Tim Ferriss – 3 Day Fast Protocol Details – Get Into Ketosis Quicker And Easier
In Tim Ferriss’ new book Tools of Titans he puts forward a method to optimize the process of fasting. In his typical 80/20 style, he aims to get the most benefits, in the least amount of time. His recommended fast is conducted in a 3 day period, spanning Thursday evening to Sunday evening. 3-Day Fast Overview Stop eating Thursday night Friday morning go for a long walk to accelerate your transition into ketosis Friday and Saturday stay fasted, and consume moderate amounts of exogenous ketones and MCT oil (as needed), to give you a boost while you’re keto adapting. Sunday evening you break the fast. Here’s the process in more detail if you don’t have Tools of Titans to hand: Thursday Evening Eat a low carbohydrate dinner around 6pm. Make that the last meal of the day. Go to bed as normal. Friday Morning Drink some caffeine if needed, then get out the door and walk within 30 minutes of waking. Bring at least 1 litre of water, with some added salt (to prevent headaches/cramping), and sip as you walk. Walk for 3-4 hours(!). Filling up/buying more water as needed. Arrange phone calls for this time, to make the time productive. The idea behind the walk is that you use up your glycogen stores, forcing your body to move quicker into deep ketosis. The quicker you get into ketosis, the less time you spend feeling sub-optimal, and the less potential muscle wastage. Friday Day (post walk) Consume exogenous ketones or MCT oil 2-3 times throughout the day, where necessary. Tim primarily uses KetoCaNa & KetoForce as exogenous ketone sources. Both these products contain 11.7g of Beta-hydroxybuterate per serving, and each contain 16 servings. The key difference is that KetoForce is an unflavoured (alkaline) liquid. And KetoCaNa is an orange flavoured powder you can mix into wate Continue reading >>
7 Tips To Get Into Ketosis
Ketosis is a normal metabolic process that provides several health benefits. During ketosis, your body converts fat into compounds known as ketones and begins using them as its main source of energy. Studies have found that diets that promote ketosis are highly beneficial for weight loss, due in part to their appetite-suppressing effects (1, 2). Emerging research suggests that ketosis may also be helpful for type 2 diabetes and neurological disorders, among other conditions (3, 4). That being said, achieving a state of ketosis can take some work and planning. It's not just as simple as cutting carbs. Here are 7 effective tips to get into ketosis. Eating a very low-carb diet is by far the most important factor in achieving ketosis. Normally, your cells use glucose, or sugar, as their main source of fuel. However, most of your cells can also use other fuel sources. This includes fatty acids, as well as ketones, which are also known as ketone bodies. Your body stores glucose in your liver and muscles in the form of glycogen. When carb intake is very low, glycogen stores are reduced and levels of the hormone insulin decline. This allows fatty acids to be released from fat stores in your body. Your liver converts some of these fatty acids into the ketone bodies acetone, acetoacetate and beta-hydroxybutyrate. These ketones can be used as fuel by portions of the brain (5, 6). The level of carb restriction needed to induce ketosis is somewhat individualized. Some people need to limit net carbs (total carbs minus fiber) to 20 grams per day, while others can achieve ketosis while eating twice this amount or more. For this reason, the Atkins diet specifies that carbs be restricted to 20 or fewer grams per day for two weeks to guarantee that ketosis is achieved. After this point, s Continue reading >>
Burn Fat Fast: Starting A Ketogenic Diet For Weight Loss
Unless you’ve been living under a rock these last few years, there’s no doubt that you’ve seen the word keto plastered all over magazines, websites, and supplements. Short for ketogenic, this diet craze is sweeping over the nation and with good reason: there are a variety of studies that demonstrate a number of potential benefits including weight loss, cognitive boosting, and decreased risk of certain diseases. If you have tried every diet in the book without success, the ketogenic diet may be the one that brings you the success you’ve been wanting. Let’s take a look at what the ketogenic diet is and how you can begin to safely and effectively follow it for real results. Carbohydrate Abuse The Ketogenic Diet focuses on getting you into a state called Ketosis, which we will talk more about below. How do you achieve Ketosis? By focusing on fat, not carbohydrates. Here’s the breakdown: On your current diet, your body is using glucose primarily or exclusively from carbohydrates as a main source of fuel. You eat carbohydrates such as rice, bread, and baked goods then your body converts those carbohydrates into usable glucose. The problem with carbohydrates is that we, as a global population, tend to eat too many. Excess carbohydrate intake, especially from sugar, promotes excess fat storage and consequently weight gain. What’s more, higher glycemic, sugar-based carbohydrates are linked to diseases such as diabetes. In other words, carbohydrate-focused diets can be healthy when practiced correctly but they also present a number of health issues. This constant carbohydrate abuse has resulted in a shift away from our carb-happy lifestyles to focus on a macronutrient that has long been mistakenly identified as a direct cause of weight gain. We’re talking, of cour Continue reading >>
