As the ketogenic diet continues to grow in popularity, a lot of people are still left struggling to actually get into ketosis in a timely manner.
Because keto is known to effect everyone differently, there’s a lot of conflicting information out there on the internet today that can make it difficult to know exactly what you need to do to get the best results.
Achieving ketosis itself can be particularly challening for a lot of people because coming from a standard American diet, our bodies are used to a certain amount of carbohydrates and are used to using glycogen for fuel.
While a lot of people can’t just become fat adapted over night, there are still some ways that you can get ketones produced into your blood stream within under 24 hours.
To best plan on entering ketosis, you’ll first need to know exactly how ketosis works.
How Does Ketosis Work?
The ketogenic diet works in a fairly simple way. The primary objective of the diet is to get your body into a state of ketosis, in which your body will start to produce and use ketones and fat for fuel rather than glucose.
During the initial phases, when you don’t provide your body with enough fuel that it’s used to (in other words, carbohydrates), it will start to convert the natural body fat it already has stored into fuel, which is why it’s known to accelerate weight loss.
The whole process of entering ketosis usually takes anywhere from 24 hours to ten full days depending on your body type, but as you’ll see later in this article there’s a lot of steps you can take to shorten that timeline dramatically.
The phases of entering ketosis include:
- The Glycogen Depletion Phase
This is usually around the first 6 to 24 hours of switching to keto for a normal person.
During this phase, most of the energy that is provided to your body is done so by glycogen. In this part of the transition, hormone levels will start to shift, resulting in increases in gluconeogensis and general fat burning. An important distinction is that ketone production is not active yet.
- The Gluconeogenic Phase
During the gluconeogenic phase, your glycogen stores become fully depleted, and the process of gluconeogenesis kicks in entirely in order to be able to provide the body with energy.
In this phase, ketones start to become produced but still at relatively low levels. Early signs of ketosis will start to appear such as keto breath and dry mouth, and other signs of increased acetone production in the blood.
This phase can take the longest amount of time if you’re not incorporating other methods to ramp up ketosis (like fasting and exercise, we’ll get into it below), and generally can take anywhere from two to ten days to complete.
Generally, healthy women tend to be able to skip this phase much quicker than obese people and healthy males in particular.
- The Ketogenic Phase
The third and final phase is known as the ketogenic phase.
In this phase your body should fully be in a state of ketosis. It is characterized by a steady decrease in protein breakdown for energy, mirrored by an increase in fat and ketone use for energy in stead.
As I mentioned in the last phase, people will all see varied results as to when they actually enter this phase, and a variety of other factors like lifestyle, genetics, activity, and diet can play a role in how quickly it’s achieved.
How Do You Get Into Ketosis?
So now that you know how ketosis works, you’ll probably want to know how exactly you get into it, and if there are any hacks, shortcuts, or even roadblocks that you’ll need to look out for. I’ll try and answer the most frequent questions I get here, and will provide the absolute fastest ways to get into ketosis next.
- Is it hard to get into ketosis?
The difficulty of getting into ketosis unfortunately depends on a wide variety of factors that can be difficult to boil down. Every body is different, and some bodies are simply more inclined to enter a state of ketosis than others, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible for everyone.
Ketosis is widely achievable, and once you’ve gone through the first few phases and become fully fat adapted, your body will have a much easier time maintaining ketosis, as well as getting back into it if you’re ever kicked out of it.
People that switch from extreme high carb diets (300 net carbs or more per day) to ketosis will often find this transition the most difficult, and their bodies may enter starvation mode before they actually enter ketosis. That’s why it’s recommended for new beginners to try and not worry about calories at all, and just focus on hitting their macro targets.
- How do you stay in ketosis?
Staying in ketosis is fortunately much easier than getting into ketosis in the first place. A general rule of thumb is that you should aim to consume no more than 20 grams of net carbs per day, and no more than 50 grams of total carbs per day to sustain ketosis. This should break down to about 4-5% of your total calories for the day.
