You are very likely to start noticing some weight loss at the very beginning, like the first week, but be aware that the initial weight that you lose is due to the excess water that has been excreted from your body after lowering your carbohydrates (because carbs retain water in the body).

After this, and as you become keto adapted, you will start burning real fat and you will start seeing results on the scale and in volume. You will notice changes in how your clothes fit.

Ketosis kicks in after lowering the carbohydrates. The body will start using the dietary and the stored fat for energy instead of burning sugar (carbs). You will have to keep your net carbohydrates below 50g per day or otherwise your body will shift back to using sugar for energy and you will be knocked out of ketosis.

By lowering carbohydrates you are basically keeping insulin low because insulin is mostly triggered by refined carbs and sugar. So anything that spikes insulin will knock you out of ketosis.

Since fat has the least effect on insulin, you will have to consume more of it, more of the healthy fats. This way you will be providing your body with the needed material to be used as energy along with your stored fats.

If you are following keto correctly by avoiding ALL refined carbs and sugar and making sure you are not consuming any hidden sugars and you are applying intermittent fasting, you don’t have to track your macros at all. Cause after all you will be limiting your carbs without even tracking it. Tracking the macros or counting the calories are not very natural and can make tings harder to maintain long-term. We need to keep it as simple as possible because eating healthily shouldn’t be a complicated exercise.

If you have just started keto and intermittent fasting, chances are your body has not really adapted to using fat for energy instead of sugar so it is still in this transition phase which will make you feel tired and irritable. Just keep going and make sure you add more healthy fats to your meals and this will go away within few days.

If you’ve been on keto for a while and you still feel tired with no energy, then you might not be consuming enough sodium so you’ll have to add more sea-salt or Himalayan pink salt to your diet. When you avoid the grains on keto the need for sodium goes up so you need to make sure you are providing your body with enough salt. A good way to do this is to consume only 1/2 tsp of sea-salt or pink salt with water everyday and the rest you’ll get it from food cause on keto you need around 1 tsp of salt per day.

Other reasons you could be tired on keto is a lack of B vitamins so you need to make sure you are providing your body with the needed B vitamins from a natural source like Nutritional Yeast. A good way is to consume 2-3 tbsp of nutritional yeast everyday.

Make sure you are providing your body with all the electrolytes (potassium, sodium, magnesium…) especially potassium because we need that in large amounts everyday (4700 mg per day). So you’ll have to consume large amounts of high quality vegetables like kale, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, parsley, spinach, cabbage, Swiss chard, arugula…

Also make sure you are not consuming hidden carbs or bad ingredients that could be keeping you away from deep ketosis or maybe completely out of ketosis like “maltodextrin”, “dextrose”, “maltitol”, “corn starch”, “high fructose corn syrup”…

And lastly, if you have recently added intermittent fasting and you are feeling tired and sleepy going from one meal to the other, chances are your blood sugars are getting really low and your adrenals are not adapting quite well to stabilize your blood sugars level. You’ll have to back off a little and start gradually with intermittent fasting. Maybe you go back to 3 meals per day, no snacks, then you go gradually to 2 meals. Consuming nutritional yeast will greatly support your adrenals and will improve your situation.

The short answer is no.

Alcohol itself is a toxic chemical to the body and is immediately metabolized by the liver to get rid of it as fast as possible. In to do this, the liver is almost fully dedicated to cleaning all this mess so this will affect other function of the liver including ketosis. So drinking alcohol, even if it is hard liquor and vodka that are zero carbs, will affect your ketosis and weight loss, sometimes for several days.

Always limit your alcohol consumption and only consume it occasionally in case you can’t skip it altogether. Go with the low carb alcohols like hard liquors, gin and vodka.

Definitely yes.

Ketosis is not only good if you are working out but it will also help you maintain stable energy throughout your workout. When your body is dependent on sugar and you run out of store sugar during the workout, you will feel tired and irritable. However, when your body is running on fat, stored fat, you will always have a constant flow of energy and you will no longer need to replenish your glycogen reserves as you will be tapping into your own fat reserves.

If you are doing intermittent fasting that’s even way better because fasting will trigger growth hormone which will preserve your muscle mass and will help you boost your energy during the workouts. Try working out on an empty stomach and you’ll find you’re much better and more energetic (given you’re in ketosis).

