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Whether it’s that last stubborn five pounds that you can’t seem to lose or you have a few more extra than that but can’t seem to figure out how to start, we are going to tell you how to lose weight fast.
This method for losing weight fast is simple, effective, and improves your health in the process. There are no diet pills, no crazy hours at the gym, no starvation diet. Losing weight fast really can involve good, real food without depriving yourself.
Our secret diet plan to fast and easy weight loss is the powerhouse combo of a fat-burning Ketogenic Diet and Intermittent Fasting, with a few simple tweaks and additions to supercharge your efforts.
Steps to Losing Weight Fast – The Basics
Step 1: Start eating a strict Keto Diet
On a ketogenic diet, you are going to turn your body into a natural, fat-burning machine by switching your body from burning sugar to burning fat for fuel. Once that switch has been made, you are going to lose weight fast. How do you do it? Simply put, reduce your carbohydrate consumption to between 20-50 net carbs per day. Eat lots of natural, unprocessed, delicious fat. Eat some protein with every meal. That’s it!
Step 1: Start Intermittent Fasting
Intermittent fasting will supercharge the effects of being in ketosis. It’s simple. You eat (Ketogenic). And then you take a break from eating. We recommend you stop eating 2-3 hours before you go to bed, then wait to eat your first meal at lunch. Eat all your meals for the day within an 8 hour window. Be smart about how you intermittent fast. That’s it!
What is a Ketogenic Diet as it relates to fast weight loss?
A ketogenic (Keto for short) diet is a way of eating that is very low in carbohydrates and high in fats. When carbs are strictly limited, your body enters a state called ketosis. (This is NOT the same as ketoacidosis, which is a complication of diabetes.) Keto is not a high protein diet. Protein is a big part of Keto but should be kept at moderate levels because extra protein can be converted into carbohydrate inside our bodies. For a complete explanation of everything keto, read this post.
What is ketosis?
Ketosis is a natural, biological state that the human body enters into when carbohydrate intake is very low. When there are no carbs to burn, your body switches to using fat as its primary fuel source for all your muscles and organs. Ketones are a byproduct of burning fat. Your brain can run on glucose (from carbs) or ketones (from fat). During ketosis, ketones formed by burning your extra fat become your brain’s primary fuel source.
Why does a Keto Diet work?
When you eat any kind of carbohydrate, your body produces insulin. One of insulin’s jobs is to tell your cells to store fat. Without carbs as quick fuel or insulin to tell you to store fat, your body begins to burn fat – both from the food you eat AND that you have stored on your body! By also eating plenty of fats, you tell your body that there is no danger of starving, so it can burn off your fat stores and you lose weight. Plus, protein and fat are very satisfying, so you don’t feel hungry or deprived.
The real secret to our fast weight loss plan is more than just eating a low-carb, high fat, ketogenic diet. That will help you lose weight easily, but if you really want to turbo-charge your fast weight loss, add intermittent fasting and watch the pounds melt away!
What is Intermittent Fasting?
Intermittent fasting (IF) is about timing. When we eat at regular intervals all day long, our body never has time to rest and repair. All that food has to be digested and that takes time and energy. However, we all naturally fast at night while we are asleep and that is when our bodies do the majority of their repair. If you lengthen that fasting window, you increase the time your body has to repair and remove toxins, making your body more efficient. Your body also naturally burns your stored fat for energy during your fasting window if you are being smart about how you fast, since there are no other calories coming in.
Why Does this Combination of Keto & Intermittent Fasting Work?
A ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting have lots of common ground, and that’s what makes them so powerful together. When your body is fasting, it naturally switches to burning your stored body fat for fuel. When fat is burned for fuel, you produce ketones as a by-product. So really, a ketogenic diet is a way to mimic the effects of fasting, without going days on end without food. Add in relatively short fasts of 16 hours most days, and you have literally made your body into a fat-burning machine.
How To Lose Weight Fast – 10 Steps
Follow this protocol for three weeks, and you will lose weight.
- Apple Cider Vinegar every morning. First thing when you wake up, get your first big glass of water, take a few sips, and then take a half shot of raw apple cider vinegar. (We use Bragg’s Raw Apple Cider Vinegar.) You can literally take a shot by itself (not for the faint of heart!) or put a shot in a small glass of water and drink it quickly. It will help improve your gut bacteria population, cleanse your liver, and aid in fat breakdown and protein synthesis. And it won’t break your fast! ACV is one of a few things that you can have besides water during your fasting window. So throw back a shot and get your day of weight loss started right.
- Drink lots of water. This goes all day long, but it is particularly important while you are fasting. After your ACV shot, make sure to drink at least 24 ounces of filtered water within the first half hour of waking. Every glass of water you drink all day should also include a few drops of Concentrace Trace Mineral Drops. These help keep your electrolytes in balance, which is very helpful on a ketogenic diet. They also will not break your fast.
- Drink black coffee. If you’re a coffee drinker, go right ahead and drink black coffee during your fasting window. It must be black, though, or it will break your fast. Coffee can boost your metabolism, and caffeine is an appetite suppressant. That can definitely come in handy while you are fasting, particularly when you are just getting used to it. If you’re not a coffee drinker, tea is also great. It can be green, black, rooibos, or any kind of herbal you like. If you really must, diet soda is acceptable on a keto diet, but we truly believe you are not doing yourself any favors with artificial sweeteners. Consider weaning yourself off of it as you adjust to a Keto way of eating. Drink at least one glass of water in between each cup of coffee, tea or soda.
