30 Day Ketogenic Diet Plan

Hello everyone.  I am sure you will all prefer a simple and straightforward guide on this particular topic, and that is just what I have prepared.  This guide contains everything you need to plan and execute a full one-month meal plan of a ketogenic diet.  So, it means you will get the breakdown, overview and when and how you should eat these meals. We’ll be covering Keto-Proof Coffee in week two.

Without wasting time, let’s get down to business.  But before we proceed, here is a quick insight.

Helpful Tips

I know counting calories on a ketogenic diet is not a popular practice, but I believe in it.  Most normal people tend to believe that they can be sufficiently satisfied and maintain a calorie deficit naturally, by the amounts of protein and fats they consume.   However, since everyone cannot be normal, we still need to factor in the hormones, endocrine, and other deficiency issues.  Even at this, it is important to note that losing weight will be practically impossible if you consume more and use-up less.

Macronutrients, also referred to as Macros, refers to the three primary nutrient forms – fats, carbs, and proteins.  To achieve your dietary goals, you can determine the exact amount of each of these Macros that your body requires. A nutrition calculator will do this quite effectively and there are several free ones online for you to use.

Once you know the ideal macros ratio for you, it is important to stick by it to the letter. Don’t get me wrong. There are going to slip-ups. That’s just life. But when it happens, just make up for it the next day. One day will counter-balance the next and you’ll end up with a balance in the long run. And that’s what this is. A plan for long haul, not just a quick fix magic bullet… those rarely work.

Increasing and decreasing calores is a personal thing. You can quickly increase your amount of calories by taking in more fats.  Find ways to eat more of coconut oil, olive oil, macadamia nuts, and butter in whatever forms acceptable and fine for you.  Decreasing calories, on the other hand, requires careful planning. The basic is to keep the protein low, so you may need to watch how much food you eat. Keep the protein low until you start to see your results.

Another vital thing to note is the need to be dedicated to this diet plan.  Considering that ketosis occurs as a continuous process in the body, going with just one wrong meal can derail and keep you off track for almost a week, after which your body returns to ketosis and normal business. Keep that in mind when the urge to cheat comes up.

So, be ready to give it all it takes – maximum determination to never cheat.  Eat what you require to be full, or better put, satiated. And make sure you’re eating foods you like. If you eat just to eat and you don’t enjoy your food choices, you’ll have a hard time sticking to this or any diet plan.

With this said, let’s proceed to the main business – the guideline to the simplest ketogenic diet you can find out there.

 

Introduction to the meal plan

I have links to Keto cookbooks in the info below.  Many of them will give you leftovers so you can freeze them for later, which is great.  This saves you money, time, and energy. You can also search the Internet for recipe ideas as well.

This plan works with an average 11.2g Net Carbs per day for the month, thus leaving the average total carbs at 19.6 daily.  So, this will help you get into ketosis easily and fast.

For the 28 days try to stick with these averages: calories at 1597 calories,  74.g protein, 11.2g net carbs, 19.6 carbs, and 136g fats.  Perhaps, you have heard about intermittent fasting and its diverse beneficial effects.  The most popular uses are to get more energy and mental sharpness – but there is more.  Intermittent fasting improves nutrient uptake when exercising: watch out for more about this in the third and fourth week.

You may not have everything the recipes call for, so plan ahead. After awhile, your pantry should be well stocked and it won’t be an issue.

You’ll probably want to get most of the special items and keep them before they are needed.  Just check the online outlets and make your orders such that they arrive just in time. We will not need any of these special items for the first week so that you can make your purchase plans accordingly.

Get Yourself The 30 Day Ketogenic Diet Plan

Week 1

We will start simple and increase slowly.  Starting simple is important, especially for people that are just getting familiar with a low carb diet.  The transition can be tough, considering that you will need to do away with eating sugars and carbs; and that can cause cravings in the beginning.

Another important factor here is leftovers.  You do not have to go through the stress of cooking the same food multiple times.  Consider breakfast as an example; any leftovers will allow you to get some food from the fridge – already made – and you can move on with your day.  Now that’s part of the ease and simplicity I was talking about.

We need to address Keto Flu. The first way of identifying ketosis is via the “keto-flu” – a bout of constant headaches, fatigue, and cloudy brain.  You ultimately feel worse, with a constant craving for plenty of water and salt.  As a natural diuretic, you can expect a ketogenic diet to let you release more water from the body in the form of urine.  These liquids you are discharging are electrolytes, and this is responsible for the following headache.  However, when you consume more salt and water, your body gets to rehydrate and pump more electrolytes into this system, and ultimately discards the headache.

