Keto Diet For Beginners By The #1 Keto Authority - Dr. Berg (2024)

What is a ketogenic Diet?

A ketogenic diet is simply a diet, which causes your body to run on what are called ketonesinstead of sugar from carbohydrates like pasta, grains or sugary foods. Ketones are a typeof acid formed when your body begins burning stored or dietary fat for fuel instead ofcarbs. They’re actually a very efficient fuel for your body. The most abundant, andbeneficial, ketone is called beta-hydroxybutyrate or BHB.

On a typical American diet, your body is constantly converting sugar from carbs into energy.However, when you change to a high-fat diet and limit your net carbs, your body startsproducing ketones for energy. As a result, on a low carb diet, your body automaticallybegins burning fat⁽¹⁾.

In a keto diet, the goal is to switch your body from burning sugar fuel to fat fuel.

Do You Really Need Carbs?

The dictionary defines carbohydrates as “substances such as sugar or starch that provide thebody with energy.”

Simple carbohydrate made of refined flour and added sugar rapidly converts to blood sugar(glucose) when you eat them. Complex carbohydrates, such as grains and beans, convert moreslowly. Regardless, all carbohydrates convert to sugar in the body - and when your net carbintake is high you'll gain weight.

All your life you've been told that you need carbohydrates for energy or that your brain canonly run on glucose made from carbs, a type of sugar. Those are myths, as evidenced by thecountless healthy, happy individuals on low-sugar or low-carbohydrate diets⁽²⁾. Instead, you can run your body on other fuel sources such as fatty acids and ketonesproduced by fat burning. While your body does need a very tiny amount of glucose (sugar) tofunction, it has the capability to produce all the glucose it needs internally from fat orprotein, not carbs.

The carbs you do need are vegetables—but only for the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, andfiber they supply. Otherwise, your body does not require carbohydrates for good health. Infact, the opposite is true. Carbohydrates, particularly refined carbohydrates, deplete yournutrients and negatively affect your health. Carbs also turn to fat in your body, and theyimpede fat burning. (That's why you haven't been able to lose weight on a high-carb diet⁽³⁾.)

Ketosis Simplified

“Ketosis” is the state your body is in when it is converting fat into energy. When a diet isreferred to as “ketogenic,” it only uses a particular combination of foods that puts yourbody into ketosis using a process called ketogenesis. This food combination is:

*Clean carbs refer to non-starchy vegetables

The goal of the ketogenic diet is to get your body into ketosis and keep it there. Whenyou're in ketosis, your body creates better fuel for itself and for your brain.

As you can guess, the foods that throw you out of ketosis are excessive carbs and sugar andhigh protein. So too will frequent eating.

Getting your body into ketosis is like flipping a switch from using energy from carbs tousing energy from fat. The result is that you start burning fat automatically as you gothrough your day.

Traditional Keto Diet Plan Vs. Healthy Ketosis

Although the common denominator of all keto diets is low net carbs to induce ketosis, notall keto diets are created equal. In fact, traditional ketogenic diets do not differentiatethe type of food. Many times they include processed, genetically modified foods, glutenproducts, unhealthy trans fats, and synthetic vitamins. This gives keto a bad rap. A healthy keto diet food list is very important to understand. Traditional low-carb, high-fat keto's primary goal is usuallyrapid weight loss or a reduction of epilepsy symptoms, and not necessarily good nutrition. Asa result, you could lose weight or reduce certain symptoms but become less healthy overall.

Any type of ketogenic diet, by limiting net carbs, also reduces your fat storing hormone⁽⁴⁾- but why limit yourself when there are an impressivevariety of long-term health benefits, which await you?

To distinguish my keto program from others, I coined the term “Healthy Ketosis.” It’s basedon a guiding principle of mine:

It’s not “Lose weight to get healthy,” its “Get healthy to lose weight!”

Healthy Keto is groundbreaking because it emphasizes obtaining your required nutrients fromhigh-quality foods such as organic vegetables, full-fat organic dairy, and wild-caught,grass fed, pasture-raised meat, fish, fowl, and eggs —all with the goal of getting you healthy tolose weight rather than losing weight to get healthy.

