Episode 11 of Fast Keto: Your Burning Keto Questions

Episode 11 of Fast Keto: Your Burning Keto Questions

Click below to listen to episode 11 of Fast Keto!

This is a shorter episode solocast just answering some of the most popular questions that I get about Keto all about Keto- the basics of testing for ketosis, when to test and what to use, drinking on keto and how to do it, why diets and exercise do the opposite of generate weight loss and why Keto works so well to burn fat and get healthy as a lifestyle, the best way to get started with Keto as a beginner, and so much more! 

Click Here to listen on iTunes or the embedded link below:

Click Here to listen on Stitcher

Show Notes 

Timestamps

• Ketogenic Girl answers burning questions about testing. [00:03:17]
• When is the best time and frequency to test for ketosis? [00:10:06]
• What's the best way to measure ketones? [00:13:35]
• Can alcohol or drinking wine fit into a keto diet? [00:15:05]
• Where and how to start as a beginner? [00:18:20]
• What is 80-15-5? [00:26:53]

 

Selected Links from the Episode

• Subscribe on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/ph/podcast/fast-keto-with-ketogenic-girl/id1344681226?mt=2 or your favorite podcast app.
• Fast Keto with Ketogenic Girl website http://fastketo.libsyn.com/website
• Ketogenic Girl website https://www.ketogenicgirl.com
• Ketogenic Girl on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRbb6xK4GpWtUIc9wxknKTw
• Ketogenic Girl on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Theketogenicgirl/
• Ketogenic Girl on Twitter https://twitter.com/search?q=ketogenic%20girl&src=typd&lang=en
• Ketogenic Girl on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/ketogenicgirl/?hl=en
• 28-day Ketogenic Girl Challenge https://www.ketogenicgirl.com/pages/28-day-keto-challenge
• NEW! NO COOK Build Your Day Custom Meal Plans https://www.ketogenicgirl.com/products/new-no-cook-build-your-day-custom-meal-plans-with-printed-book
• Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight by Vanessa Spina. https://www.amazon.com/Keto-Essentials-Ketogenic-Recipes-Revitalize/dp/1628602643
• Finding Your Protein Threshold: The Key to Ketosis! March 21, 2018 Fast Keto Episode https://itunes.apple.com/ph/podcast/finding-your-protein-threshold-the-key-to-ketosis/id1344681226?i=1000407075885&mt=2

Transcript

 

Vanessa:                [00:00:00] Hey guys, welcome to Fast Keto. I'm your host, Ketogenic Girl.

[00:00:20] Hey guys, welcome to this week's episode of Fast Keto. This episode is brought to you as always by Ketogenic Girl. Check out my 28 Day Challenge at ketogenicgirl.com. I just released my brand-new no cooking meal plans. They are customizable meal plans where you build your own day and choose three meals to build and custom your day that works the best for you. You can build your own shopping list based on that so check that out at ketogenicgirl.com.

[00:00:52] This episode is a solocast where I just answer some of your burning questions about keto. I received so many of the same kinds of questions and I want to do at least one podcast a month where I just go through your top burning questions. So, this one is just you and me chatting away today. I'm going to answer some of the top questions about keto. I hope that you find it super interesting with lots of great takeaways. Let's get started with this week's episode. 

Disclaimer:

A few disclaimers. By listening to this podcast, you agree not to use this podcast as medical advice as I am not a qualified healthcare provider. The information presented on this podcast is for educational purposes only. Ketogenic Girl is not qualified to provide medical advice. Consult your own physician for any medical issues that you may be having. This entire disclaimer also applies to any guest or contributors to this podcast.

Prior to beginning a ketogenic diet, you should undergo a full health screening with your physician to confirm that a keto diet is suitable for you and to rule out any conditions or contraindications that may pose risks or that are incompatible with a ketogenic diet. A keto diet may or may not be appropriate for you if you have any kind of health condition whether known to you or unknown, so you must consult your physician to find this out. Anyone under the age of 18 should consult with their physician and their parents or legal guardian.