Definitely yes.

Make sure you consume healthy fats, lot’s of vegetables and healthy ingredients away from processed foods and hydrogenated oils.

A high fat low carb diet is very beneficial to your health and to your baby, so make sure you follow it correctly.

If you are planning to get pregnant, start preparing your body from now and start keto immediately.

Doing keto while breastfeeding will provide your baby with higher quality and more abundant breast milk.

The only thing you should avoid while pregnant or breastfeeding is fasting because you need to provide your body with enough calories and enough nutrients. So just focus on the healthy keto and avoid intermittent fasting.

Keto pills are basically exogenous ketones which means external ketones. So you will be providing your body with external ketones instead of burning your own fat reserve and turning it into ketones to be used for energy.

Providing your body with external ketones will affect your weight loss because you will be burning those ketones instead of your own. These keto pills are just for marketing and fake promises. Focus on burning your own fat only and turning it into ketones.

Preferably black coffee with a very small amount of their cream (or you can get your unsweetened cream and use it).

All Starbucks sugar-free flavor syrups are sweetened with sucralose to they are not a good choice.

You could order your coffee with almond milk but depending on the coffee shop, some of them are not sugar-free so just ask for the exact ingredients on the label.

Coconut oil, Ghee and Butter (grass-fed organic if possible), Avocado oil

No, black coffee will not break a fast. You can even enjoy some coffee with a little amount of heavy cream and sugar alternative. Just make sure you don’t overdo cream because too much of it will affect your fasting (probably 1 tbsp max).

Some people with really stubborn metabolism and finding hard time losing weight might need to avoid cream while fasting.

Limit your caffeine intake to a max of 2 cups of coffee per day because too much caffeine will stimulate the adrenals and will spike cortisol which in turn spikes insulin and affect ketosis.

No, kale is very low on the glycemic index and will barely have any impact on insulin because it is high in fiber like most of the leafy green vegetables. You can enjoy a kale shake while fasting but make sure you don’t add strawberries or other ingredients that have some amount of carbs.

In case you are looking for autophagy as a benefit from fasting and not only to lose weight, then you might need to avoid kale shake because autophagy only works when you are truly fasting with nothing except water or maybe a cup of coffee. So concerning autophagy, it’s not only about spiking insulin, it’s about avoiding any calories while fasting

The main cause of kidney disease and damage is high levels of blood sugar and high insulin. That’s why many diabetics end up with kidney problems.

Keto will only keep your blood sugar in control and your insulin low so it is very protective to your kidneys. Just make sure you follow keto healthily the way we recommend here with lot’s of vegetables to provide your body with the needed potassium because this is very essential to your kidney’s health. The only situation you wouldn’t want to consume too much potassium is if you have a kidney failure, and that’s a very advanced kidney problem. But for all other cases, keto is very protective and healthy to the kidneys and adding intermittent fasting will just be miraculous.

Yogurt is high in sugar and should be avoided on keto. As for “labneh’, which is more like Greek yogurt, you can enjoy that in small amounts.

When you become keto adapted and you are using your ketones for energy more efficiently, your energy will go up and the need for sleep will just go down. You will feel that only 6 hours of sleep will just make you feel rejuvenated the next day.

Usually on a high carbohydrate diet your insulin is high and your body retains water and sodium. But on a ketogenic diet you keep insulin low and you get rid of excess water and sodium so you need to replace it back.

Also if you are following the healthy version of keto where you consume a large amount of vegetables, you will be providing your body with a lot of potassium which alone makes you need more sodium because potassium and sodium work hand in hand. If you increase potassium you need to increase sodium to maintain a healthy ratio.

Sodium deficiency can make you feel tired, constipated, heart palpitations, headaches and weak.

Type 1 diabetes is a problem with the pancreas not producing insulin so you will be injecting insulin.

Type 2 is a problem in the receptors of insulin being resistive meaning that insulin cannot do its job properly so the need for insulin goes up. You will be prescribed metformin (glucophage) to improve insulin sensitivity.