This of course comes with some exceptions, and the biggest one is blood sugar. When your body experiences spikes in blood sugar levels, it tends to also experience dips in ketone levels. This means that if your blood sugar spikes too quickly, it could take you out of ketosis.
This should be something you keep close track of, because a lot of keto friendly foods and alternative sweeteners are still high on the glycemic index. Maltitol, dextrose, and maltodextrin are some prime examples of sweeteners to stay away from because of their high glycemic indexes.
- How quickly can you lose weight when it ketosis?
We’ve all seen the success stories of rapid weight loss for people that switched to keto, but what’s a realistic number?
The question itself is a bit loaded, and the answer is more complicated than you might think.
When you first enter ketosis, you may experience some pretty significant weight loss (depending on your starting weight and fat composition), which will then immediately level out and plateau, which can be quite frustrating and even discouraging.
It’s important to remember that usually the early weight loss of ketosis is just water weight, because carbs naturally bind to water molecules in the body. When you aren’t intaking carbs, you’ll likely lose a lot of water weight.
The actual sustained weight loss from ketosis comes from staying in it steadily over time. You’re not going to see miracle results in a week or even a month, but you will see results, and if you stick with it, you can lose a considerable amount of weight over a couple months of consistent ketosis.
If you’re struggling to get into ketosis fast enough, and want to see some results for the work you’ve been putting in more quickly, you’ll want to check out the following tips below.
Fastest Ways to Get Into Ketosis
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Focus on healthy fats
Getting the ratios of your macronutrients right is one of the most effective ways to kickstart your body into a ketogenic state.
When it comes to fat macro targets, it’s a bit of a sliding scale depending on your age, height, weight, body fat percentage, physical fitness, and any other factors like certain diseases or dietary restrictions. Generally though, most people should strive for consuming a majority of healthy fat, a moderate amount of protein, and a restricted amount of carbohydrates each day to achieve ketosis.
Getting those fats are important, but focusing on Omega-3 fatty acids is even more important. Omega-3’s are the most beneficial for the keto diet, and can be found in foods like tuna, salmon, sour cream, avocados, olive oil, coconut oil, and flaxseed oil.
Supplements are also a big help if you’re having trouble eating enough high fat foods on your own. I sometimes supplement my Omega-3 fatty acids with some of the following brands from Amazon:
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Watch carb counts
Cutting down on carbs is pretty much the only way you’ll be able to get into ketosis quickly, let alone at all. While there’s some conflicting opinions on going zero carb and being able to get into ketosis faster, what is known as that reducing your net carb intake to below 20 every day (with a max total carb intake of between 45 and 55) should definitely help you get to ketosis.
Cutting down on carbs can be pretty challenging if you’re coming from a high carb diet, so sticking with a meal plan that has everything already planned out for you is a great way to stay on track.
An important part of reducing carbohydrates is by knowing what you can replace them with. You can check out our Keto-Friendly Food resource page right here.
On top of meal plans, I also like using macro calculating apps to help keep me on target day after day. I’ve tried a few of them, and while they all have their own pros and cons, here are my favorite:
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Maintain an adequate protein intake
Getting enough protein intake, while not as important as high amounts of fats and low amounts of carbs, is still a vital part of the keto diet.
When choosing protein, you’ll want to go for high quality selections in order to get all the nutrients required for maintaining a healthy state of ketosis. The best quality proteins will always contain the 8 essential amino acids, which can be found in foods like eggs, fish, poultry, hard cheeses like cheddar, and full fat dairy products like greek yogurt and butter.
Quality proteins have added benefits of helping to build and maintain muscle mass, which can sometimes be an additional challenge when adapting to the keto diet.
With so much effort centered toward fat, a lot of meal plans can be protein lacking, and sometimes your protein goals can be tough to hit. I try to supplement my protein through keto-friendly bars and shakes. Some of my favorites include:
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Get enough sleep
Getting enough sleep is incredibly important. Not only is it beneficial for getting into ketosis fast, but not getting enough sleep has a plethora of dangerous side effects for everyone on all types of diets.
