The ketogenic diet or Keto is a way of eating that involves you eating only meals that are low in carb, and this is one of the most common eating regimes to lose weight.
When you are eating using a Keto diet, your carb intake per day is reduced to below 50 grams. This would no doubt result in weight loss and can even improve the health of your heart and blood sugar level.
But, to get the maximum benefits when doing the Keto diet, you need to make sure you are doing it correctly.
There might be a few things you are doing wrongly, and this would make it impossible for you to see any noticeable changes. Here are a few:
You Are Not Eating Nutritious Foods
Regardless of what dietary plan you adhere to, if you are not eating nutritious, healthy, and whole foods, you are wasting your efforts, and you may see yourself gaining more pounds instead of losing it.
When you rely too much on overly processed food, it can cause setbacks on your weight loss journey, even if they are tagged Keto-friendly. Merging foods like snack bars and Keto desserts can ruin your weight loss journey with the extra calories it comes with. Same way, when you eat too many processed convenience food like fast foods, you get to slow down your weight loss progress.
All of these foods are low in nutrients– vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals – but very high in calories.
To get the best out of your Keto diet, go for whole, unprocessed food 95% of the time. Plus, be sure you are spicing up your meals with non-starchy vegetables like mushrooms and greens because it adds extra fiber and nutrients.
Your Calorie Intake May Be Too High
When you are on a mission to lose extra kilos, you need to work towards creating a calorie deficit. You can do this by cutting down on what you eat or spending more calories through an intensive workout or rigorous activities, but if you like,
you can do both to get faster results.
The moment you switch to a Keto diet but still maintain your calorie intake, you are less likely to see any change in your waistline.
There are so many Keto-friendly foods like avocados and full-fat dairy that are high in calories, so when you take too much, you are increasing your calorie intake, and this isn’t good for your weight loss goals.
Typically, you should feel full when you eat ketogenic meals because they are high in fat and protein, but it’s also possible to overdo it by eating portions that are too large or snacking on high-calorie food every few hours.
Paying attention to the portion of food you eat daily and intense exercising can help you easily achieve a calorie deficit, and you are well on your way to losing weight.
You Have Set Unreasonable Weight Loss Expectation
It’s very typical to want to see results as soon as you switch to a new diet plan, but you need to understand that results would vary based on individuals.
A ketogenic diet, if followed properly, can make you lose weight, but not as fast as you think. To lose weight and maintain it, you need to start with making slow and consistent changes.
It can be a bit tempting to want to achieve fast results, but most experts recommend that losing 1-3 pounds is enough for a week.
When you implement weight lifting to your Keto diet regime, it can cause you to build more muscles while losing fat at the same time. Although this can slow down your weight loss progress, but gaining muscle mass and reducing fat mass offers a lot of health benefits. It can improve bone health and lower your risk of developing heart diseases.
You Are Eating Too Many Carbs
One of the major reasons why your Keto diet might not be paying off is because you are consuming too many carbs.
To get your body to the point where it burns fat for energy instead of glucose, you need to drastically down on your carbohydrate intake.
As a matter of fact, only about 5% of your calories should be carbs. It might be a bit difficult to drastically cut down on your carbs intake, especially if you are starting; however, you need to strive to get to the stage where your body burns fats for energy – ketosis.