Both types are related to high blood sugars AND high insulin and high levels of insulin are even worse than having high levels of sugar so the goal is to keep insulin as low as possible and that’s by avoiding what triggers insulin in the first place, refined carbs and sugar.

Intermittent fasting is also very important because it will help avoid insulin spikes as well. So, yes keto and intermittent fasting are great tools if you are both type 1 and type 2 diabetic. These tools must help you lower the need for your medication with the help of your doctor and hopefully get off of them completely especially if you are a type 2 diabetic.

Benefits of apple cider vinegar (ACV):

Improves digestion. The acetic acid in ACV will activate enzymes in the stomach to help you digest food especially protein.
ACV helps in limiting the overgrowth of bacteria in the wrong place in the gut.
The acid in ACV helps you absorb vitamins and minerals
Helps you heal acid reflux because this is a condition of low stomach acid (unlike what most people think) and ACV will improve stomach acid
Increasing the acid in the stomach will send a signal to the liver to release more bile which is needed to digest fats
ACV can improve insulin resistance which makes you require less insulin and makes makes you lose more weight
ACV improves the immune system by stimulating the white blood cells
Start consuming 1-2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar in a cup of water everyday. Mixing it with some lemon juice is great to improve the taste with some sea-salt or pink Himalayan salt. Use a straw to avoid contact with teeth.

No. Vegetables have almost zero effect on insulin because they are loaded with fiber so we don’t to count the net carbs in them.

We need a large of vegetables everyday because we need 4700 mg of potassium every single day and that’s a huge amount. So we don’t want to limit the consumption of vegetables.

No, not if it is a sugar-free gum. Make sure it doesn’t contain unhealthy ingredients or bad artificial sweeteners.

Bad breath on keto is caused by some type of ketones being released in the breath. As you become more keto adapted your body will be using the ketones more efficiently and less ketones will be released in the breath so the problem should be fixed soon.

If the problem persists then you could be consuming too much protein so just cut out some protein and limit yourself to just a piece of protein the size your palm per meal. Remember that keto is a moderate protein, high fat, low carb diet.

GMO foods are mostly foods that have been genetically modified to resist a certain pesticide or herbicide. So it works by changing the genes of a certain grains or seeds so that when they grow they will be resistant to the chemicals that they sprayon them to kill random weed and grass or insects.

So GMO foods are high in pesticides and chemicals that dramatically affect human health.

Studies have shown that Glyphosate, which is a very common herbicide used on GMO foods, will cause cancer and other health problems.

The most common bad ingredients that you could easily find in products around you are and that you should avoid are:

Maltodextrine
Dextrose
Maltitol
Sucralose
Saccharine
Acesulfame potassium
Aspartame
High fructose corn syrup
Fructose
Lactose
Corn starch
Hydrogenated oil
Corn oil, canola oil (rapeseed oil), soy oil
Soybean
Corn
Wheat

Sure. In fact, on keto you will greatly improve insulin resistance which will make you absorb more nutrients and especially amino acids which will help your muscles grow.

When you combine keto with intermittent fasting you spike human growth hormone by a significant amount and this hormone is the main protein sparer, meaning it protects the protein or muscle.

So you can surely build muscles on keto and intermittent fasting.

The only thing you should focus on is getting enough calories. It’s almost impossible to get bigger with a low calorie diet. So make sure that during your eating window, you consume enough calories and always keep your protein on the higher end. Not too much protein because that could bump you out of ketosis, but just make sure you consume a good amount.

Maltodextrin is used as a:

Carrier
Thickener
Filler
Preservative
Insecticide
Improves Mouthfeel
It is made of corn which is mostly GMO so it contains the herbicide glyphosate. It has a glycemic index of more than 105 (sugar is 75) and can go up to 136 which makes it probably the highest food on the glycemic index and this will dramatically affect insulin.

Always read the labels and avoid matlrodextrin.

When someone undergoes a gastric bypass or sleeve operation, they remove part of the stomach so you end up with a smaller stomach surface. And since the lining of the stomach produces the stomach acid (HCL), chances are you have low stomach acid which makes it more difficult to digest foods, especially protein, and to pull in vitamins.
You have to support your stomach by consuming more apple cider vinegar to help acidify it. you can get it in pill form or just dilute 1-2 tablespoons in water with half a lemon anytime during the day. You can also supplement with betaine hydrochloride (HCL) from any pharmacy.

