Keto weight loss

How To Do A Keto Maintenance Phase For Better Results

An often forgotten discussion is the importance of a keto maintenance phase; it doesn’t matter whether your goal is fat loss or muscle gain. There should be a point where the goal should be to neither lose or gain weight, and this is why.

What is a keto maintenance phase? A keto maintenance phase or “reset phase” is a period you will bring calories up to maintenance with the goal of recovery from both the physical and psychological stress that comes with dieting.

The keto maintenance phase can almost be broken down into two types of phases:

The Diet Break Phase
Maintenance Phase

I’ll go over both these scenarios along with when and why you may want to implement them. Then, we’ll discuss how you can apply this knowledge to help you achieve your goals more efficiently and maintain your weight loss.

Does The Keto Diet Have Phases?

All diets should have phases, better known as nutritional periodization. You can think of these phases as mini goals to ensure long-term success is achieved.

In this article, the phases I’ll be discussing are the different types of maintenance phases you should be implementing.

When the majority of people approach dieting, it’s usually an all or nothing mentality. Many don’t have a plan; they just know they want to lose weight.

Not having a plan may lead you down the path of hitting plateaus when they could have been avoided. The worst part of not having a plan is regaining the weight after all the hard work you put in.

Ok, maybe that’s not the worst…

The absolute worst is ending up HEAVIER than when you started your diet in the first place.

The reality is the 85% of people who are overweight or obese will successfully lose weight in their lifetime, but a staggering 95% will regain the lost weight within three years.

What’s more alarming is that of the 95%, almost 50% will regain more weight than they lost.

Talk about mind-blowing.

When Should You Use A Keto Maintenance Phase?

This is where the different maintenance phases come into play, and there are various reasons you may want to implement them.

Some of the reasons you may want to implement a maintenance phase are:

Hit your goal weight
A lot of weight to lose
Going on vacation
Stressful period

Why Have A Keto Maintenance Phase?

There are nearly a dozen reasons why you may want to implement a keto maintenance phase.

Depending on where you are in your journey will dictate what that reason is, but nearly everyone can and should use a keto maintenance phase, or at least some period where the goal is to maintain weight simply.

The goal of the maintenance phase(s) will vary, but in general:

Physical Recovery
Psychological Stress
Hormonal Recovery
“Reset Bod Fat Set-point”
Planned Or Unplanned Life Event

The Importance Of Maintenance

There are two specific types of maintenance phases I want to go over.

First, the diet break, to be used during the weight loss phase. The second type of maintenance phase is the recovery phase, which happens after the diet is over.

The “Diet Break”

For those with quite a bit of weight to lose, which is all of us, this is a critical phase that shouldn’t be neglected.

Because let’s face it… we all have more weight to lose then we think or care to admit.

On the short side, I imagine you may be dieting for eight weeks, with most people in the 16-24+ week range. Some people may be chronic dieters that feel like they’ve been endlessly dieting their whole lives, I’ve been there too.

Dieting is a stress on our body AND our mind. The purpose of the diet break phase is to help both our mind and our bodies recover from this stress, thus allowing you to continue dieting and keep losing weight.

Think of this as a three steps forward 1 step back approach.

By inserting diet breaks, you will be allowing some hormonal processes to recover, and help prevent any negative hormonal adaptations from occurring that arise from dieting.

You’ll also be giving yourself a psychological break, an often overlooked aspect of dieting. By mentally taking a break from dieting, you’re allowing yourself to keep pushing forward when you resume the diet.

Think of a diet as a very long multi-day road trip.

You wouldn’t just hop in your car and endlessly drive until you reach your destination. Instead, you would stop for gas, stop for food and stretch, stop to sleep at night, then resume driving after taking a breather.

Each time you stop and resume driving, you feel a little better than had you just kept pushing straight through. It may take you a little longer to get to your destination, but you arrive there safer, less stressed, and more refreshed.

The “Maintenance Phase”

Many people assume they can endlessly diet their weight off, or once they hit the end of their timeline or reach a target weight…

It’s all done.

Then, they go back to whatever they were doing before their “diet.”

The problem with that is, what you were doing before you started dieting is what landed you in this predicament in the first place.

Then, the cycle starts all over.

This is what makes this maintenance phase so important. We want to keep the weight off, and NOT have to diet for the rest of our lives.

You can think of this phase as a reset phase because it’s during this time that we want to attempt to get your body used to your new body fat level, and hopefully create a new body fat “set point.”

Think of your body fat set point as the thermostat in your home. Your body works in very much the same way in that it tries to regulate how much fat you carry on your body.

If you go above your body fat setpoint, your body combats this by making you less hungry, and you may non-consciously begin to move a little more.

The same thing applies in the opposite direction, if you drop under your body fat setpoint, then your body increases hunger and may cause you to be more sedentary than usual.

How To Maintain Weight After Keto Diet Or Implement A Diet Break

This is the part where we go over how to implement the maintenance phases along your journey.

Diet break implementation

Let me start by saying that even though it’s called a diet “break,” it doesn’t give you an excuse to go hog wild. By diet break, I simply mean a break from eating an amount of food that causes you to lose weight.

Since it’s a caloric deficit that allows us to lose weight, we can also refer to this period as a “deficit” break.

Therefore, the goal is to bring calories up to maintenance for an extended period, usually between 3-14 days. The longer or more aggressive you’ve been dieting, the longer this time should be.

There are no set rules on how long or how often to take these diet breaks, but I’ll provide you with a general recommendation.

The calorie increase should ideally come from fat and/or protein since you’re following a ketogenic diet.

Whether you raise calories from fat or protein is up to you. What’s most important is that you’re feeding yourself enough food to maintain your weight, give or take ~2 lbs.

With more food, we might expect to gain a little weight due to increased water and food volume in the stomach, but if you haven’t gone off the rails, I can assure you this is just transient weight. You should quickly lose this weight plus more once you resume dieting again.

Diet breaks or “maintenance phases” became popular due to the MATADOR study in which more significant weight and fat loss were achieved by alternating periods of dieting (caloric restriction) with maintenance phases (energy balance).

The Matador study also found that interspersing these periods helped reduce some of the mechanisms your body down-regulates in response to weight loss and caloric restriction. 1

How to stop losing weight on keto, the maintenance phase implementation

So if you’ve reached your goal or don’t care to diet any longer, this phase is for you.

If you’re instead looking to transition off keto or move to a different diet, I’ve written about that as well. This section is for those who still want to maintain a ketogenic lifestyle, though the principles are still the same for any diet.

Ok, so you’ve reached your goal… now what?

After you achieve your goal weight, we want you to stay there. This phase is so important but often overlooked.

The same way we went about a diet break will be the same way you’ll implement the keto maintenance phase. You want to raise calories enough to where you are maintaining your weight, give or take ~2 lbs.

Now, we can add a few calories from fat and protein each day, or you may want to stick with your current deficit but add in 1-2 days of higher caloric eating. Now, I’m not saying to have a cheat day, but some people prefer 1-2 days of higher calories than seven days of medium calories.

Just remember, you can still go overboard and gain weight by greatly overeating 1 or 2 days a week.

In the end, it all balances out.

For this maintenance phase, I would suggest maintaining your weight for a minimum of 4-6 weeks before attempting to slowly titrate your calories up, almost like a “reverse diet.”

Briefly put, the reverse diet is another phase where our goal is to bring calories up further to our new maintenance slowly. Just like the metabolism can adapt and slow on the way down, your metabolic can adjust and speed up.