 

Vanessa:                [00:02:20] Hey guys, welcome to this week's episode of Fast Keto. I am doing a solocast this week. I love doing this because I get to just zero in on all of your burning questions about keto. I get a lot of the same questions on a regular basis. I tend to see kind of recurring themes and things that people are really the most curious about. I also love just putting out there, you know what are your burning questions about keto. I put that out on my Instagram and got a ton of questions.

[00:02:52] This was a little while back and I never really got to do a podcast to answer all these questions. I've done videos before, Instagram lives talking about them, but I thought I would save some of the top burning questions about keto and just do a podcast dedicated to that. So, it's going to be a little bit shorter format today but just zeroing in on the hottest burning questions that you have about keto.

[00:03:17] One of the ones that I get the most really has to do with testing for ketosis. Every single time that I post something showing my blood ketones, showing my blood levels of BHB which is Beta-Hydroxybutyrate and my blood glucose, I get so many questions about testing. Where do you get the machine? What number should I have?

[00:03:38] These are just my personal opinion. I like to use the Precision Xtra. I have been using it for several years now. It always seems to have very consistent results and readings. I have the older version of it. I haven't upgraded to the Neo because I have this weird thing where I love the little beep that it makes when you fill it, when you fill the strip with blood, so I love that little di-dit sound. It's probably some kind of neuro association that I've developed over time, but I absolutely love hearing that. I just find that it's very very consistent.

[00:04:11] I just love that meter. You can get it at Walmart - I think has the best price. It's around $18 or so if they still sell it. I have looked it up recently, relatively recently and found it on there. I also find that you can usually get it at a local pharmacy or Amazon. There's nothing wrong with their newer version which is the Precision Neo, but I like the original Precision Xtra just because I find that it works for both blood glucose and ketones. There's tons and tons of new meters coming out now as well which is exciting because it is going to be dropping the price of test trips.

[00:04:44] One of the ways that I recommend saving money on testing is to focus on testing your blood glucose. People have different opinions on this but for me ketones are great to measure. It's great to see that you are technically in the ketone zone which is .5mmol to 3.0 but I do find that there's really a lot of range depending on how efficiently a person utilizes ketones.

[00:05:10] Some people have lower ketones but they're in ketosis but they're very active so they're using those ketones for energy quite a bit. And then, there are some people who have really high ketones but they're not burning fat which is maybe their goal, and they're wondering why. And then we look at the blood glucose. We see that the blood glucose in the morning fasted is still high, so you may be doing everything right, you may be showing a lot of ketones but what if those ketones are coming from the fat that you're eating instead of burning fat from your body?

[00:05:39] That's one of the reasons that I'm always against exogenous ketones, personally, for a healthy individual because the body is so adept at making ketones it makes them just like saliva or any other body function. It's almost like paying someone a fee to get a supplement to breathe or make saliva. Your body is designed to do it. It does it so well. We really want to be measuring the ketones coming from the breakdown of fatty acids on the body, not measuring ketones from ketones that you've just drink. So, you can ingest a bunch of ketones and then measure yourself. "Oh look, I have really high ketones." Well, yeah. You're reading the ones that you just ingested. That's not really giving you any valuable information about your body being in ketosis or not. And just because you've ingested a bunch of ketones does not put your body in a state of nutritional ketosis.

[00:06:26] In my opinion, nutritional ketosis comes from eating keto nutrition. That puts your body in that state when your blood glucose concentrations are so low that you create an insulin scarce environment where your body can then in the absence of insulin burn stored fatty acids for fuel for that stable fuel burn. Also, the fatty acids from healthy fats that you're eating. But primarily we really want it to be accessing that stored energy on the body for a stable consistent fuel. We can only do that when we are in nutritional ketosis from properly moderating protein and restricting carbohydrates. That's why I don't believe in taking exogenous ketones. I just had to slip that in there because I love talking about it and I get that question a lot as well.

[00:07:13] Going back to testing and making it cost effective, the cheaper strips are the blood glucose testing strips. So, blue ones. You can test your blood glucose everyday fasted in the morning after you wake up. I usually like to do it about 15 minutes after waking up but before doing your morning routine or showering or anything because that's going to have an impact. Just testing your blood glucose, I usually find for myself personally and for many people that I've had the opportunity to work alongside with, I've seen that having blood glucose of 5.0mmol or 90mg/dl in the morning fasted means that you are primarily burning fat.

