Maintaining Keto: Life After Hitting Your Target Weight

Maintaining your goal weight is harder than losing it, and it's important to make a plan for weight maintenance. You could continue with the keto diet, but eat a little more food, or transition to a low-carb, non-keto diet. Alternatively, you could switch your focus to muscle gain, which will help you maintain a low body fat percentage.

Keep on with keto, but eat a little more

If you've reached your target weight and want to continue with the keto diet, you can keep going but eat a little more. This means you can stay in ketosis and continue to reap the benefits of the keto diet, but you won't lose any more weight.

Weight loss is all about a calorie deficit, so if you want to stay keto but maintain your current weight, you can achieve this by eating a little more fat and protein without increasing your carb intake enough to get out of ketosis. This is a safe and sustainable approach, as it prevents the blood sugar highs and lows that can come with eating more carbs, and it avoids the cravings that can come with it.

To do this, you'll need to find the perfect amount of food for your height, weight, and activity level. This will be a unique number that you'll have to learn through experience and can't be predicted by a generic online calculator.

You can also add more calories and protein to your diet while keeping carbs low if you want to switch from fat loss to muscle gain. This will help improve metabolic flexibility, strengthen bones, and reduce the long-term risk of type 2 diabetes.

Switch to muscle gain

Now that you've reached your target weight, you might be wondering what's next. Here are some tips and strategies to switch your focus from fat loss to muscle gain while on the keto diet:

Determine Your Calorie Intake

To build muscle effectively, you need to consistently consume more calories than you burn. Calculate your maintenance calories, which is the number of calories you need to consume daily to maintain your current weight. From there, increase your calorie intake by about 15% above your maintenance level to support muscle growth. Make sure to adjust your calorie intake over time as your weight changes.

Eat Plenty of Protein

Protein is essential for building muscle as it is the building block of muscles. Most studies recommend consuming 0.7–0.9 grams of protein per pound of body weight. However, on the keto diet, you can safely consume around 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight while staying in ketosis. Eating adequate protein will ensure your body has the necessary building blocks to support muscle growth.

Track Your Carb Intake

On the keto diet, it's crucial to restrict carbs to maintain ketosis. Typically, this means consuming fewer than 50 grams of carbs per day. However, you can try a targeted keto approach by timing your carb intake around your workouts to enhance exercise performance. This strategy can provide your body with a boost of energy when you need it the most.

Increase Your Fat Intake

Fat is the primary source of fuel on the keto diet. After accounting for your protein and carb intake, fat should make up the majority of your remaining calories. Monitor your fat intake and ensure it aligns with standard keto recommendations, which suggest getting 70–75% of your daily calories from fat.

Resistance Train Regularly

While nutrition is crucial, resistance training is equally important for building muscle. Incorporate weight training and strength-based exercises such as squats, bench presses, pull-ups, and push-ups into your weekly routine. Consider working with a personal trainer to maximize your efforts and ensure proper form to reduce the risk of injury.

Consider Supplements

Although not required, supplements can support your muscle-building journey. If you're struggling to meet your protein goals, consider using a protein powder supplement such as whey, casein, pea, or hemp protein. Additionally, a creatine monohydrate supplement may aid in gym performance and lead to enhanced muscle gain.

Remember, building muscle on the keto diet may come with its challenges, but with dedication and consistency, you can achieve your muscle-gain goals while maintaining the benefits of ketosis.

Transition to low-carb paleo

Transitioning to a low-carb paleo diet from keto can be a good option for those who want to lose weight or improve their overall health. Here are some key considerations for making this transition:

Understanding the Differences

The keto diet focuses on decreasing carb intake to induce ketosis, a metabolic state where the body uses calories from fat instead of carbs. On the other hand, the paleo diet, also known as the "caveman diet," emphasizes consuming whole foods that were available to early humans, such as meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, and natural fats. Paleo eliminates grains, legumes, processed sugars, and most dairy.

What to Remove and What to Add

When transitioning to low-carb paleo, it is essential to remove all grains, legumes, vegetable oils, artificial sweeteners, and low-carb processed foods from your diet. Instead, focus on adding natural foods like meat, game, fish, shellfish, eggs, nuts, seeds, vegetables, tubers, fruits, and healthy fats like olive oil, coconut oil, and animal fat.

Slow and Steady Transition

It is recommended to add carbs slowly when making the transition to low-carb paleo. Instead of drastically changing your diet, gradually replace some of the fat in your meals with more carbohydrate-dense foods. For example, have a banana on the side instead of a big pile of cheese on your salad, or opt for a sweet potato instead of avocado with your dinner.

Expect Some Initial Changes

During the first week or two of a moderate-carb paleo diet, you may experience some changes. You might gain 3-5 pounds of water weight due to the increased carb intake, but this is not fat. Additionally, you may notice energy changes, such as increased energy and mood, strange energy highs and crashes, or feeling physically warmer. These changes should iron themselves out over time.

Long-Term Maintenance

Remember that maintaining your goal weight is an ongoing commitment. It's important to make a plan for weight maintenance even before you reach your target weight. The paleo diet can be a good option for long-term maintenance as it offers flexibility and a wide variety of nutritious options. However, it is crucial to listen to your body and make adjustments as needed.

Experiment with intermittent fasting

Intermittent fasting is a strategy to help you maintain your goal weight and avoid slipping back into old eating habits. It involves eating only during a specific window, which naturally limits the amount of food you consume. This can be psychologically easier than constantly measuring portions, as you can simply follow the clock.

There are several ways to do intermittent fasting. The 5:2 method involves eating normally for five days and fasting for two. Time-restricted eating involves eating during a set window each day, such as 6-10 hours, and fasting for the remainder. For example, you could eat between noon and 8 pm, or skip breakfast and eat between 8 am and 4 pm.

Intermittent fasting can be combined with a keto diet, and this may help you reach ketosis faster. However, there is limited research on the combined approach, and it may not be suitable for everyone. For example, pregnant or breastfeeding women and those with a history of disordered eating should avoid intermittent fasting. It is also not recommended for people with certain health conditions, such as diabetes or heart disease, without consulting a doctor.

If you decide to try intermittent fasting, it is important to consult your healthcare provider first. It can be challenging to stick to the low-carb count and confined eating window, and it may be a shock to your system to switch from glucose to ketones as fuel.

Learn your triggers

Maintaining your goal weight is harder than losing weight. Many people struggle with keeping the weight off and slowly slide back into their old eating habits. Metabolic slowdown is also a very real problem, where your body fights back against weight loss.

To avoid this, make a plan in advance for weight maintenance. You don't necessarily have to keep eating keto in exactly the same way during maintenance. Your best weight-maintenance diet might be a little different from your best weight-loss diet.

• Continue doing what got you here — If a ketogenic diet helped you lose weight, keep eating a ketogenic diet. Going back to old habits will only undo your hard work.
• Learn your triggers — Identify what triggers you to eat unhealthily. For example, if you know that any time you get less than eight hours of sleep or things are stressful at work, you are more likely to reach for sugary snacks. Once you learn your triggers, you can take steps to handle them.
• Develop strategies for defusing triggers — If you go to work tired, eat a tin of sardines halfway through your shift instead of fasting. If there are free donuts in the break room, throw them away.
• Set new goals — It is important to set new goals to stay motivated. Think about something you want to accomplish and start working towards it. It can be an exercise goal, a body shape goal, or something more esoteric like meditating for a month.
• Get used to the new you — It can be difficult to see yourself as someone at a healthy weight if you are used to seeing yourself as obese. Give yourself time to adjust to the new you and celebrate the changes.

Frequently asked questions