During this reverse phase, the goal is to add a small amount of calories week to week, allowing your weight to maintain or creep up slightly. You then begin to add calories if weight remains the same, or in some cases, even begins to drop – Yes, while eating more.

How Do you Find Maintenance

Since our different maintenance phases require you to eat… at well… maintenance, how do we find what that is?

If you’ve been tracking your calories and macros, you’re already ahead of the game, but if you haven’t, I have ways to figure that out as well.

For those tracking macros

If you’ve been tracking, the way to find your maintenance is to determine your average rate of weight loss each week while you were dieting and do a little bit of math.

On average, a pound of fat contains 3,500 calories.

If you were losing at a rate of one pound per week, then we know you’ve been in a -3,500 calorie deficit over the week. Spread across seven days, this would average out to 500 calorie deficit you were in per day.

Protein contains four calories per gram, while fat contains nine calories per gram. If we were to split the difference and increase both protein and fat, that would equate to:

Fat = 250 / 9 = ~28 grams of fat

Protein = 250 / 4 = ~63 grams of protein

Therefore, you would increase your daily intake by 28 grams of fat and 63 grams of protein per day and monitor weight.

For those that haven’t been tracking

Even though you haven’t been tracking your calories or macros, the same method could be used as the one above.

However, you can go about this one of three ways:

Begin to start tracking calories and macros loosely
Increase portion sizes slightly and monitor weight
Do a little bit of both 1 and 2

If you want a “just eat this amount,” keep reading on.

Keto Maintenance Calculator

If you want to know precisely how many calories and macros to eat, then head over to the keto macro calculator.

Enter your stats in the different fields, and when it comes to “your goal,” set that to maintain or start conservatively and set it to weight loss (10%).

Setting the calculator to weight loss (10%) may account for some of the metabolic adaptation and be more accurate depending on how long you’ve been dieting.

Another method is to simply take your body weight in pounds and multiply it by 12-15.

If you’re a reasonably sedentary female, stick to the lower end (12), whereas if you’re an active male, you may want to go towards the higher end (15).

Take, for example, a sedentary female who weighs 130 lbs. She would then take her body weight and multiply that number by 12.

130 x 12 = 1560 calories per day

Keto Maintenance Strategies

After coming out of a period of dieting/caloric restriction, your body is primed to regain the lost weight.

Hunger is higher
Energy is lower

Our goal during this period is to implement simple strategies that we can incorporate into our daily lives to ensure we don’t undo all the progress you’ve worked so hard for.

Many of the same strategies that you’ve implanted to lose the weight should be many of the same strategies that you can utilize to keep the weight off.

Here are a few strategies you can implement.

Intermittent Fasting or Time Restricted Eating

Whether you’ve been intermittent fasting or not, studies show that the simple act of limiting your eating window causes people to be less hungry, thus eating fewer calories overall.

In this particular study, delaying breakfast by 1.5 hours and moving dinner up by 1.5 hours was enough to cause individuals to lose weight. [footnotehttps://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S2048679018000137[/footnote]

Increasing Protein Intake

Protein is one of the most satiating macronutrients, if not the most satiating macronutrient.2

Protein also has the highest thermic effect compared to any other macronutrient.

The thermic effect of food (TEF) is the amount of energy (calories) required to digest, absorb, and metabolize meals. Protein has a TEF of 20-30% versus 0-3% from fat and 5-10% from carbohydrates.

Increase Dietary Fiber

Start getting in those veggies! One of the successful strategies individuals use to lose and to maintain their weight loss is more fiber in the diet.

While you could technically fit anything into your net carbohydrate allotment for the day, you’re better of spending them on fibrous vegetables.

Physical Activity

In this study, physical activity was a part of 88% of people who successfully lost and maintained their weight loss. 3

Self Monitoring

Self-monitoring, whether that’s keeping a food journal, progress photos, or periodic weight measurements is also a great strategy that helps you stay accountable and not track

How To Properly Come Off A Keto Diet – Eating Carbs After Keto

If you plan to come off of your ketogenic diet, you should expect some weight gain with the introduction of more carbohydrates.

For every gram of carbohydrate your body stores, an additional three grams of water is also stored. While this may cause some individuals to panic, it is merely water weight.

To learn more strategies on how to transition off keto and into another diet, read my article below.

How to transition off keto

The Takeaway

Having periods of maintenance, where you are trying to maintain your weight during and/or after your diet, is both an effective strategy for continued weight loss and weight maintenance.

Dieting is both a physiological and psychological stress. Keto maintenance phases may help if you find yourself not losing weight on keto or helping you transition once you’ve reached your goals.

Why You Should Still Eat If You’re Not Hungry On Keto

Not being on hungry on keto is probably the best thing that can happen, unless you're trying to gain weight. Most people inevitably fail their weight loss diets because constant hunger inevitably prevails over willpower in the long-term.

If you're not hungry on keto, should you eat more? If you're not hungry and weight loss Is your primary goal, it's ok to wait till you're hungry before eating. When muscle gain is your primary goal, you may need to eat at times despite being hungry or not.

In this article, I'll go over why you're not hungry while following a ketogenic diet, why you may want to eat, and the other times you should skip a meal.

Why You Have No Appetite On Keto

Weight-loss diets are notorious for increasing appetites and causing physiological adaptations, which inevitably leads to regaining the lost weight.4

Studies suggest that ketogenic diets affect appetite, which is great if your goal is to lose weight. Multiple studies show that even without being asked to restrict calories subjects following a ketogenic diet were less hungry and had less of a desire to eat.23

In another study, a ketogenic diet suppressed appetite more than a ‘balanced diet' EVEN when the balanced dieters were given an appetite suppressant.4 As you see, a ketogenic diet is perfect for suppressing appetite, but why is that?

How Ketosis Affects Satiety

Increased protein

Protein has been shown in studies to be the most satiating macronutrient.56 Additionally, the ingestion of amino acids (protein) is a significant stimulant of cholecystokinin (CCK) which affects satiety.

The protein leverage hypothesis is a hypothesis (PLH) that humans prioritize protein intake when regulating total calories. The PLH states that you will keep eating until protein needs are met, whether that takes 1,000 calories or 3,000 calories.

Therefore, increasing protein may lead to satiation more quickly once your body senses enough protein. Consequently, the hypothesis also states that your body will remain hungry until it meets its protein requirements.

Ketones suppress appetite

Certain studies suggest ketones themselves influence appetite regulation and induce satiety7. Although, ketones role in suppressing appetite still needs further researching before making any claims.

Fat slows digestion

By nature, a ketogenic diet is high in fat. On a ketogenic diet, carbohydrates are severely restricted. Calories must come from somewhere after protein is calculated. Once carbs are restricted and protein is accounted for, this leaves fat as a buffer and primary fuel source.

Like fiber, fat in the diet slows digestion and delays gastric emptying8How quickly food leaves the stomach. This delayed emptying of the stomach would be expected to increase fullness and flatten the blood glucose levels and insulin rise from the meal.9

A flattening of blood glucose levels may lead to better signaling of satiety and hunger.10 Such is the case in a state of ketosis where the body does not experience fluctuations throughout the day like you would on a carbohydrate-based diet.

Leptin and Ghrelin

Leptin and ghrelin are commonly referred to as the hunger hormones. Leptin is responsible for signaling your body when it's full, and ghrelin is responsible for signaling your body that it's time to eat.

You can think of leptin like a thermostat that's stored in your fat cells. Everyone's thermostat is believed to be set at a different temperature. This point in which your thermostat is set is referred to as your body fat setpoint.

