Table of Contents
As we are already aware, taking low carb is an important element of reaching ketosis state. However, if we want to accelerate the process even quicker, intake of carb has to be cut down to even lower level – which means we have to reduce carb intake below net 20 gram as suggested by standard keto diet.
Ketosis is a metabolic state that initiated when our body starts to use fat as an alternate fuel source in the absence of carbohydrates. In the process, triglycerides become exhausted and turn into fatty acid. We achieve this state when we put a limit on carbohydrate consumption. Fat consumption matters less in achieving this state. For our survival, the importance of taking carbohydrate is near to zero, so, we can safely take them down to exceedingly low levels.
Our body will compensate the absence of (or lack of it) carbs by swapping to substitute fuel source –which is fat. Running on fat for some period of time subsequently lead us to reach ketosis – a state where fatty acid take the leads to generate ketones.
MUST DO: Empty Your Glycogen Reserve
When we started to lower our carb intake, accumulated glycogen of our body begin to deplete. Here it is worth note that glycogen creates when our body preserves carbohydrates. And exactly at that time ketosis happens to initiate when glycogen reserves start running low.
In general, glycogen level that our liver can preserve hover around 75 – 95 carbs. Therefore, what we have to do to trigger up the ketosis is to burn glucose that worth approximately 280 to 390 calories.
When we restrict our carbohydrate intake, our liver starts conversion process that turns reserved glycogen into glucose. Later that glucose being used to keep a balanced blood sugar level.
In normal scenario, to function properly, important organs of our body i.e. brain, muscle and other body cells need sufficient supply of glucose. And our body’s blood glucose level remain steady when we put a cap on our carb intake.
On the exterior of our body cells lies numerous receptors. And when insulin binds to those receptors, our body’s microorganism starts to drag those glucose inside. In the process, our blood sugar level becomes low.
When glycogen stock goes down below a certain point, our liver starts to react. The liver initiates the fat mobilizing process to fill up the void of carbohydrates. During this phase, our liver fuel all its activities using fatty acids as it can no longer use glucose as a fuel source. Hence, help accelerate the reaching ketosis process faster.
Start Ketone Production In Shortest Time Period
After depleting your glycogen reserve there are some other activities that you need to follow to quicken the achieving ketosis process. Such as sufficient water drinking, stay active, practical food consumption, proper electrolyte intake, etc.
To get into ketosis within a day, some practical tips are given below. Hopefully these will help hasten the process of reaching ketosis level:
Focus On Food Basics: Keto Friendly Foods
Practically speaking, a low carb diet comprises with mostly meat and vegetable. So, if we let go of extra foods and just stick to basic food, it will help accelerate the ketosis process. We have to stick to the following basics:
- Choosing best protein sources
- Selecting mixed greens, raw vegetables works most.
- Meal dressing items should contain low carbs.
- spices should be devoid of sugar.
For a healthier life, we need 8 amino acids in our body. High quality protein contains these 8 amino acids. We get these high quality protein from fish, egg, meat, poultry and cheese to name a few.
To make the diet simple, we can discard all the decorative substance that we use to add flavor in food like salt, mustard, pickles etc.
At this stage, our focus has to be on just keeping hunger away. Therefore, we should eat as less as possible. Some may raise questions about not getting adequate calories, but honestly speaking there is nothing to worry about. Sporadic eating, or eating without feeling hungry would spoil the whole process. So, avoiding erratic eating is advisable.
Now all our efforts aim at depleting stored glycogen swiftly. In order to achieve that, we can follow the below mentioned trial keto plan:
Breakfast
For breakfast, we have the luxury to eat bacon/ham or egg. As sausages are full of carbs, it would be wise to have it in future. Those who do not like red meat, they can go for any type of preferred meat as substitute. Fish or baked chicken can go down the throat as it has been reported unharmful, but put a vigil eye on quantity.
Lunch
A good lettuce salad top with sugar-free preferred dressing would be perfect for lunch. We have to just make sure that the salad is prepared with good protein source and amount of carb is kept very low.
It would be wise to keep the salad as simple as possible. Stuffing up the salad with too many raw vegetables can hamper the cause.
Suitable lunch would be a salad full of lettuce with a tinge of condiments as it would be helpful keeping the carbs down.
Dinner
For night time meal, another palate of lettuce salad along with moderate protein would do the job.
Empty Your Glycogen Reserve
Our body’s blood glucose level remain steady by using liver glycogen. However, when we remain busy with our activities, muscle glycogen being used.
