Check out Maria’s site here.
If you would like to learn more on how to test if you are in ketosis and how to Well-Formulate your ketogenic diet, Maria has a fun and educational class called The Keto Life.
- Using nuts, nut flours, seeds, psyllium for weight loss. DO NOT SUBTRACT FIBER.
Ketosis isn’t just for weight loss. I have many clients trying to gain weight, put on muscle or just eat healthy in maintenance. That is why I have recipes with nut flours. My boys enjoy my chocolate chip cookies and breads that contain those things but my meal plans for weight loss are very specific and cut all nuts, nut flours, seeds, and psyllium.
Also do not subtract fiber from vegetable carbohydrates. This is a common mistake of many low carb dieters. My meal plans only contain the highest nutrient veggies without the high total carbohydrate counts. I have many clients that are kicked out of ketosis with too much fiber.
- Consuming Dairy.
I have to say, when I first heard you say I should omit dairy from my meals I panicked a little. But unbelievably, you were right! After not only removing dairy but also adding the supplements you suggested, I can now again consume lactose-free dairy without any adverse effects. I am so happy that you suggested this…it made a world of difference!” Kristen
Cut out all dairy, even “low-carb,” high-fat dairy. Skip the butter, cream, whey protein, cheese, yogurt, cream cheese and whey protein powder. I find that helps so many clients get to their goal weight. When you have a damaged and inflamed gut, there is a phenomenon called “atrophy of the villi.” that occurs You digest dairy at the end of the villi. So once you heal the intestinal wall with this anti-inflammatory, keto-adapted diet, you can incorporate those foods again (in smaller doses at first). I usually have people take L-glutamine and other things to heal the intestinal wall faster. This means no whey protein either. Jay Robb (my favorite brand of protein powder) makes a tasty egg white protein.
I get people asking all the time, “If I cut out dairy, how will I get enough fat?” It really isn’t that difficult if you think about all the wonderful fat sources there are. My meal plans cut all dairy; including butter and whey protein. For 50% of my clients dairy is insulin producing and holds them back from any weight loss.
- Drinking calories! This also means bulletproof coffee.
First off, butter is dairy. Cut it out.
Second, if you do bulletproof coffee in order to “fast” until noon, you are no longer fasting. Even if you ate only fat, eating over 40-50 calories takes you out of Intermittent Fasting which is a powerful tool for ketogenic dieting.
Third, drinking your calories do not signal the proper hormones such as leptin and ghrelin that give you the sense of satisfaction and signal that you are full. Chewing is a powerful tool. Use it. I much prefer to chew my calories than drink them.
- Eating when you are not hungry.
A SECTION FROM KETO ADAPTED: Breakfast isn’t the most important meal of the day … “breaking your fast” is!
When I read about how you need to eat every two to three hours in order to fuel your metabolism and muscles, I find it so ridiculous. Sure, if you are a sugar burner, you will need to eat that often, not only because you are “hangry,” but because eating a high-carbohydrate diet burns up amino acids so you need insulin to increase muscle. But if you eat a well-formulated keto-adapted diet, it spares protein from being oxidized and therefore preserves muscle. Branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) are considered essential because your body can’t make them, so you need to consume them for proper muscle building and repair (as well as for replenishing red blood cells). What I find so interesting is that BCAA oxidation rates usually rise with exercise, which means you need more if you are an athlete. However, in keto-adapted athletes, ketones are burned in place of BCAA. Critics of low-carb diets claim that you need insulin to grow muscles; however, with a well-formulated keto-adapted diet, there is less protein oxidation and double the amount of fat oxidation, which leaves your muscles in place while all you burn is fat!
The saying that you need to eat breakfast within an hour of waking is not helping your waistline. If you are constantly fueling your body and increasing insulin, you will be burning sugar rather than ketones and you will not get into the fat burning mode. Do not eat every two hours.
The reason behind intermittent fasting is based on the foundation that your body tends to burn glycogen from your liver, but there is only enough glycogen for six to eight hours. Once your glycogen stores are used up, what is left? Fat! Yahoo! That is what most people are trying to get rid of, right? So after eight hours, your body is forced to start metabolizing fat rather than glucose.
- Consuming Alcohol.
When people go on a diet, they often choose the “light” version of their favorite alcoholic beverages in order to save a few calories. However, that is only a small piece of the puzzle. Fat metabolism is reduced by as much as 73% after only two alcoholic beverages. This scary fact shows that the primary effect of alcohol on the body is not so much how many calories we consume, but how it stops the body’s ability to use your fat stores for energy.
Muscle Tip: Drinking alcohol is the most efficient way to slash your testosterone levels; women…we don’t want this to happen either. Just a single event of serious drinking raises levels of the muscle-wasting stress hormone called cortisol and decreases the levels of testosterone for up to 24 hours. If you are working out to build strong fat-burning muscles yet consuming alcohol, this actually breaks down muscle further and you end up with a slower metabolism. This is because you break down muscle as you lift weights and you repair them as you rest if you have proper hormone levels…if not, you never repair your muscles properly!
Alcohol in the body is converted into a substance called acetate. Unlike a car that uses one supply of fuel, the body is able to draw from carbohydrates, fats and proteins for energy. When your blood acetate levels increase, your body uses acetate instead of fat. To make matters worse, the more you drink the more you tend to eat; and unfortunately, drinking will make your liver work to convert the alcohol into acetate, which means that the foods you consume at this time will be converted into extra fat on your body.If that didn’t sound bad enough; alcohol stimulates appetite and decrease your testosterone levels for up to 24 hours and increases estrogen by 300%. The infamous “beer belly” is really just an “estrogen belly.” Biochemically, the higher your level of estrogen is, the more readily you absorb alcohol, but the slower you break it down.
