Perhaps you are just starting on your Keto journey and are trying to figure out how long it will take take to get into Ketosis. Maybe you cheated on your Keto Diet and are keen to get quickly back into fat-burning mode.
In this video Health Coach Tara from Tara’s Keto Kitchen, explains how long it takes to get into ketosis, whether it is after a cheat day, or even as a beginner.
Firstly we need to briefly explain what happens to our body as we move into a state of Ketosis.
When you eat a normal high-carb diet, your body burns glucose for fuel. Glucose is stored in a few places in your body as glycogen. The primary places where the glycogen is stored is in the liver and in the muscles.
Fun fact, our liver holds about 400 calories of glycogen. Our skeletal muscle stores between 1400 and 2000 calories worth of glycogen and will not share this stored glycogen with other parts of the body.
To get into Ketosis, we need to empty these glycogen stores and prompt our liver to start breaking down fats and fatty acids for energy. This causes your body to burn fat for fuel rather than glycogen for fuel, which results in a state of Ketosis.
So how long to get into Ketosis can be rephrased to ask how long this process takes.
Getting into a state of Ketosis varies from person to person. But as a general rule, it takes about 3 days of eating a high fat and very low carbohydrate diet before you find yourself entering a true state of Ketosis.
Being in full state of Ketosis usually takes anywhere from 7 to 30 days. There are a few things you can however do to help your body through this transition.
First, working out will help your body to deplete the glycogen stores. If you are exercising to speed the process along, make sure you drink a good electrolyte drink to prevent dehydration and consume plenty of water.
A good guideline for water consumption is to consume your body weight of water in ounces. As an example, if you weigh a 150 pounds, you would ideally be drinking about 150 ounces of water.
If you are not a regular water drinker, increase your water consumption slowly over time and aim for at least a hundred ounces per day.
A second way to speed up the process is through fasting. Fasting will get you into ketosis quicker than just doing the high fat low carb diet. Tara however does not recommend fasting for your first attempt at keto because it is very difficult for most people to fast.
As with exercise, when fasting make sure you get enough water and the electrolyte drink.
The third way is through Exogenous Ketones. Exogenous means external. These are supplements that are external sources of ketones for your body to use.
Many of the Exogenous Ketone Products on the market claims to get you into Ketosis within 30 minutes. After a year of research, Tara has found that they do not push your body into Ketosis faster than any other method.
Lets look at a few of the benefits and a few of the disadvantages of these products.
Benefits:
- Some people finds them useful to avoid the Keto “flu” as they move through the transition, because most of them contain sodium and potassium.
- Athletes can benefit from tapping into the additional energy source during strenuous work outs.
- They can also assist in appetite control and to reduce cravings.
Disadvantages:
- They are expensive.
- They also sometimes cause people distress through stomach aches and diarrhea.
- And they are expensive. 🙂
In Tara’s opinion there are much better ways to prevent the keto flu and handle cravings and appetite, for instance using homemade electrolyte drinks.
Let me know how your keto journey is going.
Leave a Reply