Speed Keto: A Quick Guide To Getting Started

Speed keto is a combination of a traditional keto diet and intermittent fasting. It is a fairly extreme diet that can help you lose weight and lower inflammation. On a standard keto diet, you eat high fat, moderate protein, and very low carbs. Speed keto involves adding one-meal-a-day fasting (OMAD) to this. This means you eat all your daily calories in a single sitting and only drink water for the rest of the day.

The main goal of speed keto is to speed up weight loss by helping you get into deep ketosis. Ketosis is a metabolic state in which your body burns fat for fuel instead of carbs. While speed keto can help you get into ketosis faster, it may not be sustainable long-term and could lead to nutrient deficiencies.

Cut carbs

Speed Keto is a combination of a traditional keto diet and intermittent fasting. While the standard keto diet involves eating high fat, moderate protein, and very low carbs, Speed Keto adds one-meal-a-day fasting (OMAD). This means that you eat all your daily calories in a single sitting and only drink water for the rest of the day.

To cut carbs and get into ketosis, here are some detailed instructions:

• Minimize Carb Consumption: Eating a very low-carb diet is crucial for entering ketosis. Aim to limit your net carb intake to 20-50 grams per day, or less than 10% of your total macronutrient intake. This restriction varies by individual and can be influenced by factors like exercise type.
• Increase Physical Activity: Being more active can help deplete your body's glycogen stores, which are normally replenished by eating carbs. By reducing carb intake, your body will turn to fat as a fuel source. Exercise also helps increase ketone production, but it may take a few weeks for your body to adapt and use ketones and fatty acids efficiently.
• Try Short Fasting Periods: Intermittent fasting can be an effective way to reach ketosis. Short fasts or fat fasts, lasting several hours or up to 24-48 hours, can help you get into ketosis faster. However, always consult a doctor before attempting longer fasts.
• Include Healthy Fats: While reducing carbs, it's important to increase your intake of healthy fats like fatty fish, olive oil, avocado oil, and coconut oil. These fats can boost your ketone levels and help you reach ketosis.
• Test Ketone Levels: Monitor your ketone levels using breath, urine, or blood tests. This will help you track your progress and make necessary adjustments to your diet.

Remember, before making significant dietary changes like Speed Keto, it's important to consult a qualified health professional, especially if you have underlying health conditions or are pregnant or breastfeeding.

Increase physical activity

If you want to reach ketosis in 24 hours, you need to exercise. Exercise will help you burn through your stored glucose and force your body to create a new kind of fuel: ketone bodies.

High-intensity cardio or resistance training will allow you to rapidly deplete glucose stores and prime your body to start making ketones. Running, kickboxing, biking, or high-intensity interval training (HIIT) are all good options. As a general rule, you should work out in the morning. That way, you can burn through much of your glucose stores early on in your fast.

Exercise can really mess with the accuracy of your blood glucose and ketone readings. That's because the hormonal response to exercise causes stored glucose to be released from your liver and skeletal muscle, which temporarily raises the glucose in your blood. So get it out of the way early. By placing your exercise session early in the day, you'll have more energy to train and ensure a more accurate ketone and blood glucose reading at the end of your 24-hour keto adventure.

Your physical activity levels can influence how quickly you reach ketosis. The more active you are, the faster you will deplete your glycogen stores, which is necessary for your body to switch to burning fat for energy.

However, be mindful that excessive exercise can increase cravings for carbs, which may make it harder to achieve ketosis. If you're just starting a regular exercise habit, start slow with walking, swimming, biking, or yoga.

Try intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting is a popular approach to speed up the process of getting into ketosis. It involves eating only during a certain time window, usually eight hours, over a single day. For example, you would eat only during the hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and then fast during the other 16 hours.

There are several ways to do intermittent fasting, including the 5:2 method, the Warrior Diet, and alternate-day fasting. The 5:2 method involves eating normally for five days and then restricting your calorie intake to around 500 for the remaining two days. Alternate-day fasting means eating a calorie-restricted diet every other day.