Now that you have a smaller stomach, you can’t consume all the food in one sitting, so a good way is to split your meals into smaller meals but within a tight eating window. Lets say you start eating at 3pm and stop at 8pm, that’s a 5-hour eating window. You eat your veggies alone then wait and consume your protein and fats.

You might need to supplement especially if you are unable to consume enough food because you don’t want to deprive your body from nutrients like minerals and vitamins. So a good electrolyte powder and a high quality food-based multivitamin is a great idea.

Another thing to look at is bile. Bile is secreted by the liver and stored in the gallbladder and it’s responsible of breaking down fats and it’s stimulated by the stomach acid. So again, low stomach acid due to gastric bypass might make you low in bile and unable to digest fats well and absorb the fat soluble vitamins like A, D, E and K. Therefore, you need to supplement with bile salts which you can find in pharmacies under different name like “digestive formula”, digestive enzymes” and others. Just make sure it contains “bile” in the ingredients. Supplementing with bile will help you digest fats and absorb more vitamins.

“Strange as it may seem, though insulin lack causes dissolution of the fat stores in adipose tissue, it causes a great increase in the amount of stored triglycerides in the liver, leading to a very fatty liver.” – The Textbook of Medical Physiology (Guyton & Hall).

That means when you lower your insulin and you start burning a lot of fat, you’re at risk of developing a fatty liver because all that fat is dumped through the body and it goes into the blood and is shuttled to the liver.

Usually a fatty liver is a result of excessive consumption of alcohol or caused by obesity or diabetes which is initially caused by high carbohydrate diets. But a ketogenic diet, if not done correctly, can also lead to this.
This is why it is important to do the ketogenic diet healthily.

There are 3 things to add to this diet:

1- You must keep your vegetables high. The ketogenic diet alone doesn’t require that but you need to make sure you consume a minimum of 7 handfuls of chopped leafy & cruciferous vegetables per day! Like Kale, parsley, spinach, celery, Cabbage, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Chard, Arugula… You can do the Kale shake. If you get used to shakes you’ll find it so easy to eat 10 cups of vegetables per day.
WE NEED the vegetables to clean that liver and to oppose all the fats that are coming out of you.

2- You need to start consuming Apple Cider Vinegar. ACV is really good for the liver, to dissolve fats in it and prevent a fatty liver.
Try to consume 1-2 Tbsp of ACV with half a lemon in a cup of warm water anytime during the day.
ACV has even a lot more other benefits like acidifying the stomach and reducing insulin resistance…

3- You need to consume more eggs. Especially the egg yolks! They contain Choline and Lecithin which prevent and dissolve a fatty liver.

So, on a ketogenic diet, we need to consume more vegetables, ACV and Eggs! If you’re doing this you’re just fine and have no need to worry about all this. Keep going!

Psyllium husk is a fiber used in keto recipes to replace the gluten that is found is regular wheat dough. Gluten is what makes the regular dough elastic so replacing the wheat with nut flour like almond flour or with coconut flour will require the addition of another component to act in place of gluten and this will be psyllium husk.

It has no effect on insulin but like most other fibers, consuming it in large amounts will create a laxative effect. Some people consume it for this specific reason when they have constipation. That’s why you can easily find it in pharmacies in sachets form and sometimes flavored.

It is not a must to measure your ketones because it is easy to know when you are in ketosis just by how you feel. But if you want to test your ketones level just to make sure you are in ketosis and to know how deep you are, you can use several tests like urine strips, breath test and blood test.

As you become more keto adapted, your body will use ketones more efficiently and there won’t be much ketones left to be excreted in the urine and breath. So when you first start keto you can use the urine strips or breath tests, but as you become more keto adapted you might score low on these tests, not because you don’t have enough ketones, but because your body is using most of them. The best test would be the blood test using the keto blood test machine which is a test just like the blood sugar test machines.

The best way to count your macros is to use a website or an application which really make things easier. You could check Carb Manager or MyFitnessPal and a bunch of others that are really user friendly and have all what you need.

