If you want to shed some serious body fat, improve muscle definition, and do so as quickly as possible... following something like a 'keto diet' is ideal for rapid weight loss.
What Is A Keto Diet?
I'll keep this short, because you may know already (so please skip if you do!), but a keto diet is a diet that mainly consists of high fat, medium protein, and low carb foods.
How Does The Keto Diet Work?
When you remove carbohydrates from your diet, your body will use other fuel sources such as fat for energy, leading to fat/weight loss. If you follow a keto meal plan and are in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight extremely quickly. It's not uncommon to lose 16-20lbs on a 28-day keto diet. If you set your diet up correctly, it's possible to lose between 2-5lbs per week, and in some cases even more, especially if you have lots of weight to lose.
Keto Foods:
Foods that can be consumed on a keto diet include:
Protein - steak, mince, eggs, chicken, turkey, protein shakes, protein bars
Fats - nuts, oils, spreads
Carbs (less than 25-50g per day) - usually from vegetables
A Sample Keto Diet...
The best way to start a keto diet is either buy one online, or from a qualified nutritionist, or to create your own keto meal plan. For example, pick 20-30 keto foods/recipes and then create a seven-day meal plan.
Take your weight 2-3x per week and assess your progress along the way. There are some delicious keto recipes online, or you can keep it simple. A basic keto meal plan would be:
Breakfast - omelette
Snack - almond nuts and a protein shake
Lunch - Steak salad
Snack 2 - low carb protein bar
Dinner - Salmon and vegetables
The above is just a basic example. You can go as simple or fancy as you like, depending on whether you want to cook, have time, and your weekly food budget.
Keto Calories
It's essential to remember that going keto alone is not always enough to lose weight. You will only lose weight if you create a calorie deficit. If you consume too many calories, regardless of whether you eat keto foods, you will still gain weight. So it's crucial to figure out how many calories you need to lose weight.
How do I figure out how many calories I need?
As a general rule of thumb, it's your weight (lbs) x 10-12 calories. So if you weigh 200lbs...
200lbs x 10-12 calories (2,000-2,400 calories per day).
If in doubt, hire a personal trainer or dietician to help you.
As soon as your weight loss stalls (for longer than a week), you'll need to recalculate your calories. For example, say you go from 200lbs down to 190lbs...
190lbs x 10-12 cals (1,900-2,280 calories per day).
You keep doing this until you reach your ideal weight. Then you can do something called reverse dieting (a topic for another day).
Keto Supplements
As well as following a keto diet, it's worth investing in some high-quality supplements to accelerate your fat loss. Supplements such as green coffee bean extract are excellent fat burners and will also help suppress appetite. For general health and well-being, check out our supplement range that compliments a keto diet.
Keto Diet And Exercise
Should I exercise on a keto diet?
Unless you have an injury or have been advised not to by your doctor, exercise will speed up your weight loss. Any activity will help, whether that's walking, running, weight training, or playing sport. All movement burns calories.
If you want to improve your body composition and build a more aesthetically pleasing body shape, we recommend weight training.
Keep your resistance workouts short (under 45 minutes) and perform low reps (6-10 reps) and do compound lifts. A compound lift is an exercise that hits multiple muscle groups all at once. Here are ten compound lifts we recommend:
- Deadlift
- Romanian deadlift
- Squat
- Split squat
- Bench press
- Military press
- Bent over row
- Pull up
- Chin-up
- Clean & press
If you can, aim to lift weight 3-4x per week. Pick 3-4 compound lifts from the list above and complete three sets per exercise, 6-10 reps — rest 60-90s in between each set.
For example, here's a keto weight lifting routine I used last year:
Workout 1:
Deadlift - 3 sets x 6 reps
Bench press - 3 sets x 8 reps
Chin up - 3 sets x 10 reps
Workout 2:
Squat - 3 sets x 6 reps
Bent over row - 3 sets x 8 reps
Military press - 3 sets x 10 reps
Workout 3:
Romanian deadlift - 3 sets x 6 reps
Clean & press - 3 sets x 8 reps
Wide pull up - 3 sets x 10 reps