Types of keto phases you must know before start.

Introduction about keto phases

Each keto phase brings a whole different set of highlights of benefits of results if you know how to work with it these are the four phases of a ketogenic diet and the macronutrient ratios to follow with it doing a keto diet to really get the optimal body. Composition results can be divided into four phases and if you kind of rotate through these phases properly ending up in maintenance, you can have some really good results.

I'll outline it at a high level here really quick phase one is the induction phase or indoctrination phase where you are trying to get your body to utilize fat a little bit better phase two is really where you start to see a lot of the aggressive weight loss so there are some macronutrient shifts. We make their phase three is the pre-maintenance phase where you are kind of gearing up the body to get into maintenance mode and then lastly for the fourth phase is the maintenance mode itself where there's some specific surging of fats where you have more fats in and then fewer fats that are going to allow you to get more out of it. 

Now this isn't just me talking a lot of this is my own anecdotal experience from 10 years of keto but a lot of it is heavily rooted in science and a lot of it is also heavily rooted in dr jeff volk and dr Finney's research which we'll talk about a little bit but you're not here for scientific goblet group you're here for pragmatic practical actionable steps.

Keto phase one

 So let's talk about this phase one is the indoctrination phase and most people out there are going to tell you you need to eat a bunch of fats when you first start keto because you're trying to get your ketone levels super high well there's one big problem with that you do not have the enzymes or just the portfolio of things to break down.

 That many fats yet it's not going to end well you're going to end up storing more and you're going to end up slowing down the results you see you need what is called ketolytic enzymes. These ketolytic enzymes are enzymes that help burn fat into ketones and you don't have a lot of them yet when you first start so what happens is you consume a bunch of fats and it's not going anywhere you feel bogged down it's one of the reasons why you might feel kind of run down when you first  start.

 So what should it look like well believe it or not it should be lower fat in the beginning I would recommend a macronutrient ratio about like this I would say about 55 protein 35 fat and 10 carbs mainly coming from fiber and of that fiber of which is soluble fiber for the most part that seems really low on the fat side.


Well it kind of is and I want you to do this for four weeks but there's a bigger reason than just the enzymes and the ketolytic enzymes. Now I'll say you the gory details on  PPAR(Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor) alpha.

 It's like the beginning of all the successful stuff you want with keto when PPAR alpha is activated.
 
1. It activates more fat mobilization meaning more fat gets moved around it 
activates more thermic effect from that fat more thermic effect in terms of your 
body temperature being elevated in burning calories.


2. It activates more lipid transporters in the vehicles that actually bring the fat into the cell but guess what PPAR alpha only gets turned on when you are liberating your own fat out of the tissue into the bloodstream.


3. It is a sensor it senses when you're pulling fat from your tissue if you have too much fat coming in from your diet you are inhibiting that from happening and therefore you're not activating this important critical kickstart. So follow those macronutrients for the first four weeks and it will make a big difference that all the way trickles down to the quality of meat that you consume not eating high-fat cuts of meat-eating lower-fat cuts of meat that are leaner just for this time period. 

Keto phase two 

Phase two is where we can increase our fat intake a little bit more okay I would say not a ton more I would say at this point you go do about 50 protein about 40 fat and 10 carbs. So you're reducing protein a little bit and increasing fat because now you at least have the ability to utilize that fat a little bit better but I still like most of your overall energy or your ratio as far as that's concerned coming from protein.
 
But one of the big things that you can do during phase two is I want you to increase your activity is what I consider the activity phase your body is in prime weight loss mode. Right now this is where the bulk of the fact that you're going to burn happens the first phase you burn some fat but it's also fat that you burn that might come back really easily because your body hasn't readjusted to that as or hasn't calibrated that as the norm. So this phase is the magic phase, where you increase your activity exercise as much as you won't try to get that in. 

Keto phase three

We call phase three or jeff bullock and dr Finney calls phase three the pre-maintenance phase weight loss. It starts to slow down during this period and that's somewhat normal. This phase is only going to be for two weeks. In this phase, you wanna still keep between 45 and 50 of your calories coming from protein and you want about 40 or 45 percent of your calories coming from fat. And the remainder again coming from carbs from veggie sources and things like that now with this phase you kind of go into a holding pattern you're going to notice that your weight loss starts to slow down you've been eight weeks on the ketogenic diet.