You will have to input all the meals you consume during the day with the quantities of every ingredient. So you add the quantities of the whole recipe and you calculate how much you consume from that recipe per meal. Those applications will really make it easy so just give it a try.

Note that you don’t have to count the carbohydrates in the leafy green vegetables because they have almost zero impact on insulin due to their high fiber content which doesn’t effect insulin. You need high amount of high quality vegetables everyday, so just don’t count or limit them.

Short answer is no.

Calories are not treated equally in the body and dealing with them as they are all the same regardless of the source of the calorie is completely wrong. The body reacts differently to different calorie sources. For example, if you consume a 200 calories from butter vs. 200 calories from bread, those calories coming from bread will spike insulin really bad and store fat, whereas the calories from butter will barely have any effect on insulin and will not stimulate fat storing hormones. So for the same amount of calories, the body reacts differently. Therefore, the idea of “calories in” equals “calories out” is just not accurate. It depends on the source of the calorie and its effect on hormones.

You don’t have to count calories if you are following keto correctly by lowering your net carbs as much as possible and keeping them below 50g or 20g per day and by implementing intermittent fasting.

A ketogenic diet is a high fat, low carb diet and most of the calories (>70%) must come from fat. But many people tend to eat a lot more fat than required with all those keto bombs, keto desserts, MCT oils and bulletproof coffee. Yes you have to increase your healthy fats to help your body adapt to using fat as energy instead of sugar especially in the beginning, but as you become more keto adapted and your body is now using your own fat reserve more efficiently, you no longer need to keep fat that high as this will allow your body to tap into your own fat reserves instead of the dietary fat. There’s nothing wrong with keeping your fats very high on keto, but if you’re looking to lose body fat fast, you will need to give the chance to your body to mobilize your own fat reserves and use that fat for energy instead of the fat you are getting from food.

So how to know the right amounts of fat to consume which may vary from one person to another? It is very simple. Just monitor your hunger between meals. If you feel too much hungry going from one meal to the other, then you know you have to increase your fats. But if you feel full all the time and barely feeling hungry, then you can lower your fats a little and allow your body to use its own fat for energy. So you’ll just have to cut off some of the keto bombs and sweets that are high in fats and probably limit bulletproof coffee and MCT oil.

So, you will always have to consume most of your calories from fat, but as you become more keto adapted, you can start adjusting your fat intake according to your hunger between meals.

The best indicators that you are in ketosis are less hunger and less cravings. Once you are in ketosis, your blood sugars will start stabilizing during the day and you won’t have those ups and downs in blood sugars which cause cravings, irritability and hunger.

Once in ketosis, your mood will improve and your tolerance to stress will increase. You will notice that it takes you much more to get on your nerves than it used to take before keto. You will be less edgy.

Also your energy will increase and you will have better focus throughput the day.

No, not if you are doing keto correctly and keeping your carbs low. If you are in ketosis, there’s no need to worry about all that fat that you consume because your body is now running on fat and will be using that fat for energy and won’t be stored around the organs and inside the arteries as it is on high carb diets.

Make sure you are consuming healthy fats away from all the processed foods and hydrogenated oils. Great fat sources are avocados, high quality olive oil, olives, flaxseed oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, butter and ghee (grass-fed organic if possible), egg yolks, walnuts, cod liver oil, MCT oil…

Stay away from canola oil, soy oil, corn oil, margarine and all other hydrogenated and highly refined oils. Sunflower oil is probably better than those but not the best so try to limit your consumption of sunflower oil as well.

The best oils for deep frying are avocado oil, coconut oil, butter and ghee.

There are a bunch of fruits that you can enjoy on keto and there’s an easy way to identify what fruits you can consume and what to avoid.

Yes, the net carbs amount is what matters but it’s not the only factor to look at. You need to look at the glycemic index and glycemic load to be able to identify if any food is keto friendly or not.

All berries are keto friendly like blackberry, blueberry, raspberry, strawberry… but in small amounts. They are low on the glycemic index and they will not spike insulin really fast but remember that they still contain some carbs and they will add up to your total daily allowed carbs.

