Athletic Majority

Welcome back to Axis Labs’ two-part series on the keto diet plan for beginners. If you missed part one, you can find it here. To get you caught up, we covered what ketosis is and how it works to help you lose weight. We also explored why the diet is so popular and even offered four fast ways you can get your body to enter ketosis. In part two, we’ll explore some of the more technical sides of the ketogenic diet, as well as offer you some guiding principles on what to eat and how to maintain your health while on the ketogenic diet. Of course, you can always make your ketogenic diet journey easier by using our line of keto supplements, products that are designed to help you enter and maintain ketosis so you can burn fat faster and longer.

What does a Ketogenic Diet Look Like?

When it comes to following a ketogenic diet, it’s all about limiting carbs and increasing your fat intake. Ultimately, you want to lower your blood sugar and insulin levels, while focusing your body’s metabolism on the fats and ketones it has stored instead.

Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet

So what does a low-carb, high-fat diet look like? It’s actually pretty simple and doesn’t limit your culinary options all that much. You can readily divide it up into an "eat this, not that" type chart:

Foods That Fuel It

Your body craves healthy fats during ketosis, so you’ll want to offer it plenty of those. You should be consuming foods like:

• Vegetables with low-carb concentrations, like tomatoes, onions, peppers, and other green vegetables
• Butters and creams
• Unprocessed cheeses
• Eggs
• Red and white meats like beef, chicken, and turkey
• Salmon, trout, tuna, and mackerel
• Nuts and seeds
• Avocadoes

These foods offer your body the fats it needs to shift away from carbohydrates.

Foods to Avoid

Of course, while you’re offering your body all those delicious foods above, you’ll want to stay away from these equally delicious, but carb-rich foods:

• Sugar laden foods like soda, fruit juice, cake, ice cream, candy, etc.
• Most fruits, except for small portions of berries
• Beans and legumes
• Diet products and low-fat options, as these are often high in sugars
• Alcohol
• Vegetable oils, mayonnaise, and other processed oils
• Grains and starches, like breads, rice, pasta, and cereal
• Potatoes, carrots, and other root vegetables

These foods are all high in carbohydrates, and even small portions of them have the potential to knock your body’s metabolism out of ketosis and rely again on carbohydrates for energy. This can undo your careful work and keep you from losing weight as quickly as you want.

What You Need to Know

So after all of this, what do you really need to know about the ketogenic diet? Basically, the ketogenic diet requires some changes in your lifestyle, and your experience may differ from your friends and family who are also on the ketogenic diet.

What are the Downsides?

The ketogenic diet has a lot of promise for helping you reach your health and wellness goals, but that doesn’t mean that it is free of downsides or issues. Some people who are new to the diet, or aren’t offering their bodies enough healthy fats will experience something colloquially called "keto flu." Keto flu can leave you feeling nauseous, dizzy, and with stomach pains. It can make it difficult for some people to stay on the diet when they start to feel bad just a few days after starting the diet. Fortunately, the cure for keto flu is fairly easy. By following the ketogenic diet carefully, and offering your body the micronutrients it needs, you’ll transition smoothly from processing carbs for energy to fats. There’s also a process called "ketoacidosis" that occurs when your body takes ketosis too far. Essentially, ketones build up in your blood and they become acidic. Those with diabetes are vulnerable to developing ketoacidosis if they aren’t taking enough insulin while on a ketogenic diet. If left unchecked, ketoacidosis can lead to a coma or even death. This can be avoided, of course, by following your diet closely and working with your doctor to make sure that you’re taking your medications as directed and testing your blood sugar levels.

Keto Necessitates a Lifestyle Change

Like most diets, the ketogenic diet does require you to reevaluate your lifestyle a little bit. If you’re coming off a diet that’s rich in carbohydrates from fast food, junk food, snacks, and extra helpings of dessert, the "restricted" food choices in a ketogenic diet may come as a shock. Unlike other diets, keto requires a little more dedication and concentration than others. You can’t simply hop on and off the ketogenic diet when you feel like it, as it can actually confuse your metabolism, leading to increased weight gain. The ketogenic diet requires you to be diligent about what your eating and when.

Keto Takes Time and Your Experience May Vary

We all want to watch excess weight melt off our bodies, but until the researchers at Axis Labs develop the perfect formula for this process, you’ll have to stay patient and stay on the ketogenic diet. Don’t expect to start seeing dramatic weight loss right away. Not everyone is going to find weight loss success following the ketogenic diet, and they might have different levels of weight loss. That’s no reason to be discouraged, of course. In some cases, individuals may experience more pronounced weight loss when they first start the diet, but that is likely because they have more weight to lose. It’s also important to keep in mind that "slow and steady wins the race." Measured weight loss is more effective than rapid weight loss and is more likely to result in a permanent change in weight.

Keto Affects Your Workouts

As a leading researcher and provider of sports nutrition supplements, Axis Labs is focused on providing you products that help you make the most of your workout. However, the ketogenic diet can have an immediate impact on your workouts, and not always in a good way. When you first start the ketogenic diet, your body is still used to burning carbs for energy. When you take those away, your body has to scramble to find new sources of energy. Suddenly, the sets you used to rip through or the long runs you used to take are a little harder. Studies have found that new adopters of a keto diet experience a decline in their high-intensity workout performance. However, once you’re adjusted to the ketogenic diet, it can actually help improve your strength, endurance, and focus. One study found that utilizing exogenous ketones in your diet not only limits your body’s need for carbs, but also "increase post-exercise glycogen replenishment, decrease proteolysis, and act as metabolic modulators and signaling metabolites," which basically means that you can push your body harder, longer.

Axis Labs is Here to Support Your Ketogenic Lifestyle

Whether you’re a long-time follower of the ketogenic diet, or you’re just starting today, you can help your body enter and stay in ketosis with keto supplements and products available from Axis Labs. The result of careful research and development, our products, like KETORUSH and Fat Bomb, are uniquely designed to fit into your healthy lifestyle. Order your Axis Labs products today and start seeing results!

When it comes to dieting, it seems that there’s a new one every week when some celebrity shares their secret diet plan that has a foreign sounding name and helps them stay in shape. But one diet has continued to endure and genuinely seems to work for many people. The ketosis diet has become popular because of its straightforward approach, and reliance on foods that are truly healthy for you.

At Axis Labs, we’re advocates for the keto diet, it’s why we offer products like KETORUSH, and Fat Bomb. We’re also advocates of making informed decisions about your health and wellness, so we’re proud to present this two-part series on the ketogenic diet!

What is Ketosis?

Your body derives energy from a variety of places, namely carbohydrates, fats, and proteins found in your food. It will first and foremost turn to easy sources of energy like carbohydrates. But when your body doesn’t have a ready source of carbohydrates to burn, it instead turns to fats. When your body starts burning fats, it enters a state of ketosis. While it might sound like a product or additive, ketosis is actually a natural part of your metabolic process. As your body breaks down the fats you’ve provided it, an acid called ketones is produced. Your body uses ketones as the main source of energy instead of carbs. This shift from burning carbs to fats for energy means that you’re burning fat at a much higher rate than you were previously. This means that you can achieve your weight loss goals faster.

Why is it so Popular?

There’s no denying that the ketogenic diet has enjoyed its share of the spotlight in recent years, it has been around much longer than many realize. The first proposal of this diet was actually in 1921 by physician Russel Wilder at the Mayo Clinic. Wilder was interested in using diet to address inflammation and epilepsy in children and adults. Since then, there have been various versions of the diet, but the keto diet of today is the most refined, and hopefully, effective iteration. Perhaps the main reason the diet is so popular today is that it's easy to understand: enjoy a low-carb, high-fat diet and avoid processed foods. Indeed, many people enjoy the ketogenic diet because it doesn’t require them to completely overhaul their eating habits. Of course, the promise of the keto diet has much to do with its popularity. Your body has the potential to become a fat burning machine, jumpstarting your metabolism, stabilizing your blood sugar, and even improving your brain function. What’s not to like about those results?

4 Quick Tips to Get Started

If you’re interested in the ketogenic diet, you’re likely looking for ways to get started fast. Fortunately, you may be able to coax your body into ketosis fairly quickly if you follow some of these tips.

