asked questions