How to Achieve Ketosis! The Ultimate Fat Burning Zone!
Ketosis is known as the body’s ability to break down carbohydrates stored in the body and use them as energy. The ketones are carried throughout the body through the blood stream when insufficient carbohydrates are available. Thus, a low carb diet would force the body to produce ketones and burn fat stored within the body. Ketosis is a fast and efficient way for the body to utilized body fat for energy, if done properly, safe and effective weight loss can occur. This does pose some important questions though. How many carbs should a normal individual eat? When should they be eaten? What natural supplements prevent muscle loss caused my extreme ketogenic diets? This six step process will begin to answer these questions and help build a diet around a low carb philosophy.
Step #1
Take between 40 to 60 grams of carbs per day. This will trigger the body’s natural response to having low carbohydrate content within the blood stream and the ketosis process begins. Follow this by having a carb loading phase. A carb loading phase would be taking in 100 to 250 grams of carbs per day for two consecutive days. This carb loading cycle will trick the body into not hitting plateaus where the body stops burning body fat due to a starvation response.
Step #2
Limit weight training workouts to 1 hour timeframes to reduce cortisol levels. As you weight train your body produces cortisol naturally, by limiting workouts to an hour you will reduce cortisol levels that hinder fat burning. Note that a higher cortisol level also makes the body metabolize body tissue such as muscle. So keeping rigid routines is a great way to avoid higher than necessary cortisol levels.
Step #3
Load carbs around your workout routines. This is beneficial because it will allow you to have sufficient energy when completing your workout and will aid in muscle recovery. Try to take about half of your carbs before the workout and half afterwards.
Step #4
Take medium chain triglyceride oils. This can be used in addition to cutting carbs as the body will use the MCT as a source of energy. They are also thermogenic, meaning they increase natural fat burning mechanism within the body. Follow directions on the information sheet, some may find they will need to take before and after workouts and some just once a day to achieve the same results.
Step #5
Use protein shakes when needed to supplement protein needs throughout the day. A simple calculation that any healthy individual should consider is 1 gram of protein per 1 pound of weight. This will allow the body to stay in a ketosis phase throughout the day, even while sleeping.
Step #6
30 to 60 minutes of low to moderate intensity cardio workout will compound your fat burning ketosis phase post workout. It has been noted by Jeff Anderson that this post workout exclusively burns fat while saving muscle tissue. High intensity cardio should be done sparingly to save muscle mass.