What is Keto (and Why Should You Care)?

It’s time to talk about keto.

If you are serious about becoming metabolically healthy and losing those unwanted pounds, then keto should become a very handy tool that you can grab whenever you want. But, only if you have done the work ahead of time.

And don’t think that keto is something you could never do. It’s actually very easy to do, IF

• you have eliminated the Top 5 NOT FOOD items from your diet (see blog 2)

• you have done this consistently for 6 weeks

• you have reduced your feeding window and increased your fasting window (to 16+ hours) (see blog 9)

Do not attempt to “go keto” until you have done these crucial 3 things.

And remember, keto is a TOOL. It can be used for an initial time period of 4-6 weeks, and then used periodically throughout the rest of your life when needed.

What is keto, actually?

Unfortunately, the word “keto” had been used and abused in the health space. You will see it splattered all over packaged products and slapped on materials just to get you to buy them. 

KETO is not a product or package label. It is a state of being.

“Ketosis” is the state that your body enters when it has run out of glucose for fuel, and switches to burning fat and “ketones” (which your body makes FROM body fat) instead.

Ketosis is a very natural state. Babies are born in ketosis, and if you are a metabolically healthy human, you will phase in and out of ketosis pretty much every day.

Like I have mentioned before, our bodies were designed to preferentially burn fat for fuel. But if you are constantly throwing it glucose all day, it will lose the machinery to quickly switch back and forth between sugar-burning and fat-burning.

Ketosis, in my opinion, is not the state humans should remain in all the time. There are some rare people who benefit from always remaining in light ketosis, but you are probably not one of them. But you DO need to be able to switch to this state easily. Your body has the ability to do this as long as you have the correct biological machinery built and ready to go. You will not maintain this machinery if you do not work it on a consistent basis.

If you have reduced your feeding window and increased your fasting window (see blog 9) and eliminated toxic seed oils, you are well on your way to building this machinery and are ready to take the next step by adding this method to your eating window.

It’s all about leverage. You want to leverage your body’s ability to burn fat by remaining in ketosis for an extended period of time. This will jump start your fat loss in a dramatic way.

The way to do this is to reduce your carbohydrate level to 50g or less a day. This will force your body to burn up all the glucose stuffed in your cells, and then begin the switch to preferentially choosing burning your body fat for fuel.

You will also want to increase your protein intake. A good amount to target is 1g per 1lb of your body weight. Protein is crucial because muscles prefer to burn fat, and they burn it even when you are sleeping. So keeping your muscle tone up and then building it is extremely important.

Lastly, make sure you are eating enough saturated fat to signal satiety. Remember how stearic acid signals your fat cells to burn (blog 15)? So stick with the fat on the meat, plus some tallow or butter. Don’t eat too much because fat does have a lot of calories, and I don’t think sticks of butter in your coffee is a great idea. Your body has plenty of fat to burn on your butt cheeks and thighs, and If you have built the proper machinery it will start to grab that up.

When I am using ketosis myself, I like to go completely carnivore. In other words, I eat ONLY red meat and organs, a little raw cheese, and sometimes some eggs with butter or tallow. That way there’s no counting carbs or worrying about macros. I eat until I am full, and that’s it. It doesn’t take much because protein and fat are very filling.

You may find that eating this way is easier for you, instead of trying to constantly figure out how many carbs you can have. And as a bonus, you will eliminate any inflammation coming from the carbohydrate sources (veggies, grains, etc) that you may not be aware of. It’s like an elimination diet, and it works amazingly well.

But if you want to add in the carbs, try 50g at first and then work your way down to only 20g per day. You will have to be very diligent about counting every gram, and you may even want to get a ketone monitor (like this one) and extra test strips (like these) to check and make sure that you are getting in and staying in ketosis.

If you remember from our previous conversations, under normal circumstances your main source of carbohydrates will be fruit, raw dairy and raw honey. For some people, during your initial 4-6 weeks straight of keto, you may have some days when you don’t feel so hot. But, you should never suffer, so if you feel that bad listen to your body and have some fruit or a cup of raw milk, or even a spoonful of raw honey. 

I believe this feeling is caused mostly by your electrolytes being off. Some would tell you to just have a tablespoon of sea salt, and yes, you will feel better. But I think it makes more sense to also have a whole food. Women especially should listen to their bodies because you don’t want your hormones to get out of whack.

Ketosis is a form of stress on the body. But so is exercise. 

That doesn’t mean it is not worth it. 

Stressing the body makes it stronger.

Just make sure that you keep the NOT FOOD out of your life, completely. Remember, industrial seed oils may count as fat on your macros counter, but they are WORSE THAN CARBS and they will CAUSE fat storage and broken fat cells that cannot burn, thus destroying your metabolic flexibility, and all of your hard work.

If you need a book with step-by-step instructions, explanations, and recipes, I can think of no better book than Mark Sisson’s The Keto Reset Diet (get it here ). It is exceptional.

Have questions? Email me at sarah@excelandthrive.co and I will do my best to help you. And if I think your question is helpful to all, I may write a blog post on it.

PS. If you are Type 2 Diabetic and on medications, then this protocol will definitely help you, but PLEASE do it under a doctor’s supervision. If your doctor is not willing to let you try this, then fire him/her and find a doctor who will. Have no patience for doctors who are not up on the latest science. There are thousands of diabetics who have reduced or gotten off all their meds using ketosis as a tool, and there are doctors out there willing to help you, too. Don’t waste your money on anyone else.