As you stray away from your set point in either direction, leptin and/or ghrelin is released to bring you back to homeostasis. This body fat setpoint is thought to be why it's not only hard to lose weight, but especially to maintain the lost weight.

Leptin is produced by your body's fat cells and carried by the bloodstream into your brain. Leptin gives the signal whether you have enough fat stored and to stop eating, or if levels are low and you need to eat.11

As you diet and begin losing fat, leptin goes down, and ghrelin (the hunger hormone) increases. In the case of weight loss, you want LESS ghrelin, not more.

Both ghrelin and leptin are important regulators of satiety and appetite. In a state of ketosis, studies have shown an association between being in a ketotic state and suppression of ghrelin, which can reduce feelings of hunger.12

This may be why ketogenic dieters don’t feel as hungry on keto compared to other diets.

Skipping Meals On Keto

So now that you know why you may not be as hungry after starting keto should or shouldn't you eat when you have no appetite?

It depends.

Here are a few reasons why you might want to eat still even if you have trouble eating enough calories on a keto diet.

Why You Should Eat When Not Hungry On Keto

Prevent overeating at later meals

While not the case with everyone, skipping meals may lead you to become more ravenous later in the day or the following day. Many individuals, including myself, found intermittent fasting wasn't for them.

By skipping meals earlier in the day, they would end up overeating and overcompensating later on, which eventually led to sudden weight gain instead.

Prevent under-eating

There is such a thing as eating too little and losing weight too fast. Unless you're incredibly overweight, dieting at a more reasonable rate per week will lead to higher muscle retention and a more sustainable diet.

Skipping meals can also affect energy levels, which may cause you to move less, resulting in burning fewer calories. Reductions in non-exercise-activity-thermogenesis (NEAT) is an essential factor why it becomes harder and harder to lose weight as you diet.

NEAT is energy that you expend doing anything that isn't physical exercise. Neat includes things like walking the dog, doing the laundry, and even grocery shopping. NEAT can vary by 2,000 calories between people of similar sizes, which is why it may be easier for some individuals to lose weight or stay thin.13

As we begin to diet, energy levels start to dwindle, and naturally, NEAT decreases. Always under-eating may affect your energy levels to the point that weight loss slows or stops altogether despite eating less.

You may subconsciously begin to move less and less over time, resulting in slower or stalled weight loss.

How fast should you lose weight? I recommend losing between 0.5% to 1% of body weight per week. For individuals that have significant fat to lose, this number can be between 1% to 2% of body weight per week.

Your goal is building muscle

If your goal is to build muscle, not being hungry isn't an excuse to skip meals. There comes the point in time when you won't be hungry.

Similar to losing weight, hormones are released to maintain homeostasis in both directions. Once your body recognizes that it has enough fat stores, hunger decreases.

You have to suck it up and eat if your goal is to grow.

Provide energy for your day and workout

Skipping a meal once may not have a negative effect, but under-eating constantly may interfere with your energy levels. If you find yourself getting tired quickly and more easily, maybe it's best to have a little substance instead of none at all.

Why you Should NOT Eat When Not Hungry On Keto

Assuming none of the reasons above applies to you, skipping meals on keto when you aren't hungry can be a good thing.

Quicker Weight Loss

If your energy is good and you don't feel like eating, then naturally eating less will lead to more rapid weight loss. As long as you don't find your energy dwindling or overcompensating in subsequent meals and days, skipping meals is completely fine.

Learn to eat intuitively

Learning when and how much to eat is half the battle when it comes to weight loss and managing hunger. There are plenty of times that we think we're hungry, but the desire is just boredom, stress, or any other trigger you may have.

Skipping a meal when you're not hungry and allowing your hunger cues to dictate your food intake is something we all should eventually strive for.

If allowing yourself to skip meals, I would still suggest that you hit your daily protein intake to help spare lean tissue while dieting.

Tips To Help Suppress Hunger On Keto

If you find yourself always hungry and seeking ways to suppress hunger on keto, here are a few tips.

Eat less calorie-dense foods

Calorie density is a measure for how much energy (calories) there is per unit measure of food. For example, a 4-oz piece of chicken breast has ~100 calories, while five macadamia nuts also have ~100 calories.

I'm almost sure that the chicken breast would be more satiating than the five macadamia nuts.

High-fat foods, in general, are the most calorically dense foods you can eat. While you shouldn't go out of your way to eliminate all fats, making smarter substitutions when it makes sense can go a long way to keep you satisfied.

Eat more protein

More protein in the diet can increase feelings of fullness.14 You might even want to exchange some of your fat macros for protein.

Most people on a ketogenic diet are under-consuming protein due to misinformation. People are dead-set on sticking to certain percentage based macronutrients.

Think about it, if a 200-pound male is eating 2,000 calories and a 120-pound woman is eating 2,000 calories, do you think their protein requirements would be the same?

How much protein on keto is relative to your lean body weight, not a percentage of your calories. https://www.theartofketo.com/how-much-protein-on-keto/

It's better to each too much protein than too little.

Increase fiber

Increase your intake of cruciferous vegetables and leafy greens. Foods that are high in fiber delay gastric emptying and help stretch the stomach, leading to feelings of fullness.

There's no need to be scared of carbohydrates from vegetables as most come from dietary fiber. On a ketogenic diet, you're most concerned with keeping your net carbs under a certain amount.15

Drink water

There are times we can mistake hunger for thirst.

Additionally, drinking water can also provide the same stretch to the stomach that a belly full of food offers, sending signals of fullness to the brain.

One study showed that drinking two glasses of water before a meal led to eating 22% less than those who didn't drink any water.16

Drink coffee

Aside from the many health and sports performance benefits, coffee has been shown to increase the release of peptide YY (PYY). PYY is a hormone produced in the gut as a response to eating and promoting a feeling of fullness. 17

Interesting enough, decaffeinated coffee seems to promote the same appetite-suppressing effects.

To save on calories, skip the bulletproof or keto coffee and stick with black coffee. You can use a little sugar-free sweetener in your coffee if you prefer.

Eat mindfully

How many times have you ate in front of the T.V. screen or flipping through your Instagram only to feel like you never ate? Practicing mindfulness and eliminating distractions while you eat can help you experience more pleasure while eating.

Get more sleep

Not only will you have more time to think about food if you don't get enough sleep, studies show that not getting enough can decrease satiety and increase hunger.18

Aim for ~7 to 8+ hours of sleep per night as a useful measure when possible.

Reduce your stress

If you're like me, you might resort to eating in times of stress. For others, stress can eliminate their appetites.

Stress raises levels of the hormone cortisol, which is thought to increase food cravings.19 Stress may also decrease the levels of PYY, a hormone that helps promote the feeling of fullness after a meal.20

Trouble Eating Enough Calories On Keto?

If you find yourself continually having trouble eating enough calories following a ketogenic diet, stick to more calorie-dense foods. Eat fattier cuts of meat and fish in addition to higher-fat dairy. Nuts are also a good option if you find yourself regularly not meeting macros on keto.

Skipping meals on keto once in a while is ok, but if you're continually underrating, you may:

Lose more muscle
Lack of energy
Not eating enough nutrients (vitamins and minerals)

The truth is, if you're starting your weight loss journey, you may not be hungry, which is a good thing. Not being hungry is an ideal situation when it comes to losing weight on keto.

However, as you lose weight, appetite is will likely pick back up. You can revisit the section on how to help suppress your appetite when you find yourself not feeling as full as you once were.