You can also enjoy other fruits in small quantities if they have a low glycemic load. For example, watermelon have a glycemic index of 72 which is pretty high but a glycemic load of only 2 which is low. The glycemic load gives you an idea about the quantity that you can consume. The lower the glycemic load, the more you need to consume from that food to spike insulin. So a product with a very low glycemic load can be consumed in very small amounts even if the glycemic index is high. So you can still enjoy just a small piece of watermelon per day on keto. Same principle goes to all other fruits. Note that you won’t have much of a variety of fruits on keto so you’d better get used to avoiding them if you’re not sure about it.

Also remember that if you are looking to lose weight fast, you probably have to avoid all unnecessary carbohydrates like those in fruits. So limit or avoid all fruits if you have a stubborn metabolism or finding it hard to lose weight.

Constipation is either because of too much fat and you’re not ready to digest all that fat because there’s not enough bile in the gallbladder that is released in the small intestine, or too much of the wrong vegetable types that you are not able to digest well. It could be that you haven’t built yet enough flora to digest all the fiber and the friendly bacteria is being overwhelmed by all these fibers.

If it’s fat that’s making you constipated, you need to back off a little and probably avoid nuts and keto bombs for a while and see how it goes. As you go forward with ketosis, you become better in digesting fats so you start incorporating more fat into your diet.

If it’s vegetables that’s making you constipated, you have to change the type of vegetables to something easier to digest like lettuce and just see how it goes. With time you will grow more friendly bacteria in your gut and you will be able to digest more fiber from other types of vegetables so you can start incorporating back any type you want. Some people though will always have some bloating and discomfort with some types of vegetables, so just stay away from them.

A lot of people think that they are not losing weight only because they don’t seem to lose weight on the scale but many times your size could be getting smaller but not your weight and this is because you are increasing muscle density with intermittent fasting and this will counter the fat you’re losing. The best indicator if you are still losing weight is your size and not your weight so just check how your clothes are fitting.

Another reason could be you’re not implementing intermittent fasting in the first place. “IF” is very important to keep insulin low and allow your body to use your fat reserves as fuel. So just make sure you gradually increase your fasting window.

Stress is also a very big factor because when you’re stressed your adrenals release more cortisol and this spikes insulin which prevents you from losing more weight. You need to support your adrenals with B vitamins from natural sources like nutritional yeast and get enough sleep every night.

Another reason could be that you’re consuming too much fat and your body is using the dietary fat for energy instead of your own fat reserve. You might need to back off a little and avoid some nuts and keto bombs or probably bulletproof coffee to allow your body to tap into your own fat reserve.

You could also be consuming too much protein. A lot of people tend to do a high protein diet thinking that this is keto. Too much protein will spike insulin and knock you out of ketosis. So just make sure you consume moderate amounts of protein.

Another reason could be too much dairy and nuts that are creating all sort of inflammation in the body that also prevents you from losing weight fast. So just avoid the dairy and nuts for a while and see how it goes. Always try to get grass-fed organic dairy to avoid all the hormones, pesticides, antibiotics and other chemicals found in regular dairy that are behind the inflammation.

Also check for any hidden carbs or bad ingredients like maltodextrin, dextrose, maltitol..

Supplementing is not a bad idea especially that today our soils have become depleted from minerals. If you are not consuming enough vegetables (minimum 7 handfuls of chopped vegetables per day) you might need to supplement with potassium and magnesium.

A high quality food-based multivitamin is also great but make sure it’s not synthetic. You should be able to read the names of fruits on the back label.

Supplementing with vitamin D is also great because many people don’t get enough sun everyday especially in winter and vitamin D is involved in so many body functions and is very essential especially for immunity (that’s why you see more flu in the winter because of low sun). Always combine vitamin D with K2 because vitamin D dramatically increases the absorption of calcium and you don’t want to end up with calcified arteries. Vitamin K2 helps you mobilize the calcium from the wrong place and place it inside the bones. Always choose vitamin K2 version MK7.

And lastly, the most important supplement is Cod Liver Oil because it is packed with omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin A. Very essential to the heart and to lower inflammation.

If you are fasting to keep insulin low and lose more weight, then bulletproof coffee (coffee with butter or MCT oil) will not break your fast because fat has a very negligible effect on insulin.