No Counting Calories On The Keto Diet

As you know, typical diets are centered on calorie counting. You’re told you need to simplyconsume fewer calories than you burn and you’ll lose weight, regardless of where thosecalories come from. This is not only wrong but it’s unhealthy.

When you look at the definition of food in the dictionary, you’ll see why:

Food: (n)That which is eaten to sustain life, provide energy and promote the growth and repair oftissues; nourishment. The word “food” comes from an old English word “foda” which meantnourishment.

Eating is not simply a matter of getting calories; it’s about getting nutrients from thosecalories⁽⁵⁾ . And that iswhat Healthy Keto® is all about: getting the nutritionyou need from the foods you eat.

Another vital point is that not all calories are created equal when it comes to yourhormones. Carb calories trigger fat-making and fat-storing hormones the most, while caloriesfrom fat trigger those same hormones the least⁽⁶⁾.

In other words, you need to eat keto-approved fat to lose fat.

Healthy Keto® Diet Guidelines

When you keep in mind that food is intended to provide nourishment not only calories, thereare two principles that form the foundation of a healthy ketogenic diet:

Don’t Eat Sugar at All

To get into ketosis and stay there, stay away from any type of sugar or anything that turnsquickly into sugar such as wheat, corn, rice, cereal, most fruits, and the like.

When you consume sugar, your body will burn it as fuel, and you won’t experience thehealthy, weight-loss benefits of fat burning.

You’ll need to be alert to the ingredients of all foods and beverages you consume. Be sureto check nutrition labels for sugars or sugar-creating ingredients.

What to Eat Overview

On the Healthy Ketogenic plan, I recommend the following breakdown of the types of caloriesyou eat:

*Clean carbs refer to non-starchy vegetables

Although this plan is not based on calorie counting, I’m giving you these percentages interms of calories since they are a common measurement guideline in the food industry.

The Truth About Fat

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, widespread media stories about the alleged virtues oflow-fat diets resulted in hundreds of unhealthy low-fat foods on our grocery shelves. Theselow-fat processed foods were (and still are) loaded with sweeteners and chemicals to makethem more palatable because they lacked delicious fats like butter or coconut oil.

Rest assured that healthy dietary fat is a vital component of any diet. Your body needs it!Fat assists in cell growth, the production of hormones, the absorption of nutrients, andmore⁽⁷⁾. MCT oil isparticularly healthy for you and can assist the body getting into ketosis and staying in it.Our bodies use the ketones as fuel without having to process the ketones through the liver.MCT oil can be taken while intermittent fasting and when taken in moderationMCT oil will not break a fast.

Although 70 percent of your diet as fat seems like an excessive amount, remember we aretalking about 70 percent of the total calories. Because fat is more than double the caloriesper gram than protein or carbs, the amount of fat in weight size is a lot smaller. Insteadof focusing on the 70 percent, let’s look at it in the volume of food on your plate.

I recommend you gradually work your way up to your daily amount of fat. If you add too muchfat too quickly, you’ll overwhelm your gallbladder, which can cause shoulder pain andbloating. Keto involves eating more fats, and your body will adapt to this by producing morebile.There are tremendous ox bile benefits which can help support the production of bile in the gallbladder. Ox bile can be found in ourgallbladder formula which helps support digestion. This is a gradual process and may take time,so if you react to an increase in dietary fat cut back a little and introduce it more slowly.

On my Healthy Keto Plan, you’ll be eating foods like beef, large salads, butter, and eggs.If you want to know the gram amounts of fat you’ll be consuming, it would range between 20to 50 grams in each meal.

I recommend everyone start off on a higher amount of fat in the beginning to help satisfyyou between meals. As your body adapts to ketosis over time, you can reduce your fat if youneed to lose more weight. Since either your ketones are generated from your own body fat orthe dietary fat you eat, eating too much fat may keep you from losing your own fat,particularly if your metabolism is slow despite still being in ketosis.

Healthy dietary fats include:

Moderate Protein

Organic, grass-fed unprocessed meats, pasture-raised eggs, and wild-caught fish are perfectfor this diet. The fattier types of fish and meat are recommended to help you stay inketosis. An important note is that the leaner the protein is, the more it will elevate yourfat storing hormone thus preventing ketosis⁽⁸⁾.

