If you’ve been disciplined enough to stick to your new diet for 6 months or even a year, congratulations — you’ve won the grande prize and moved on to the final phase of the process.
Your body now has full metabolic flexibility, switching between sugar-burning and fat-burning mode, depending on what fuel source you have available. No more sugar crashes and sugar cravings.
This is the holy grail for competitive athletes — a dual-burning engine. Glucose for the bursts of power, ketones for endurance work.
Even if you’re not an athlete, metabolic flexibility has many benefits. The healing power of a ketogenic diet, and the ability to properly utilize glucose when available.
SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Once again, this is a good time to take a step back and review your results. Are you where you wanted to be, not just with your weight but also with your general health? Is there something that still isn’t working for you? Or is there something that was working pre-keto, and now seems broken.
If you’re still struggling with low energy levels or poor sleep, you should re-examine your fat intake. Eating too little fat can leave you feeling hungry, tired and lethargic. Eating too much fat can rev up your metabolism, causing you to wake up in the middle of the night. It’s also the main reason why people stall on their weight loss.
RE-EXAMINING CARB LIMITS
But what about carb intake? How do you know if your daily limits need adjusting?
Once you’ve reached fat adaptation and metabolic flexibility, you have several options from here — stay the course, switch to “flexible” keto, cycle your carb intake, or adjust the daily limit higher.
- Option 1: Stay the course — If everything is going according to plan and you’re feeling good, then I boldly suggest you change nothing. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
- Option 2: Flexible keto — If you’re finding it hard to stick to your macros day in and day out, then flexible keto may be the answer. This is a person who follows their macros 90% of the time, but may partake in the occasional piece of apple pie when visiting grandma on Sundays. If your metabolism is functioning properly, your pancreas will release the insulin you need to convert that pie to glucose, which will likely get burned during the day. Once depleted, you seamlessly switch back to fat-burning mode. So yes, there are times when you can have your cake (or pie) and eat it, too.
- Option 3: Targeted keto — For anyone still lacking that burst of energy at the gym, targeted keto might be helpful. Higher intensity work is mostly anaerobic, which is mostly glucose-burning. Although the liver releases all the glucose you need during exercise, this process can sometimes be slow. If your workouts require bursts of power, like CrossFit or sprinting, a pre-game snack might be the answer. We’re not talking an entire box of donuts, but something more like a granola bar with 20 grams of carbs, about half an hour before exercise.
- Option 4: Raise your carb limit — If you’re still finding it hard to stick to your daily carb target, then maybe it’s time to test your upper limit. Everyone’s carb limit is different, and will likely move higher once you’re keto-adapted and have shed a lot of body fat. If you’re still longing for that extra piece of fruit, then bump up your carb limit by 10 grams, and see what happens. Give it some time, at least a month, and monitor your weight. If everything looks good, add another 10 grams, moving your daily limit to 50 grams. That’s still low enough to keep most people in ketosis during the day. If you’re very athletic and lean, that upper limit may be even higher, maybe as much as 100 grams a day. But always remember … be sure to go slowly with the changes and monitor the weight on the scale. If you’re starting to see your waistline expand, then you’ve gone too far. Back off on the carbs until you find your happy place. And that place will be different for everyone.
CASE STUDIES
Since I’ve seen tremendous improvements in my health, I’ve chosen Option 1, and stuck to the same macros for the past five years. My fat intake will vary within a fairly wide range, but I’ve never deviated on my carbs. I’ve gotten used to my daily target of 25 to 30 grams, which easily covers my daily meals and snacks. I have standard recipes, most of which contain about 5 grams of net carbs. I don’t miss any of my pre-keto foods, and certainly don’t miss the side effects that came with them.
My partner Tony, on the other hand, is a completely different story. He is much leaner and more athletic than me, and mostly sticks to an upper carb limit of about 60 grams per day. He has occasional indulgences, and goes completely off the deep end when visiting his mom. But that’s perfectly okay for him. Tony has chosen Option 2 — do keto most of the time, and don’t sweat it when you fall off the wagon. Just get back on track as soon you can, and let your body switch back into ketosis.
WHAT NOT TO DO
Don’t re-introduce carbs too early — Many people, including nutritional scientists, make the mistake of not sticking to a strict ketogenic diet long enough before reintroducing carbs. Although your body will start to produce ketones in just a few days, it will take several months, and possibly up to a year, before you develop full metabolic flexibility. As a general rule, I recommend sticking to a very low carb limit for at least 6 months, giving your body enough time to heal, and giving yourself enough time to solidify new eating habits.
Avoid “cheat” days — Cheat days are a tempting concept … eat healthy during the week, and go crazy on the weekends. Although you may now be much healthier than pre-keto, frequent binging is still a really bad idea. If you’ve been eating low carb for a long time, eating a whole pizza and large bowl of fries may make you very sick, as your body won’t be used to the insulin shock. Always go easy re-introducing carbs, and stick to whole foods as much as possible.
Don’t completely fall off the wagon — If you’re a food addict like me, an extra cookie or piece of fruit may send you down a slippery slope. If you go over your carb limit on Monday, why not cheat a little on Tuesday? Sticking to your macros and measuring out each piece of food takes time, patience and discipline. It may sound crazy to most, but for a food addict, it provides a hard-stop on where to draw the line. If you struggle with food addictions, “loose” keto is a probably a bad idea.
THE INDICATORS THAT MATTER
Weight and waistline — When changing your macros, in any direction, monitoring your weight and waistline is critically important. If you find that spare tire getting larger, then there’s probably too much glycogen in your system, which will eventually turn into fat. If you’re losing more weight than desired, then raise your fat intake.
Sleep — Sleep patterns can dramatically change when shifting from a high-carb to a low-carb diet. People who eat fewer carbs report better quality sleep and suffer from less sleep disorders. Severe carb restriction, such as when following a ketogenic diet, often improves sleep quality to the point where sleep duration is significantly shortened, in some cases by a few hours. When re-introducing carbs, whether permanently or on occasion, be sure to monitor changes in sleep patterns.
Digestion and gut health — Re-introducing carbs, particularly those that contain gluten or a lot of insoluble fibre, can be hard on your stomach and digestive tract. If you decide to add wheat, fibrous fruit or legumes back into your diet, do it slowly, and watch how your body reacts.
A FINAL PIECE OF ADVICE
A final tip for those looking to increase carb intake — when possible, front-load your carbs in the morning. Mornings offer three distinct advantages:
- The stomach and digestive tract are empty in the morning, which helps improve digestibility.
- Insulin sensitivity is higher in the morning, so the insulin spike won’t be as high. In other words, the amount of insulin required to convert dietary carbs to glucose is lower in the morning, versus the evening. Consuming too many carbs in the evening is also bad for sleep quality.
- Most importantly, you have the whole day to consume that extra glucose, preventing any extra calories from being stored as fat. In fact, front-loading your calories in the morning has been show to prevent fat-storage for anyone, regardless of the type of diet.
So there you have it — the four phases of ketosis. A rather long process but totally worth it in my opinion.