But if you are looking for autograph as a result of fasting, then you have to avoid anything including bulletproof coffee because consume some calories will stop the effect of autophagy.

Go for food that are not complicated and that you can easily identify the ingredients.

A piece of grilled chicken, steak, beef skewers, chicken skewers. shawarma, salads, many items in the Lebanese mezze… Make sure you add enough fats to your meals to avoid consuming too much protein and too little fat.

Avoid complicated sauces and dressings because many of them have added sugars and starches and sometimes MSG. So choose dressings like lemon oil or lemon mustard, and avoid sauces like cocktail sauce and other sauces that come with steaks…

No, maple syrup is high in sugar by nature. It is not keto friendly.

You can add more fats like enjoying more keto bombs and desserts and go a little higher on healthy low glycemic carbs like some chickpeas and lentils (incorporate these as part of a meal that contains fat).

If you are doing OMAD (one meal a day), you might consider adding a second meal to maintain a higher amount of calories.

No, unless they don’t have any added sugars

Cholesterol might go up as you first start keto but there’s nothing to worry about because as long as you have insulin low, you don’t have to worry about clogging the arteries. Insulin is behind clogging the arteries, cholesterol is there to heal the damage.

Fat cells are composed of triglycerides and cholesterol. As you start keto and start mobilizing your store fat, more triglycerides and cholesterol are being released in the blood. The triglycerides are burned and used for energy but the cholesterol cannot be used for energy and they must be eliminated by the liver with the help of bile. So at this stage you could score a little higher on cholesterol but it’s only a matter of time until your liver gets rid of this excess cholesterol. Just give it few months and it will go back to the normal range.

Avocados
Grass-fed organic cheese, butter and ghee
Egg yolks
Fatty fish
Cod Liver Oil
Nuts like walnuts and macadamia
High quality olive oil
Olives
Coconut oil
Avocado oil
Flaxseed oil

If you notice water retention on keto that is mainly due to low B vitamins. You need to consume 2-3 tbsp of nutritional yeast everyday to provide your body with the needed B vitamins.

Another reason could be not enough potassium. When you don’t consume enough potassium the potassium-to-sodium ratio decreases and this makes you retain water. Make sure you consume at least 7 handfuls of chopped vegetables everyday to provide your body with a good amount of potassium. You could also be consuming too much salt and increasing the sodium in your body, so just monitor your salt intake.

It is a complete protein and has all the amino acids, the building blocks of body tissues.

It contains nearly all the B vitamins which are essential to support the adrenal glands (stress glands). It’s hard to get all the B vitamins from food especially the we don’t consume grains because of the high carbohydrates. Knowing that people on a high carbohydrates diet also need to consume nutritional yeast because refined carbs deplete the B vitamins.

A “B vitamin” deficiency creates stress, the need for insulin to go up, a lack of detoxification in the liver, nerve pain, nightmares, vivid dreams, bad mood etc…

Start consuming 2-3 tbsp per day (or more if you have a stress buildup)

It also has minerals (zinc, phosphorus, selenium, molybdenum)

Make sure to get the unfortified brands because the fortified ones have added synthetic vitamins

Yes you can but it will be somehow a challenge to keep carbs too low and still provide your body with enough protein.

Usually meats, eggs and cheeses are the highest in protein, so as a vegan you’ll have to get your protein from a vegetable source like grains. You will still be able to follow keto but you’ll have to consume some amount of carbs like some lentils and chickpeas. Grains are high in protein so they can provide you with the needed amount.

Nutritional yeast is also a great vegan source for protein, so consume larger amounts. You can also make cheeses and include it in so many recipes.

The body was not designed to run on so much sugar and feeding children carbs and sugar all day long is definitely not a good idea.

Keto is about avoiding refined carbs and sugar and running the body on fats and this is so healthy.

Keto is surely recommended for everyone but always make sure to implement it correctly.

Children don’t have to apply intermittent fasting so they can get away with eating 3 or 4 times a day but it’s always better to avoid snacking.

Kids enjoy sweets so try to prepare for them some healthy sweet alternatives and let them have them right after the meal as part of the meal and not as a snack.

Fasting is a great tool to make things faster and get back in ketosis. But in general you just have to stick to the basics and avoid carbs and sugar and follow keto the right way.

