28 Day Challenge Quick Start Guide

Welcome to the 28 Day Challenge!

You will need to gradually reduce carbs to go keto and you may need to tweak the macronutrients on the plan if you have a higher than average amount of fat free mass (muscle), very high activity levels and/or more insulin sensitivity both of which may require a higher protein intake.

Please read the following quick 4 key points to ensure that you are going to get the best results from the challenge, and avoid any keto flu symptoms, making it much easier on you.

1. You must have a health screening and bloodwork done before going low carb or keto to rule out any health conditions such as insulin resistance or pre-diabetes, gall stones, kidney issues or any other health conditions which would make keto unsafe for you or unsafe without close doctor supervision. You must consult your doctor before starting a lowered carb or keto diet to make sure that it is suitable for you and that there are no unknown health conditions or contraindications to keto or low carb, and if you’re currently taking any medications which may need to be adjusted.

2. Are you brand new to low carbohydrate intake and keto or are you doing low carb at the moment? What is your current carbohydrate (carb) and fat intake? It’s important to first determine your current carb intake so that you may gradually lower it over time to avoid any Keto flu symptoms when trying a keto diet. If you are not sure of your current carb intake, you may use a food tracker such as My Fitness Pal and enter in one average day's food intake to see what your daily carb intake is at the moment. If your daily carb intake per day is over 40 g per day total, you will need to gradually move to keto, and if over 80 g per day then you will need several weeks to prepare.

Consuming healthy fats may also take some adjustment and should be done gradually, and not overnight.

3. During the first phases of eating a lower carb or ketogenic diet and before starting the meal plans or 28 day challenge, you must gradually reduce your carb intake over 2-6 weeks before day 1 of the challenge in order to avoid keto flu symptoms. You may have to reduce your carbohydrate consumption slowly over a longer period of time to minimize any potential reactions, but eventually, by continuing to consume a diet lower in high carb foods you should be able to avoid any keto flu or hypoglycemic reactions.

For example, If you are at 80-100 g of carb per day or below, you will need to go down by 10 g per week down to the 30 g per day in order to start the challenge, while slowly adding in some healthy fats. Once on the challenge, until you are keto adapted and have retrained your body to burn fat, don’t try to go for more than 3-4 hours without food. You may also need to modify the macros (such as higher or lower protein or fat amounts) slightly by consulting with your nutritionist, and by testing your ketones and blood sugar to see if you can get into ketosis with higher or lower fat levels, higher protein levels, or even adding more fibrous greens each day or one day a week depending on how you adapt.

You can read more about avoiding hypoglycemia and gradually reducing carbs with this link: https://www.ketogenic-diet-resource.com/reactive-hypoglycemia.html

4. If you are diabetic (type 2 as type 1 cannot do the challenge without close doctor supervision), a Ketogenic (keto) diet is a high fat and low carb diet which can potentially change the way your body stores and uses energy, easing diabetic symptoms. We have type 2 diabetic members on the 28 Day Challenge who are doing great. However you must have doctor approval in order to participate in the 28 day challenge to make sure that your physician will be able to closely supervise you. You must also gradually reduce carb intake very slowly over several weeks by 5-10g/week while adding in healthy fats to avoid any hypoglycaemic or keto flu symptoms and make sure the diet agrees with you.