Fasting And Exercise
Is it possible to exercise while fasting? This is a common question we hear all the time and the simple answer is ‘Yes’. People think that food gives them energy and therefore it will be difficult to fast and exercise at the same time. Some people with physically demanding jobs feel that they could not fast and work properly. What’s the truth? Let’s think logically about what happens when we eat. Insulin goes up telling your body to use some of that food energy immediately. The remainder is stored as sugar (glycogen in the liver). Once the glycogen stores are full, then the liver manufactures fat (DeNovo Lipogenesis). Dietary protein is broken down into component amino acids. Some is used to repair proteins but excess amino acids are turned to glucose. Dietary fat is absorbed directly by the intestines. It doesn’t undergo any further transformation and is stored as fat. Insulin’s main action is to inhibit lipolysis. This means that it blocks fat burning. The incoming flood of glucose from food is sent to the rest of the body to be used as energy. So what happens during a fast? It’s just the food-storage process in reverse. First, your body burns the stored sugar, then it burns the stored fat. In essence, during feeding you store food energy. During fasting, you burn energy from your stored food (sugar and fat). Note that the amount of energy that is used by, and available to, your body stays the same. The basal metabolic rate stays the same. This is the basic energy used for vital organs, breathing, heart function etc. Eating does not increase basal metabolism except for the small amount used to digest food itself (the thermic effect of food). If you exercise while fasting, the body will start by burning sugar. Glycogen is a molecule composed of many sugar Continue reading >>
Exercise & Ketosis
This is a summary/extract from The Ketogenic Diet by Lyle McDonald. When muscle glycogen falls to extremely low levels (about 40 mmol/kg), anaerobic exercise performance may be negatively affected. Individuals following a ketogenic diet who wish to lift weights or perform sprint training must make modifications by consuming carbohydrates for optimal performance. During long term ketogenic diets, muscle glycogen maintains at about 70 mmol/kg (113-115) leaving a ‘safety factor’ of about 30 mmol/kg at which time glycolysis will most likely be impaired. Low-intensity aerobic exercise, below the lactate threshold, is useful for both establishing ketosis following an overnight fast as well as deepening ketosis. High-intensity exercise will more quickly establish ketosis by forcing the liver to release glycogen into the bloodstream. However it can decrease the depth of ketosis by decreasing the availability of FFA. Performing ten minutes or more of low-intensity aerobics following high-intensity activity will help re-establish ketosis after high-intensity activity. There is a caloric threshold for exercise to improve the rate of fat loss. A calorie deficit more than 1000 cal/day will slow metabolism. Further increases in energy expenditure past that level does not increase fat loss. In some cases, excess exercise will increase the drop in metabolic rate seen with very large calorie deficits. This value of 1000 calories per day includes any caloric deficit AND exercise. Meaning that if 500 calories per day are removed from the diet, no more than 500 calories per day of exercise should be performed. If someone chose to remove 1000 calories per day from their diet, no aerobic exercise should be done to avoid metabolic slowdown. The decrease in metabolic rate seen with very lo Continue reading >>
How To Exercise On A Keto Diet
