How To Get Into Ketosis: Cut Carbs, Try A Short Fast, And More

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Evidence Based7 Tips to Get into Ketosis

Medically reviewed by Kathy W. Warwick, RDN, CDCES — Written by The Healthline Editorial Team — Updated on January 23, 2024

Carbs
Coconut oil
Exercising
Healthy fats
Fasting
Protein
Checking your ketones
Bottom line

Cutting carbs, increasing your intake of healthy fats, and getting more exercise may help you enter ketosis.

woman drinking from a mug and standing near a table containing tomatoes and other produce — Photography by Aya Brackett

Ketosis is a normal metabolic process that provides fuel for your body at times when fewer carbohydrates are available. Nutritional ketosis may offer health benefits.

During nutritional ketosis, your body converts fat into compounds called ketones and begins using them as its main source of energy. Ketones are also known as ketone bodies.

Diets that promote ketosis are highly beneficial for weight loss, partly due to their appetite-suppressing effects. Ketosis may also be helpful for type 2 diabetes and neurological disorders, among other conditions.

But getting into a state of ketosis can take some work and planning. It’s not as simple as just cutting carbs.

There is still debate about the long-term safety of the ketogenic diet. Before making major dietary changes, such as trying a ketogenic diet, it’s important to consult a qualified health professional. This is especially the case for children, those who have underlying health conditions, and those who are pregnant or breastfeeding.

Potential risks of this style of eating include nutritional deficiencies, kidney stones, changes in electrolyte levels, and bone loss.

Here are 7 effective tips to get into ketosis.

1. Minimize your carb consumption

Eating a very low carb diet is by far the most important factor in entering ketosis.

Your cells typically use glucose (sugar) as their main source of fuel. However, most of your cells can also use other fuel sources, including fatty acids and ketones.

Your body stores glucose in the form of glycogen in your liver and muscles.

When your carb intake is very low, your glycogen stores are reduced and your levels of the hormone insulin decline. This allows fatty acids to be released from fat stores in your body.

Your liver converts some of these fatty acids into the ketones acetone, acetoacetate, and beta-hydroxybutyrate. Portions of your brain can use these ketones as fuel.

The degree of carb restriction needed to induce ketosis varies by the person and can be affected by certain factors, such as the types of exercise you do.

Some people need to limit their net carb intake to 50 grams (g) or fewer per day, while others can get into ketosis while eating more than that.

For this reason, the induction phase of the Atkins diet requires restricting carb intake to 20 g or fewer per day for 2 weeks to guarantee that you get into ketosis.

After that, you can add small amounts of carbs back to your diet very gradually, as long as you maintain ketosis.

Each person will potentially have a different carb intake limit to reach and maintain ketosis, depending on the total number of calories they eat and their daily activity levels. Generally, eating 5–10% of total calories from carbs will produce ketosis.

These carb and ketone ranges are advised for people who want to get into ketosis to promote weight loss, manage their blood sugar levels, or reduce their heart disease risk factors.

Ketogenic diets used in epilepsy management and as experimental cancer therapy may also restrict carbs. However, anyone using the diet for therapeutic purposes should do so only under the supervision of a medical professional.

2. Include coconut oil in your diet

Eating coconut oil can help you get into ketosis.

Importantly, not all commercial coconut oil products you can buy in stores have the same content and health benefits.

Generally, coconut oil contains fats called medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs).

Unlike most fats, MCTs are rapidly absorbed and taken directly to your liver, where they can be used immediately for energy or converted into ketones.

Consuming coconut oil and these MCTs may be one of the best ways to increase ketone levels in people with Alzheimer’s disease and other nervous system disorders.

Although coconut oil contains four types of MCTs, around 50% of its fat comes from the kind known as lauric acid.

Some research suggests that fat sources with a higher percentage of lauric acid may produce a more sustained level of ketosis. This is because it’s metabolized more gradually than other MCTs.

MCTs have been used to induce ketosis in children who have epilepsy. In a high MCT diet, ketosis occurs without restricting carbs as drastically as in the classic ketogenic diet.

Other research has found that a high MCT diet containing around 20% of calories from carbs produces effects similar to those of the classic ketogenic diet, which provides fewer than 5% of calories from carbs.

When adding coconut oil to your diet, it’s a good idea to do so slowly to minimize possible digestive side effects such as stomach cramping and diarrhea.

3. Ramp up your physical activity

Being more physically active each day can help you get into and stay in ketosis. It may also be beneficial for some types of athletic performance.

When you exercise, you deplete your body’s glycogen stores. These are normally replenished when you eat carbs, which are broken down into glucose. The glucose that isn’t needed immediately is stored as glycogen.

However, if you minimize your carb intake, your glycogen stores remain low. In response, your liver increases its production of ketones, which can be used as an alternative fuel source for your muscles.

Working out in a fasted state has been shown to drive up ketone levels.

But. keep in mind that although exercise increases ketone production, it may take 1–4 weeks for your body to adapt to using ketones and fatty acids as primary fuel sources. During this time, your physical performance may be temporarily reduced.

4. Increase your healthy fat intake

Consuming plenty of healthy fats can boost your ketone levels and help you reach ketosis.

Indeed, a very low carb ketogenic diet not only minimizes carbs but also calls for a high fat intake.

Ketogenic diets for weight loss, exercise performance, and metabolic health usually provide 55–60% of calories from fat.

The classic ketogenic diet used for epilepsy is even higher in fat. Typically, 85–90% of calories come from fat.

However, extremely high fat intake doesn’t necessarily translate into higher ketone levels.