Keto-driven insomnia is one of the telltale symptoms of the keto flu, which can make it a lot more difficult to fully get into a healthy and secure state of ketosis.
Getting enough rest will help your body’s metabolism work the way it’s supposed to, and will give it time to rest and more effectively adjust to becoming fat adapted. When you drastically change up your diet, it can shock your system quite a bit, and getting caught up on all the sleep you need is a great way to give your body the best chance of succeeding during the transition.
If keto insomnia is persisting and starting to get in the way of your goals, I lean on melatonin to help me get to sleep. It’s a natural ingredient that helps to stimulate our sleep hormones, and can really come in handy if the keto flu’s got you down. I usually pick up mine on sale over at Amazon.com.
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Cut calories as needed
While the keto diet doesn’t initially call for cutting down on calories, and often promotes ignoring them in place of focusing on macro targets, they can still be a tool to help you get into ketosis more quickly.
You’ll want to test this in small periods of time to make sure your body doesn’t go into starvation mode however. If your body doesn’t get enough calories at all, it will kick into starvation mode, which can essentially take you out of ketosis.
Finding a good balance of a caloric deficit for weight loss while still being high enough in fat to help your body get fat adapted is the key to achieving a state of ketosis in a short amount of time.
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Consider intermittent fasting
Along with cutting down on calories, restricting your consumed calories to specific time windows is another proven way to get into ketosis fairly quickly.
Intermittent fasting is characterized generally as “controlled and voluntary abstinence from all calorie-containing food and drinks from a specified period of time”, but it can take many forms.
The most frequently used form is known as the 16/8 method, in which the eating window for the entire day is limited to just 8 hours, while the remaining 16 hours are spent fasting. This is usually sandwiched around a time that you would sleep through the night. A common example is not eating until 10AM, and ceasing all eating at 6PM.
This method is a great way to help get your body into ketosis as it will have fewer carbs and generally fewer calories to depend on during this transitional phase. Intermittent fasting is also great for maintaining a constant, low blood glucose level, which plays a big role in achieving a state of ketosis as well.
Other forms of intermittent fasting include the OMAD Diet (One Meal A Day), The Warrior Diet (20/4), The 5:2 diet where you’ll only fast for two days out of the week, and the Eat-Stop-Eat Diet, where you’ll fast for 24 hours at a time for multiple days throughout the week.
If you’d like to learn more about Eat-Stop-Eat, you can check out a comprehensive guide right here.
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Increase your amount of physical exercise
Increasing the amount of time you spend running or in the gym is a pretty fool-proof way to jumpstart your body into ketosis.
The logic is pretty sound – the more energy you expend exercising, the more food you’ll need to eat for your body to use as fuel. If you’re not giving your body any carbohydrates to work with, but are giving it ample amounts of fat, it could be the extra push that your body needs to fully go into ketosis and start burning those fats for fuel.
Another reason that increasing your physical fitness routine can help achieve ketosis quickly is because exercise can help us deplete the glycogen stores in our bodies. Glycogen stores are only generally replenished by carbohydrates, so it can further push for the need to burn fat as fuel instead.
Results can vary, as the depletion of glycogen stores can occasionally be stubborn depending on each individual person, so it’s best to combine increased physical activity with a few of these other tips (especially electrolytes and high protein) for optimal results.
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Don’t forget to get enough electrolytes
Electrolytes play a vital role in hydration and maintaining a healthy fluid balance in the body, and maintaining a healthy fluid balance is one of the best things you can do to ensure that your body is in the right conditions to enter a state of ketosis efficiently.
The essential electrolytes for the keto diet include magnesium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, manganese, and sodium.
While fruits and vegetables are usually excellent ways to get all of these essential electrolytes, it can be a little more difficult with the restrictions against carb-heavy natural foods on the keto diet. Because of this, I tend to supplement some of those harder to get electrolytes like magnesium and potassium. Some of my most recommended electrolyte supplements include:
If you’d like to get some more info on how the essential electrolytes work on keto, you can check out my guide to magnesium here, and my guide to potassium here.