Following several requests from my readers, I will be sharing my thoughts on exercise and nutrition that is specific to those of who stay physically active and follow a keto diet. In this post, I'll try to cover the basic facts and myths about training on a ketogenic diet. This post will not cover details of exercise nutrition (e.g. whether to eat carbs before or after exercise which is not as straightforward as you may think), essential supplements, specific types of training or my personal exercise routine. These topics are covered in this post: Keto Diet Nutrition & Exercise: Carbs - and many more will follow in my future posts. So let's start with some basics of training on a keto diet. The "Exercise More and Eat Less" Dogma When you ask people what is the purpose of exercise, the most common answers are: to lose weight (body fat) to get fit and stay healthy to look and feel good to build muscles and strength When your goal is fat loss, the most common mistake is to go on a calorie restricted diet and add more exercise, usually prolonged cardio, in an effort to lose weight. When this approach fails, most people simply decrease their calorie intake and take on even more exercise. By doing so, most become physically and mentally exhausted with no real weight loss. The more they stick to this approach, the more like they will overexercise and/ or overeat, putting an increasing amount of stress on their body. The side effects of that are accelerating the ageing process of their cells and increasing the level of chronic inflammation. This approach is simply not sustainable and can harm your body. Years before I started following a low-carb approach, I used to spend hours exercising every week. In fact, I used to go to gym almost every day for an hour or more, usually doi Continue reading >>
How Long Does It Take To Get Into Ketosis?
A question a lot of people who start a Ketogenic Diet want to know is, how long does it take to get into ketosis? After all, it is being in a state of ketosis that makes the diet, “ketogenic” in the first place. Being in Ketosis not only supercharges your body to be in an optimal fat-burning zone. It also gives you a longer, sustained energy, enhanced cognition, improved focus and other neuroprotective benefits. The Advantages of Ketosis don’t end there Being on a Ketogenic Diet and having your body rely on fats as its fuel comes with cardiovascular benefits as well. It has been shown that ketosis lowers bad LDL cholesterol while increasing good HDL cholesterol, decreasing a person’s risk of heart disease as well as improving insulin resistance amongst others. There are also studies into the ketogenic diet’s effects on Alzheimers Disease, Bipolar Disorder among others that have shown promising results. The Ketogenic Diet itself was used in the early 1900’s to control epileptic seizures and is still used today for those resistant to seizure medication. But we won’t dive deeply into all of that today. Today we’re going to answer the question, how long does it take to get into ketosis? So, how long does it take to get into Ketosis? Nobody can tell you accurately how long it will take to get into ketosis as the time it takes for your body to start creating ketone bodies varies between individuals. We all have unique metabolisms, varying resistance to insulin, previous diet, and other biological factors that differentiate us from one another. If one were to give a timeframe, it would be safe to say that typically you can expect your body to get into ketosis within a period of 2-10 days if you stick to the recommended macro nutrients. (use our keto calculator Continue reading >>
How To Lose Stubborn Belly Fat Through Ketosis
Losing stubborn belly fat is one of the biggest challenges when getting in shape. Belly fat is not only aesthetically unappealing, it has health consequences. It can make you vulnerable to many conditions such as diabetes and heart problems. In this blog, we will share with you why belly fat is so ‘stubborn’ to burn, explain what exactly is Ketosis and how you can lose stubborn belly fat through Ketosis. We will also share a specific exercise and a diet plan to help burn this belly fat. What is Stubborn Belly fat and why it is bad for our health? While you may have fat all over different parts of your body, it isn’t the same. Stubborn belly fat is the soft layers of fat around the waistline that covers your abs. To be more precise, there are three types of fat: Triglycerides– A fat circulates in your blood Subcutaneous Fat– The layer of fat directly below the skin’s surface. This is the fat you can grab with your hands Visceral Fat– The dangerous fat. This is located beneath the muscles in your stomach Belly fat unfortunately does not just sit still. Some visceral fat is necessary, but too much can lead to health problems. You can estimate whether you are carrying too much belly fat by measuring your waist with tape. Anything over 80 cm (31.5 inches) in women and 94 cm (37 inches) can provoke health issues. Carrying excess visceral fat is associated with an increased risk for: Coronary heart disease Cancer Stroke Dementia Diabetes Depression Arthritis Obesity Sexual dysfunction Sleep disorders Why is Stubborn belly fat so “Stubborn”? To understand what makes belly fat so difficult to burn,let’s dive into the biology. Burning fat is a two-part process: Lipolysis is the process whereby fat cells release molecules of stored fat into the blood. Oxidation Continue reading >>
How Do I Speed Up Ketosis?