Depending on how much carbs you consumed, it could take you between 1 day and 3 to go back on track. Some people with years of ketosis can go in and out of ketosis pretty fast.

Despite being high in carbs, chickpeas have a relatively low glycemic index (30). Consuming it in small amounts and combined with some fats like in hummus (which is mixed with tahini) is okay. Just limit your consumption to half a cup and only occasionally.

Stevia
Monkfruit
Erythritol (might have a laxative effect if consumed in large amounts)
Xylitol (might have a laxative effect if consumed in large amounts)

“The people that drink the most water are actually the most dehydrated” because too much water will flush out all the electrolytes in your body (sodium, potassium, magnesium..).

There’s a condition called hyponatremia where electrolytes become too low from too much water which can lead to death.
Only drink when you feel thirsty. Your body knows very well when it needs water.

MSG is monosodium glutamate. It is a flavor enhancer that is added to food to improve the taste and it works by tricking the brain to think that the food tastes great.

MSG spikes insulin so high and is completely unhealthy. It has so many hidden name such as “modified corn starch”, “hydrolyzed vegetable protein”, “hydrolyzed yeast”, “hydrolyzed soy”. Make sure you read the labels and don’t consume food with any of these ingredients.

The glycemic index is how fast a certain food will spike insulin, the higher the worse.

The glycemic load is how much quantity of a certain food will spike insulin. So it takes into account the quantity needed to spike insulin and not only the speed.

When trying to identify if a certain food is keto friendly, you need to look at both the glycemic index and the glycemic load.

The glycemic index is considered low below 50, moderate between 50-69 and high above 70.

The glycemic load is considered low below 10, moderate between 10-20 and high above 20.

A certain food might appear high on the glycemic index but having a very low glycemic load, so consuming it in small amounts will not affect insulin so bad. For example, a watermelon might appear high on the glycemic index (72) but low on the glycemic load (2). So consuming a small piece of watermelon will not affect ketosis.

Exercising is definitely a great tool not only to lose weight but for overall health. As for keto, it is not a requirement but it can easily speed things up because when you exercise you help your body burn those extra sugar and extra fat in the body.

However, over training is not a good idea as this will be considered as a source of stress by the body. Always focus on the resting period and never exercise before completely recovering from the previous session. Good sleep is also mandatory for recovery.

Autophagy is the process of recycling old damaged cells and using them to create new healthy ones so it has great anti-aging characteristics. It is activated by fasting so the longer you fast the deeper you get into autophagy.

Autophagy is a hot topic today and it has the power to heal and reverse many health problems including cancer.

Net carbs = Total carbs – Fiber – Sugar Alcohol

In order to get the net carbs, you need to deduct the amount of fiber and sugar alcohol (if available) from the total carbs amount.

This is because fiber and the sugar alcohols barely have any effect on insulin so they don’t need to be counted.

Before checking the macros, always start by checking the list of ingredients because that what matters the most in a healthy diet.

Avoid any food that contains bad ingredients even if it fits your macros. Avoid GMO foods and MSG and all the bad artificial sweeteners.

Check the amount of net carbs by following this equation:

Net Carbs = Total Carbs – Fiber – Sugar Alcohols

The total allowed net carbs per day is 50g. You are advised to keep it below 20g if you want to lose weight faster. So calculate the amount of net carbs per serving and multiply that by the servings that you’ll end up consuming.

Make sure you avoid products that are high in protein because too much protein will spike insulin. So always check the protein amount because so many product are labeled as keto friendly when in fact they are more of a high protein product.

Xanthan gum is a white powder substance that is used in keto recipes as a thickener or to combine ingredients together. It is popular in keto breads and desserts because normally gluten is what makes the regular dough elastic so when trying to imitate this consistency with ingredients that don’t contain gluten like almond flour and coconut flour you need to use a substance such as xanthan gum to bring this elasticity to your recipes and get a better consistency.

No, diet soda contain bad artificial sweeteners and bad coloring agents.

Sucralose is a bad artificial sweetener that affects the gut bacteria which are involved in so many functions in the body like helping you digest fiber, make and absorb the B vitamins and recycle the bile…