Lazy Keto Vs. Strict Keto [The Hidden Truth]

Lazy keto (or dirty keto) is often a term thrown out there in the keto community, but what exactly is it? Everyone has their own definition, myself included.

While I think most others tend to agree with one another on the meaning, I think I am an outlier on my approach. After all, I've been in this game for nearly 20 years and I think I may have learned a thing or two about getting results.

… but of course, I always keep an open mind and look to expand my knowledge. As the saying goes …

What gets measured gets managed

But does this apply to your weight loss and diet?

What is lazy keto?

Lazy keto is when the only measurable factor of your ketogenic diet is keeping your carbohydrates under a certain amount, usually around 20g or less.

To expand lazy keto a bit more, it’s eating “keto-friendly” foods ad libitum. 21Basically as much as you want.

But is this method of keto ideal? I’ll admit, It can work for many, but will it work for you?

Let’s dive into who lazy keto might work for, when “strict” keto may be more appropriate, and some best strategies moving forward shall we?

Information overload

One major hurdle most beginners face when starting a ketogenic diet is over analyzing everything. I often ask individuals what’s stopping them from getting started on their diet and usually the response is something like…

I’m getting ready to start, but I want to get all the information before doing so.

Inevitably, half or more of those same individuals likely haven’t started their ketogenic lifestyle to this day. If you’re waiting for the right time or until you have all the information, then you’ve waited too long.

And for these individuals, lazy keto might be a great tool. Why? Because it will help them to just START, but with one caveat.

Knowing which foods to stay away from. 2

Why it’s so complicated

Most people have it wrong, even the “gurus”

At the foundation of establishing and maintaining a state of ketosis is low to no carbohydrates.

Meaning, the ONLY pre-requisite to getting into ketosis is limiting your carbohydrates.

Yup, that is the ONLY requirement.

99% of websites and “gurus” tell you there is a magical percentage you have to stick to, fat intake has to be this high, protein has to be this low, yada yada yada.

WRONG.

Percentages for a ketogenic diet were originally laid out as a guideline for individuals who suffered from epilepsy to keep ketone levels high. 3

If you suffer from epilepsy or another neurodegenerative disorder, then stick to the percentages. 4

If you’re after losing weight and looking good naked, throw those percentages out the door, we’re not concerned with them.

We can worry about dialing in macros once you get started. And even these will be based on YOUR weight, not a random percentage.

3 Reasons why I don’t think lazy keto is ideal for most people

#1 It requires you eat to satiety

Let’s face it, most people don’t know when they’re “really” full. It’s part of the reason most of us are trying to lose weight.

Combined with the fact we eat not only out of hunger. We are social and emotional beings… and we eat because:

How we feel
It’s a certain time of the day
A vacation, etc.

#2 Most people don’t know food composition

The only requirement to establish ketosis is restricting carbohydrate-rich foods, but most people don’t possess certain fundamental skills when starting a ketogenic diet.

Most people don’t know which foods contain what macronutrients (protein, fats, and carbohydrates), what a portion size really looks like, and how much food they need to eat.

… But if you do, then you’re ahead of the game!

Sometimes lazy keto is a good idea, but only once you’ve mastered the basics and have the swing of things.

#3 What happens when you stop losing weight?

If you haven’t achieved your goal look, weight, body fat percentage, [insert metric you are aiming for], and you implement lazy keto, what do you do when you inevitably stall?

Because IT WILL happen.

Now you have nothing to look back upon or manipulate because…

well…

You’ve been lazy keto’ing it up.

If you’ve hit your goal and want to take your break off the gas and do a version of lazy keto, then, by all means, you’ve earned it!

Or have you?

Just saying…

If you hit your goal and want to just take it easy, then keep doing what you’re doing.

If you’re still in pursuit of your goal and thinking if you should just do “lazy keto” then here’s what I think you may want to consider.

It is of my opinion that to successfully implement lazy keto to manipulate body composition 5to lose fat and/or gain muscle one must generally know a few things:

Food composition: What macros a food contains (carbs, fats, and proteins)
Food portion: How many calories a given food has
Maintenance calories: How much you need to eat to “maintain” weight

So while I don’t think it’s 100% necessary to weigh and track your foods, I think it is a great skill to acquire.

I recommend people track their food intake, if at least for a few weeks (3-4 weeks) to get the hang of things. This will allow you to learn what’s in certain foods, and have a good idea about what a portion size really looks like.

Maybe then you can lazy keto it up.

Lazy keto vs. strict keto

So what should you do? Lazy keto or strict keto?

To me, lazy keto is just eating what you want when you want without tracking.

So long as your carbs are low that is.

Strict keto is when you’re tracking what you’re eating and making adjustments based on the feedback you’re receiving (weight, pictures, how clothes fit, your energy, etc.)

How do you know which method is for you?

It all boils down to your current starting point and what your goals are.

Depending on how much weight you want to lose and how lean you want to get will dictate how much it will “cost” you. When I say cost, it’s because different levels of leanness will cost you certain things.

Now, it’s a matter of asking yourself if the cost is too high for what you think you want as the result.

i.e. Is the tradeoff of getting super shredded worth the effort?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Basically, the leaner you wish to be, the more trade-offs you must be willing to make. The methods you used to get the first ’10 pounds’ won't be the same methods it will take to lose the last ’10 pounds.’

Here’s how I would categorize different levels and who lazy keto vs. strict keto would be good for.

Hit your goals already. lazy keto

Trying to get from:

Very overweight to overweight. lazy keto
Overweight to not overweight. lazy keto
Not overweight to lean. strict keto
Lean to leaner. very strict keto
Leaner to shredded. super strict keto

Can lazy keto work?

Lazy keto can work, and it has for many individuals. A ketogenic diet has a lot of benefits that make it easier for the dieter to maintain a caloric deficit and thus lose weight.

Studies even show that when putting participants on a ketogenic diet and told to eat ad libitum, they lost weight. Basically, they could eat however much they wanted as long as they restricted carbohydrates and lost weight without tracking.

Why lazy keto can work

A ketogenic diet by nature has been shown to reduce appetite, thus causing many to naturally eat less.
You’re eliminating an entire macronutrient (carbohydrates).
Most guilty pleasures and trigger foods that many of us easily OVERconsume are high carb AND high fat. (Pizza, chips, cookies, ice cream, etc.)

3 people who should not use lazy keto

While lazy keto might work for anyone, there are people I would NOT recommend it to.

#1 You do not understand what a macronutrient is

If you have no idea what a macronutrient is, you also probably don’t have a firm grasp of what foods you should and shouldn’t eat to establish and maintain a state of ketosis.

First, learn the fundamentals of calories and macros. Second, track your diet using an app like MyFitnessPal to get a hang of things and learn about what’s in different foods you enjoy.

Last, give my keto foods list a read to have a general idea of what to eat and what not to eat on a ketogenic diet.

#2 You want to look really ‘fit’

Again, there is a ‘cost’ to getting lean. If you are looking to get lean or even VERY lean, you have to make the tradeoff of being a little more strict with your diet.

If you’re trying to see your abs for the very first time since you were five or look like the cover model of a fitness magazine, you best believe you need to be strict with your diet.

Lazy keto simply won’t cut it.

You don’t have a good sense of when you’re ‘full’

Sometimes lazy keto is just a bad idea for those of us who seem to want to eat any and everything, myself included. If I didn’t track what I ate, then I would almost inevitably gain weight.

Tracking for me is an accountability tool. It’s also a great way to make adjustments when things hit a plateau. It’s so easy once you’ve been doing it awhile that it becomes second nature.

There is even a study that shows that keeping a food diary can double a person’s weight loss.6

Lazy keto recipes

Even if you choose the lazy keto route, I would be mindful to make ‘sensible’ decisions with food choices.

Don’t look to “ketofy” all your old comfort foods. Instead, stick to whole nutrient-dense foods and you can definitely get away with doing lazy keto.

Below are just some of my favorite lazy keto meals quick to prepare with little effort. I also wrote about some of my favorite keto snacks and expand more on things you can quickly grab on the go.

Breakfast staple: Bacon, eggs, and half an avocado

Do you think there would be something else for breakfast besides some bacon and eggs? Just don’t go crazy on the bacon.

Lunch staple: Ground beef and cauliflower rice

While I recommend sticking to grass-fed beef, ground beef is more cost effective and easy to toss in a pan and stir-fry for a quick meal.

You can either toss in the cauliflower rice with the ground beef or cook it separately and throw the ground beef up top.

Can’t get any more simple than that.

If you want to get a little fancier, blend up the cauliflower rice with grass-fed butter and a splash of heavy whipping cream for caulimash.

Dinner staple: Ribeye (or other protein) and veggies

Ribeye is my favorite cut of beef, but you can have whatever cut of beef or other protein (pork, chicken, fish) you fancy. Pair your protein with a side of veggies and you’re good to go.

There also might be a glass of wine next to my plate now and then.

So technically these aren’t recipes, but if lazy keto is really what you’re looking for then why are you looking to complicate things?

These meals are really an example of how simple I make it. I’ll save all those
fancy keto recipes for special occasions or once in a while treats.

Not only will you save time, but it’s one less thing for you to have to worry or think about.

Lazy keto meal prep

If you want to make life even more simple, I would suggest choosing one or two days and meal prepping for the upcoming few days.

What I like to do is pan fry a bunch of ground beef, oven roast different veggies, and hard-boil tons of eggs to have 3 to 4 days' worth. I simply toss them in Tupperware and pull them out when it’s time to eat.

Lazy keto meal prep pays for itself in saving you time and money in the long run. It’s also convenient for those times when someone or something tempts you to eat off plan due to being tired, super lazy, or perhaps a little tipsy…

… or drunk

Lazy keto grocery list

Just a small example of a simple lazy keto food list you could stick to.

Ground beef
Eggs
Bacon
Non-starchy vegetables of your choosing
Sardines
Chicken
Pork
Fish
Sausages (watch out for hidden carbs)
Grass-fed butter
Heavy whipping cream

Lazy keto closing thoughts

Lazy keto is definitely a viable option for you if you have a basic fundamental understanding of what to eat and what to avoid.

For many, lazy keto is something they end up switching to once they’ve hit their goals or want to take their foot off the gas pedal before returning to a more strict keto approach.

If lazy keto is something you want to try, I believe the more simple your food choices, the higher likelihood that a lazy keto approach can be effective without tracking every bite you put in your mouth.

In the end, it will come down to your goals.

Just remember, the more ambitious your goal the more trade-offs you have to make.

Do you do lazy Keto? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments down below.

Can You Have A Cheat Day On Keto? [The Truth]

With almost any weight-loss diet, the inevitable question of whether you can have a cheat day comes up. A ketogenic diet makes it more complicated as it eliminates most of the foods that people would find themselves “cheating” with.

Which I guess is a good thing since they are typically calorie rich, but nutrient poor food choices that led to the extra weight in the first place.

Which still begs the question…

Can you have a cheat day on keto?

The answer is yes and no. It‘s not such a black and white subject no matter what diet you‘re on, keto or not. In fact, there are certain things at play even more so on a ketogenic diet you should be mindful of.

As with most answers, it usually depends…

Context is everything.

I‘ll preface this by saying I’m not a fan of cheat days on keto.

Let me rephrase that, I’m not a fan of cheat days on any “diet“ so I may be a little biased.

What‘s wrong with a keto cheat day you ask?

Personally, I think having a designated “cheat day” sets you up in the wrong mental space. Every day is inevitably spent looking forward to the infamous “cheat day.” Instead, live in the present and worry about what you should do THAT day to ensure you hit your goals.

Second, it leads down a rabbit hole of re-enforcing bad habits, possibly old ones that led you to gain weight in the first place, and binge cycles.

Can you have a cheat day on the keto diet?

There are certain named diets that allow for a “cheat day,” typically one day per week in which you‘re allowed to eat anything and everything. The thinking being, if you eat well on your diet six out of seven days a week, you‘re still ahead.

At first, this MAY sound like a good idea, but if you‘re like me and have fallen prey to this, then you know the truth.

Let me paint a picture for you.

Steven decides he wants to lose weight and goes on a diet. He sticks to the plan Monday thru Saturday and on Sunday he allows himself to eat whatever he‘s been craving all week.

Each cheat day he eats all the food he‘s been “missing out on,” and ends up eating himself sick and leading him to hating himself afterward. Eventually, he willingly abstains from cheating at all because he realized he didn‘t need it.

Yes, the Steven in the story is me, and yes… this is actually what I used to do.

Talk about insanity right? but I know many other people do this too, and it’s definitely not healthy. Not only is it not healthy physically, but mentally and emotionally it takes a toll.

But maybe you‘re not like me and can exercise a little restraint. For myself, and MANY others, once the floodgates have opened it’s game over.

You can undo a whole week of dieting, possibly even more, in a single day.

BELIEVE ME

This leads me to how I typically like to characterize different individuals, You are an abstainer (like me) or a moderator.

Abstainer Vs. Moderator

The Abstainer

The classic abstainer will usually have an all-or-nothing mentality. It’s far easier for these individuals to give something up altogether than to indulge moderately.

Trying to moderate for these individuals becomes an internal struggle of:

Should I?

How much?

When can I?

It requires no self-control if you already know it‘s not a choice, whereas if you can do it sometimes… well that requires ENORMOUS self-control.

It might sound crazy on the surface, but it would surprise you how many individuals fit this mold…

You may be one.

ESPECIALLY since many of them resort to ketogenic diets.

The Moderator

Moderators do better when they avoid absolutes or strict rules. Having these black and white lines makes them feel trapped inside a box (metaphorically speaking).

These are your individuals that can take out a pint of ice cream and have one or two spoons before putting it back in. Those crazy guys and girls that can open a bag of Oreos and take out just one cookie instead of eating the whole sleeve.

Crazy right?!

3 things I recommend instead of having a cheat day on keto

While I wouldn’t recommend “cheat days” for the majority of people, I suggest some of the following instead:

Free meals (special occasions)

As the name implies, a free meal is a SINGLE meal of whatever you want, NOT an entire day. I would normally opt to save these for special occasions, 7 but you can also use it on your weekly date with the significant other.

Even better if you can keep it keto or save all those “keto friendly ketofied junk food” treats for your free meal.

I almost guarantee you’ll feel better both physically and mentally by using this versus an all-out cheat day.

Refeed (cyclical ketogenic diet)

For the athletically inclined, a keto carb cycling approach or cyclical ketogenic diet may suit you both physically and mentally. This cyclical approach typically has you alternating between periods of strict keto days and days with a higher amount of carbs “refeed” days to help maximize performance.

Example: 5 – 6 days in ketosis alternated by 1 – 2 of higher carbs

I would reserve this method for those of you who are highly active and also are keto-adapted. 2

Remember, this isn’t a protocol to be used as an excuse to eat everything you want. There is still a strategic component to implementing a cyclical ketogenic diet, but it sure helps with carb cravings.

Diet break (1-2 week break periodically)

This is where I differ from the crowd, but sometimes I think it‘s good to actually take a break from dieting and/or being in ketosis.

Recent research suggests that alternating periods of dieting (calorie restriction) with periods of maintenance (eating enough to maintain weight) has been shown to benefit fat loss both physically and psychologically.

As we diet, our body begins to downregulate certain hormones in an attempt to preserve itself. Taking a diet break allows these hormones to recoup, making subsequent dieting weeks more fruitful.

How often and for how long you should take a break will largely depend on how much fat you have to lose and how long you’ve been dieting. The above is typically how often I would recommend taking diet breaks based on your body fat percentage. 3

For most people looking to lose weight, a cheat day sounds alluring, but the benefits are small if any.

Reasons you SHOULDN’T have a keto cheat day

Can easy sabotage your efforts, 1 step forward 1 step backward.

If keto weight loss is your goal, you might set yourself up to undo all the progress you made throughout the week, even if you were good 6 out of 7 days.

Just remember weight gain and weight loss results from how many calories you do or don‘t eat over time. You can easily eat so much in one day you erase all the progress from the previous 6 days.

Just have a look at the graphic below to get a visual of what might happen

You’ll feel horrible afterward

If you have a carb heavy cheat meal or day, you might set yourself up to those dreaded feelings you had when first starting a ketogenic diet, AKA the keto flu.

After being on a ketogenic diet for some time, it dampens your ability to process sugar. It’s like when you first started a ketogenic diet, it required your body to get used to burning ketones.

If your cheat day consists of high carb foods, it’ll likely kick you out of ketosis, raise your blood sugar, and possibly lead to sugar cravings.

Does nothing physically

There really is no benefit to a cheat meal or cheat day besides the psychological break it gives you from dieting. You might have heard cheat days kickstart your metabolism or trick your body into burning fat, but there is literally no scientific evidence to support a single meal or day is enough to do anything.

*Don’t get me wrong… a psychological break is needed as much as a physical one.

This is also why I recommend longer breaks above of 1-2 weeks. One day is not long enough to do anything besides give yourself a mental break and maybe enough energy to hit another workout.

Instead, I would suggest strategic refeeds almost like keto carb cycling (cyclical ketogenic diet) or better yet, complete diet breaks where your goal is to simply maintain your weight for a period of time by raising calories back up to a level that is appropriate to maintain your weight.

Bad relationship with food

By having “cheat” days or meals you‘re reinforcing a bad relationship with food. There are no foods inherently good or bad (unless you have an allergy).

And if you feel the need to cheat, maybe it‘s time to rethink whether a ketogenic lifestyle is for you.

The best diet will be the one you‘re satisfied on and can adhere to over the long term.

Pigging out “just because”

Maybe you would have been fine continuing your fat loss journey, but instead of staying on track you decided to have a cheat day just because it’s Sunday (or whatever day you make it). Again, sometimes it’s best to just go about your routine and save those “cheats” for special occasions instead of reoccurring scheduled days.

So if all of that above wasn’t enough to stop you then keep on reading for why you may want to incorporate them and what to do if you decide to…

Reasons you SHOULD have a keto cheat day

Psychological break

Again, a cheat “meal” can be a good psychological break from dieting.

Let’s face it, dieting is stressful and can take a mental toll. Allowing oneself to mentally clock out for a meal without thinking about it can be liberating and undo some stress.

Therefore, sometimes people drop a pound or two after going off plan, not because of some magical fat burning that happens after a cheat day… but rather the mental break was enough to stimulate the release of some of the water weight masking weight loss on the scale from being too stressed.

Can “temporarily” increase performance

Sometimes a day with extra calories is enough to give you a little pep in your step for the next training session. Having enough energy to hit the gym hard can go a long way in helping preserve or even gain muscle.

Our goal when we lose weight is not to simply lose weight, but maintain our muscle and lose fat. If you‘re not doing any resistance training, I would highly reconsider.

What to do if you have a cheat day on keto

So you have a free meal, a “cheat meal,” or at worst go off the rail for an entire day what should you do?

Jump back to what you were doing

Nothing. Just move on and continue your diet and training like normal. Don‘t feel the need to starve yourself or add in an “extra” cardio session.

Believe me, I used to do that all the time.

Exercising yourself to death to burn fat and calories is just another form of purging.4

Fast/Intermittent Fast (if jumping back into ketosis is a priority)

I know I said not to starve yourself the next day, but sometimes fasting or intermittent fasting is a good idea if you feel less than optimal. Doing so may allow you to enter back into ketosis and reap the benefits of reduced hunger and mental clarity once again.

How to best incorporate a cheat day on keto

Don‘t make it a day, make it a meal

Don’t have a keto cheat day, instead have a cheat meal, or what I commonly refer to as a “free” meal.

I don’t know about you, but a whole day of reckless eating is asking for trouble. Try to limit yourself to one meal where you let yourself have whatever you want.

Preferably have this meal at dinner so it can’t easily turn into a whole day of bingeing.

Don’t stress

Don‘t feel the need to “pre-compensate” cheat days/meals.

What do I mean by pre-compensate? Don‘t starve yourself or run yourself into the ground with exercise (before or after) to offset the meal.

One of the main reasons traditional exercise doesn’t always translate to what we would hope for in terms of weight loss can be explained by this theory of calorie compensation.

Somehow, if we add in exercise or overly restrict ourselves we gain this mindset we can eat more. While this is true, how much more we eat vs how much we ACTUALLY eat are two entirely different things.

This might explain why you would normally never eat a pint of ice cream, but now that it‘s “lower calorie” you might find yourself eating the whole pint… maybe even two.

Before you might have had a scoop and put the ice cream away, but since it’s low calories you justify eating more.

Create a calorie buffer

Going off the previous tip, while I don’t recommend starving yourself or fasting before your free meal, you could potentially make those meals smaller than usual.

If I ever want to create a “buffer” I’ll stick to protein and veggies with minimal carbs or fat throughout the day.

If you usually combine keto and intermittent fasting, then you‘ve already created your “buffer.”

Have a plan / plan ahead

“Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.”

Sometimes the best strategy is to get ahead of it. If you plan to dine out for your free meal, try looking up the menu on their website and choosing what you will eat beforehand.

… and stick to it.

If no website exists, try looking up the menu photos on Yelp.

Prioritize protein

The way I like to think about a cheat meal is protein first, carbs and fat for taste. Focus on protein, fat, and veggie intake first to maximize satiety and reduce the chance of going of the rails.

This is a great strategy to use at a buffet or even those holiday potlucks where you tend to indulge a bit much.

Limit choices, not amounts

When people are presented with too many choices, like a buffet, they tend to eat more. Not only do more choices lead to eating more, but it also lends itself to less satisfaction overall.

FOMO is real.

Think about it… if you were to limit yourself to prime rib and chocolate cake, you would eat only so much of it before being full and satisfied.

But if I now offer you potatoes and ice cream, you’ll end up eating a lot more than had you stuck to only a couple items.

Remember, you don’t have to sample EVERYTHING on the menu.

It’ll be there the next time you visit, trust me.

Pick your favorite thing on the menu or the food you‘ve been craving most and stay the course.