For best results, you can sprinkle some salt into your water before drinking.  Be ready to take a lot of water – up to 4 liters daily – and consume salt.  Perhaps you are worried about the alleged high blood risk that comes with salt consumption? Well, new studies have allayed such fears – there is no correlation between them according to those studies. But again, do what is right for you and consult your doctor with any concerns. 

Breakfast

Your breakfast should be simple, easy, yummy, and most importantly, offer you some leftovers.  For best results, make your day one a weekend as this will allow you to prepare something that can last you throughout the week.  We will be hammering on simplicity and convenience for the first week. You’ll see how easy it is once you get into the swing of it. This cookbook gives you great recipes to try. You can check it out by clicking here.

Lunch

Simplicity is also a keyword here.  Some salad and meat along with high-fat dressings will be a great option.  For meat, I recommend fresh vs. canned. You may also have leftover meat from the previous nights.  If you are using canned meants, be careful of the additives. These are not your best option overall. Here is a cookbook you may want to check out for some good keto friendly lunches.

Dinner

For dinner, look at a blend of leafy greens, a nice vegetable like broccoli or spinach and meat. This represents a meal of moderate protein and high fat.

Note that the first two weeks do not come with any dessert. Check out this cookbook for some tasty and easy keto recipes for dinner. 

 

Week 2

I want to believe that you are still on course after the first week, and you’ve give yourself that chance of losing the weight that has been bothering you for so long.  Keeping on track shouldn’t be difficult really.  However, it is week 2 already, and we will still work with a lot of simple ideas.

Again, our breakfast will be simple, but a bit more adventurous.  For this week, we will be having the keto-proof coffee – a blend of butter, coconut oil, and heavy cream alongside your coffee.  That is gross, right? Perhaps, it is, but the benefits overturn the weirdness.

Keto-coffee, or bulletproof coffee, is really quite simple to make. Just put a cup of coffee into the blender, add in one tablespoon of virgin coconut oil and two tablespoons of unsalted butter and blend. You’ve just made keo-coffee!

Give it a try. You’ll probably end up loving it because it’s so rich and satisfying.

Breakfast

We are moving away slightly from the normal breakfast in this second week, with the introduction of keto-proof coffee.  Oh, and if coffee isn’t your thing, you are welcome to try the oil-cream-butter blend with tea.  As a last resort, you may combine the ingredients and eat it raw – I doubt if you’d try that anyway, but it is an option for you.

Here is why you want to work with the keto-coffee:

• Losing fats

The keto-proof coffee is a rich source of medium-chain triglycerides (MCT), and this, in turn, helps you to lose more of adipose (fat) tissue.

• Fats

You get more fat in the oil, butter, and cream.  These offer you more energy, and help you expend the energy efficiently so that you lose weight more effectively.

• More Energy

The MCFAs (Medium Chain Fatty Acids) usually undergo rapid oxidation, and this leads to more energy use-up.  The transformation of the MCFAs to ketones – the real deal here – is followed by the subsequent absorption of the ketones into the body, in a different way compared to other common oils.  The result is more useful energy.

If the taste of the keto-coffee is still not to your liking, don’t hesitate to add spices and sweetener until you get the taste you want.  Other great taste-enhancers are vanilla, stevia, or cinnamon.  Remember not to rush. It’s quite common for some people to take an hour or two to get down their first few cups of keto-coffee. If you do it at a faster rate or at a rate you are not comfortable with, the excess coconut oil will make you use the bathroom more frequently.  You will eventually get to the stage where you can gulp it all in 20 minutes, but that is after you must have built a tolerance to coconut oil.

Lunch

Lunch is week two is still pretty simple. Mostly green vegetables, coupled with high-fat dressings. Also, a raw green salad with high-fat dressings is good here. And we’re going to be adding in more meat. If you have some left over from the night before, that’s great. Whatever combination, ensure that the number of fats and protein balance out.

Dinner

In line with the simple rule, our dinner entails vegetables, meats, and high-fat dressings.  However, we can spice it up a bit with some butter.

As you can see, we have kept the first two weeks simple, and yet, successful.  And lastly, if you are disappointed about the absence of dessert, I promise you won’t be in the next week.

Week 3

The third week comes with something new and innovative – the intermittent fasting, however at a very small scale.  Breakfasts will come with full fats. The fast sets in after this, until dinner time. The slight fast offers a lot of health benefits, and it makes the cooking and eating schedule even easier.  Let your breakfast come around 7 am and dinner 7 pm, so the fast will last for 12 hours.

During the 12 hours when your body will be in a fasting state, it will resort to breaking down the extra fat it has accumulated to create the energy required to run the body.  In ketosis, the body already works like it is in a fasting state, being that the bloodstream glucose is either very small or not available at all, thus resorting to fats as a source of energy.  The same applies to intermittent fasting, but as opposed to the fats gotten through eating, we rely on our stored fat to get the energy required.

