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Starting a Keto Diet: 3 Costly Mistakes To Avoid

July 15, 2018 5 min read

Starting a Keto Diet: 3 Costly Mistakes To Avoid

Over the past few years, the keto diet has been rising in popularity. In fact, Google Trends tell us that the popularity has increased by 200% over the past couple of years.

If you are into this low-carb diet, make sure you avoid three big mistakes that most dieters make when they go on this diet. This will help you get the most out of your diet. In other words, you will enjoy the best results.

For the first time, the keto diet was introduced 100 years back, give or take. The purpose of the diet was to treat epileptic kids. Today, it’s recommended to help people shed the extra pounds, improve focus, gain energy, treat digestive problems and type 2 diabetes, just to name a few.

Since the benefits of the keto diet can’t be counted, we are going to discuss how you can get the most out of this diet by avoiding the three costly mistakes.

 

The Fundamentals

All keto diets have one thing in common: they put you into the “ketosis” mode. In this metabolic state, your body burns fat instead of sugar in order to produce energy.

For this metabolic state, you need to go on a diet that contains a low amount of carbs and high amount fat.

 

How To Get Started

As far as theory goes, the diet is quite simple. It involves low carbs, high fat and a medium amount of protein. But it doesn’t explain what you can and can’t eat. Let’s shed some light on this aspect.

Things you can eat:

  • Healthy fats, such as olive oil, bacon fat, tallow, lard, ghee/butter, and coconut oil etc
  • Meats
  • Seafood and fish
  • Eggs
  • A few types of berries
  • Non-starchy vegetables

Here is what your daily meals should consist of:

  • For breakfast, you can have eggs and bacon
  • For lunch, you can have chicken salad and bone broth
  • For dinner, you can enjoy steak with properly sautéed vegetables

Given below are some more meal ideas by the supporters of keto diets

Stephen Phinney, a doctor of Nutritional Biochemistry, has been studying the keto diets for several years. He has also co-authored a book titled Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living. Given below is the meal plan he has written in this book.

  • Breakfast: sausages and black coffee
  • Lunch: fresh salad with olives, tuna, and blue cheese toppings
  • Snack: cheese, broth, nuts and celery sticks
  • Dinner: mushrooms, green beans, steak and tomato bisque
  • Dessert: delicious maple walnut ice cream

 

Common problems you may have over the first few weeks

Over the first week, you may feel a bit moody, nauseous, and tired. Typically, these symptoms occur while your body gets used to the ketones. You will go through these changes because you have been dependent on carbs for several decades. 

Although carbohydrate flue won’t last more than 7 to 14 days, you can get rid of it with a few easy strategies.

  • Consume more water
  • Have more exogenous ketones or MCT oil
  • Consume more of healthy protein and fats
  • Add a small number of clean carbohydrates, such as fruit or sweet potatoes to your diet

Once the first stage is over, you will gain a good deal of physical and mental energy. You won’t have reduced energy in the afternoon. Although you will sleep a bit less, you will wake up with a fresh mind and body. Similarly, you may not eat as much as you won’t feel hungry.

At first, it’s a good idea to make use of a breath or blood ketone meter. The device will help you get a better idea of the number of ketones in your breath or blood. The readings will spur on you to keep moving as your body goes through the transition.

 

3 Costly Mistakes To Avoid

For maximum benefits, you need to watch out for a couple of problems while you are on the diet. Let’s talk about the three common mistakes that you should avoid.

#1 The lack of sodium, potassium, and magnesium

Although regular diets provide us with enough sodium, your low-carb diet may not meet your sodium, magnesium or potassium need. Most processed foods contain a good amount of these three elements.

While you may think the deficiency of sodium is not a problem, typically, it leads to fatigue and heightened cravings. Therefore, you must have enough sodium.

When you are on a keto diet, you need to have the right amount of potassium as well. Since you lose a lot of it on a low-carb diet, we suggest that you replenish the lost amount by adding a bit more of potassium to your regular meals. For this purpose, avocados and spinach can be great choices.

Another mineral that we don’t have enough of is magnesium. Some people blame the soil depletion for the lack of this mineral in our meals. Magnesium plays a great role in your mood, sleep, muscles and overall health. So, getting enough of it is a stroke of genius.

You can get all of these minerals by drinking bone broth. Bone broth contains a lot of magnesium, potassium, and sodium.

 

#2 Not eating vegetables

The key to success when you are on a keto diet is to avoid consuming too many carbohydrates. Some people think they should avoid all type of veggies to achieve the purpose. But this is a misconception.

We know that some veggies, such as mushrooms and onions offer a lot of carbs, make sure you don’t eat a lot of them.

Since it’s vital that you maintain your health, make sure you have enough minerals and vitamins. So, eating veggies is important. The types of vegetables you can eat include green smoothies, sautés and salads, to name a few.

 

#3 Not Doing exercise

Changing a diet doesn’t mean you should avoid doing exercise. In fact, exercising is important for a healthy lifestyle. Over the first few weeks, it may be difficult for you to keep going and you might not feel like going to the gym either.

However, you should encourage yourself to do exercise, at least for a few minutes each day. It will help you get used to the new diet faster aside from helping you shed the extra weight. Some good exercises include walking, squats, situps and pushups.

 

Duration of your keto diet

There is no rule of thumb as to how long your keto diet duration should be. Most keto dieters think that it serves as a tool to lose weight and improve mental clarity. Some dieters go on a keto diet for a couple of weeks. Afterward, they adopt a Paleo diet for a couple of months and then they go back to the keto diet again.

Like some people, if you want to use a keto diet as a therapy, make sure you stick to it for a longer period of time. Make sure you discuss it with a good health practitioner.

 

Customize Your Diet

Some people go on a keto diet just because they want to try something new. So, they share a lot of data and ideas by doing a lot of experiments.

You can personalize your ketogenic diet. For instance, you can choose to add a bit more fat or a bit more carbs. You can also try intermittent fasting.

In short, the ketogenic diet is getting quite popular among the masses. So, if you want to give it a try, make sure you have an open mind and keep on improving your physical as well as mental health.

 


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