- Lunch time! Your first meal of the day will be lunch. A keto meal should include a palm-sized serving of protein (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish, etc.), a handful of non-starchy vegetables, and at least two spoonfuls of fat. Don’t skimp on the fat! Fat is your fuel, it tells your body that you want it to run on fuel, and it is very satisfying. We have lots of great, simple meals that are super fast and easy to prepare in our No Cook Keto Plan: 3 Easy Weeks to Success.
- If you are hungry in the mid-afternoon, have a high fat snack. Think nuts, olives, avocado, coconut butter, cheese, hard boiled eggs, dips made with mayonnaise, pepperoni, or sausage.
- For dinner, you will follow the same keto meal template as lunch, with a palm size portion of protein, a handful of non-starchy vegetables and at least two spoonfuls of fat.
- If you want a dessert after dinner, just make sure it is very low carb and high fat. Check out this post with some of our favorite chocolate dessert recipes.
- For all of your meals, make sure to salt your food. Your kidneys flush out more sodium when you are eating low-carb, and this mineral is very important to maintaining electrolyte balance.
- Don’t eat after 8pm. This can be adjusted to fit your schedule. Just make sure that you stop eating 2-3 hours before bed, and you want your total fasting window to be 16 hours.
- Get at least 7 ½ hours of sleep. More is better. Sleep deprivation has serious negative effects on your metabolism and it also makes you crave carbohydrates. You will probably find that you sleep better when you are in ketosis, and if you are getting plenty of sleep, it will seriously help your weight loss efforts.
A few tips & tricks to lose weight ever faster.
- Make sure your fats are natural, unprocessed fats. Real butter, ghee, real lard, olive oil, coconut and avocado are all great. Also fatty meats, bacon, pepperoni, and sausage are all keto. (Try to buy items that are from healthy, naturally raised animals. Grass-fed and organic are best. The healthier the animal, the healthier they are for you.) Fats to avoid include trans fat, hydrogenated fats and industrially processed seed oils. Avoid vegetable, soy, corn, peanut and canola oils. They are inflammatory, and if you knew how they were processed, it would gross you out.
- Include lots of coconut. Coconut contains medium-chain triglyceride fatty acids. Basically, their chemical structure makes them extremely easy for your body to absorb and use directly for fuel or to produce ketones. More fat for fuel and more ketones = more weight loss success!
- Eat cruciferous or dark, leafy greens every day. These powerhouse veggies are chock full of vitamins and minerals, and many of them are especially important when you are eating a ketogenic diet. Dark, leafy greens have also been associated with converting “fat-storing” cells into “fat-burning” cells! Don’t skimp on things like broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale, spinach, collards, arugula, romaine lettuce, parsley and swiss chard. Spread the love and don’t eat the same ones all the time.
- Drink or cook with bone broth and gelatin. High in minerals that you need, particularly when ketogenic, and extremely healing for your digestive tract, bone broth is just good food and missing from many modern diets. You can simmer vegetables in it, make soup with it, drink it with a little salt and herbs, or make sauces. The powdered gelatin can be mixed into just about anything. Try Kettle and Fire bone broths made with the bones from grass-fed animals, Great Lakes Unflavored Beef Gelatin for thickening and making jello, and Great Lakes Collagen Hydrolysate for mixing into any liquid. Better yet, make your own bone broth.
- No alcohol. For some people, this is a big one. But if you really want to succeed and see a real difference in your weight in just three weeks, this is important. You can do this for just three weeks. Much like carbohydrates, if alcohol is in your bloodstream, your body prioritizes burning it for fuel because if it stays in your bloodstream, it is toxic and it will kill you. If your body is burning alcohol for fuel, it’s not burning fat. If your body is not burning fat, you are not losing weight. So skip the drinks for a few weeks. Your results will be worth it!
How to lose weight super fast.
Exercise the Right Way for Fat Loss and Muscle Tone. Add exercise to ramp up weight loss and improve your muscle tone. Losing weight and how you look are 80% how you eat and 20% how you exercise. There is no need to exercise on this weight loss protocol, and you will still lose weight. But if you want to take it to another level, exercise is one way to do that.
We do not advocate spending hours in the gym or slaving on the treadmill. Your goal is to exercise hard enough that your body senses an emergency. It needs to realize that it needs to get stronger in case that emergency happens again. This is different for every person at every fitness level – as long as you work as hard as you can, it counts! Then you need to give your body time to recover, build those muscle fibers, and gain that strength.
We suggest HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) 2 to 3 times a week. Anywhere from 7-15 minutes of really hard work is all it takes. Do 20-30 seconds of work, then 10 seconds of rest. Any bodyweight exercise will work – think pushups, squats, pullups and planks. The very first HIIT we ever tried was the Scientific 7-Minute Workout. You can start there, and as you improve, try new things. There are lots of YouTubers with great HIIT videos.
Be active on the other days, but do things that are lower intensity and promote endurance and flexibility. Yoga, tai chi, foam rolling and pilates are all good examples, and you should incorporate these 2 to 3 times a week.
Make sure you get 10,000 steps every day. You can get these by taking long walks some days. Other days, get 5-10 minutes of walking several times throughout the day until you reach your goal.
Keto For Life
You have everything you need to get started losing weight fast with a Ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. You may find that like many of us, the benefits of this way of eating go far beyond weight loss and it has improved our lives in many other ways. Keto is not a crash diet, it’s a whole new paradigm. We can’t wait to hear how it works for you!