Do not get excited or too ambitious with the fasting state, thinking that if you don’t it anything for longer periods of time, it means you will lose more weight.  Well, while this is correct, the effects on the long run are not favorable.  You still need to eat more fat. Why? To keep your body out of a starvation mode, which is another set of problems you don’t want to deal with. That will just undo all your hard work, so follow the plan.

Longevity, blood lipid levels, and mental clarity are some of the several benefits you stand to derive from fasting intermittently.  If fasting is not your thing, there is really no problem.  Just revert to week 1 and be flexible with your options.  Eat what you like as long as you don’t throw off your macros.

So for this week, be ready for more fun and fewer worries. And you’ll see some other changes as we go along, too.

Breakfast

Breakfast is all about full fats, just like in the second week. However, we will be taking two times the amount of keto-proof coffee/tea.  This leaves us with double the amount of heavy cream, butter, and coconut oil we had in the previous week.  The implication of this is simple – more calories to ensure that we stay satiated till dinner.  Keep in mind that you will need as much water as possible to stay hydrated. And of course, you’ll be eating fixing one of your delicious  breakfast recipes

Lunch

As the intermittent fasting demands, we will be skipping lunch.  However, you can rest assured that the fats from the morning will offer enough energy to last us through lunch.  The tough session starts around 2 pm, but you can beat it by drinking lots and lots of water.

Dinner

We are not changing the basics of the dinner – it is still vegetables, fats, and meats.

Now to the best part: we will be having dessert! Our dessert will be some low carb and yummy treats that are worthy rewards for the 12-hour no-food period.  We deserve it, right? It is even sweeter to know is that we are losing weight while still enjoying some nice treats and sweets. Here is a link to a great keto-friendly desert cookbook. 

Week 4

There is not much change to week 4, except that we will be a bit stricter with our fasting.  After a full week of slight fasting, we will be taking it a step further by ditching breakfast and lunch.  Not to worry, we will be replacing them with water.  And it doesn’t have to be the basic water, flavored water is allowed, alongside coffee, and tea.  Drink to keep your thoughts away from your empty stomach, even when it growls.  Your body will get used to the arrangement with time.

If fasting is not your strong suit, just revert to week 2 and follow the steps again – it’s just that simple.  Your body will take awhile before getting used to fasting; however, putting in maximum determination will help you. And if you consider the enormous health benefits that come with this abstinence from food, alongside the self-control, you will find it well worth you time to at least give it a try.

For many people the 4th week is their favorite. You know why? Because it is really close to a schedule. Many like to work with a window of 6 hours for meals.  They wake up, fast until 5 pm and then have their dinner.

The fast comes with a reward, as usual.  You can experiment more with your dinner and dessert, adding in treats as long as you stay in your plan.  You also get to snack as you like, so far it is inside your window.

Breakfast

Since we are on a fast, black coffee will be great for caffeine lovers, but tea is also good.  Both coffee and tea are great when we look at the benefits.  Let’s look at a few of the benefits of green tea:

• Polyphenols

There is hardly a better antioxidant for your body system.  Green tea contains Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) – a powerful antioxidant that helps to ease fatigue.

• Enhanced Brain Function

In addition to caffeine, L-theanine is another significant component of green tea.  The amino acid is responsible for increasing your GABA activity and ultimately enhance your alpha waves, dopamine, and anxiety.

• Faster Metabolic Rate

It has been proven that your metabolic rate can be increased by consuming green tea.  Now, when this is combined with caffeine, you can get 15% more oxidation rate for your fat.

Lunch

Staying hydrated is really crucial, and for this, you need all the water you can get.  Since we are missing both lunch and breakfast, the best we can do is to keep water handy.  The recommendation still stands at 4 liters daily.  

Dinner

And this is where our reward lies!  Your dinner and dessert should be quality enough to cover up for the loss of breakfast and lunch.  Many love breaking their fast with a small snack before moving on to the real deal, say 30-45 minutes later.

Week 5?

Are you really looking forward to the fifth week?  Well, I will have to disappoint you on that.  After the fourth week, there should be several frozen leftovers all waiting for you to eat up.  If you are the busy type, you would have made most of the meals in quantities that surpasses what you need.  And in the end, the leftovers go to the freezer.

Now is the best time to put those leftovers to good use.  Simply design a personal meal plan, following what we have discussed so far at first.  Then, with time, own the plan and make it all about your idea.  It is not difficult – you only need to grasp the basics, and the rest will flow naturally.

Good luck!

Looking for even more info?

Take the 28 day challenge and get big results! Click here for more info.