And remember, this is a moderate-protein diet. While you may have heard stories of peoplegoing crazy eating all the bunless cheeseburgers they want while on a low carb diet, eatingtoo much protein will result in some of the protein being converted to glucose and bootingyou out of ketosis.

You’ll only need three to six ounces of protein per meal, and maybe a bit more if yourmetabolism is fast, you’re exercising, or are a large person. Don’t worry about countinggrams here, as this can be a little complicated when it comes to protein—just stick withthree to six ounces per meal while you're on the keto diet.

Here’s an example of three (3) ounce protein versus six (6) ounce protein.

Low Carbohydrates

Limit your net carbs to keep your body in ketosis. Choose healthier types of carbs ideally suited to a ketogenicdiet such as green and leafy vegetables. You will be able to consume a small amount of berriestoo.

Stay away from carbs like these:

If you feel like you might miss your favorite high-carbohydrate foods, there are plenty ofketogenic substitutes that I will share with you later in this article. One of the beautiesof the keto diet is once you adapt to fat burning, your hunger and cravings will greatlysubside, and you may not even miss your favorites⁽⁹⁾/

Vegetables

Consuming enough keto-friendly vegetables is a vital part of this healthy keto diet plan.These veggies will provide your body with plenty of nutrients and help you stay in ketosis.Your main choices will be green leafy vegetables along with cruciferous ones.

The more raw vegetables you can eat, the better. However, if you bloat when you eatvegetables, you will need to start with a smaller amount of raw ones. Steaming them willhelp.

A big salad at lunch or dinner could provide several cups of greens. For dinner, steamvegetables then top them generously with butter. For an abundance of ideas, you can checkout my free keto recipes.

Though avocados are fruits, their high level of healthy fats means you can eat them freelyon a keto diet. A typical avocado also contains fiber and only two grams of carbohydrates.Plus, it includes minerals such as potassium, which is an essential ingredient of theHealthy Ketogenic diet. Avocados also help improve triglyceride and cholesterol levels⁽¹⁰⁾.

Steer clear of corn and soy; they are usually genetically modified organism (GMO) foods thatare problematic on a keto diet.

Choosing Your Carbs

To keep your body in ketosis, your consumption of carbohydrates should be between 20 and 50grams per day. You can still eat some health protein rich snacks foods occasionally like thesatisfying keto chicken nuggets which we have a recipe for. These images show you a typical serving size of carbohydrates onthe keto diet:

In choosing carbs, avoid unhealthy carbs like grains, potatoes, or concentrated carbs likejuice. They're not part of a low carb diet; they'll boot you out of ketosis, spike your fatstoring hormone, and bring your weight loss to a screeching halt.

I've mentioned net carbs several times. Net carbs in food are calculated like so: totalcarbs minus fiber = net carbs.

It's worth calculating the amount of net carbs in many of the foods that you eat. Doing so will help you stick to your keto diet with greaterease, as well as increase your awareness of the nutritional value of the food you’re puttinginto your body.

You should also avoid foods with unhealthy artificial sweeteners like aspartame, NutraSweet,Equal, sucralose, or saccharine. And there is one more to avoid; it’s called maltitol.Despite being so called sugar free, it can spike your blood sugar similar to how sugar does⁽¹¹⁾.

Healthy Keto® Beverages and Food

Now that I've mentioned a little bit about the food and drink you should avoid while on alow carb diet, here's the good news: there are many delicious items you can enjoy while onthe keto diet for beginners. To make it easy for you to compare the healthy items with thoseto avoid, I've put them together in this section:

The best beverage choice while in ketosis is pure water. Choose filtered or spring water,sparkling or bottled.

You may drink tea through the day if it is naturally decaffeinated. Many people use tea tohelp them fast longer when they begin to combine keto with intermittent fasting. (I’ll coverintermittent fasting later in this document.)

If you use cream, use organic half and half or whole cream. If you can get grass-fed itwould be even better.

It’s good to add some electrolytes to your water, to help your transition to ketosis. Your body needs these minerals, especially potassium,magnesium and even salt (sea salt)⁽¹²⁾.

