One sustainable weight loss strategy is to follow a certain diet. Diets come with a set of challenges, but as with anything in life, preparation is key to achieving your goals. A popular weight-loss diet that many fitness buffs and health-conscious people swear by is the keto diet.
Top 5 keto hacks
The ketogenic diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet that offers many health benefits, including weight loss and protection against diabetes, cancer, epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease.
Whether you are a keto newbie or living the keto life, these five diet hacks will help boost your results and ensure sustainable and achievable weight loss. (h/t to EcoWatch.com)
1. Create the perfect keto "environment"
Starting a diet means changing your eating habits, especially the part that involves unhealthy cravings. It is hard to keep your resolve and discipline in the face of uncontrollable cravings, which is why many people cave in just a few months into their chosen diet.
If you want to successfully lose weight through the keto diet, create the perfect food environment that can help you reach your keto goals and motivate you to sustain the plan for the long term.
Home food environment
- Take away carb-heavy and unhealthy foods. If there are family members to consider, store the foods in a place that is out of your sight and reach to reduce cravings.
- Make all keto-friendly foods easy to access in convenient places to make sticking to your the diet a lot easier.
- Reduce portion sizes by eating off smaller plates.
- Cravings are unavoidable, so plan for them by stocking up on keto-friendly sweeteners and preparing keto desserts ahead of time. Note that keto-friendly desserts are not calorie-free, so watch how much you eat.
Food environment while traveling
- Prepare keto-friendly snacks that you can easily carry when you're on the go. Having food on hand can keep your cravings at bay and prevent overeating.
- Before leaving the house, check for keto-friendly restaurants and stores around the area where you are going to make sure you have keto-friendly options available.
- If you are away for a few days and have not packed enough keto-friendly snacks, there is no harm in trying out some local food in moderation. You can still prevent overeating and weight gain while traveling as long as you make sensible choices and stay active.
2. Introduce MCT oil
Medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) are a type of healthy fat often added to keto-friendly smoothies, bulletproof coffee and salad dressings.
MCTs are easily digested and go straight to the liver where they are converted into ketones. When you're on a keto diet, taking MCT oil can help you stay in a fat-burning state called ketosis. Maintaining ketosis is believed to provide benefits like improved insulin sensitivity and reduced feelings of hunger. Other positive benefits include improved gut health and thermogenic effects that help burn fat faster.
MCT oil is commonly extracted from coconut oil; more than 50 percent of the fat in coconut oil comes from MCTs.
3. Take exogenous ketone salts
Another effective way of increasing ketones in your body is by taking exogenous ketone salt supplements.
Exogenous ketones help support the body during the keto diet by speeding up and maintaining ketosis, staving off keto flu, restoring lost electrolytes, reducing appetite and increasing energy.
Top quality exogenous ketone supplements contain at least three to four types of beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB)-derived ketone salts, including sodium, calcium, magnesium and potassium. The recommended daily serving is around 2,000 mg on average.
4. Be active and exercise
Diet and exercise are the winning combination of any weight loss journey. However, in terms of the keto diet, rigorous exercise is not advisable especially in the first few weeks since your body may experience what is called the keto flu. When you cut carbs out of your diet, your body reacts by showing flu-like symptoms as it learns to switch over from burning sugar to burning fat.
The initial keto flu symptoms usually subside after a few weeks, after which you can incorporate regular exercise to your weight loss strategy once again. Continue your usual workout routine but avoid introducing anything new or strenuous until your body has maintained ketosis and the keto flu has passed.
Moderately intense exercises are more suitable for boosting the fat burning potential of the body.
5. Consider intermittent fasting
Dieters often pair the keto diet with intermittent fasting to effectively shed extra pounds. Intermittent fasting provides a window, or a set number of hours within the day, when you can eat, after which the remaining hours are dedicated to fasting. There are several variations of intermittent fasting, but each one does the same for your health, such as regulating insulin production, controlling calories and improving gut health. (Related: Tips for working out in the morning and pursuing intermittent fasting after.)
The keto diet has become increasingly popular as an effective weight loss strategy. Learn more about it and other weight loss diets at Slender.news.
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