For a Healthy Metabolism, Vary Your Diet!
Are you struggling to lose weight no matter what diet you try? Or feeling mentally foggy and tired, with little energy to do the things you love?
Our modern eating habits are wreaking havoc on our metabolisms and overall health, fueling the cycle of dysfunction and illness.
But, you can break the cycle!
Our bodies crave diet variation — it’s how our ancestors ate, alternating between periods of feast and famine, high carb days, low carb days, and everything in between. Their bodies never knew what to expect from day to day, and they had incredibly adaptive metabolisms as a result. The bottom line is…if you want to keep your metabolism on its toes and functioning at its highest level, shake things up on a regular basis!
Two great ways to do that are intermittent fasting and ketogenic eating, both of which yield awesome health benefits when done properly.
Intermittent Fasting
Fasting can resensitize your cells to hormones like insulin, decrease your risk of diabetes and heart disease, and protect you from neuro-degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In addition, it decreases systemic inflammation, removes damaged cells from the body, and reduces your blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
It may sound unbelievable, but it’s true!
Anyone — no matter what age or phase of life — can benefit from fasting, and there are different ways to do it. We always recommend starting off slow and working your way up to a full water fast, to give your body time to adjust. Intermittent fasting (known as IF) is the perfect jumping off point — you cycle through periods of eating and fasting, most easily done by closing your window to eat a few hours before bedtime, then waiting to eat your first meal of the day for a few hours after waking up. Aim for a 12 hour fast to start, then you can work your way up to 14 or even 16 hours as you progress. You may also choose to eat only one meal a day, or strictly limit your calorie intake one or more days per week, known as “partial fasting.”
When you feel ready, a full water fast is the ultimate reset for your body. A water fast is best done with no supplements, no coffee, no teas — nothing but water, or water with sea salt that will help maintain your electrolytes. Water fasts can go from 24 hours to multiple days in a row. But, as I mentioned, it’s important to start with intermittent or partial fasting and work your way up to water fasting to prepare your body.
Whenever you finish a partial or intermittent fast and it comes time to eat, EAT! No bird size portions here, eat a substantial, healthy meal. You need to fuel your body with the nutrients it needs during eating windows to prepare for the next period of fasting. If you’re coming off an extended water fast, however, you will need to reintroduce food slowly and stick to bone broth and easily digestible foods for up to two days before resuming eating as normal.
Ketogenic Eating
“Keto” diets have become somewhat of a fad in the last few years, and people often utilize them to lose weight quickly. The truth is, though, that there’s not one specific “keto diet” you have to follow to achieve ketosis, which is when your body starts burning stored fat for energy instead of using carbs to do the job. You achieve ketosis by consuming a certain percentage of carbs, fats, and proteins each day. But many people don’t focus on getting foods rich in nutrients — instead, all they worry about is keeping their carb intake low.
This has led to what many of us call “dirty” keto, which is how many people who say they’re on a “keto diet” tend to eat — there’s not a focus on eating healthful, nutritious foods, only on hitting the right macronutrient breakdown. That means people are still eating highly processed, inflammatory foods that continue to promote bad health. While these people will likely still lose weight, they’re not fueling their body with the nutrients they need for healing.
Myself and others in the health community instead champion “clean” keto, which still focuses on hitting the right macronutrient breakdowns to enter ketosis, but doing so while eating whole, nutrient-dense foods that improve your health.
When done the right way, ketogenic eating does way more than help people shed extra pounds — it’s fantastic for clearing brain fog, reducing inflammation, improving energy, and generally helping your body operate at a higher level!
How to Achieve Ketosis
To achieve ketosis, aim for daily macronutrient ratios of 65–70% fat, 20–25% protein, and 5–10% carbohydrates. Eat 50 net carbs or less each day (net carbs = a food’s total carbs minus dietary fiber). If you find you’re still struggling to get into ketosis at that level, try dropping it to 30 net carbs per day. You can use the Carb Manager app to track these ratios with ease — it’s a wonderful tool that will calculate how many grams of fat, protein, and carbs you need for the day. And be sure you’re taking blood measurements to confirm whether or not you’re actually in ketosis — don’t rely on guessing! I don’t recommend using urine strips to test — instead, use a blood meter like Keto Mojo to test your ketone and glucose levels.
*Sidenote: If you don’t have a gallbladder, have a history of gallstones, or have difficulty digesting fats, you will need an enzyme-based digestive aid with ox bile and lipase to break down the fats you eat.
Keep Your Body Guessing!
Don’t forget…when it comes to your eating, variation is key! It’s great for your body to introduce things like ketogenic eating and fasting into the mix, but you want to cycle high carb days in as well, and when you break a fast be sure to eat a good, nutritious meal. Keep your body guessing!