Beverages to Avoid

Keto Recipes for the Foods You Love

Do you like buttery, chocolatey brownies? How about pizza? You don’t have to sacrifice thesetreats on the Healthy Ketosis diet, if you tweak the recipes.

With a little work, you can convert your favorites treats to a low carb keto version. Tryreplacing wheat flour with almond or coconut flour. Almond flour is great for everything from pancakes to piecrusts. Replace sugar, honey orother sweeteners with xylitol, stevia or monk fruit sweetener.

Just wait till you check out my pizza recipe using cauliflower in the crust.

And my favorite, making mashed cauliflower to replace mashed potatoes!

We have plenty of recipes to help you substitute the foods you love with keto-friendlyversions.

Keto Breakfast Meals

Asparagus and Bacon Frittata

Cheese and Onion Omelet

Click here tosee breakfast recipes.

Keto Lunch and Dinner

Bacon Cheeseburger Wrap

Salmon Cabbage Bowl

Ketogenic Chicken Pot Pie

Skillet Pizza

Crab Tostadas

Click here to see lunch and dinner recipes.

Keto Salads

Keto Steak Salad

Chicken Cobb Salad

Taco Salad

Click here to seesalad recipes.

Keto Desserts

Peanut Butter Chocolate Fat Bomb

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Brownies

Pound Cake Muffins

Coconut Macaroons

Click here tosee dessert recipes.

Keto Meal Plans Simplified

You’ll find it much easier to stay on your healthy keto® diet when you plan meals in advance.

If you’ve never planned out meals before, think about how you might be able to cook formultiple meals at one time. The salmon you eat on Monday night can also be part of yourlunch on Tuesday. Steamed broccoli or Brussels sprouts can accompany your grass-fed steaktonight and top your salad tomorrow. Drizzle olive oil, a good source of a healthy fatcalled omega-3s, onto your vegetables and you're set for a delicious low carb keto meal.

In other words, you do not have to follow a long list of recipe ingredients. You can usebasic foods that take minutes to prepare.

Something else that will come in handy is the time you will save by not eating as often.When you're in ketosis, your hunger will naturally subside and you'll find yourself eatingfewer times per day. When you do this deliberately, it's called intermittent fasting (IF) - and it will help you save a lot of money. Most people on keto and IF are eating twomeals and some even one meal a day. This is called OMAD (one-meal-a-day).

Here are some example keto meal plans:

Foods to Avoid

Seven Foods And Drinks You Must Never Consume On A Healthy Keto® Diet

Healthy Keto® Combined With Intermittent

Now that you have a feel for keto diets and my Healthy keto® plan, it’s time to introduce you to intermittent fasting (IF).

When you hear the word “fasting,” you might think you have to starve yourself through hoursof food deprivation. That’s not what I’m talking about! Intermittent fasting is not astarvation plan but another powerful strategy to boost the health and weight-loss benefitsof Healthy Keto®.

Intermittent Fasting Explained

Intermittent fasting isn’t a diet; it’s a pattern of eating and not eating. It’s not aboutcutting calories; it’s about changing when you eat and when you don’t eat.

Intermittent fasting triggers one of the most powerful hormones in your body. It’s calledgrowth hormone (GH). GH has anti-aging properties and is the most powerful fat-burninghormone you have. As well, it protects your muscles and builds lean body mass ⁽¹⁸⁾. A healthy keto diet will help you avoidhormone imbalance and ensure you are getting proper nutrition for optimal health.

There’s another substantial benefit from fasting: your fat storing hormone will be reduced ⁽¹⁹⁾.

Fat storing hormone is a hormone produced by the pancreas and is the body’s defense againstglucose (sugar). When there is glucose in your bloodstream, your pancreas produces fatstoring hormone to quickly remove the sugar and feed it to cells plus store it as fat. Thisexplains why you get a quick burst of energy after eating sugary treats. Of course, it lastsonly for a second before fat storing hormone comes along to remove the sugar, leaving youwith low blood sugar fatigue (otherwise known as a sugar crash).