   But what's happening in your body is getting somewhat fat adapted and you're getting efficient at utilizing fat as a fuel source so your body's not having to use it as much now so it's not having to just accelerate the liberation of it. Because now it knows how to pump the brakes and give you exactly how much you need at a given time. But additionally your caloric window your deficit it's kind of shrinking right your body's adapting. 

  It's understanding your metabolic rate might slow down to adjust for the calories you're consuming so one of the things that I would recommend during this phase is the time where you can reduce your calories a little bit.

 While still keeping the ratio the same so in the previous two phases you probably aren't going to adjust the calories too much the pre-maintenance phase is your last-ditch effort to get that little bit of weight off and reduce calories. It can range again from two weeks all the way to ten weeks if you still feel like you need to lose weight. Because you can progressively reduce calories. so phase one and phase two just to recap don't really do a lot of caloric deficit there implement the ketogenic diet in the ratios.

 But don't really start having a caloric deficit come in until pre-maintenance premaintenance goes on until you really reach your maintenance phase or the weight that you're happy with but you can move into.

Keto phase four

Phase four if you're comfortable with your eating style even if you need to lose more weight so what I mean by that is phase four isn't just for maintaining weight. Phase four is for this is where I plan to be for a long time so maybe you've got into the groove, you don't have a whole lot of weight to lose. And you just want to stick with something that's sustainable phase four is where you are okay to drop down protein.

 If you want to personally I think keeping protein levels relatively high is highly beneficial and that's simply because protein has powerful satiating effects. Just protein itself takes 20 percent of the calories in the protein just to digest the protein so that's like you're getting a fifth of what you're eating essentially for free.
 
Because your body has to be able to use a fifth of that energy just to metabolize it. But if you wanted to this would be the point in time where you could reduce protein. Why because the ketones have such a leucine sparing effect and what that means is your ketones will help keep muscle on you even if you don't have a ton of protein coming in you're also highly adapted to using fats at this point. So the more fat that you consume the more energy it will probably equate to whereas prior in phase one. And two if you had a bunch of fat it wouldn't necessarily equate to energy because your body wouldn't have the enzyme portfolio to convert it to energy.
 
Now it does there's a really interesting study that was published in the journal of clinical endocrinology metabolism that found lean individuals that would go on a five-day sort of splurge having high amounts of fat would ultimately end up increasing their PPAR alpha levels. 

Now, remember PPAR alpha from phase one so what that means is if you need to sort of re-engaging or re-sort of reset and get those PPAR alpha levels up again during this maintenance phase you can do periods of five-day high fat low protein and it kick-starts that process again so what I would typically recommend is maybe every other week go down to like 40 macros.

Coming from protein 50 coming from fat and 10 coming from the carb and you do that every other week or every three weeks where you just dramatically increase your fats for a little bit and drop your protein and that can kind of kick start that PPAR alpha again.

Now the funny thing is it's been demonstrated to increase uncoupling protein okay that means that it's going to again elevate that core body temperature uncoupling proteins are like the uh like the radiator heaters that you have in a college dorm room right okay old school heaters that they plug in and they dissipate energy from the electrical outlet.
 
As heat imagine that happening as far as fats concerned that's what's happening with uncoupling proteins you have more of those you have more radiators radiating heat burning calories that same study also indicated that it helps increase what's called pyruvate dehydrogenase okay now that that is is something that's going to help you metabolize glucose so let's say you have a cheat meal well if you have more of this pyruvate dehydrogenase floating around or available then.

When you do have a cheat meal your body is going to be able to have better glucose tolerance and ultimately help you rebound a little bit better. So to recap to give you everything just in the big clear easy picture so phase one you're gonna has 55 protein 35 fat 10 carbs. 

Lower fat higher protein utilizing butcher box if you can you're gonna do that for four weeks then you move into the next four weeks okay where you're going to increase fat slightly and you're going to start exercising more aggressively get that exercise in during that four week period then the next pre-maintenance phase is going to range anywhere from two weeks to 10 weeks. 

Sometimes, even more, where you're going to implement a few changes and you're really trying to reduce calories but really keeping the macronutrients about the same and finally phase four with the maintenance. Where you find your maintenance calories but every other week or every three weeks you have this fat surging for five total days don't go crazy just bump the fats up a little bit, so as always keep it locked here in my blog. 

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