A 3-week study from 2015 that included 11 healthy people compared the effects of fasting on breath ketone levels. Overall, ketone levels were found to be similar in people consuming 79% of calories from fat and people consuming 90% of calories from fat.

Because fat makes up such a large percentage of a ketogenic diet, it’s important to choose high quality fat sources.

Healthy fats include fatty fish, olive oil, and avocado oil. Many healthy, high fat foods are also very low in carbs.

However, consuming high fat foods can lead to side effects such as:

constipation
diarrhea
fatigue
abdominal pain
vomiting
gastroesophageal reflux disease (in some children)

If weight loss is your goal, it’s important to make sure you’re not consuming too many calories in total, as this can cause your weight loss to stall.

5. Try a short fast or a fat fast

Another way to get into ketosis is to go without eating for several hours.

In fact, many people go into mild ketosis between dinner and breakfast.

Children with epilepsy traditionally fasted for 12–48 hours before they started a ketogenic diet. This approach often required supervision in a hospital.

Nonfasting protocols are more commonplace now. However, fasting can help ensure that some children get into ketosis quickly so that seizures can be reduced sooner.

Intermittent fasting, a dietary approach that involves regular short-term fasts, may also induce ketosis.

6. Maintain adequate protein intake

Getting into ketosis requires a protein intake that’s adequate but not excessive.

The classic ketogenic diet used in people with epilepsy restricts both carbs and protein to maximize ketone levels.

The same diet may be beneficial for people with cancer, as it may limit tumor growth.

However, for most people, drastically cutting protein intake to increase ketone production isn’t a healthy practice.

First, it’s important to consume enough protein to supply your liver with amino acids that can be used for gluconeogenesis, or making glucose.

In this process, your liver provides glucose for the few cells and organs in your body that can’t use ketones as fuel, such as your red blood cells and portions of your kidneys and brain.

Second, protein intake should be high enough to maintain muscle mass when carb intake is low, especially during weight loss.

Although losing weight typically results in the loss of both muscle and fat, consuming enough protein on a very low carb diet can help preserve muscle mass.

Several studies have shown that the preservation of muscle mass and physical performance is maximized when protein intake is in the range of 0.55–0.77 grams per pound (g/lb), or 1.2–1.7 grams per kilogram (g/kg), of lean mass.

A daily protein intake of 0.45–0.68 g/lb (1–1.5 g/kg) will help you maintain lean mass while losing weight.

To calculate your protein needs on a ketogenic diet, multiply your ideal body weight in pounds by 0.55–0.77 (1.2–1.7 in kilograms). For example, if your ideal body weight is 130 lb (59 kg), your protein intake should be 71–100 g.

7. Test ketone levels and adjust your diet as needed

As with many things in nutrition, reaching and maintaining a state of ketosis is highly individualized.

Therefore, it can be helpful to test your ketone levels to ensure you’re achieving your goals.

The three types of ketones — acetone, acetoacetate, and beta-hydroxybutyrate — can be measured in your breath, urine, and blood, respectively. Using one or more of these methods to test ketone levels can help you determine whether you need to make any adjustments to get into ketosis.

Acetone and the breath test

Acetone is found in your breath, and studies have confirmed that testing acetone breath levels is a reliable way to monitor ketosis in people following ketogenic diets.

The Ketonix meter measures acetone in your breath. After breathing into the meter, a color flashes to indicate whether you’re in ketosis and how high your levels are.

Acetoacetate and the urine tests

The ketone measured in urine is acetoacetate. Ketone urine strips are dipped into urine and turn various shades of pink or purple depending on the level of ketones present. A darker color reflects higher ketone levels.

Ketone urine strips are easy to use and fairly inexpensive. Although their accuracy in long-term use has been questioned, they should initially confirm that you’re in ketosis.

A small 2016 study found that, in people on a ketogenic diet, urinary ketones tend to be highest in the early morning and after dinner.

Beta-hydroxybutyrate and the blood test

Lastly, ketones can be measured with a blood ketone meter. It works similarly to a glucose meter — you place a small drop of blood on a strip and insert it into the meter.

It measures the amount of beta-hydroxybutyrate in your blood, and this has been found to be a valid indicator of ketosis levels.

The disadvantage of measuring blood ketones is that the strips are very expensive.

Shop for ketone strips and blood test strips online.

The bottom line

When you get into ketosis, your body begins to use ketones for fuel.

For people who have adopted a ketogenic diet as a means to lose weight, getting into ketosis is an important step toward that goal. Other benefits of ketosis include seizure reduction in people with epilepsy.

Cutting your carb intake is the best way to get into ketosis. Other actions, such as consuming MCT oil and exercising in a fasted state, may also help.

Quick and easy methods, such as using special urine strips, can let you know whether you’re maintaining ketosis or you need to make some adjustments to your diet.

How we reviewed this article:

SourcesHistoryHealthline has strict sourcing guidelines and relies on peer-reviewed studies, academic research institutions, and medical journals and associations. We only use quality, credible sources to ensure content accuracy and integrity. You can learn more about how we ensure our content is accurate and current by reading our editorial policy.

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Medically reviewed by Kathy W. Warwick, RDN, CDCES — Written by The Healthline Editorial Team — Updated on January 23, 2024

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1. Minimize your carb consumption

2. Include coconut oil in your diet

3. Ramp up your physical activity

4. Increase your healthy fat intake

5. Try a short fast or a fat fast

6. Maintain adequate protein intake

7. Test ketone levels and adjust your diet as needed

Acetone and the breath test

Acetoacetate and the urine tests

Beta-hydroxybutyrate and the blood test

The bottom line

How we reviewed this article:

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