Source Putting your body in a state of ketosis is useful in some cases, especially if you suffer from seizure disorders or epilepsy, says the University of Maryland Medical Center. Ketosis can also lead to weight and fat loss and occurs when ketone bodies (made from fat instead of glucose from carbohydrates) are your body's primary fuel source. Regardless of the reason you want to speed up ketosis, following a few simple tips will point you in the right direction. 1. Eat Primarily Fat Eat 1 to 4 grams of fat for every 1 gram of carbs plus protein as part of a ketogenic diet, suggests the Epilepsy Foundation. Keep in mind strict ketogenic diets should be medically supervised when you first begin the diet and be monitored periodically. These diets generally consist of 4:1 or 3:1 (fat to carbs/protein) ratios. Less restrictive medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) diets typically have 1:1 fat to carb/protein ratios. So, your meals will mainly consist of dietary fat: Choose coconut, palm kernel, olive, canola, and other plant-based oils. Other fats that can help fuel your body when following ketogenic diets include butter, mayonnaise, and heavy whipping cream. Sidney Kimmel Medical College provides some sample ketogenic diet menus. Some suggestions they offer include: Adding heavy cream to orange juice Cooking eggs with butter or other fats Mixing heavy cream into diet soda Adding cheese and mayonnaise to increase fat Low-carb diets can also lead to ketosis, but are generally less restrictive. For example, try a 1,200-calorie, low-carb menu. 2. Know Your Carb Allotment Following ketogenic diets can be tricky as lots of math and numbers are often involved. The Charlie Foundation provides a quick reference for carb allotment recommendations to achieve and maintain ketosis. 4:1 Rati Continue reading >>
Fasting And Exercise – Fasting 23
Is it possible to exercise while fasting? This is a common question we hear all the time. People think that food gives them energy and therefore it will be difficult to fast and exercise at the same time. Some people with physically demanding jobs feel that they could not fast and work properly. What’s the truth? Well, let’s think about this logically for a second. When you eat, insulin goes up telling your body to use some of that food energy immediately. The remainder is stored as sugar (glycogen in the liver). Once the glycogen stores are full, then the liver manufactures fat (DeNovo Lipogenesis). Dietary protein is broken down into component amino acids. Some is used to repair proteins but excess amino acids are turned to glucose. Dietary fat is absorbed directly by the intestines. It doesn’t undergo any further transformation and is stored as fat. Insulin’s main action is to inhibit lipolysis. This means that it blocks fat burning. The incoming flood of glucose from food is sent to the rest of the body to be used as energy. So what happens during a fast? Well, it’s just the process in reverse. First, your body burns the stored sugar, then it burns the stored fat. In essence, during feeding you burn food energy. During fasting, you burn energy from your stored food (sugar and fat). Note that the amount of energy that is used by and available to your body stays the same. The basal metabolic rate stays the same. This is the basic energy used for vital organs, breathing, heart function etc. Eating does not increase basal metabolism except for the small amount used to digest food itself (the thermic effect of food). If you exercise while fasting, the body will start by burning sugar. Glycogen is a molecule composed of many sugars all put together. When it come Continue reading >>
How To Get Into Ketosis In 24 Hours: Practical Tips And Tricks