Why should you care about your fat storing hormone levels? Because in the presence of fatstoring hormone, you cannot lose weight; fat storing hormone prevents the burning of fat. Infact, fat storing hormone is so dominant; it will actually block the beneficial growthhormone I mentioned.

Eating triggers fat storing hormone - even when you're on the keto diet, you'll trigger somefat storing hormone. Thus, the less often you eat, the less fat storing hormone you'llproduce.

What’s interesting about this is if you consumed 2000 calories in a given day but ate themspread out over six meals as compared to two meals, you would gain more weight because ofthis fat storing hormone factor.

Thus, intermittent fasting enables you to influence the action of fat storing hormone andgrowth hormone for your benefit.

How Intermittent Fasting Accelerates Fat Burning

Your body needs very little sugar to function. In fact, it requires just 1 teaspoon of sugarper day, which could easily be converted from the protein or fat you eat. You don’t need anydietary sugar. However, the average American consumes 31 teaspoons of sugar every singleday—over 30 times the amount of sugar required by your body!

Sugar is highly toxic to the body. It causes damage to the nerves, affects vision, increasesthe risk of heart disease and stroke, and contributes to Alzheimer’s and other diseases ⁽²⁰⁾. Keeping an eye on your stool and understanding whattoxic poop is can help prevent serious health problems.

When sugar is detected in your body, fat storing hormone will use it as the primary fuelsource. Not because it is a high-quality fuel, but because it is so damaging your body triesto get rid of it as quickly as possible. People mistakenly take this body response to meanthat sugar is the primary preferred fuel of the body. But as you can see, it's not.

However, carbs aren’t the only thing, which causes the body to produce fat storing hormone.Fat storing hormone production is triggered when you eat any type of food. As a result,every time you eat—even healthy fat storing hormone levels in your body spike and block fatburning. Bodies weren’t designed to eat and graze all day long. Which means snacking is avery bad habit!

A Healthy Keto® diet combined with intermittent fastingmaximizes fat burning by:

1. Greatly reducing the volume of carbohydrates (sugar), and thus fat storing hormone, inthe body.

2. Providing a lengthy time period in which growth hormone can burn fat without interruptionfrom fat storing hormone.

You may be thinking, how on earth do people stay with keto without feeling deprived, hungry,and cranky? The reason people - like you - can sustain this eating plan and easily stick toit is because cravings and hunger disappear, you’ll maintain stable energy levels, and feelmore positive.

You May Be In Fat Storing Hormone Resistance

When your body has chronically high sugar and fat storing hormone levels, it tries toprotect itself by blocking fat storing hormone from delivering sugar to the cells. Thiscauses sugar levels to stay in the bloodstream rather than being absorbed by the cells.

The body then detects the excess sugar in the blood. The pancreas responds by producing evenmore fat storing hormone to reduce the excess blood sugar—even though the cells continue toresist it. This is called “fat storing hormone resistance ⁽²¹⁾.”

Fat storing hormone resistance is a damaging cycle to the body. It results in elevatedlevels of both fat storing hormone and sugar and definitely inhibits weight loss. As ifthese issues weren’t bad enough, fat storing hormone also has more serious effects.

Chronically elevated sugar and fat storing hormone can have extremely toxic effects on thebody. Take type 2 diabetes, for instance—a disease caused by fat storing hormone resistance.Individuals with type 2 diabetes suffer from blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage,increased risk of stroke and heart attack, and other grave health issues. In some casestaking natural beta blockers canhelp reduce some of the risks associated with heart issues.

Consuming low-carb foods on a keto diet, and eating less frequently as you do withintermittent fasting, helps reverse fat storing hormone resistance⁽²²⁾.

How to Transition to Intermittent Fasting (H3)

There are different levels of intermittent fasting. I recommend a gradual transition withthese steps:

Level 1. Three Meals a Day

A lot of people eat many times a day with snacks in between and also a snack afterdinner. They don’t realize that they are actually spiking their fat storing hormone allday long.

So, the first level of IF would be for you to eat three meals per day with no snacks atall.

Your ability to go from one meal to the next without being hungry involves eating morefat, which will keep you satisfied longer.

Level 2. Three Meals a Day in an Eight-Hour Window

When you are comfortable with three meals a day, you can take your fat burning to thenext level by implementing an IF pattern of fasting for 16 hours while eating all threemeals within an eight-hour window.