#1: Cut Carbs

This is, of course, the whole point of the diet, so starting here is your best bet for seeing results fairly quickly. It’s estimated that 45 to 65 percent of the average American diet is made up of carbohydrates. That means that most people are consuming 225 to 325 grams of carbs every day. To enter ketosis more quickly, the ketogenic diet requires that you limit your intake of carbs to just 25-50 grams per day. Any more, and you can actually throw your body out of ketosis. To visualize 50 grams of carbs, that’s about three small slices of bread, a banana, or a pear. Things like fruits are unexpected sources of carbs.

#2: Limit Protein Intake

Your body makes use of proteins to build and maintain strong, powerful muscles. It also uses proteins to repair your body’s tissues, produce hormones and enzymes, and much more. However, on the keto diet, you’ll want to reduce the amount of protein you ingest. Followers of the ketogenic diet aim to make protein only about 20 percent of their daily calorie intake. But the goal here is to not deprive your body of the nutrients it needs to stay healthy. Instead, reducing proteins actually limits any chances your body has to turn excess proteins into carbohydrates through a process called gluconeogenesis. Those newfound carbs can then force your body out of its state of ketosis.

#3: Practice Fasting

Fasting is a great way to help your body enter into ketosis. Many naturally jump to the conclusion that fasting means not eating anything at all. That’s not always a healthy choice. Instead, being selective in when you eat allows you to fast throughout the day. For instance, some ketogenic diet followers eat during an eight hour period in the day. The next 16 hours of the day, they don’t eat. Another way to do this is to follow a low-calorie diet in addition to the keto diet. This means that men might limit their calories to about 1,500 per day, and women limit to 1,200. By fasting or consuming fewer calories, your body relies on its stored fat to offer you the energy you need.

#4: Use Keto Supplements

Of course, sometimes we could all use a little help on our diet. That’s where keto supplements come into play. These supplements are formulated to help you enter ketosis and stay there, even if you have more than your daily limit of carbs. That’s because they make use of a compound called exogenous ketones. These are another form of the ketone beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) that your body naturally produces on it’s on. Studies have found that the exogenous ketones found in keto supplements don’t directly burn fat, but help in other ways. Instead, they work as appetite suppressants and diminish our hunger hormones. The use of exogenous ketones has also been shown to lower blood sugar levels, which can be helpful for those with Type 2 diabetes who are following the keto diet.

Stay Tuned for Part 2

There’s more to the ketogenic diet than a few fast tips. To find success in this diet, you need to be aware of what foods you can enjoy and which you avoid. You’ll always want to know what you’re getting yourself into. Fortunately, the writers at Axis Labs will outline all of that in our next blog post. Until then, make sure to check out our line of keto products and supplements. Designed with your healthy lifestyle and ketogenic diet in mind, we use quality and proven ingredients, like exogenous ketones to create products that help you meet your health and wellness goals. Order today!

Due to restrictions, we are not permitted to discuss these findings on a social media linked page. To learn how you can reduce your pain, sign up below and we will email you all the information you need! We're truly excited about our discovery and even more excited to share it with you!

 

As the diets of Americans shift more and more toward a high-carb diet that relies on fast food, health-conscious individuals are looking for smart ways to stay fit and even lose weight through dieting. Given its recent explosion in popularity, many people are exploring the benefits of the ketogenic diet plan. Thanks to its simple requirements and structure, everyone from doctors to celebrities have hailed the keto diet as a fast and effective way to lose weight. While we here at Axis Labs are big fans of the keto diet, we’re also willing to admit that it’s not without its challenges. Let’s take a look at some of these challenges as well as ways you can overcome them.

Lower Levels of Energy

Given that more and more pre-packaged food is being spiked with sugar, it’s easier to understand why our bodies are so ready to burn carbohydrates before it burns fat. As you start the ketogenic diet, your body has to make the switch from burning carbs to burning fat. During this transitory period, you might feel like you’re more tired than you usually are. Periods of fatigue and weakness are common, as is a sense of brain fog. This is because your body is trying to reconfigure its metabolic processes and is looking for new stores of energy (fat). But you don’t have to suffer from fatigue while on the ketogenic diet. To ensure that you maintain your energy levels, prioritize hydration. You’ll also want to make sure that your diet is rich in the essential nutrients it needs, like ielectrolytes, magnesium, and potassium. An easy way to do this is to add a little salt to your meal, or having a cup of bone broth every now and then. While your diet plan will play a big part in maintaining your energy levels, good sleep hygiene is a vital part of being successful on the keto diet. In fact, we can’t stress enough how important it is to get eight hours of sleep every night, no matter what diet or exercise routine you’re following. Getting adequate sleep lowers your stress levels and keeps you from feeling more fatigued.

