It can take your body a while for it to enter the state known as ketosis. Depending on what your health is like, it can take anywhere from one to two weeks.

To enter ketosis, your body has to manufacture specific enzymes and start depending on certain hormones to run at peak efficiency. Your body may need some time to get to that point, but you can do a few things to speed up the process.

Fast

The primary way that people make their body enter ketosis is through fasting. The notion behind this is that when the body has to go for a while without food, it will use up the sugar it has stored up. This may not be very comfortable to start with, but after a while the body’s cells will become better at it. After a few hours of fasting, the fat stores in the body will be turned into energy.

Each subsequent fast allows the body to start using up fat faster than before. If you fast on and off for a few days, your body will start to prefer burning up fat first. That’s due to the way your body will start to see fat as the better energy source.

Now, fasting is not the same as restricting calories to an extreme degree, like with anorexia. You still need to get sufficient minerals, water, calories and vitamins to keep your body healthy. Fasting intermittently allows your body to safely pick fat over carbohydrates when it chooses an energy source.

You can fast in a few different ways. You can either do it on a week by week basis, on a daily basis or just pick a couple days out of the month to fast. You still need to drink plenty of water and take a multivitamin to ensure you are getting enough minerals.

You can limit your food to a specific window of time, such as between 9 am and 5 pm. This gives you a nice window in which to fast but ensures that you aren’t starving yourself.

You can also combine the day by day approach with the week by week approach. This would mean fasting within a window for a couple days and then fasting for a while day for certain days of the week. This works best if you are already familiar with the ketogenic diet, as it can be rough on those who are not. In fact, it can actually be unhealthy for first time fasters.

Aerobic Exercise

Another great way to start that ketosis is through long duration aerobic exercise. This includes swimming, running, cycling and similar exercises. This form of exercise is sure to target the fat in the body, since sugar cannot maintain energy for long. Your sugar stores will be used up quickly, and your body should transfer over to burning fat in no time at all.

If you can manage to do these exercises on a regular basis, then your body will learn to burn up fat rather than sugar when it needs energy. You want to make sure that you breathe deeply while doing these exercises to get oxygen to your blood and promote metabolism. In order to burn up fat, you need to oxidise the blood in a process called beta-oxidation. If you don’t have much oxygen in your blood, then your body will rely on sugar as a fuel source.

You can combine these exercises with fasting for greater effect, and doing them together will ensure faster fat loss and improved muscle tone.

Yerba Maté

There is a tree in the Amazing whose leaves yield a popular drink known as yerba maté. This was something that was used to increase energy levels and was popular at social meetups. It is used all around the world and particularly in South America as a weight loss product. For many people, it is a reliable replacement for coffee, and maté shops are scattered all around South America.

This is a great beverage to pair with a ketogenic diet because it contains tons of antioxidants, it has lots of thermogenic alkaloids and it helps to boost fat metabolism at a genetic level.

The antioxidants get rid of tons of metabolic waste that is produced during ketosis. You can never have too many antioxidants in the body, whether you are doing ketosis or not. These helpful components reduce the effects of toxins, decrease the side effects of the metabolic process and eliminate dietary free radicals.

The thermogenic alkaloids help to burn off fat by creating heat in the body. The more of these you have, the faster your fat will break down and the sooner your body will achieve ketosis. The primary thermogenic compounds in yerba maté are caffeine and theobromine. These boost your metabolism and ensure that fat is turned into usable energy. You may notice that the caffeine in yerba maté is less prone to cause side effects than that in coffee, thanks to the similar alkaloid theobromine.

You will find theobromine in dark chocolate, and it actively fights against the effects of caffeine while still providing many of the same thermogenic advantages. You won’t feel jittery or anxious, and instead, you will notice a feeling of clarity and experience the powerful thermogenic benefits.

The genetic modulation provided by this beverage improves fat metabolism. The genes that are responsible for obesity are directly affected by yerba maté, and it is believed that what it does to the genetic structure is able to prime the body for ketosis.

Ketone Meter

You may not need to use a ketone meteor to experience ketosis, but it is a nice accessory for those who are serious about ketogenics. It works similarly to a glucose meter, but instead of glucose it is measuring ketones. This is going to help you get the most out of your ketosis experience and it helps to determine when the best time of day is for you to eat, exercise or fast.

The majority of people will experience ketosis at about 0.5-3 mmol ketones/L. When this number is higher, it means your ketosis is being more effective. You will often find that the levels will rise when you fast or sleep, when you aren’t eating anything.

Give Yourself Some Time

Any ketogenic diet will take time. You cannot to go from high carb use to high fat usage quickly. Your body needs time to register the change. New enzymes and hormones have to be created, and it would be a mistake to believe that this can all happen in a day or two. Don’t give up or get frustrated when you don’t see results right away. You may feel tired or hungry or irritable those first few days, but it will be worth it in the long run, and in time, the side effects will go away.

You can cheat on your diet every now and then, if you are feeling like it is too tough. You don’t need to go extreme for this diet to work. You want to make it into a healthy lifestyle that works for you in the right time.

It may take you a week or it may take couple months for ketosis to kick in, but in the end, it won’t matter so long as you stick with it. You need to just keep pushing your body in the direction you want it to move, and if you don’t feel very good while on it, then you are probably pushing yourself too hard. After all, this diet is about looking and feeling your best, so take it easy and give it time to work. Once it does, you will feel great.