[00:07:53] You can never be burning entirely fatter glucose. You're always going to have one that's dominant, the other is secondary. The body will always default to glucose if there's any circulating in the blood or stored. An excessive amount is stored in your glycogen in the liver but if you're in a ketogenic state, you have reduced carbohydrates enough that you have low enough blood glucose concentrations that you're going to be in a state of nutritional ketosis. We usually see that because ketones and blood sugar inversely correlated that if you have 90 or 5.0 and below morning fasted that tends to correlate overall with ketones that are in the .5 and 3.0 range.

[00:08:38] If you just test ketones once a week, you can save quite a lot of money not having to test them every day. There's no real point in testing ketones at different times in the day. You really just want to see in the morning. It tends to be the lowest reading of the day but sometimes it can be the highest depending on the person because if you're very active during the day you're going to use a lot of ketones so your ketone number in the morning could be higher and lower at the end of the day.

[00:09:03] As you can see there's a lot of different variables with ketones. And so, I wouldn't rely on them as the end all be all in terms of being in nutritional ketosis. For me, the goal of being in nutritional ketosis is having consistent fuel from having consistently stable and low blood sugar because you're not eating tons of high glycemic carbs and sugar and flour and refined foods and processed foods that are sending your blood sugar on this rollercoaster up and down, up and down with crashing. And then you're getting carb cravings to bring your blood sugar back up, and your mood and your energy is all fluctuating so vastly during the day. You're in this constant state of flux.

[00:09:45] I really prefer to have that consistent stable energy. So, it all comes back down to having low blood sugar because that equals really really healthy metabolic state in the body. To me, that's the goal. And so, I really like to rely primarily on blood glucose and that's how you can make it more cost efficient. It's just focusing and testing that once during the day in the morning.

[00:10:06] I don't really recommend testing at other times during the day. The morning reading will tend to tell you how you did the day before. It's very easy to see if you at some point go way over your blood glucose level. So, your protein levels or you eat too many carbs - you're going to see it right away because you'll get kicked out of ketosis. That's why I find that just testing your blood sugar is such an easy reliable way of doing it.

[00:10:33] I don't really find that testing at other times during the day is very important because if you test after eating you can do it to see how well your body is responding to the food that you eat. If you stay kind of consistent and in and around 10 to 20 points from where you were before you had a meal, it's really not that important for measuring ketosis or not nutritionally ketosis. Testing at the end of the day doesn't really give you that much data. In my personal opinion, the most important reading is just do it once a day, do it in the morning fasted, and then move on.

[00:11:05] One of the things that I really like about testing too is that it's a great way to get away from weighing yourself and being really attached to the scale. The scale can be a great tool for measuring especially if you have a smart scale where you're measuring your body fat percentage, your bone density, or other things but I find in general that it's really important to focus more on whether or not you're in nutritional ketosis and how you feel in your body and how you feel in your clothes.

[00:11:30] If you have a pair of jeans that don't have any give in them, you know the non-stretchy kind, they will always tell you where you're at. You can slip those on and see how you feel in them and right away know if you're getting close to your goals or you're not making any progress. I find that that pair of jeans is really all you really need.

[00:11:48] If measuring your weight on the scale doesn't bother you, doesn't get to you, then I would say keep doing it but also be aware that there's a lot of fluctuations that happen in water retention especially on a ketogenic diet because our electrolytes fluctuate quite a bit. You could be up to five or six pounds from one day to the next just because you've had saltier foods that day. Especially if you've had high sodium foods like smoked salmon, or prosciutto, cured meats. Those kinds of things contain a ton of sodium and your body could just be up there the next day because of that. It has nothing to do with fagging. You're still burning fat.

[00:12:28] Another thing is that people notice a huge amount of weight loss when they first go on keto. So much of that is not fat. It's water loss because the body is dumping a lot of stored glycogen and your body is releasing and dumping a lot of stored sodium as well and so much water comes out of the body. One cubic foot of water weighs 62 pounds. If that gives you any idea of how heavy water is. So, five or six pounds up to… you know more than that is totally normal to fluctuate one day the next and it can really discourage a person if they're not aware of that.

