Keto Diet Plan for Beginners

But what about calories in, calories out?

Here’s a concise summary of the comparison between the keto diet and the calorie deficit approach:

Diet Structure:

• Keto Diet: Focuses on high-fat, moderate-protein, and low-carb intake to induce ketosis, where the body burns fat for energy instead of carbohydrates.
• Calorie Deficit: Centers on consuming fewer calories than burned, allowing for a more flexible diet that includes various foods, including carbs.

Sustainability:

• Keto Diet: Often seen as more sustainable long-term due to increased satiety from healthy fats and proteins, helping to reduce cravings for junk food.
• Calorie Deficit: May provide quicker weight loss but can be less sustainable, especially at extreme levels, leading to potential weight regain once normal eating resumes.

Macronutrient Focus:

• Keto Diet: Emphasizes avoiding refined carbs, ensuring adequate healthy fats, and consuming balanced animal proteins to maintain muscle mass.
• Calorie Deficit: Involves tracking calorie intake meticulously, allowing for greater freedom with food choices but potentially resulting in lower protein and nutrient intake, aswell as less energy since you’re consuming less calories

Weight Loss Dynamics:

• Keto Diet: Aims for fat loss while preserving muscle, with fewer insulin spikes due to lower carb intake.
• Calorie Deficit: Can lead to quicker weight loss but risks losing muscle mass if protein intake is not prioritized.

Energy Levels and Satisfaction:

Keto Diet: Provides sustained energy through fat consumption, often preventing brain fog and fatigue.

Calorie Deficit: May lead to reduced energy levels due to calorie restrictions, impacting daily functioning.

Now you can draw your own conclusion from this comparison (hopefully you come to the right conclusion).

Week 1

There is no intermittent fasting, but there is also no snacking throughout your plan as snacking unnecessarily spikes your insulin and makes it more likely for you to binge eat on junk food. There are three meals this week and you eat in an ordinary eating window.

Week 2

You fast every other day, and the fasting to non-fasting day ratio is 3:4 (it’s 16:8 intermittent fasting). This gradually puts you into the tempo of intermittent fasting, which is better than jumping straight into it.

Week 3

You don’t fast every other day, and now the fasting to non-fasting day ratio is 4:3. By this week, you’ll be getting familiarised with intermittent fasting.

Week 4

Daily intermittent fasting commences this week. You intermittent fast on 2 meals eat in an 8-hour eating window and fast in a 16-hour fasting window. Although it may be a challenge, it will be a sustainable challenge that you can handle, and it’ll only take a week or so to get familiar with the tempo.

Week 5

Now you progress to a smaller eating window and larger fasting window, specifically 18-hour fasting and eating within 6 hours. This boosts the benefit of intermittent fasting and the previous weeks of preparation would have helped you to go through this week. This is the week that you should repeat, and you’ll reap the most fat loss and health benefits from it, but if you know you can’t sustain this eating pattern, going down to week 4 wouldn’t hurt, but staying consistent on week 5 should always be something you strive for.