Muscle glycogen likes to work in a closed system. Our body muscles are very much reluctant to share their glycogen with the liver when the liver glycogen becomes low.
When muscle glycogen runs low during movement, our body muscle draw glucose in from the bloodstream, triggering blood glucose level to fall.
Subsequently, insulin levels also goes down which indicates blood glucose level in the liver is very low. This state prompts the liver to produce glucose from glycogen and disperse these glucose throughout the bloodstream, helping restore blood sugar level even.
Therefore, usage of glycogen depends on our activities. The more we do body movement, the more glycogen our body will use and paving the way to get into ketosis faster.
So, in short, stay active to burn out glucose from glycogen, which triggers insulin level to drop and turns fatty acids to ketones to support our energy requirements.
Adequate Water Drinking
Among other functions of water, helping digestion and eliminating toxins are two very important tasks. Another significant work water does is it carries nutrients to our body cells.
As we know, most of our body’s bloodstream made up of water. Water also plays a big role in fat metabolizing process using liver.
As we aware, our kidney function can face difficulty due to lack of water consumption. Functions of our body is a very complex and its one organ can work as a substitute for another organ. During dehydration period, when kidney shows some sign of malfunctioning, our body initiates its backup system. In that time, liver stride in to accomplish some of kidney’s duties.
When liver take over some of kidneys functions, its fat mobilizing process become slower, hence, our body burns less fat. Ketones production by liver also become sluggish as ketones are produced during triglyceride to fatty acids conversion process.
It is worth noting that, by nature keto diet is dehydrating. Therefore, to speed up the ketosis process we have to drink more water than a typical low-calorie diet. It is worth mentioning that lack of water drinking can trigger many keto side effect like keto breath, keto rash etc. Water helps prevent our mouth go dry by producing saliva which keeps bacteria at bay. Hence, relieve us from stinky keto breath.
Now the question is as to how much water we should drink. Reportedly, a good threshold level is drinking water half of our current body weight in ounces. For instance, if one weighs 160 POUNDS, s/he should minimally drink 80 OUNCES of water per day.
Practical Food Consumption For Ketosis
It is strictly advised that we should refrain from random eating during the day unless we feel really hungry. The aim is to provide as little glucose to our body as possible in order to reach ketosis faster. Sporadic eating throughout the day would not help normalize our insulin level, neither would blood sugar.
As advised earlier not to worry about calories at this point of time. Hunger will eventually drop once we get into ketosis.
However, if hunger really engulf us, we should select keto-friendly foods that contain protein and fat. As a snack, a small can of tuna with some mayonnaise can help satiate our hunger. Those who don’t like fish can go for homemade cheese sticks.
It is important to keep in mind that we do not increase portion of meal sizes just to compensate for the lack of carbs intake.
Restraint in carbs intake initiates ketosis. However, we would spoil the whole process if we take something else to fill up the missing calories.
So, practical food choices can help accelerate the ketosis process.
Maintain Your Electrolyte To Avoid Keto Flu
During the first few weeks of adopting a low carb diet, our kidneys tends to flush out four minerals – salt, potassium, calcium and magnesium – known as electrolytes from our body along with water. This discharge leads to severe unevenness in electrolyte and consequently we may face some uncomfortable symptoms like:
- Fatigue
- Cramps in legs and other parts of the body
- Ambiguous thinking
- Fluctuation in mood
- Keto headache or dizziness
- Pain in kidney
To get rid of the above symptoms, missing electrolytes should be replenished. So, sparing salt would not be a good idea.
Usually, experts suggests to cut sodium consumption. However, when we are on low-carb diet, decreasing salt can be fatal. When we embrace ketogenic diet, our body needs more sodium than usual.
Besides, we need to keep an eye on our potassium intake as we get less potassium from low-carb diet. We can refill those potassium easily by using supplement or using lite-salt into our keto diet. Lite-salt is special kind of salt that contains both sodium and potassium.
To refill wasted calcium and magnesium is a bit challenging. Because our body finds it difficult to absorb some forms of calcium and magnesium and that leads to digestive issues. Magnesium can be found in many keto-friendly foods. Besides, we can use some supplement to replenish it.
Concluding Thoughts
As the old adage goes, it’s easier said than done. Getting into ketosis as quickly as 24 hours is an uphill task, not easy at all.
Keto diet is a much regimented diet and the basic to reach ketosis fast is to have a good diet routine and adhere to that regimen.
Reaching ketosis in a day is not necessary, so don’t worry if you unable to attain ketosis in a day.