[00:13:02] You really have to realize that so much of weight on a scale has to do with how much water you're retaining or not. I would just say if measuring yourself and your body weight on the scale is a good thing for you, we also know that putting on more muscle if you're building muscle it will make you heavier on the scale as well. So, if you're just mindful of those things then go ahead and measure yourself but if you're not happy with your relationship with the scale you can just use ketone testing, blood glucose testing, and that pair of jeans that you rely on. They'll be a great way to measure your progress.

[00:13:35] That's really my response to questions about testing. I get so many questions about it. I hope that that is helpful. A lot of questions that I get about testing are - what's the best way to measure? Hands down for me it's always going to testing blood sugar and testing blood ketones. The urine strips, a big reason why they stop working overtime is after a while your body converts the specific ketones that comes out in the urine.

[00:14:02] There's three different types of ketones. There's acetone which is the ketone on the breast. There's Beta-Hydroxybutyrate which is the ketone in the blood. Acetoacetate is the ketone that's usually measured through excretion in the urine. However, after a while the body starts to convert acetoacetate into the Beta-Hydroxybutyrate form. So, if you are just relying on urine testing you're going to see the ketones suddenly drop to nothing. Those strips are going to go from bright purple to not recording any ketones. But if you're testing with the blood, you're going to see that that ketone level is consistent.

[00:14:36] There is also breath ketone measuring. A lot of people use that as well. I personally found that when I did it, it didn't give me specific enough data. I like to have data because I'm a data nerd. I love having really specific information and seeing what's the difference between one day to the next or one week to the next precisely with regards to blood glucose especially which you don't measure with the breath meters so that's my take on measuring.

[00:15:05] Another question that I get all the time is: Can alcohol or drinking wine fit into a keto diet? So, I have personally found that I've had to give up wine since I went keto. I do love wine. My parents were really big wine connoisseurs when I was growing up. I grew to love wine as an adult as well. It's one of the things that I definitely miss. Some people find that they're able to do dry wines. When I was pre-keto I always went for the really sweet wines like Riesling but there's a ton of wines out there that are drier and less sweet. You can try for yourself and see if it kicks you out of ketosis or not.

[00:15:42] I personally don't drink. I don't drink very much at all. I drink once in a while. At special occasions, I'll do a vodka soda and I find that keeps me really hydrated. A lot of what I realized after going keto that I would have hangovers when I drink a lot and a lot of that was because of the sugar because I was always going for really sweet drinks like amaretto sour, Margarita. The next day I would have a sugar hangover because I can do Tequila or Vodka sodas and I can wake up feeling fine the next day. So, it's not… For me, the hangover was really not coming from the alcohol as much as it was coming from the sugar and the sugar overload.

[00:16:22] I can do vodka soda and tequila sodas once in a while with a little bit of lime or lemon. I find that it doesn't kick me out of ketosis at all. But I personally just don't really like the way that I feel the day after drinking so I really just save it for special occasions. In general, I just don't find that it contributes to me feeling at my best. And that's why I live this lifestyle is to optimize my health and I just find that for myself personally that alcohol doesn't really do it for me.

[00:16:49] I am surrounded quite a bit by friends these days who also don't drink very much so I find it easier to do. It was a lot harder for me when people in my life were tended to drink a lot more. When I'm around people who don't drink as much, I find that we all have that in common. Like we can do a lot of social activities without drinking and there's no judgment in that whatsoever because I love having a drink and loosening up. I definitely need it sometimes because I can be super rigid sometimes with my lifestyle and it's great to just switch things up once in a while and let loose but I'm just saying on a day to day basis I find that I gravitate towards not drinking. I will do it a little bit more in maintenance as opposed to weight loss mode.

[00:17:32] If you're in weight loss mode it'll totally hinder your fat loss results. If you are doing keto and you're drinking daily or weekly, that's definitely going to be a huge obstacle to getting into nutritional ketosis because we need to have a really healthy liver. We need to support our organs. In order to be in ketosis, we also need to maintain the healthiest organs possible. Alcohol really affects the liver. It can set you back for a week or two. I would say that if you are in weight loss mode, try to not drink. Once you're in maintenance, if alcohol is important to you and your lifestyle, I totally get that. Try to do dry wines or vodka sodas or tequila sodas and see how you do. If that works for you then great, you can incorporate it into your keto lifestyle.

[00:18:20] Here's a great question. I'm having a hard time just getting started. I'm an absolute beginner. I've read and read, and I don't know where to start. So, my cookbook Keto Essentials is a great place for people to start because it's really geared towards beginners. My 28 Day Challenge program is also great for beginners because it takes all the math at calculating everything out of it and you just are told kind of what to eat each day, and you can just make the recipes, follow along, and not have to stress about hitting macros and this and that. If you want to learn more about keto and nutrition and macronutrients, I think more power to you.

[00:18:55] One of the reasons I think that keto works so well for so many people is just the fact that you can't do keto unless you learn a little bit about nutrition and health. I talked to so many people who say, "Before keto I had no idea about any concepts about nutrition." I was just thinking the other day how when I was in college I used to eat a lot of California sushi rolls and I had a friend who told me there was mayonnaise in them. I was like "No, you're lying. There's no mayonnaise in that." I mean that's how clueless I was about nutritional content. And then I started studying nutrition back when I was in university and I've learned so much about nutrition in the years since then. I can't even imagine not knowing that there is mayonnaise in something like a California roll but that's how beginner I was when I first… before I was doing any of this stuff, so I totally get being there.

[00:19:44] When I got into keto I really had to learn so much about health and nutrition but a lot of people I think get held back because they think that they have to know everything and learn so much that it's overwhelming. There is so much information out there, but I would recommend my book. I'm a little biased obviously but I did write it for anywhere from a total beginner to someone who's more advanced in keto. If you don't want to worry about having to calculate, track food, or do macronutrient, some reason that kind of thing my meal plans are a great place to start for that because you can just jump right in and all you have to do is make the recipes.

[00:20:19] I just released my brand-new no cook meal plans and they're part of my Build Your Day Series which is an extension series on the 28 Day Challenge. They have over 130 recipes that are all based on my formula for keto and you can just customize and build your own day. They're called the No Cook Build Your Day Plans. Right now, they are on a huge huge sale.

[00:20:41] If you go to ketogenicgirl.com you can find them under meal plans and you will see that they are usually $249.99 or $279.99 but for the launch I'm doing them for just $49.99 or $79.99 with the printed book as well. Go and take a look at those if you want to get started, you don't know where to start, and you just want something easy peasy without any cooking. There's minimal cooking in there at times but it really is mostly recipes that require next to no cooking and are super easy and fast to make.

[00:21:13] One of the things that really helps when you're first getting into keto and you want to learn a lot is watching videos on YouTube, listening to podcast like this one, and just immersing yourself as much as possible in it. Don't feel like you have to know everything overnight. I think that people who succeed the most on keto are people who do a really gradual approach.

[00:21:33] If you are on a high carb diet, you really have to take things slowly and gradually reduce your carbs so that you make steady consistent progress but without overwhelming your body because so much of why keto works so well is because we nourish our bodies with all those essential healthy fats, essential amino acids that the body needs and we give it the best carbs possible full of nutrients, vitamins, and fiber. All of those things together nourish the body so well.

[00:22:01] If you're doing keto properly that your body is really going to feel safe and it's going to feel safe to turn on fat burning. When we come from a world of dieting and restriction and over exercise the body feels so unsafe. It feels that you're running from a predator. You're in a food scarce environment. We have to shut down all fat burning. We have to preserve fat in order to preserve life. We go into survival mode.

[00:22:26] It's also why so many people on dieting after dieting they "fall off the wagon" or they binge because restriction creates a state in the brain where whenever given the opportunity, say the diet is over or we're taking a day off or cheat day or something, the body will totally overcompensate because it thinks "Wow! We have food around, let's maximize as much as possible getting in as much food possible because from the dieting and restriction were in this food scarce environment so the only way to ensure survival is to turn on that primal brain revs, food cravings." It revs all of this impetus to eat, eat, eat, eat.

