Perhaps you’ve already heard stories of how so and so got rid of several pounds of their weight, courtesy of switching to a ketogenic diet. Whether you want to shed some bodyweight or improve your overall body health, the low-carb, high-fat diet could be the ultimate approach. However, a ketogenic diet is not always an assurance that you’ll lose weight the way you’d want to.
From our research, we have discovered that some people on a ketogenic diet fail to get to their desired weight goals due to various keto mistakes that they commit along the way. But don’t let that discourage you. You can still shed the weight and get your dream body shape and weight through the diet if only you avoid such mistakes.
Here are some of the Keto mistakes that people frequently make.
6 Keto Mistakes to Avoid
1. Impatience
Who doesn’t like shortcuts? Nearly everyone wants to see the results of their efforts ASAP. And when they don’t see results as quickly as they hoped, they bounce back to their comfort zones.
You might drop some weight within a short period of adopting a ketogenic diet but don’t give in to the temptation of falling back to your former eating habits if you want the results to last long. The diet should be a long-term journey if you want the best out of it.
2. Failure to eat ample and appropriate fat
Essentially, the aim of the keto diet is to make your body run on fat instead of glucose.
So can you just have any fat? No! Healthy, monounsaturated, polyunsaturated and trans fats, particularly from fatty foods like nuts, fish, and avocados are the best.
If you can make these healthy fats account for 60 to 75 percent of your daily macros, then you are heading in the right direction.
3. Insufficient water intake
If you want to stay on top of your health, especially for the proper functioning of your body organs, you should ensure that you drink at least one gallon of water per day.
Yes, one gallon! I know it is sometimes difficult to drink a lot of water since some don’t like the taste and other others hate the frequent bathroom calls.
I know many people will not want to hear of this, thanks to their hatred of those frequent, annoying bathroom calls as a result of drinking too much.
But as we know, nothing good comes easy. There’s no shortcut out of this-you must drink enough water if you want that perfect weight.
4. Having high-carb cheat meals
Like most people, you may find yourself craving a cheat meal now and then, which is totally normal. But having frequent cheat meals with high levels of carbs can render your weight reduction endeavor futile.
When you are going to have a cheat meal to get rid of the craving, you should ensure that whatever you eat won’t take you out of ketosis. For instance, if you have a pizza craving, you can make a pizza with a keto crust, or just eat the toppings.
Try to make a keto version of the food you are craving, and if all else fails only have one slice of that pizza or whatever it is you are craving. And it is important to keep it to ONE MEAL only, don’t make it a cheat day.
5. Insufficient sleep
Your body needs enough sleep, between 6-8 hours per day, for proper functioning. Although keto helps most people sleep well and sleep enough, others experience some sort of sleeplessness when their bodies begin to get into ketosis.
Here are some things you can do to help with insomnia:
- Eat dinner earlier: Ensure that you don’t eat for at least 4 hours before going to bed. This way, you can work off any energy you have before bed.
- Make sure you have enough electrolytes
- Get off your phone before bed: The blue light that is emitted from it can keep you from getting sleepy.
All in all, you should ensure that you do all you can to sleep enough. You should be patient in letting your body adjust to this way of eating. Once you get over the hump of keto flu and adjusting to fewer carbs you will be able to sleep easier.
6. Having a monotonous meal
Have you ever eaten the same meal for a couple of days or even three times consecutively?
It is a boring experience, isn’t it? On that note, adopting keto can feel like a prison if don’t you diversify your meals. This can make you feel very tempted to go back to your old eating habits.
Don’t confine yourself to a single keto meal if it makes you feel stuck and will be the cause of you not sticking to the keto diet for a long time. There are tons of recipes that you can count on to come up with a meal plan with different delicious keto meals.
There are however some who find that eating the same meals over and over makes keto easier and more simple for them. You have to find what works best for you and stick with it.
Considering the benefits you want to gain from keto, you shouldn’t find it hard to avoid these mistakes. You can easily avoid them. Even if you mess up a bit, don’t throw in the towel; take a step back, see why you have ended up there, find a solution and bounce back to your keto plan as soon as possible.
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