So you're ready to adapt to a ketogenic
diet to lose weight and improve your health you've come to the right place
making any big lifestyle or diet changes can be challenging especially at first
there are a lot of new routines to learn and old habits to unlearn but we've seen
over and over again with the people in the ruled.me community that over time
keto becomes the new normal and the dramatic results are so worth it what's
the best way to get started with a ketogenic diet here we'll outline three
steps to keto success but first let's define what a keto diet is simply put it
is a high fat low carb low to moderate protein diet by drastically restricting
carbohydrates in your diet the body will enter and sustain ketosis a metabolic
state where the body burns a highly efficient alternative fuel called
ketones not only does the keto diet help with weight loss but current research
also indicates that it can help to improve health conditions like heart
disease type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's disease to start your keto journey off
on the right foot here are our top three key pieces of advice eat the right foods
eat the right amount of those foods and prepare for the keto flu let's start with food your goal on a
consistent basis is to replace carb heavy foods with keto friendly foods
this will help you eat fewer calories than before and help jump-start and
sustain ketosis you will need to focus on meat high fat dairy and healthy oils
leafy green and above-ground vegetables nuts and seeds avocado berries and keto
approved sweeteners you'll need to entirely avoid grains sugar fruit and
starchy vegetables for more info see our video keto cooking keto food list for
plenty more information on what to eat and what not to eat on keto you'll be
relying a lot more on home-cooked food than packaged processed or prepare foods
it's important to note that you don't have to figure out how to do this on
your own there are so many resources on ruled me including meal plans shopping
lists budget breakdowns and recipes will teach you to avoid common pitfalls how
to read labels and nutritional information and which keto foods can be
swapped and substituted for foods that are off-limits you might be surprised
how many things like bread pasta cookies and ice cream you can still enjoy if you
just learn how to make them keto friendly it's not just eating the right foods
though that is the foundation of the diet you must also learn how much to eat
which brings us to our second point a keto diet can help you to restrict your
calorie intake in a slow and steady way which leads to long-term weight loss but
it can be hard to do this if you're not carefully tracking what you eat one way
to figure out how much you should be eating on a keto diet is to check on
your progress every few weeks and adjust accordingly if you're not seeing the
results you want you can also use the ruled.me keto calculator which we find
to be a more precise method you'll also need to track your macronutrients or
macros those are fats carbs and protein which need to be kept in careful balance
to keep your body in ketosis as a general rule we recommend eating below
35 grams of carbs a day and aiming to get 70% of your calories from fat and
25% from protein the keto calculator can help you dial in exactly what to be
aiming for each day and will keep you on track for a deeper dive into macros
check out our video macros and keto calculator finally when you're starting
out on a ketogenic diet you must prepare for the keto flu when you first cut back
on carbohydrates your body will experience some changes as it adjusts to
your lifestyle one possible change is the keto flu an umbrella term for the
flu-like symptoms you may encounter like fatigue or mental fogginess usually
these symptoms only last a short while but it is best to be prepared you will
need to drink more water increase your sodium potassium and magnesium intake
and eat more fat especially MCTS most importantly check in with yourself
from time to time to monitor the changes in your body composition and how you
feel to be sure that the ketogenic diet is the right choice for you for more
info on keto be sure to watch the other ruled me videos and check out the wealth
of information on our website ruled dot me