[00:23:06] So many people feel so weak and so bad about themselves after having a cheat day or going way off keto, getting kicked out of nutritional ketosis but I find that it happens so much less on a ketogenic lifestyle because you're nourishing your body so well. You're doing exercise. It's really functional and it's more focused on building muscle as opposed to chronic cardio. Those kinds of exercises really put the body in a fight or flight state. Restrictive dieting does the same thing.

[00:23:35] Whereas keto you nourish your body so well. It's such a balanced diet in my opinion because you're giving your body what it truly truly needs - all those essential fatty acids, essential amino acids that it can't synthesize on its own. You're really optimizing your health and you're cutting down on crazy cardio all the time. All of that is going to tell your body that you're not in a food scarce environment. You're not running from a predator, so we can safely turn on fat burning. We can safely burn fat and we can have that consistent source of energy because we're in a safe state and we're not in fight or flight. I find that that's one of the major reasons why ketogenic lifestyle works so well and why it's really not a diet, it's a lifestyle.

[00:24:16] It's dieting and over exercise that really puts us in a state where we're not able to really burn fat easily. We do want to binge, or we do have these cravings all the time because the body is just trying to keep us alive and survive. There's so much that you can do just to get started but as I said if you're coming from a high carb lifestyle or you're coming from really restrictive diet background like doing HCG where you're on like 500 calories a day or you're just on a really restrictive diet that is really high carb and low fat you're going to want to just really gradually reduce carbs because the body needs to feel safe at all times. It's going to go into shock if you just overnight go from a high carb diet to like no carb diet, next to no carb diet like keto is, and moderated protein and eating those healthy fats. Just go at it slowly. Take your time. Reduce the carbs by five to 10 grams per week over time. There's no rush. This is a long-term lifestyle. It's a way that you're going to feel amazing in your body.

[00:25:14] If keto is the right thing for you, it may or may not be, it's dependent on the person. Everyone has different bio individuality so it's really important to assess whether keto is the right thing for you. But you can try just going low carb at first, reducing your carb intake, seeing how you feel. And let me tell you, if you do it slowly, you're not going to get keto flu. I never had flu. I did this transition so slowly over 10 years where I gradually quit sugar. Then I gradually went off artificial sweeteners. Then I gradually started to moderate protein. I took my carbs down very slowly. I didn't have keto flu symptoms. So, if you do this really gradually, steady, and slowly - Take your time. Don't feel like you have to rush into it. We are doing keto in many cases to be as healthy as possible.

[00:26:05] Usually when the body has retained weight it's because it's a symptom of imbalance in the body. Keto really brings the body back to a homeo status. In doing that when the body is really healed, the body is safe, the body feels good, that's when it will release all of that stored energy that it's keeping on it because it's keeping it there for survival. And also, we go into a state of nutritional ketosis. We're primarily burning fat for fuel and ketones instead of glucose.

[00:26:34] There are so many reasons why keto is so effective especially for burning fat. I really think that if you're a beginner there are so many incredible resources out there. Find yourself a great resource. I recommended my books. There's so many great podcast, YouTube videos out there where you can find really great information about keto and just take your time with it.

[00:26:53] We're going to do one last question here. Sometimes people ask me why I do the 80-15-5. 80% fat, 15% protein, 5% carb is the way that I tend to approach keto for myself. It's also what I do in my meal plans and I talked about it in my cookbook. The reason I do that is because it's a therapeutic version of keto. I find it's very very effective for getting into nutritional ketosis. But I'm not against doing 70% even 65% healthy fats.

[00:27:23] Healthy fats are just so great because they don't stimulate insulin as much as other macronutrients like carbohydrates and protein. And also, because they stimulate insulin less they also keep you fuller, longer because they have a longer mouth feel. They're more satiating. They pack in more energy in calories. Eating lots of healthy fats at meals, having fat bombs at meals are going to enable you to fast between your meals.

[00:27:47] If anyone ever says to you "Intermittent fasting? That's crazy! Ketosis? That's crazy." You can tell them you're an intermittent faster and you're in ketosis every day. Every day when you are asleep your body is fasting. You are fasting every single day whether you are on keto or not. Your body goes into a state of fasting at night because you're not eating. As long as you're not overwhelming your body with calories and you're not eating between meals that's when your body will go into intermittent fasting and also it will be fueled from ketones at least for some part of the day. It will be fueled from fat. Whether it's fat that you eat or the fat that you've eaten or fat on your body.

