If the ketogenic diet alone is not enough for you, there are a number of ways you can kick it up a notch. Some people choose to combine it with a low-calorie diet. Others choose to combine it with veganism.
An increasingly popular trend is combining low-carb diets with time-restricted feeding. This trend has given rise to a fairly new ketogenic fasting diet known as speed keto.
The diet was created by Harlan Kilstein and has since gained a sizable following. If you are considering trying this diet out, this article walks you through what exactly it is, the benefits, drawbacks, and also includes a free intermittent fasting keto meal plan.
The speed keto plan is a low-carb high-fat eating plan where you eat only one meal a day (OMAD).
The diet is simply a combination of an extreme form of intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet. Fasting speeds up ketosis and this diet takes advantage of that fact.
Can you do intermittent fasting with keto?
Yes. Combining keto with intermittent fasting is not new. There are a few different ways to do it, depending on the intensity you’re looking for.
The most common intermittent fasting hours for keto are 16:8 and 18:6. 16:8 means that one would fast for 16 hours and eat all their food in an eight-hour window. 18:6 increases the fasting time by 2 hours.
What is new, is speed keto. Speed keto takes it even further: it is a 23:1 intermittent fasting plan. This means that you eat only once a day and fast for the remaining 23 hours.
The goal of the diet is to get the body into ketosis faster than the traditional ketogenic diet. On a normal ketogenic diet, it usually takes 2 to 4 days to enter ketosis. This can vary depending on many factors like activity level, age, and carb intake.
The main benefits of fasting while on a ketogenic diet are faster weight loss and ketosis.
You may also experience other benefits of prolonged fasting on keto like cholesterol control, reduced inflammation, and better blood sugar control. However, these are benefits of fat loss rather than OMAD itself.
As you may expect, this diet comes with a number of downsides, most of which stem from its highly restrictive nature.
The first step to take before starting the speed ketogenic diet is talking to your doctor or registered dietitian to determine if it is safe for you. If you get the green light from a qualified professional, then you can go ahead with it.
Your doctor should also help you determine what your nutritional needs are and how to do keto OMAD properly to meet them.
Before starting keto and intermittent fasting, you need to decide on which foods will feature in your diet and when you will be eating them. On OMAD keto, you know that you can only eat once a day, but there still remains the question of what you will eat.
Only high-fat and/or low-carb foods can feature on your diet. If you are not sure which foods these are, keep reading to find out.
Finally, you should think about what supplements you might need on the speed diet. Some of the nutrients you should take into account, a good quality multivitamin and mineral supplement is usually a good place to start.
The keto OMAD food list does not differ significantly from the ordinary ketogenic food list. You will want to avoid high-carb foods in general. The diet also limits processed foods, even if they are low in carbs.
Foods that are not allowed include:
In place of these foods, the diet encourages high-fat moderate-protein foods. Good food choices for keto fasting include:
During your fasting window, no food is allowed. There is no general agreement on what can break a keto fast. However, to stay safe, it is best to eat nothing that has calories, even if it is low-carb.
You can drink zero-calorie beverages like unsweetened coffee, tea, and water during your fast.
If you are ready to try speed keto, you need a good eating plan. A well-curated shopping list can help you with that.
Surrounding yourself with food that supports your nutrition goals will help you reach them faster.
For your fridge, you are going to need a wide variety of fresh foods, particularly fruits and vegetables. Some of these include:
You do not have to buy all these at once. They can spoil easily if kept for too long. You can buy 2 kinds of fruits and vegetables every week.
If you consume animal products, you can also shop for some dairy products like cheese, butter, and cream for your fridge. Meat and meat products like beef, chicken, fish, pork, and turkey are also great ketogenic foods.
Outside the fridge, you can buy some non-perishable foods to keep your pantry stocked. If you like to bake or make homemade snacks, you will need keto-friendly flours like coconut flour and almond flour.
Ketogenic snacks are great for other diets, but since you will not be snacking during your fasting hours, you will not need many of those.
Planning OMAD keto meals may seem as simple as eating one low-carb meal a day, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Special planning is required when deciding what to eat in a day during fasting on a LCHF diet.
The food has to be rich in almost all nutrients because that is all you eat in a day. In particular, the meal has to have enough protein and micronutrients for your body.
Here is a sample of a speed keto menu that you can try.
Calories: 1,622 | Macros: 18.5 g net carbs, 84.4 g protein, and 129.6 g fat.
If you still have some doubts about the diet, keep reading as we answer some of the questions you might have.
Yes, you can exercise while fasting on keto. Physical exercise is very important for body health, especially if you are trying to lose weight.
You may have some difficulty exercising at the start as there are no carbohydrates for the body to burn for energy. However, as you progress into ketosis, your body will get used to burning fat and you should be able to exercise regularly.
If you still cannot sustain exercise after being on a ketogenic diet for a while, you are probably not eating enough. See a doctor if the symptoms persist.
Different people’s appetites respond differently to diets. Some people may experience a reduction in appetite, while others may experience the opposite.
It is, however, more common for appetites to go up as the body tries to get you to eat more food to sustain metabolism.
The effectiveness of a diet depends on one’s goal. If a woman is trying to lose weight, keto and intermittent fasting will work for her if sustained.
However, if she has different goals, like better health in general or better skin health, there are more sustainable approaches to achieving these goals.
Due to its restrictive nature, results on speed keto can be seen quite fast. However, these results may not be indicative of a permanent improvement in body health.
Yes, if supervised by a qualified medical professional. In fact, overweight diabetics are one of the few categories of people who could truly benefit from speed keto.
However, fasting for long periods of time can be dangerous for diabetics. It is so dangerous that it can result in death due to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). This is why it is extremely important to work with the supervision of your doctor and registered dietitian.
If you are on OMAD, you should ideally not be eating outside your eating window, even when hungry. Drinking zero-calorie drinks like tea, coffee, and water may help delay hunger as you wait for your feeding time.
The speed ketogenic diet is not for everyone. In fact, most people can not sustain it in the long term.
A more sustainable approach used by some is alternating the diet with days where you eat normally. For example, you can eat OMAD every other day and a normal ketogenic diet on the remaining days. Or one can do OMAD on the weekends and eat normally during the week.
If this type of eating is completely not for you at all, you can always just eat a regular ketogenic diet. Some other eating plans are:
