I included intermittent fasting to my diet to see if it could help since I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted from Keto. Turns out fasting is the absolute best thing I could have ever added to my Keto regimen. There are lots of ways to start fasting, it’s something we all do overnight. Breakfast was named to “break the fast” we have every night when we sleep. Look at it like this, you’re already a faster!

I started with getting rid of my morning meal. It turns out that if you are overweight, skipping breakfast is an easy way to extend your fasting time and to help extend the benefits of your overnight fast. For my needs, I usually eat nothing before 11 am. I do hydrate however, and have a cup or two of black coffee or plain/herbal tea with nothing added. The caffeine in the coffee acts as an appetite suppressant and helps you get over the hump when fasting becomes difficult.

There are different ways to fast. The most common is the 16:8 which means if you start eating at 11 am you can continue to eat until 7 pm. Now, calories in/calories out is still critical. You don’t want to shock your body by trying to eat every minute of your 8 hour feeding window. Start with a high protein food to get started, I usually eat a cheese stick to break my fast, then wait about an hour for a main meal. If you dive in right away after fasting with a big meal, you will set yourself up for a binge that most of us wouldn’t be strong enough to stop. So, be kind to your body and take it slow. If I were eating during my 8 hours it would look like this:

• 11 am: Cheesestick and coffee with heavy cream
• 12 noon: Green salad with homemade ranch dressing, protein like tuna or chicken, olives, pickled vegetables. Herbal iced tea.
• 2 pm: Almonds, Cheese
• 4 pm: Celery, raw broccoli, etc.
• 6 pm: Dinner, focused on protein and vegetables that are grown above the ground.
• 8 pm: Cottage cheese with Strawberries (plain, no sweetener)

As you can see, an 8 hour food window gives you plenty of options to eat. This way of life is not about deprivation, it’s about respecting your body and what goes into it. Now the greatest thing about Keto is involved. Eat the butter. Have the Ghee with stirfry vegetables. Add coconut oil to recipes. Don’t be afraid of fat. Your body will thank you.

Now, a word of warning. If you consume too much protein (BACON!) your body has a sneaky little way of converting the protein to carbohydrate and messing up your blood sugar, knocking you out of ketosis. It’s called gluconeogenesis. Gluco (sugar) neo (new) genesis (make). That’s right my friends, your sneaky little self can make sugar out of protein! So keep your protein grams around 110-120 grams and you’ll do fine.

If you’re following the Keto diet, you already know about macros, your guideposts to staying in ketosis. My personal macros are 23 grams of carbs, 145 grams of fat, and 116 grams of protein. I average about 1800 calories in, but doing Keto with intermittent fasting means that most of my calories come from the fats I eat. This is where it’s important to buy quality food, because your outcome will reflect what you are putting in your body. With Keto + Intermittent Fasting, you truly are what you eat!

Apps I found helpful through this journey:

• LIFE Intermittent Fasting Tracker
• Carb Manager Diet Log

Thanks for reading so far, and I will add more soon. Stay tuned!

Peace – Charlene