You Might Be Constipated

While no one likes to think about this challenge, it’s one worth discussing. The ketogenic diet means that you’re avoiding carbs, and that means you’re probably not getting the same amount of fiber as you used to. This dearth of fiber changes your digestion and can lead to constipation. You want to avoid constipation on the keto diet as much as possible. If you’re not having regular, healthy bowel movements, your body can’t stay in ketosis and your levels of stress hormones and blood sugar will rise, leading to weight gain. To overcome this challenge of the keto diet, you can take some pretty simple steps. First, make sure you’re getting enough water. As above, hydration keeps everything in your body functioning smoothly. You can also get your source of fiber through high-fiber, low-carb vegetables like leafy greens, avocado, and other cruciferous vegetables like broccoli. If push comes to shove and still nothing is moving, consider adding a digestive enzyme to your diet routine. Lipase, in particular, is a great way to break down the fats you’re eating.

Stress Can Impact Your Ability to Stay in Ketosis

Stress has a greater impact on our health than many people realize. Left unchecked, it can do more than cloud our mental clarity. Eventually, it can affect our physical health too. Unfortunately, your keto diet plan can also be affected by your stress levels. That’s because when our bodies are stressed, they release hormones that raise our blood sugar levels. These heightened levels are meant to help us in fight or flight situations. In short bursts, these increased stress hormones are helpful, but over the long-term, it only leads to lowered levels of ketones. If you’re in a stressful period of your life, you may find it difficult to maintain ketosis. The key then is to find ways to lower your stress levels and find a sense of calm in your life while on the keto diet. This can be a struggle for some, but is absolutely achievable. Remember to practice good self-care habits, like basic hygiene, connecting with the ones you love, addressing issues as soon as they arise, and of course, offering your body the healthy foods it needs. Living a less stressful life will not only allow you to find success on the keto diet, but will help ensure your long-term health and wellness.

Decreased Muscle Strength

This challenge is of particular concern for those who are regular gym-goers who take part in bodybuilding endeavors. Not only could you generally feel more tired on the keto diet, you may not feel as strong as you do normally. The change in diet means that your body has a harder time recovering from intense workouts as quickly. There is some research that also suggests that an increase in the level of ketones can also affect performance during high intensity workouts. But this potential weakness deters you from trying the keto diet. Instead, you can avoid this challenge by being careful about your diet. You’ll want to provide your body with enough protein it needs to repair your muscles, but not so much it kicks you out of ketosis. A good rule to follow to strike that balance is to consume 1.3 grams of protein per kilogram of your ideal body weight. If you’re worried about your sodium levels as well, try adding a quarter teaspoon of natural sea salt to a glass of water each day. These two steps should offer your body the nutrients and minerals it needs to repair itself normally, keeping your muscles healthy and strong. This period of temporary muscle weakness may necessitate that you take some time off from hard or particularly intense workouts. Low-intensity training is a great way to continue to exercise even when you aren’t feeling your strongest.

You Might Feel a Little Moody

Our diet affects many things about us, and that includes our mood. For those new to the keto diet plan, they might notice changes in their sleep patterns, feelings, and even behaviors. That’s because the hormones your body produces are being created in different levels and your neurotransmitters are reacting differently, all thanks to your new low-carb, high-fat diet. During the first few weeks of your keto diet, you might feel kinda blue and unmotivated. But don’t despair. This isn’t a sign that the diet isn’t working. It just means that your brain is adapting to the change in the source of energy you’re providing it. You can help bolster your mood by adding more magnesium to your diet through foods like avocados, salmon, and rich leafy greens. Beyond just food and vitamins, you can also improve your mood with exercise, quiet reflection, and talking through your feelings with your friends.

Keto Supplements For Your Healthy Lifestyle

The keto diet isn’t without its challenges, but they only serve to make the reward all the more satisfying. If you want to get the most out of your new diet plan, make sure to include Axis Labs’ line of keto products into your health and wellness routine. Made from proven ingredients, like exogenous ketones, our fat loss and keto products are second to none and are uniquely formulated to help you enter into ketosis more quickly, and stay there longer. Browse our products and order yours today!