Ideally, you’d wait four hours before having your first meal. If you wake up at 6 a.m.,you’d have breakfast at 10 a.m., lunch at 2 p.m., then you’d have your last meal of theday eight hours later at 6 p.m. (or earlier).

You’ll burn more fat with this 16:8 pattern because you are giving your body moreuninterrupted fasting time.

Level 3. Two Meals a Day

Moving from three meals a day down to two will really step up the fat burning. But toget maximum results, you should transition to two meals a day within a six-hour window.That will give you 18 hours of fasting and six hours for eating.

Eat your first meal at 12 noon and your last meal at 6 pm.

The real power of IF is at night, while you’re sleeping, and in the morning when yourefrain from eating until noon. That’s when you have some serious uninterrupted time forfat burning.

At this point, work on closing the eating window to four hours, giving you 20 hours offasting.

On the 20:4 schedule, you’ll notice even more health benefits, especially decreasing inflammation⁽²³⁾.

Level 4. One Meal a Day (OMAD)

Many people eventually eat only once a day, but I recommend letting your body tell youwhen to eat.

The rule of thumb is “only eat when you are hungry” and DO NOT EAT IF YOU’RE NOT HUNGRY.

So many people snack at night and between meals when they are not hungry at all: eitherthey're at a social occasion with food, or it’s a bad habit, or eating gives yousomething to do when you are bored.

Most people eat their one meal at dinner. You have to make sure that it is nutrientdense and supply all your nutrients. You don’t have to eat the same calories as you didat three meals a day because it would be too much food. Eat what you can and realizethat your body will lower its nutrient requirements when you fast.

Give It Time

It can take some time to move from three meals a day to two meals a day in a four-hourwindow, to one meal per day. If you have some metabolism issues from years of dieting orother stressful events, it can take longer up to three weeks or longer.

And you don't have to do this on your own! I offer a free mini-course on how to dointermittent fasting. You can sign up for it here.

The Life-Changing Benefits of Low Carb

We’ve covered a lot of ground on the ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. But it’simportant to keep in mind why I'm giving you all this information. These aren’t just “gooddiet tips,” but a road map many people have followed to completely change their life, as youcan see from our keto before and after success stories.

The life-changing benefits of Healthy Keto® and intermittentfasting include:

The 6 Most Vital Keto Hacks

Here are some tips to aid your adaptation to ketosis

• 1. Use a ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting at the same time.
• 2. Add apple cider vinegar and lemon to your water.
• 3. Supplement your diet with electrolytes and nutritional yeast.
• 4. If you get intensely hungry between meals, only add a small fatty snack, no protein.
• 5. Add more fat to your meals.
• 6. Add more greens to your diet.

Overcoming Obstacles to Keto Success

Sticking to a diet can be tough when you’re eating out, attending social events, or simplyengaging in the many different aspects of life. Here are recommendations that have workedfor me:

Busting 11 Keto Myths

There’s plenty of false information about the ketogenic diet, spread by people who don’tknow much about it.

Side Effects of a Ketogenic Diet and How You Can Eliminate Them

You may experience some undesirable effects as your body transitions from burning carbs toburning fat. I don't want you to suffer, so I've worked hard to give you remedies:

There is also a very good video that covers this material. Usually, shifting the balance of your macronutrients, hydratingmore or adding a vitamin or mineral supplement will alleviate unwanted side effects.

Keto Troubleshooting

Here are some keto troubleshooting tips:

Dealing with Specific Body Problems

Here are some keto troubleshooting tips:

Medication and the Ketogenic Diet

If you are not losing weight and are taking any of the medications above, consult with yourdoctor to find an alternative solution, including natural remedies.

The Ketogenic Diet for Vegans

If you are a vegan, you will have to consume low carb vegan proteins. Avoid fruits, grains,juice, potatoes, rice, any sugars, and corn. But do eat healthy fats like olives, avocado,nuts, nut butter, chia seeds, pecans, coconut, mushrooms, peanut butter, tofu (non-GMO),hummus, and many other foods.

Frequently-Asked Questions