Some people need to be in ketosis for medical reasons while others need to be in a fat-burning mode for athletic competitions. Whatever the reason, I’ve conjured up tips on how to get into ketosis in 24 hours. Before I begin… These tips are purely from experience. While a lot of it has been backed by research, always take things with a grain of salt. There is no one size fits all diet that will turn you into superman. Anyways.. When I first adopted the low carb high fat keto lifestyle a couple years back, I became obsessed with it. To me it felt like I just struck a goldmine. It felt like some sort of esoteric subculture that no one knows about and those that do, have a leg up on their competition. With this newfound obsession, I spent hours on researching, implementing, and documenting how to get into ketosis as fast as possible. The science is out there. Study after study showing how beneficial being in ketosis is. Through trial and error, I’ve conjured up these tips on how to get into ketosis in 24 hours. Some of it is probably obvious and common sense but that doesn’t mean it isn’t effective. Starting Tips On How To Get Into Ketosis In 24 Hours Start Intermittent Fasting (IF) I’ve mentioned it in a previous post, here. Intermittent fasting is like peanut butter and jelly, like batman and robin, like a fork and spoon, like Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump (just kidding). But seriously. By prolonging the time in which you eat your first meal, your body begins to enter a fat-burning stage (ketosis). I emphasize intermittent fasting with the ketogenic diet because it speeds up the whole process in depleting your glycogen storages. My recommendation is to skip breakfast completely. A popular protocol that many people praise is the 16:8 hour fast. This means y Continue reading >>
This Is How To Get Into Ketosis The Right Way
What if I told you that you can get into ketosis only in 2 days. It is possible. What about one day? Also possible! 1 hour? Of course! Most people are looking for the easiest and the fastest solution to everything. “Lose 20 pounds in 1 day with this magic pill!” Did it work for you? I don’t think so. I don’t blame people who want it to be easy and fast. I was one of those people when I started a ketogenic diet. What I didn’t realize is that it is not about how fast I get into ketosis, it is about changing my lifestyle and sticking to it day in and day out. Today, I want to talk about how to get into ketosis the right way. This is a blueprint that you can use when starting out with a ketogenic diet or when you want to get back into ketosis. I will also provide you with necessary techniques, shopping list, and recipes that will help you to start the keto diet and get into ketosis. Ketosis vs. keto-adapted There is a lot of confusion all over the Internet about being in ketosis vs being keto-adapted (fat adapted). Some people use them interchangeably without fully understanding the meaning behind them. Let’s clarify both terms and find out which one we are trying to achieve today. What is ketosis? Ketosis is a metabolic process that is activated when our body doesn’t have enough glycogen (derived from carbs) for our cells to burn for energy. Instead, it starts to convert fat deposits (adipose) to energy. As a part of this process, it makes ketones. Ketone bodies are water-soluble molecules that are produced by our liver from fatty acids. We produce ketones because fatty acids can’t cross a blood-brain barrier, and they can’t be used by our brain as energy. When people talk about nutritional ketosis they associate it with the presence of ketones in your bo Continue reading >>
The Interplay Of Exercise And Ketosis – Part I
I embarked on a self-experiment last weekend to see if I could better understand the interplay between the different types of exercise I do and ketone production (beta-hydroxybutyrate, or B-OHB, to be specific). To be clear, nothing I do with a sample size of one “proves” anything, but sometimes self-experiments can help you formulate hypotheses and, if nothing else, understand how your body works. Consider the parable of the black sheep. If you see even a single black sheep in the field, depending on your field of training, you can draw conclusions: Three scientists were on a train and had just crossed the border into Scotland. A black sheep was grazing on a hillside. The biologist peered out of the window and said, “Look! Scottish sheep are black!” The chemist said, “No, no. Some Scottish sheep are black.” The physicist, with an irritated tone in his voice, said, “My friends, there is at least one field, containing at least one sheep, of which at least one side is black some of the time.” My point is, even a self-experiment of one can be good for something. To test the relationship between exercise and ketosis I decided to examine my blood levels of glucose, B-OHB, and lactate immediately before and after three different types of workouts on three successive days. This interplay is complex and no one knows “everything” about it, including the world’s experts (which I am not pretending to be). I’m going to try to balance a fine line in this post – I want to be rigorous enough to explore the ideas with substance but not too detailed to put you to sleep. I hope I am able to balance these forces adequately. If any of you are not familiar with the work of Jeff Volek and Steve Phinney, but you are interested in the biochemistry of nutritional ketos Continue reading >>