[00:28:25] We really develop more and more metabolic flexibility when we go into nutritional ketosis but being in ketosis and fasting are some of the most natural things in the world. Why? Because everyone does it every day. It doesn't matter whether you eat tons of carbs, high carb low fat, no fat, or you're more high fat low carb or you're in high protein. It doesn't matter. You're intermittent fasting. Every day you're burning ketones at some point in the day for most people. So, it's the most natural thing in the world.

[00:28:54] The reason that I do 80-15-5 is just to stay satiated at meals. If you eat a lot of healthy fats, you are going to be able to fast in between your meals and you're going to be able to access stored fat in between your meals and you're just going to feel really satisfied. You're not going to feel deprived. What I really think is important is keeping the carbs to the healthiest most fibrous ones, cruciferous vegetables which are leafy greens.

[00:29:16] Broccoli, kale, cauliflower, cabbage are the four best veggies you can possibly eat on keto. Avocados are probably number five although they can be classified as a fruit because they have a seed. They do have some carbs in them but they're full of fiber, full of incredible vitamins. Fat-soluble vitamins. Vitamin E especially. It's so good for your skin. Full of antioxidants.

[00:29:40] There are so many great veggies that you can eat on keto and that will make you thrive. It's so important to get that optimal nutrition so that you do really well on a ketogenic lifestyle. I like that ratio but for me the most important thing is not necessarily eating tons and tons of fat because we do have a lot of fat on our bodies that's stored. The most important thing is keeping carbs restricted to that. For some people, whatever that level is for you, if 5% of your caloric intake is 20 grams, for some people it's 40 grams, 60 grams, 80 grams if you're more active.

[00:30:13] Protein, you have to find your individual protein threshold. I did a whole podcast just on how to determine that and how to find that. You can find more information in that episode. I'll put it in the show notes as well but it's great to figure out what your individual protein threshold is. You can do that with testing yourself and you can also you do a little mathematic equation where you time your body fat by two different numbers and you'll get your protein range where you can kind of start at and test yourself and see you know what's your upper limit, what's your lower limit.

[00:30:44] It's really important to restrict carbs to the healthiest ones. The ones with the most fiber that's going to nourish your gut microbiome and to moderate protein and use fat for satiating. You don't need to eat 200 grams of fat per day. That could actually prevent you from burning fat. But if you use fat just to keep you full between meals that's going to enable you to do intermittent fasting to get so many benefits from that and you do it every day anyway while you are sleeping. So, it's really not a huge deal to move away from this lifestyle where were grazing, what I called nursing all day with drinks, with sweeteners, natural or artificial. That never gives your body a chance to go into intermittent fasting and to access stored fat.

[00:31:24] So, those are some burning questions. I'll do so many more podcast episodes like this because the list of questions is endless. I think I was only able to answer about three or four there. I really wanted to give them comprehensive full answers, so I hope that you got some great information from this solocast. I'll be doing these probably around once a month just focusing on your burning questions.

[00:31:45] I mentioned the 28 Day Challenge a little bit. If you are a keto beginner or you've been doing keto for a while, either way if you want to learn everything really quickly, I teach everything that I know about keto and succeeding on keto in my 28 Day Challenge. It comes with my 28 Day meal plans which include shopping lists, guide to testing, interpreting results. They also come with my free support and coaching in our members' Facebook group.

[00:32:11] Check out the 28-Day Challenge. It's a comprehensive program. You're going to learn everything that I know about keto. The support group is so fantastic. We spend tons of time. I'm in there all day every day just answering questions, any question that you have that comes to mind. I'm also there supporting you and being your coach in our Facebook group. So, check out the 28 Day Challenge at ketogenicgirl.com. Also, if you like not cooking, check out the new No Cook Meal Plans part of the Build Your Day Series which is also at ketogenicgirl.com.

[00:32:43] Thanks for tuning in this week. I'll be back next week with another exciting guest. I hope that you have a fat filled week. In the meantime, it was great being here with you. Hasta