Note: Reshape Physical Therapy and Wellness evolved into Weight Loss for Health, and finally Zivli. How to Lose Weight After 50 was our first course that eventually grew into Zivli. Some old blog posts or resources mentioned in this episode may have been removed. 

In this episode, you'll learn 4 tips to get into ketosis and burn fat fast. If you're doing low-carb, intermittent fasting, keto, or simply trying to live a healthy low insulin lifestyle, this video will help you increase your ketones and tap into fat burning. This will help you lose belly fat naturally and reduce your risk of diseases like obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and dementia.  

Listen to This Episode

Highlights From This Episode

[0:00] Topic Intro

[0:58] What is ketosis?

[1:19] How to test for ketones and why I recommend the Keto Mojo.

[2:00] What are the benefits of ketosis related insulin resistance, mental clarity, and appetite suppression.

[4:31] How to get into ketosis fast with intermittent fasting.

[6:39] How to get into ketosis fast by reducing net carbs.

What is Ketosis?

Ketosis is a metabolic state in the body that occurs when your body runs out of carbohydrates for energy (which is its preferred form of fast energy), and has to switch to burning your stored fat for fuel. A byproduct of this fat metabolism are ketones. 

How to Measure for Ketones?

These ketones can be detected either in blood, breath, or urine. I recommend the Keto Mojo device because it’s far more affordable than the breath reader, it’s an accurate device, and it comes with blood ketone and blood glucose strips, both of which provide valuable information for your health.

Benefits of Ketosis

There are many benefits of getting into ketosis. I recommend cycling in and out of ketosis. Staying in ketosis all the time, in my personal opinion, would require too strict of a lifestyle and that’s just not my jam. I like a little more flexibility and moderation. 

#1: Burning Fat for Fuel: The primary benefits of getting into ketosis in my opinion is that it signifies you’re burning fat for fuel, which should line up with lower blood glucose and blood insulin levels. It helps reverse a condition called insulin resistance. 

Research has shown that insulin resistance and inflammation are at the heart of many conditions including obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, and more. 

#2: More Mental Clarity and Focus: It’s true, when you first switch over to a low-carb intermittent fasting lifestyle, you may experience temporary symptoms of the Keto flu like irritability, sugar cravings, headache, and fatigue. But your body will become more metabolically flexible and able to efficiently switch from burning carbs to fat for fuel in a couple days to weeks and you’ll feel so much better than you did before you made this lifestyle change. 

#3: Appetite Suppression: A third benefit of being in ketosis is appetite suppression. The mechanism of this appetite suppression is not fully understood, but it’s a very important point. Traditional calorie restricted diets will induce an increase in your hunger hormone, ghrelin, and reduction in your satiety hormone, leptin. So getting into ketosis is a great way to avoid this hormonal trigger that so often happens with weight loss and contributes to weight regain. 

To put it simply, you cannot just eat less and expect to lose weight, keep it off, and feel good doing it. If you want to make weight loss a whole lot easier on yourself, then you’ll need to change the quality of your food, not just the quantity. 

How to Get Into Ketosis Fast

There are two things I recommend to get into ketosis fast. 

But more importantly, I want you to recognize that it’s okay, and usually better, if we actually ease into ketosis, like you’re dipping your toe in the water, then slowly get into the pool versus jump in with all limbs. 

The reason for this is that I don’t just want you to get into ketosis once, hate it, and be too discouraged to ever try it again. 

I want you to be able to slowly and surely change your lifestyle for good! So keep that in mind and recognize that this is a lifetime journey, not a sprint.

#1: Use Fasting to Get into Ketosis: The first thing I recommend you do is start using intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting allows your body to use up what available carbohydrates there are for energy because when you don’t eat anything, your body has no other choice. There are other anti-aging and disease fighting benefits of intermittent fasting, too which is why I’m such a big fan. 

The first thing you do when you start intermittent fasting is assess your current feeding and fasting window. Are you fasting for at least 12 hours a day? Say 7 PM to 7 AM? If you’re not, why? Are you emotionally or habitually eating at night after dinner even when you know you’re not hungry?

That’s where you would start, tackling that habitual late-night snacking to increase your fasting window to at least 12 hours. 

Once you’ve mastered that, I want you to gradually increase your fasting window to 16 hours. Give yourself a week or two to gradually increase your fasting window. 

Now remember, intermittent fasting is not about eating less, it’s about eating less often, so be sure that you are properly fueling your body during your feeding window with enough healthy fat, fiber, and protein. 

#2: Reduce Your Net Carbs to Get Into Ketosis: It can be hard to know what to eat to get into ketosis. My next tip for you is to reduce your net carb intake. Net carbs are simply the total carbs, minus the fiber. I like using the Carb Manager app on my phone or desktop to track my macros five days a week, and that’s what I recommend to my clients and members as well. Not only does this serve as an accountability tool, but it’s very educational to see what macronutrients are in your food. 

Regarding how low to go with your carbs, this is again a place where I’d ease into things. You can do the pre-set Keto function in Carb Manager and have around 30 grams of net carbs per day, but you probably will hate how you’re eating especially if you’re used to a higher carb diet. 

Yes, the Keto diet will get you into ketosis fast, and it can be a great tool occasionally to break through a weight loss plateau or serve as a reset, but I find that most of my members feel better around 50-100 grams of net carbs per day. 

#3: Get at Least 7 Hour of Sleep Per Night to Get Into Ketosis: Here’s a really important point. If you are not sleeping well, you will have a very hard time getting into ketosis. Sleep deprivation is a form of stress on your body. 

#4: Destress to Get Into Ketosis: Stress increases the hormone cortisol which increases blood sugars. When your blood sugar is high, your body won’t need to get into ketosis, so it won’t. Same goes for stress. Focusing on your sleep quality or stress is going to be a critical part of your weight loss and maintenance. 

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Resources From This Episode

>> Join Zivli

>> Freebie: Weight Loss Mindset Audio Training

>> Freebie: The Ultimate Food Guide

>> How to Test Glucose and Ketones With the Keto Mojo Device

>> Keto Mojo Device

>> Extra Blood Glucose & Ketone Strips