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Try MCT oil
Introducing Medium-Chain Triglycerides, or MCTs into your diet is a great way to help your body get fully fat adapted. Coconut oil is one example of food that’s natural in MCTs, but there are a variety of pure MCT oils on the market that are even more powerful when it comes to getting nutrients converted into ketones.
MCT works by converting fats into beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), which is the primary ketone body. After taking MCT, ketone levels in the blood stream have been known to rise only after just a few hours.
Furthermore, studies have shown that supplementing with MCT oil can dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes for the body to enter a state of ketosis.
Some of my favorite MCT supplements include:
If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of MCT oil and how it compares to coconut oil, you can check out my recent guide right here.
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Use exogenous ketones
Exogenous ketones are one of the best options for getting into a quick ketosis. Exogenous ketones work as a way to introduce ketones into your body externally through your diet, and have been proven to help people start to achieve ketosis even without fasting or dieting.
Along with being able to help you get into ketosis faster, they have other added benefits like boosting cognitive abilities and functioning, improving physical performance and muscle mass growth, elevated mood, and improving quality of sleep.
While they can be a bit expensive, they are one of the most efficient ways to get into ketosis quickly, and often come with added benefits like protein and essential minerals and vitamins that can help cut back on other supplements you may already have been taking.
Some of the most reliable exogenous ketone products that I’ve used include:
If you’d like to learn more about the pros and cons of using exogenous ketones on the keto diet, you can check out my latest guide right here.
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Measure ketone levels accurately
Sometimes it can be challenging to know exactly if your body is in ketosis. The early signs and symptoms of ketosis aren’t always clear, and it can be helpful to know whether you’re in ketosis or not, so that you can adjust your diet, exercise, and supplements to achieve it.
There are three primary ways to physically measure ketone levels: Blood meters, breath analyzers, and urine strips.
For getting into ketosis fast you’ll need fast and reliable measurement, so I’m more partial to breath analyzers and blood meters.
Breath Analyzers
Breath ketone analyzers are fairly new to the general market out of all ketone testing products, but they’re much cheaper than a doctor’s visit, and are pretty accurate while staying affordable too.
Another big benefit compared to blood meters is that these aren’t invasive, and you won’t have to continue to buy attachments and blood test strips. Once you buy the breath analyzer, that’s all you’ll usually need.
The ketone breath analyzers are designed specifically to measure the exact amount of acetone that is being excreted within your breath. Acetone is one of the primary types of ketone bodies that is largely responsible for a lot of the benefits most people get when they enter a state of ketosis
Some of my favorite types of ketone breath analyzers that I’ve used include:
Blood Meters
Measuring with blood meters is a lot more effective than breath analyzers, but the whole process can be a bit more cumbersome.
When you test your blood for ketone bodies, you’re best off with looking for what is known as a BHB or glucose meter. This form of measurement is known to be the most accurate way of testing your blood outside of that of a medical lab, and can measure all three types of ketone bodies, not just acetone like breath analyzers.
Another benefit is that blood meters can also measure glucose levels, which you’ll want to keep an eye on when getting into ketosis because spikes in blood sugar can knock you out of ketosis quickly.
Some of my favorite blood meter products that I’ve used include:
If you’d like to learn more about how blood meters and breath analyzers work, as well as more incite into their respective benefits and drawbacks, you can check out my recent guide here.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, there are a lot of things you can add to your standard keto diet to better your chances at entering ketosis. The more of the above 12 tips that you try, the more likely you’ll be able to start burning ketones for fuel sooner than later.
When it comes to the actual measurement of weight loss results once you’re in ketosis, you can check out this helpful guide from Perfect Keto.
It’s important not to worry or stress out too much if you aren’t seeing results however. As great as it is to enter ketosis quickly, there are still no shortcuts when it comes to the long term benefits. While getting into ketosis can be hacked, keto itself is a marathon, not a sprint.