Also, we all know that alcohol dehydrates us. In order for fat to be metabolized, it must first be released from the fat cell and then be transported by the bloodstream where it is pushed to the liver to be used as fuel. If you are dehydrated, the liver has to come to the aid of the kidneys and can’t focus on its role of releasing fat.
Alcohol also affects every organ of the body; it’s most dramatic impact is upon the liver. The liver cells normally prefer fatty acids as fuel, and package excess fatty acids as triglycerides, which they then route to other tissues of the body. However, when alcohol is present, the liver cells are forced to first metabolize the alcohol, letting the fatty acids accumulate in huge amounts. Alcohol metabolism permanently changes liver cell structure, which impairs the liver’s ability to metabolize fats, which causes fatty liver disease.
To read more, check out Maria’s book: Secrets to a Healthy Metabolism. She has a whole chapter called “Alcohol, It’s Not Just the Calories!”
- SLEEP!
Ever notice that you thought you were going to lose weight in the summer because you are more active but you ended up gaining???
Sleep is extremely underrated when it comes to the weight loss puzzle! I used to I ask clients, “How well do you sleep?” And they would respond “Great! I sleep 6 hours like a baby!” I now include the question how LONG do you sleep!
You must get 8-10 hours daily. If you find yourself not being able to fall asleep, I suggest taking a cortisol test in the morning and at night to determine if cortisol isn’t falling like it should throughout the day. I also suggest getting a ferritin test to determine if iron isn’t getting into the cells properly. Low iron causes you to be extremely lethargic throughout the day, even though you might feel so anxious you can’t sleep. If you find yourself waking up too early (say 3am and wide awake) that is low progesterone.
If you need more help with sleep, certain supplements can help.
- Eating Too Much Protein
Do not get this confused with the popular high-protein diets. Too much protein will also become sugar in the blood, just like too many carbs will. Do not eat too much protein at one time. You cannot store protein. Any excess protein will turn into sugar via gluconeogenesis.
Split up protein throughout the day.
A SECTION FROM KETO ADAPTED: One question I get all the time from clients is, “How much protein is too much?” Well, everyone has a different tolerance, just like with carbohydrates. I work with lots of extreme diabetics who can’t eat more than 60 grams of protein a day (about 20 grams at each meal) or they will be kicked out of ketosis. In order to become keto-adapted, you need to turn up your healthy fat intake to push yourself over the adaptation divide as quickly as possible. The amount of fat you need to eat in grams per day will depend on your caloric needs. The following is a good equation to determine the amount of fat in grams you need to consume: Fat grams = (calories * (0.8 to 0.7)) / 9. For example, if you are shooting for 1400 calories a day with 80% of those calories coming from fat intake, then (1400 * 0.8) / 9 = 124 g of fat a day.
- Damaged Liver
Get your liver as healthy as possible! The liver performs more than four hundred different jobs and is the body’s most important metabolism-enhancing organ; it acts as a filter to clear the body of toxins, metabolize protein, control hormonal balance, and enhance our immune system.
Your liver is a “worker bee” that can even regenerate its own damaged cells! But our liver is not invincible. When it is abused and lacks essential nutrients, or when it is overwhelmed by toxins, it no longer performs as it should. Fat may build up in the liver and just under the skin, hormone imbalances can develop, and toxins increase and get into the bloodstream. The liver metabolizes not only fats, but also proteins and carbohydrates for fuel. It breaks down amino acids from proteins into various pieces to help build muscle, which directly impacts your calorie burn. The liver also transports amino acids through the bloodstream for hormone balance, a critical task that helps your body avoid water retention, bloating, cravings, as well other undesired weight issues.
The following demonstrates the effects of the liver on our bodies:
- The liver is where T4 is converted to T3 (the activated thyroid hormone).
- Excess estrogen blocks production of T3. T4 needs to be converted to activated T3, a process that happens in the liver. T3 is what makes us feel good.A supplement called EstroFactors helps detox this bad estrogen out of the liver,which in turn will heal liver function and increase T3.
- The liver breaks down fat if it is not tired and toxic.
- This important organ not only helps you lose weight, but also controls your moods.
Remember this quotation from Jimmy Moore: “One way to remember that eating carbohydrates leads to an increase in blood and liver fat is to compare it to the French delicacy foie gras, a “fatty liver,” created by force-feeding carbohydrate (corn or, in Roman times, figs) to a goose. The same thing happens in humans.”
Everything you put on your skin gets absorbed into the bloodstream and is metabolized by the liver. I suggest re-thinking everything you put on your skin! Which is why I use THESE products for not only myself but also on my boys.
- Eating Before Bed and Exercising at the wrong time of day.
Weight loss is all about hormone manipulation and you have a lot of control on not only insulin with your eating but also cortisol and human growth hormone.
Our natural surge of Human Growth Hormone is 30-70 minutes after you fall asleep, but its antagonist is insulin. If you eat before bed, insulin rises and our fat-burning hormone (Human Growth Hormone) will not rise since insulin is more powerful.
Cortisol is naturally high in the morning and should fall throughout the day. This is why morning exercise is awesome! If you wait until after work to exercise you get another surge of cortisol which messes with the natural decrease and can store belly fat. Read more on Cardio HERE.
- Adrenal Fatigue and Stress
Decrease stress. If you hate your job, it is time to find a new one that will embrace this new lifestyle, too. I had one client quit his job to become a fitness instructor. Man, he looks like a new person!
Evaluate relationships that are causing too much stress. Are some people in your life toxic and trying to demolish your health goals? It may be time to find more supportive people in your life.
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