Keep them “keto-friendly”

With the myriad of “keto treats” and recipes floating around on Pinterest, you can literally recreate your old favorites and have them as your keto cheat.

Not only will you not feel as guilty, but you‘ll avoid the possibility of re going through the keto flu from knocking yourself out of ketosis.

Try not to have them too frequently

If you‘re going to indulge, definitely try not to do it too often. I usually suggest people save these for special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, or a vacation.

Having them too often may lead you on a roller coaster of highs and lows.

Even worse is if you let a cheat meal turn into a cheat week.

Final thoughts about if you can you have cheat days on keto

There is no need to beat yourself up or feel bad if you accidentally fall off track because it happens to EVERYONE. It’s when you fall off for one day and that day turns into days or longer where you’ll run into problems.

Progress isn‘t dictated by what you do once in a while, it’s dictated by what you do MOST of the time.

First, ask yourself why you “need” a cheat day. Do you need one because you need a mental break from dieting? Do you feel TOO restricted on a ketogenic diet?

While I wouldn’t recommend an entire day, a meal once in a while can definitely provide a nice psychological break. If having a “cheat meal” once a week or however often is what it takes to keep you adherent (consistent) with your diet, then I’m all for it.

Or perhaps it’s time to take a break from dieting altogether for a period, usually a week or two before continuing your fat loss efforts.

Just don’t be fooled or fool yourself into thinking that having a cheat day is “stoking” your metabolism.

The Hidden Truth About Keto And Intermittent Fasting

Keto and intermittent fasting are all the rage these days. I mean, you usually don't hear about one without eventually hearing about the other.

But is there any benefit in combining the two for the purposes of weight loss?

There may be other benefits, weight loss aside, to combine keto and intermittent fasting, but is there any inherent fat loss benefit?

Can you combine keto and intermittent fasting?

Of course, you can combine keto and intermittent fasting, they go together like peanut butter and jelly. However, know that one also doesn’t require the other, and most people find it easier to implement intermittent fasting on a ketogenic based diet than a carb based one.

But we’ll get to that.

I am going to assume you know what keto is already, so we won't be doing an entire keto 101 in this article. If not, give my ketogenic diet guide a read through, but in general…

What is Keto?

Most websites and people would have you believe that keto is a “diet” or a certain type of “food,” and they would be right… to an extent.

In reality, ketosis is a metabolic state where your body essentially runs on ketones (fat) instead of glucose (sugar).

When you limit or eliminate your carbohydrates, your body has no choice but to break down the fat from the food you eat AND the fat on your body to create energy for your body and your brain.

It’s kind of like when you have a hankering for cereal and you run out of milk… so what do you do? You have to use water instead.

Basically, your body ends up running out of sugar and it’s forced to use what’s left… your fat stores.

Blasphemy, I know… but don’t pretend like you’ve never done that in your lifetime. Besides, you’re on a keto diet now so you ain’t about that cereal life anymore.

What is intermittent fasting?

In the most general of cases, intermittent fasting is combining periods of eating with periods without eating. Therefore, Intermittent fasting is not a diet per se; instead it's a pattern or schedule of eating.

When I say intermittent fasting is not a diet it's because IF doesn't change what you eat, it changes when you eat. That said, weight loss is the most common reason people give intermittent fasting a shot.

Examples of different intermittent fasting schedules

There is no one way to implement intermittent fasting, so I've outlined a few popular methods down below.

DAILY

One of the most popular ways to implement intermittent fasting is a daily fast of 16 hours followed by an 8-hour eating window. It really doesn't matter when you start your eight-hour eating window, but most people tend to start it around noon or early afternoon.

The reason most people have their feeding window in the afternoon is that, in general, people find it easier to skip breakfast, rather than dinner. Besides, if you went 16 hours without food and you can spend the first eight hours or so asleep… you would probably find it easier too.

On top of that, allowing for dinner makes it more convenient from a schedule standpoint. You can eat with your family or go out during social events and not be the only person in the room not eating

… because you're fasting.

Personally, I prefer this schedule because I like to go to bed on a full stomach.

As far as daily scheduled intermittent fasts go, people start to either shorten the eating window or even lengthen it slightly. Some might even go as far as to take all the calories for the day and eat it in one big meal.5

Remember, there are no hard or fast rules… if you find yourself slightly hungry before your “eating window,” then go ahead and eat. Vice versa, if you aren’t hungry and want to remain fasted, then remain fasted.

I’ve used this method of intermittent fasting on and off for over 10 years now, but I’m not fanatic about it to the point that it runs my day. If my friends or family go out to breakfast or some friends invite me over to watch the game and nosh on some wings, guess what? I don’t care that it’s outside of my “feeding window.”

WEEKLY

This schedule of intermittent fasting is generally a good way to introduce yourself to intermittent fasting. You pick one day out of the week and simply don’t eat.

It’s really that easy.

If going an entire day from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed seems daunting, try fasting after dinner (6pm for example) from the previous night until dinner (6pm) the following night. In the end, you still technically will have fasted for at least 24 hours and ends up like the (OMAD) one meal a day mentioned in the daily section.

Perhaps one of the biggest benefits of doing a weekly fast is getting over that mental barrier of fasting in the first place. If you’ve never fasted before, this may seem like a daunting task, but successfully completing your first 24-hour fast can help you realize it isn’t as frightening as your head makes it out to be.

ALTERNATE DAY

Alternate day fasting may be the most challenging schedule from a mental standpoint since you will be going without food for about ~36-hours at a time.

For example, you would eat normally on Monday until dinner, then begin your fast until Wednesday morning. Then, you would repeat the process by eating normally Wednesday and beginning your fast Wednesday after dinner and not eating until Friday morning.

Hypothetically, this would yield the most benefits since you are going long periods without food more frequently. Alternate day fasting would likely yield the most weight loss as well since you are going longer periods without food and more likely to have greater caloric deficit.

Assuming you don’t eat like an asshole on the days you do eat.

As I said, myself and many other much prefer the 18-hour daily fasts since it’s typically much easier to simply skip breakfast most days. If you do choose to combine keto and intermittent fasting then experiment with the different schedules and see how you feel.

Intermittent fasting. Not to be confused with intermittent dieting or intermittent energy restriction.

In short, intermittent dieting or intermittent energy restriction is NOT the same as intermittent fasting. Intermittent dieting is when you include brief periods, typically days or weeks, where you intentionally aim to MAINTAIN weight between periods of weight loss dieting.

These may be commonly referred to as refeeds or diet breaks.

But we’ll cover that in another article on why it may benefit you in the long run when it comes to losing weight.

Keto and intermittent fasting – They go to gather like peanut butter and jelly.

Keto and intermittent fasting for weight loss.

You may want to combine keto with intermittent fasting to accelerate your weight loss, but probably not for reasons you may have been led to believe. Research suggest that an 8 hour feeding window produces mild caloric restriction and weight loss, without calorie counting. 2

In layman's terms, it caused people to eat less overall. I mean, it makes sense right? You are essentially giving yourself less time to eat.

Which leads me to my second point…

Calories still matter. On a keto diet, when intermittent fasting, or combining keto and intermittent fasting… calories still matter. BUT, as the study suggested, intermittent fasting MAY be a way for you to eat less without really having to count calories.

AGAIN, as long as you don’t eat like an asshole during your 8-hour or however long eating window.

Personally, I can still easily manage to overeat in such a short time frame. However, I am an endless pit, and most normal people will find it difficult to cram too much food in such a short period of time

Thus making it a viable option if you can eat “sensibly” during your feeding window.