How To Get Your Body Into Ketosis: 6 Simple Tips
If you’re looking to burn fat off your body fast, then you need your body to get into ketosis. This is the basis behind the ketogenic diet. Most of us have bodies that are sugar burners. This isn’t a bad thing. Most of our diets lead to our body wanting to burn sugars first anyway. That’s the problem, though, our diets. A lot of the foods we eat on a daily basis are going to convert into glucose when they are processed by our bodies. This leads to our bodies looking at the glucose as its main source of energy instead of fat. When your body is using sugar for energy, it’s burning that instead of any fat you may be wanting to get rid of. If you can get your body into ketosis, it will become a fat burner instead of a sugar burner. This means that your body will look to burn fat for energy instead of something else. You will then begin to start shedding fat off your body and you’ll begin seeing the pound come off. Getting into ketosis isn’t a very easy task. There is a process that you need to go through. Your body will be making a major change. You’ve probably been a sugar burner your entire life so changing into ketosis will be a giant leap. Tips to Get into Ketosis Below are going to tips on how to get your body into ketosis. They are proven tips so if you follow them, you should be a fat burner in no time. If you’re looking for more guidelines on how to change your body, look at this 28-day challenge that is guaranteed to help you drop fat and make your body a fat-burning machine. Lower Carb Intake One of the first things you need to do if you want to get into ketosis is to bring your carb intake way down. Not just a little bit, you need to have a significant drop in the amount of carbs you eat daily. This is by far the most important tip when it comes t Continue reading >>
Will Exercise Put Me Into Ketosis Quicker?
When using a low-carbohydrate diet, the basic idea of ketosis remains critical to your long-term success. Ketosis involves burning fatty acids as your primary fuel source. Both exercise and diet play a role in your ability to achieve and maintain a ketogenic state. Exercise also plays a role in how quickly you enter ketosis, but this depends on both your training volume and intensity. Consult a health care provider before beginning any diet or exercise program. Video of the Day Ketosis, the state in which your body primarily burns fatty acids as fuel, takes work to achieve and maintain. Even though you will always burn a certain amount of fatty acids, you must drop your glycogen levels low enough that your body relies mostly on burning fat for energy. Reducing sugar levels is primarily done by restricting dietary carbohydrates. The more restrictive your diet, the quicker you enter the ketogenic state. This state is a delicate balance, so once you achieve ketosis, you must work to maintain it. Exercise uses various forms of energy for fuel, such as amino acids, fats and carbohydrates. The more you exercise, the more you deplete your body of its reserves, including glycogen. The more glycogen you deplete, the less your body has to use for available energy. When your glycogen levels drop low enough, you enter ketosis. While light exercise will slowly deplete your blood sugar, exercise intensity plays a significant role in not only how quickly you enter ketosis, but how easily you maintain ketosis. In addition to depleting your blood sugar, exercise also depletes muscle glycogen, but this is also determined by how hard you exercise. A light walk is not a strain for most people, so to significantly deplete muscle glycogen, you would need to walk quite a distance. High speed Continue reading >>
