Original email for context: Do you think it would be a good idea to transition into the Keto diet following completion of a round of HCG? If my body is already in ketosis I thought that might be a good way to maintain a healthy lifestyle. What are your thoughts?
This is a good question since Keto is quite popular right now. I have a few thoughts.
First, of course you are fee to do any low carb diet you like after hCG is over – and I’m definitely not saying keto is bad.
I think transitioning directly from the 500 calorie almost no-fat diet, to a super high fat diet the next day, even with controlled calories, can be a bit tricky – I have an article here where a woman doing this was having a problem and you can read my thoughts there:
For some it seems to be a better idea to wait until P4 to start transitioning into the ketogenic way of eating. Some follow my P3tolife Program first, which is not keto but rather a low carb program, then after that they transition to keto. Ladies do pretty reliably stabilize their weight loss with P3toLife.
To be honest, I am not in the trenches with the keto diet to be able to tell you what is best in that regard. The very few people who have been doing keto typically email me if they are having issues, so some have had problems doing keto right off the bat in P3, but that’s not to say that there could be plenty of people doing well with that approach, they just don’t email me because they aren’t having a problem :)-
The one thing I can mention that might help your decision about Keto is that because high fat foods are very calorie dense, this means that you have to eat a very small VOLUME of food in order to keep calories in balance and especially because one of the core principles of a successful P3 is to gradually raise calories, starting off a bit low, this means that again the volume of food you can typically eat in a day without having lots of gains and fluctuations will have to be pretty small- vs with P3tolife meals, because of all the vegetables and fiber used, you get a lot of size/volume of food for the same calories – does that make sense?
So if you are okay with tracking your calories and eating only say 1000 calories of keto foods each day the first week, and you are content with that small volume of food, which will be about half the volume of what you would get on a macro ratio like P3tolife, then I think in this scenario, keto will probably be just fine right into P3 (I can’t be sure of course, that’s your experiment). I do think it may be easier to do P3tolife for 3 weeks and then transition in Keto once your calorie intake has gradually adjusted up with that approach- then you can more safely probably take in a higher calorie plan with keto recipes-
I hope that helps you decide what you want to do! I’d love to hear how things go for you either way, whatever you decide.
Keto is a neat diet but can be challenging to stick to long term – it seems better used as a temporary means of achieving a goal. It’s not that the ketogenic diet is not healthy, but other ways of eating are healthy as well- a diet where you can include enough vegetables and some fruits for the long term seems a healthier and more sustainable way of eating and that’s what the P3toLife program’s way of eating is based on.
I hope this helps you decide- totally your choice of course!
