I came across speed keto unexpectedly, which led me to dive in a little deeper into this program as it had me intrigued.
As a keto author, I'm frequently approached with proposals to write keto articles or author e-books, which is how I came across Speed Keto and what it is.
Speed keto is a digital program based on the keto diet that combines both keto and intermittent fasting, more notably eating one meal a day (OMAD). The program includes a guidebook, a quick start guide, a calendar, a shopping list, and sample meal plans to get you started.
While I wasn't approached to write speed keto, I was directed to the speed keto website and product and asked whether or not I could produce a similar product for another client, but was shocked when looking through the program and its claims.
Here's everything I've come across along with my thoughts about speed keto and its efficacy in helping you achieve the results you seek.
What Is The Speed Keto Diet?
Speed Keto is a digital program designed by Harlan Kilstein to “break the patterns in metabolism” that hold you back and keep you from success during your weight loss efforts.
In the program, Harlan (the author) combines certain meal combinations with a variation of intermittent fasting called OMAD (One meal a day).
When purchasing speed keto, you receive a guidebook, a speed keto quick start guide, the speed keto calendar, a shopping list, and sample meal plans.
With speed keto, he claims to solve pain points that many people face when following a ketogenic diet, but I'll get to that in more detail in a sec…
Speed Keto Fact vs. Fiction
Based on the website, Harlan makes three strong claims about what makes keto so complicated.
Claim #1 You have to count macros, which is difficult
Let's get this out of the way, you DON'T have to count calories or macros to lose weight, but that DOESN'T mean calories don't matter when it comes to losing weight.
At the end of the day, you still need to be in an energy (caloric) deficit.
Harlan achieves this in his Speed Keto program by giving you templated meals and having you eat only once a day.
People could eat almost anything and lose weight if you told hem to eat only one meal a day.In another study, the only instruction participants were given was to delay their usual breakfast time by 1.5 hours, and also bring forward their ordinary dinner time by 1.5 hours. NO other rules or guidelines were given, not even what foods to eat.
A simple change in the times of their first and last meals was enough to make people eat significantly fewer calories, and in turn, lose weight. 1
Practical tips:
- A ketogenic diet has been shown to reduce hunger and appetite, making counting calories and macros un-necessary for many individuals. 2 3
- The simple act of restricting your eating window (Time-Restricted Eating) may also help to control hunger, calories, and help lose weight. 4 Harlan tries to achieve this by having you just eat one meal a day.
- There's a different “cost” associated with how much weight you want to lose and/or how lean you want to be. Different levels of leanness will require various sacrifices, and one of those may be counting macros.
- Learning to track calories and count macros may be a useful skill to acquire, and may help in your weight loss efforts. 5
About counting calories and macros
Different levels of leanness will require different sacrifices. If you're looking to shed a few pounds, then it may not be necessary to count calories or macros at all.
However, if you're looking to get VERY lean or shredded beyond belief, you can bet that there will be a point when you need to track calories and macros.
While you don't have to count calories, learning how many calories and macros are within foods you enjoy is a valuable skill to acquire. I always suggest my clients practice this skill for the first 2 or 3 weeks while working with me, that is, if they've never done so.
The experience of keeping a food diary can be quite eye-opening and also liberating.
Having this skillset in your back pocket will provide you the freedom to change things up when you need something new, or make decisions when the weight loss stalls… or even if you don't feel like following a template anymore and want to draw up your own diet.
Additionally, tracking your food intake has other benefits. In one study, people who kept a food diary six days a week lost nearly twice as much compared to those who kept a record one day a week or not at all. 6
Also, a food diary can have other benefits:
- More mindful eating
- Identify eating habits
- Accountability
Let me put it this way…
Bob is a 200lb man with 15% body fat who goes to the gym five days a week and has a very demanding job doing construction 8 hours a day. Sally is a 130lb woman with 25% body fat who may walk 2 or 3 times a week but sits at a desk all day for work.
Now, both individuals are attempting to lose weight and have arbitrarily chosen to eat 1,800 calories. What sense would it make that both individuals would follow the same macro percentages? It doesn't.
Most people who follow these percentages likely end up overeating fat and grossly underrating protein, which may lead to various problems such as:
- Muscle loss
- Slowed metabolism
- Hair loss
- Digestions issues
- Weight loss stalls
Want a better idea of how to set up your macros? Check out my keto macro calculator for a better idea of what you SHOULD be doing. If you want a personal one on one tutorial, I'd be more than glad to give you one, Just head to my contact page and shoot me an email.
Claim #2 You hit a stall after a month
Harlan claims that you'll drop a lot of water in the first few weeks, then inevitably, your body will find a set point and stay there for weeks, months, and even YEARS.
It's not quite as simple as that.
While it is true that you will lose a lot of water weight within the first few weeks of starting your ketogenic diet, you will not magically hit a stall.
You could very well be losing fat despite the scale remaining the same, and it's usually a result of this water weight that you lose in the beginning, here's why.
While it's not abnormal for someone to lose 5 to 10 lbs in only the first couple of weeks of starting a ketogenic diet, most of that weight loss IS water loss.In fact, out of those 5 to 10 pounds you initially lost, only 1 to 3 lbs of that was likely actual fat.
When starting any diet, I will typically wait ~3 weeks to begin monitoring the scale for myself and my clients.
Three weeks should be more than enough time for your body, including your water and electrolytes, to balance out and give you a better indicator of what's happening via the scale.
You may have lost about 7lbs of water during the first two weeks, but as your body begins to normalize and re-gain the lost fluid, this may lead you to assume you're re-gaining fat or hitting a “weight loss stall.”
If you're genuinely in a weight-loss stall, check out the 11 reasons why you're not losing weight on keto.
Practical tips:
- Wait ~3 weeks before using the scale as a tool to monitor progress
- Utilize other methods of tracking progress (Pictures, tape measure, etc.)
Claim #3 You don't know what to eat on keto
Keto can be quite a drastic change from what you used to eat daily, it's no wonder why you may have questions about whether you can eat a particular food or not.
This goes back to what I said in Claim #1, by learning to track calories and macros, you would know which foods you should eat and which to avoid.
But that's neither here nor there.
A simple google search will tell you all you need to know about which foods to eat and which to avoid on a ketogenic diet.
You can check out my keto foods list to get some ideas on what you should be eating while following a ketogenic diet.
Practical tips:
- Stick to meats, vegetables, full-fat dairy, nuts, and seeds
- Limit your intake of “ketofied foods and desserts.”
- Look on Pinterest for creative recipes when you need some inspiration
- Be patient, and you'll be a keto pro soon enough young padawan.
How Does Speed Keto Work?
In short, any diet for weight loss works by helping you achieve a caloric deficit, even keto.
Keto is great for many because it allows them to eat the foods they enjoy while keeping them full and with lots of energy. By nature, a ketogenic diet is appetite suppressing, thus enabling you to adhere to your diet.
More often than not, many people give up on their weight loss efforts because they feel exhausted and hungry all the time. While some hunger is to be expected on any weight loss diet, ketogenic diets seem to excel in this regard.7
How does speed keto work? Speed keto creates a caloric deficit with an extreme intermittent fasting protocol referred to as OMAD (one meal a day).
With all the hype about intermittent fasting, there is no inherent benefit to intermittent fasting over spreading your meals throughout the day. 8
If you enjoy eating breakfast and multiple meals per day, then do that.
If you enjoy eating one big meal a day, then do that.
What's most important is that you eat in a way that you can sustain and fits your lifestyle.
Does Speed Keto Speed Up Your Metabolism And Weight Loss?
There is no way to “speed up your metabolism” outside of adding more muscle mass, at least to a significant degree.
If you're interested in fat burners on keto, I'll explain more in-depth the only useful supplements that may give you a slight edge.
Other than that, the diet will be the most important factor, followed by staying active throughout the day, and including exercise while following your ketogenic diet.
There are no tricks to speeding up weight loss as much as we all want that to be.
Is Speed Keto A Gimmick
There's an easier way to do keto, according to Harlan.
Last I checked, keto didn't require any drugs, shots, or surgeries.
I don't even know what keto program requires prepackaged TV dinners, either.
Sounds pretty gimmicky to me.
How Much Does Speed Keto Cost?
As of January 2020, speed keto costs $39, but then you'll be taken down a funnel of “add-ons” for an additional cost.
The site is built on a platform known as Click Funnels, which is primarily made to funnel you down a series of these easy add-ons to purchase.
You'll end up leaving the site spending more than $39 because that's the goal.
Is Speed Keto Safe?
There is nothing magic about speed keto and the methodology. If you do choose to purchase Speed Keto, it is no more or less safe than following any other ketogenic diet.
However, if you're new to the keto world and have existing health conditions, it may be best to consult your primary care physician before undertaking any drastic changes.
Is Speed Keto Worth The Money?
What's worth it to one person may not be worth it to another.
All of the information found in Speed Keto can easily be found online with a simple google search, but if you want an easy and done for you template, then it may be worth it to you to purchase.
For some people, it's better to set it and forget it.
Other Speed Keto Reviews?
On the Speed Keto site, he states.
Over 19,000 people have already tried Speed Keto™️. Women and men of all ages, from all walks of life, and with entirely different body goals… and the results they're getting are absolutely staggering.
My email inbox is filled with raving testimonials. Hundreds upon hundreds of success stories pouring in – proving how effective Speed Keto™️ really is.
Funny enough, I can't seem to find any of these reviews anywhere online.
After searching, all I could find are statements of…
I bought speed keto and it was really underwhelming, as others said it's about intermittent fasting and omad.
Speed keto is nothing but a digital version of the organic keto diet programme available on the market.
I haven't come across a raving review for speed keto, but I'm willing to update this if I do come across one.
However, he does have a cookbook on Amazon filled with a plethora of negative reviews on the first page, claiming that it seemed like a generic cookbook full of regurgitated recipes from across the web.
About Speed Keto's Author
Harlan Kilstein is the author of speed keto, who created a website on keto after only a month of being on a ketogenic diet.
Kind of odd if you ask me.
Dr, Harlan Kilstein, who is not a medical doctor, his words, and may not be Ph.D. either 9, is a marketer and NLP copywriter.
Meaning, he's trained in the art of persuasion, but more specifically, how to get you to buy certain products and programs by tugging at your emotions and heartstrings.
While there's nothing wrong with trying to make a living, especially If you're helping others solve their problems, there is if you're making bold claims…
False ones at that, as previously mentioned.
Does Speed Keto Really Work?
I do not doubt that one can lose weight while following speed keto, but there's nothing mind-blowing nor revolutionary about the speed keto program.
I can give you a handful of sample meals and tell you to eat one of these each day, and you'd lose weight too.
The Problem With Speed Keto
The biggest problem with speed keto is that many of the issues Harlan claims people encounter on a ketogenic diet aren't problems at all.
The problems he lists are scare tactics created to give you solutions to problems that don't even exist or are easily avoided.
What Do I Recommend Instead Of Speed Keto?
If you're looking to formulate a diet for yourself, I'd recommended heading to the keto macro calculator and giving it a read through. Beyond that, if you want to educate yourself on the WHY and HOW of keto, I provide keto book recommendations.
If you want a no-hype ketogenic guide with the latest research, I highly recommend examine.com and their keto guide, offering a science-based approach to keto, and no, I do not make any kind of commission if you purchase their guide.
I think it truly is a no-frills approach with all of the pros and cons of following a ketogenic diet.
A little bonus tip, scroll to the bottom, and you'll be offered a coupon if you sign up to their email list. Additionally, if you're a student, you can get 50% off the guide.
While I'm tempted to create a program
The Speed Keto Takeaway
Speed keto makes exaggerates problems and claims that people will encounter while following a ketogenic diet.
All of these problems will be solved via an easy guide, a food list, recipes, and sample meal plans.
While I do not doubt that you could lose those love handles while following speed keto, it's all basic information that you can find on my website or by doing a quick google search.
In the end, if you have $39+ to blow and don't mind taking the risk, or want a generic template, by all means.