Intermittent fasting can help your body reach ketosis faster than a keto diet alone. This is because your body, when fasting, maintains its energy balance by shifting its fuel source from carbs to fats. During fasting, insulin levels and glycogen stores decrease, leading your body to naturally start burning fat for fuel.

Intermittent fasting is mainly used as a weight-loss technique. However, it has been shown to offer other health benefits, such as reducing inflammation and improving brain function and blood sugar control.

If you want to try intermittent fasting, it is important to first consult your healthcare provider. Skipping meals and severely restricting calories can be dangerous for people with certain conditions, such as diabetes. Additionally, some people who take medications for blood pressure or heart disease may be more prone to imbalances of sodium, potassium, and other minerals during longer-than-normal fasting periods.

It is worth noting that there is a lack of rigorous research on combining intermittent fasting with a keto diet, and it has not been proven to be more effective for weight loss.

Consume more healthy fats

Speed keto is a combination of a traditional keto diet and intermittent fasting. On a standard keto diet, you eat high fat, moderate protein, and very low carbs. On a typical day, your calories are broken down into 5% carbs (under 50 grams of carbs per day), 20-30% protein, and 60-75% fat.

The keto diet is a high-fat diet, and your body uses fats from your diet to create ketones. In the absence of carbohydrates, your body burns fat for energy. Fat is also calorie-dense, providing 9 calories per gram, and is slow to digest.

• Choose healthy fats: Opt for healthy fats found in whole, unprocessed foods. Examples include eggs, olive oil, fatty cuts of meat (e.g. chicken thighs and pork belly), salmon, avocados, nuts, and seeds.
• Enhance vitamin absorption: The presence of fat in a meal enhances vitamin absorption.
• Support hormone balance: Fat supports a healthy balance of hormones.
• Improve brain function: The right fats, such as omega-3 fatty acids, improve brain function.
• Don't fear fat: It's a common misconception that eating too much fat prevents weight loss. On the contrary, fat is essential to a balanced keto diet and helps enhance feelings of fullness.

Monitor ketone levels

Monitoring your ketone levels is an important part of the ketogenic diet. Ketone levels can be used to confirm that your body has entered ketosis, which is the goal of the keto diet. There are three types of ketones: acetone, acetoacetate, and beta-hydroxybutyrate. These can be measured in your breath, urine, and blood, respectively.

Breath Ketone Tests

Breath ketone tests measure acetone, a type of ketone small enough to pass from the blood through the lungs. To perform the test, breathe deeply into a handheld monitor, and the result will appear in seconds. The ideal level of acetone is often considered to be 5-30 parts per million (ppm), although levels may be as high as 75 ppm for those on a keto diet.

Urine Ketone Tests

Urine ketone tests measure acetoacetate. To perform the test, dip a test strip into a urine sample and compare the resulting colour change to a provided colour array. The colour of the strip reflects the urine ketone level. A darker colour reflects higher ketone levels. Urine ketone testing is less accurate than blood ketone testing as the levels of ketones in the urine will usually only reflect the level from a few hours previously. Additionally, hydration can affect the reading, as dilute urine can appear as weak ketones, while concentrated urine can appear as strong ketones.

Blood Ketone Tests

Blood ketone tests measure beta-hydroxybutyrate. To perform the test, place a small drop of blood from a finger prick onto a test strip, which is then inserted into a meter. The meter will provide a result in seconds. Blood ketone levels are considered light ketosis at 0.5-1 mmol/L and optimal ketosis at 1.0-3.0 mmol/L.

When to Test for Ketones

It is recommended to test for ketones when blood sugars are elevated or when someone with diabetes is ill. For those with diabetes, it is advised to test for ketones any time your blood sugar is over 17 mmol/L (300 mg/dL) or if sugar levels have repeatedly been over 13 mmol/L (230 mg/dL). If you are unwell and have any symptoms of ketoacidosis, such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, or difficulty breathing, you should also test for ketones.

Frequently asked questions