- Ethan Hudson
10 Simple Tips To Lose Weight On Keto Diet
Updated: Jun 22, 2021
The keto diet remains one of the most popular diet plans out there, especially because one of the biggest benefits of following this low-carb, high-fat lifestyle is weight loss.
The Keto diet can be used for both weight loss and for improving your health overall.
This lifestyle requires you to eat a very low amount of carbohydrates.
This puts your body into a state of ketosis where your body switches from burning glucose (sugar) as its primary fuel to burning fat and ketones.
Which leads to a healthy weight loss, lower blood pressure, and also improves insulin sensitivity and cholesterol level.
To achieve that, the most important thing is to keep your net carbs low (below 20-25 g net carbs a day), while maintaining adequate protein and sufficient fat.
Many people have managed to lose weight and improve their health with the help of keto diet, which is one of the reasons why it’s getting more and more popular.
So here are the 10 best tips to lose weight with the keto diet!
1. Stay In Ketosis
The number one most important thing for the keto diet is keeping your net carbs sufficiently low to get into ketosis and stay there.
“Sufficiently low” for most people means 20-25 g net carbs a day; for some people, that amount might be higher, however, we recommend being strict and sticking to that limit at least until you are fat-adapted (which usually takes around 4 to 6 weeks).
Cheating might be detrimental to your success and might have many side effects, including slowing down the adaptation process, so do your body a service by letting it stay in ketosis.
2. Track Your Macros and Calories
Tracking your macros is essential when doing keto, especially in the beginning, when you’re starting.
You’ll soon notice that carbs are everywhere. To avoid consuming too many carbs, it’s essential to plan, measure and track everything that you’re eating.
Additionally, to lose weight, you’d still need to create a caloric deficit, even on keto (yeah, keto isn’t magic… although we wish it were).
To do that, you first need to figure out what your maintenance calories are, i.e. how many calories you need to eat to maintain your weight.
Afterward, you need to subtract 10% to 25% from that number.
Larger deficits (20% to 25%) will normally lead to a more rapid weight loss but might be difficult to sustain, as they are more stressful for your body and you’ll experience more hunger.
Dieting with a lower deficit (around 15% to 20%) will lead to a slower weight loss, but it is psychologically and physically more forgiving, and the weight you lose slowly is usually easier to keep off.
3. Aim For Consistency By Sticking To The Basics
When you first start keto, you’ll probably feel confused and overwhelmed by all of the information out there.
Keto doesn’t have to be complicated, though, and to succeed, you need to keep it simple enough to follow on a day-to-day basis.
Consistency is key, and keeping it simple will make that much easier.
To be successful, you need to adhere to the following: choose a protein source you like (meat, fish, eggs…), along with your favorite low-carb side (green salad, spinach, cauliflower, avocado, etc…), and add fat as necessary.
Throw in a treat (such as fat bombs) if it’ll help you stick with your diet, add some berries from time to time if you like. And that’s it.
4. Keep An Eye On Your Electrolytes
Electrolytes are super important on keto, as they get flushed from your system at a higher rate.
To prevent cravings, headaches, cramps, excessive hunger, and water retention, you need to make sure that you’re getting in enough sodium, magnesium, and potassium.
It’s best to get potassium from food, but you’ll likely need to supplement some sodium (i.e. salt) and magnesium to make sure everything is running smoothly.
5. Accept The Fact That Weight Loss Takes Time, Even With Keto
Keto is one of the best diets for weight loss out there, but it will still take time to reach your goal weight.
You need to be patient and consistent to get results – gaining the weight didn’t happen overnight, right? Losing it is no different.
Your body doesn’t like change – it likes stability and predictability.
It cannot differentiate between voluntary weight loss and possible famine.
If you lose weight very quickly, you’re much more likely to gain it back once you stop dieting, than if you rely on slow and steady progress that doesn’t put an enormous amount of stress on your body.
6. Track Your Progress In A Few Different Ways
Your progress might not always show on the scale, even if you look and feel different. Why is that, you might wonder?
When losing weight, our bodies often retain water and let go of it only after a couple of days or weeks.
Alternatively, if you’re also actively exercising, and especially if you’re doing resistance training, you might be gaining muscle mass while actually losing fat (yes, it’s actually possible).
Use a few different ways to track your progress, and don’t get discouraged if the scale doesn’t seem to move.
Here are some ideas:
body measures (for example, measure your neck, waist, hip, thighs)
photos (if you don’t take “before” photos at the beginning of your journey, you might regret it later)
the size of your clothes and how they fit.
7. Get Enough Sleep and Rest
Losing weight also depends on your stress levels. High cortisol levels lead to weight retention or even weight gain.
While stressful life events do happen and you cannot control these, you can make sure that you’re getting enough sleep and that you’re well-rested.
For the body to properly recover every night, most people need a solid 7 to 9 hours of sleep, and not getting enough sleep regularly will be detrimental not only to your weight loss but also to your overall health.
8. If You’re Stalling, Try Cutting Dairy And Nuts From Your Diet
There is nothing wrong with dairy and nuts per se.
They just tend to be very calorically dense and most people do not track them properly; additionally, they might cause digestive issues for some people and be slightly inflammatory, leading to bloating and water retention.
If you’re stalling, try to limit or stop eating dairy and nuts for 2-3 weeks to see if that makes a difference, and then reintroduce them back slowly by observing how your body reacts to these foods.
9. Accept That Mistakes Happen, Forgive Yourself & Move On
You have cheated and now feel bloated and miserable? That sucks. But it has happened to everyone.
Mistakes do and will happen, and in such cases, the best thing you can do is just to forgive yourself and move on.
Go back to keto with your next meal and just make sure to not turn your cheat meal into a cheat weekend, or a cheat month.
Consistency is key. Mistakes will not erase your progress if you don’t let them do that. Keep calm and keto on.
10. Move More
While not strictly keto-related, moving more is an excellent strategy to increase the calories you’re burning in a day.
This doesn’t necessarily mean working out; in fact, if you think about it, working out is just a tiny portion of your day and week.
You can try adding more non-exercise activities to your days, such as walking, working in your garden (or any other hobby that has a physical element to it), cleaning, taking the stairs more often, and so on.
If you have an office job, try getting up from your desk and moving around at least every hour or so.
A strategy you can try out is to do a quick exercise each time something specific happens.
For example: do 15 squats each time you go to the toilet, or do a couple of push-ups after waking up, or get up and move while talking on your mobile phone.
There are many different things you can try out, but one thing is certain – by moving more, you’ll help your body burn more energy.
Conclusion
The keto diet is excellent for weight loss, and although you might feel a bit overwhelmed with all the information you read on it online, once you get the hang of it, it’s actually quite simple and easy to follow.
As with any diet, you’d need some time to get used to it, and you also need to give your body enough time to adapt to being in ketosis 24/7.
If weight loss is your main goal, you’d need to make sure your macros are correct, and adjust them with time, as necessary.
But always remember – weight loss isn’t linear and takes time.
The key to being successful is making the appropriate lifestyle changes and being consistent with them. Try it out! Your body will thank you for it.
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