How Fast Will I Lose Weight On Keto?

Weight loss is one of the most popular uses of the ketogenic diet these days. If you’re using keto to drop pounds, you are probably wondering how fast you can expect to see results. Everyone’s body is different, which means the weight loss rate for each person is different too.

Your health situation. Are you overweight? Do you have thyroid problems? Do you have insulin resistance? Is your metabolism fast or slow? Your overall health determines how fast you lose weight. For instance, if you have any hormonal or metabolic issues, the process might be slower than expected. Your body composition. How much fat do you have to lose?

What’s your muscle mass? For instance, if you have a lot of excess weight you’ll likely experience faster weight loss in the beginning. Your daily habits. Your daily habits make or break your weight loss efforts. Are you eating clean keto foods or high fat junk foods? Are you watching out for hidden carbs? The energy you spend on a daily basis and the quality of your food impact how efficiently your body burns fat.

Your individual fat adaptation period. Remember your body needs time to become fat-adapted and that time depends on your metabolism. For instance, if you’re coming off a Standard American Diet (SAD) and your adult body has never ran on ketones before, your adaptation period might take a little longer. You’ll only experience the true weight loss effects of keto when your body is actually running on ketones. The key is to stay consistent and focus on eating healthy keto-friendly foods.

Treat the keto diet as what it is — not simply a diet, but a lifestyle and metabolic shift in your health. With that being said, what we can tell you is how to start off on the right foot. Before you embark on your keto weight loss journey, it’s important to get the basics right.

Some people think cutting carbs is enough to enter ketosis, but this isn’t always the case. It’s important to make sure you’re actually running on ketones instead of carbs, otherwise you’re not going to burn fat or lose weight and you’ll get discouraged. So how do you make sure your cells are running on fat?

Figure out your keto macros. Use the keto calculator (located at the end of this post!) to get your personal keto macros. Give your body time to get in ketosis. This usually takes anywhere between 2-7 days. Before then, you won’t be truly losing weight on keto. Test your ketones. Testing your ketone levels is simply the best way to track if you’re in ketosis or not, at least in the beginning.The most accurate tool is a blood ketone meter. If your levels remain above 0.5 mol/L, then you’re in nutritional ketosis. Eat a clean ketogenic diet.

The quality of your food matters, not just your macros. Sure, you can stay in ketosis by eating processed cheese singles and ham slices, but that’s not going to nourish you. Focus on quality keto foods like avocado oil, fresh leafy greens, and grass-fed beef instead. Move more. You’ll lose pounds faster if you increase your daily physical activity.

Keep in mind you don’t have to go to the gym 6 times a week or jog every morning, just move more in your everyday life. If you tick these boxes when starting keto, you’ll have the best weight loss results. Typically, in the first week of the keto diet people see a very quick drop in weight — anywhere from a few pounds to as much as 10!

That’s because at first, keto makes your body release a lot of water weight (not fat) due to your lower carb intake. Carbs need water to stay in your body. When your body doesn’t use glucose immediately, it stores it as glycogen in your muscles and glycogen binds to water. Each gram of glycogen is stored with 2-3 g of water. When you first switch to keto, your body will burn all the glycogen reserves first before using fat.

Once it runs out of glycogen, the water that was needed to store it gets eliminated and that’s why the weight on your scale changes so drastically. While this isn’t fat loss, it’s a sign that your body is working its way into ketosis: fat burning mode. This rapid water loss may also lead to dehydration and constipation, so drink more water than you normally do each day to keep things moving.

After a week or two, weight loss will happen at a slower and more steady pace. This is also the period of time when you’re getting fat-adapted as your body switches from burning carbs to burning fat, which means you’ll actually be losing fat now. A safe, average loss from here is around 1-2 pounds (0.5-1 kg) per week.

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