Reasons why keto and intermittent fasting work well together.

People are more satiated on a ketogenic diet

People tend to eat fewer calories on a ketogenic diet… SPONTANEOUSLY, as in without trying to restrict calories.3 This is important to note since hunger is a primary reasons people fall off most weight loss diets.

There is no conclusive reason to as why this occurs, but one theory is that ketone bodies (our primary fuel source on a ketogenic diet) may suppress appetite.4Sumithran et al., 2013

Pair intermittent fasting with keto and you have the benefit of:

Less or no hunger during your fasting window
Increased chance of weight loss without counting calories

On the flip side…

IF may ease your transition to a ketogenic diet

Intermittent fasting may help transition your body into a state of ketosis over doing a ketogenic diet alone.

During your fasting window, insulin and glycogen decrease, 5 naturally leading your body to start burning fat for fuel. This is one of the driving reasons people even on a carbohydrate-based diet implement intermittent fasting.

I also mention in my article How long does it take to get into ketosis? that intermittent fasting or just plain fasting will help speed up your transition into ketosis.

Intermittent fasting and Keto – Weight loss aside, here are some benefits.

You can type in intermittent fasting in google or your favorite social media platform and you’ll hear things like “autophagy” and IF made me poop rainbows and dream about unicorns.

Don’t get me wrong, you do you… and if you love doing it and you see results, then, by all means, keep doing it!

But if there comes a point where you’re stressing out about if you should eat, what can you eat, can you drink this, but I want this for breakfast, then you’re just better off not worrying about it. In the end, there’re bigger things you can focus on instead of watching the clock for when you can eat.

Up until recently, many of the intermittent fasting benefits you’ve heard (or haven’t heard) were weak at best. Many of the studies which reported benefits could easily be attributed to the weight loss participants experienced versus the actual intermittent fasting.

However, there are recent findings that may suggest intermittent fasting (also known as time-restricted feeding) does have benefits even WITHOUT weight loss.6Sutton et al., 2018

The only caveat, the feeding window would be more in line with your circadian rhythm. Meaning, you would eat according to your internal clock.

To simplify, you would have your FASTING window in the evening. Basically, eat during the first 8 hours of the day, generally when the suns out.

Which is probably the opposite of what most people are doing.

This schedule of eating is referred to as Early time-restricted feeding (eTRF) and has been shown to:

Increase insulin sensitivity
Lower blood pressure and oxidative stress
Lower the desire to eat in the evening (so maybe skipping dinner or making it super early might not be as bad as you might think)
Improve health EVEN in the absence of weight loss

The only problem with this is people are social beings and we eat for reasons beyond hunger, which is a problem it and of itself. It’s also much easier to fast during the day because people are typically busy at work and can focus on other things besides food.

It’s also just my humble opinion, but I think most of the benefits of eTRF stem from the fact that you’re eating earlier in the day versus the actual time restriction.

A large majority of the population suffer from circadian arrhythmia. 7 In today’s society, we tend to stay out (or just up) late, drink alcohol, expose our eyes to artificial light in the evenings, etc. Eating earlier may be a way to re-align our circadian rhythms.

If eTRF sounds like something you want to give a shot, you have my blessing.

Not that you needed it.

That said, intermittent fasting for me makes my day simpler.

Intermittent fasting allows me to eat one less meal, which also means cooking one less meal and therefore stressing about one less meal. When I wake up, I don’t have to worry about breakfast, but can get to other more important tasks at hand.

Like coffee. 😉

I also like to eat more substantial meals.

I’m the type of person that likes to eat HUGE meals and go to bed on a full stomach, whether that’s good or bad is a whole other topic of discussion we’ll save for another day. I’m not advocating you eat huge meals or go to bed on a full stomach, it’s just my preference and what works to keep me adherent to a caloric deficit.

… and remember, in the end a caloric deficit IS required to lose weight. Intermittent fasting can be used as a tool to achieve a caloric deficit whether you want to count calories or not.

Who should try an intermittent fasting Keto approach?

The jury is still out on whether there is an INCREASE in fat loss by using intermittent fasting versus traditional caloric restriction. A systematic review 8 was published in December of 20189Cioffi et al., 2018 that found no difference.

Both intermittent and continuous energy restriction achieved a comparable effect in promoting weight-loss and metabolic improvements.
– Cioffi et al., 2018

So the jury is still out on whether or not intermittent fasting is MORE effective than if you were to spread your meals throughout the day. This is also assuming you ate the same amount in the ~8-hour window or ~16-hour window.

That said, I would try intermittent fasting if:

You enjoy less frequent but LARGER meals
You don’t necessarily find yourself that hungry in the mornings (or evenings)
It allows you to adhere to your diet over the long term
You simply want to experiment

The bottom line on Keto and intermittent fasting

You need to be up front and honest with yourself if choosing to utilize intermittent fasting because context is everything. Don’t say that you’re doing it for health, autophagy, [insert reason you give your friends], when in reality it's that you think it burns more fat.

I do believe there are health benefits to intermittent fasting and fasting in general, but I’d be skeptical to assume there is any inherent fat loss benefit to restricting your eating window.

At the end of the day, intermittent fasting isn't magic when it comes to weight loss. If combining keto and intermittent fasting works for you and fits your lifestyle, then by all means…

Implement it.

However, if trying to implement keto and intermittent fasting makes everything much harder, stresses you out, or makes adhering to your diet more difficult, then it's not a worthwhile trade-off.

Keto and intermittent fasting F.A.Q.

Can you do keto and intermittent fasting together?

You can definitely do keto and intermittent fasting together. In fact, keto will make intermittent fasting much easier to adhere to due to its satiating nature.

Do I have to eat keto while intermittent fasting?

No, you do not have to eat keto while intermittent fasting.

Does intermittent fasting cause ketosis?

Intermittent doesn't directly cause someone to go into ketosis. That said, During the tail end of longer fasts it is highly likely that the body is beginning to produce ketones.

Do you fast on a keto diet?

Fasting is up to you whether or not you want to include it for the health benefits or diet adherence.

Is Intermittent Fasting better than Keto?

Intermittent fasting and keto are two entirely separate things. Intermittent fasting is a schedule of when to eat. Keto is a metabolic state achieved by what you eat.

Can I drink coffee during intermittent fasting?

Yes, you can drink coffee or any non caloric beverage during your fasting window.

How often should you intermittent fast on keto?

How often you intermittent fast on keto is dependent on your preference.

How much weight can you lose with intermittent fasting?

How much weight you can lose while intermittent fasting is dependent on your total caloric deficit. The recommendation is to lose between 0.5 – 1.5% of your total bodyweight per week. The more fat you have to lose the more you can expect to lose without risk of losing lean body mass.

How long is intermittent fasting?

The duration in which you intermittent fast is dependent on the method you choose to implement whether that's daily, weekly, or alternate day fasting.

How long does it take to get into ketosis while fasting?

From my experience, it typically takes between 24-48 hours to get into ketosis if completely fasting.

How long does it take for your body to go into ketosis?

How long it tales your body to go into ketosis depends on your previous diet, your activity levels, and what you are currently eating.

Can you go into ketosis in 24 hours?

Yes, it is possible to go into ketosis within 24 hours by fasting. While not always the case, you can typically start seeing low levels of ketones between 24 – 36 hours after starting a fast.

What is a fat fast?

People commonly refer to a fat fast as eating a diet composed of 80 – 90% fat for 4-5 days and limited to 1000-1200 calories broken down in 3-4 meals.