If your looking to the Keto Diet as part of your Bikini or Figure Competition comp prep diet, Dr Nick has some great tips to ensure your weight loss and general health stay on track on your journey to the stage.
“Hello and welcome to Total Health with Dr. Nick. Today I want to speak to you about the top 9 keto mistakes that you may be making.
You probably know that the ketogenic diet is probably the hottest diet in the world right now. It's constantly in the news and it's all the rage right now. Maybe you want to burn fat or you want to get ripped? Perhaps you hear that it's great for building muscle maybe you even have hormone problems and you heard it so good at helping you regulate your hormones.
Well guys there are nine common mistakes you may be making that is throwing you out of ketosis and probably sabotaging all your efforts. I hear this every day in my practice someone will come in and say Dr Nick I can't do the keto diet, it's either too difficult or it just doesn't work. Well guys like I said there's nine mistakes that you may be making that you're not even aware of that are completely sabotaging your efforts. So today in this video I'm gonna talk to you about those so let's dive on in.
Number 1
I find that most people are not measuring their macros. Perhaps you really aren't keeping aware that you've got to have a certain percentage of fats, a certain percentage of protein, a certain percentage of of carbs, and I think a lot of you go right into it just saying ‘hey, you know what, I'm just going to eat fat, I'm going to eat cheese, I'm going to eat bacon, but you're not actually taking measurements.
If you're not measuring you really don't know how you are doing. Like I said ketogenic diet is about 70 percent fat and it's about 25 percent protein and about 5 percent carbs. I know it flies in the face of all you've been taught, for example that you should eat this much fat, it's not healthy for you, it's going to give you a heart disease, it's gonna clog your arteries. Well, that's not the truth, that’s a myth that's been dispelled since the 1950s.
You can eat about 70 percent of your calories that you take in over the course of the day in the form of fats. But you have to be able to measure it and there is a great app that I found online called My Plate. and in My Plate all you do is put in your information and then you can start tracking your macros. You can just take a scan of a bar graph and see if the food that you're eating meets these criteria, so you can track your macros to make sure you're getting the right amount of nutrients. Remeber, if you're not tracking that on a daily basis you might have too many proteins or too much carbs and not even know it.
Number 2
You're not measuring your ketones. So many times I hear people say the ketogenic diet doesn't work and I say ‘Listen, are you even measuring your ketones? Are you in ketosis?’ because you may be changing your diet or eating a lot more fat but you never get into ketosis.The only way to know is to actually measure and it's three different ways you can do it.
Firstly, you can check your urine for acetyl acetate. Acetyl acetate is really something that your body excretes out through the urine. You can buy these strips and pee on one of these and what ends up happening is you compare it to the colors on the back and it lets you know how much into ketosis you are. The only problem with this is that after a couple of weeks you're not going to be excreting acetyl acetone any more.
Another test that's good too is the breath test. You're just measuring acetone, which is that sweetness you taste on your breath. There's a problem with this I find. Firstly, the breathing device is a little bit expensive, it's about USD$150 but the bigger problem I have is that you can't typically get the measurements the same. Sometimes you blow harder sometimes or more forceful, and other times less so, and you don't really get that nice even breath distribution to be able to know if you're getting a good quantitative measurement.
The best option is actually doing a blood test. I know you're thinking ‘How am I going to do that? So I have to go to a lab?’ No guys you could just do it right in the privacy of your own home. It's actually very simple. A company I like to use is called Keto Mojo and it's a great company. When I first signed up with this company they were selling the test strips at about a dollar apiece. All you do is you take what we call The Lancet. You put a little needle tip in there you prick your finger, which doesn't hurt, it's very quick and very easy. Then you put the blood right on the tip here and then you take your measurement and it lets you know exactly what your ketone levels are. I find this to be the most accurate and that's why I like doing this one the most.