How To Boost Your Keto Diet

The Best Kept Secrets To Get You Into Ketosis

Developed almost 100 years ago, the keto diet plan is enjoying a major comeback thanks to its incredible health benefits. But what if you could get even better results? That’s what hundreds of companies are promising with their nutritional keto products. Not only will you be able to easily give up your carb-filled diet, but you will actually see positive results. The million dollar question is how to suss out which companies are the real deal and which are just trying to cash in on this hot trend?

We decided to analyze many of the products currently available on the market and divided them into two main categories – keto supplements and meal replacements – in order to figure out which ones will boost a ketosis diet and help get the amazing results you are looking for. To fully understand how they work, here’s a bit of background on ketosis and what that means for your body.

What Is Ketosis?

Ketosis is a natural metabolic state in which your body uses fat (instead of carbohydrates) for fuel. When your body is switched on to ketosis mode, you literally become a fat burning machine.

When there are low amounts of carbohydrates in your body, it is forced to get its energy from fat. To do this, the liver breaks down fatty acids and forms ketones, which are then released into the blood stream. The most common ketone is BHB, also known as Beta-hydroxybutyrate.

Ketosis happens once the level of ketones in the blood hits a certain threshold. Additionally, the presence of BHB ketones in the blood actually signals for your body to break down even more fatty acids, which spurs your body to burn more fat cells, thus keeping you in a state of ketosis.

In order to induce ketosis, people follow a high fat, moderate protein and low carb ketogenic diet. However, as most Western diets are heavy on carbohydrates, starting and sticking to the keto diet is challenging. Whether it’s dealing with the keto flu or managing pasta cravings, there is a real need for nutritional keto products to help start, support and sustain your body when following a keto diet.

Common Keto Diet Boosters

As mentioned above, common keto diet boosters that are found on the market can be categorized in two groups:

• Keto Meal Replacements – Keto shakes, keto protein bars, keto powders, etc.
• Keto Supplements – Nutritional pills, softgels, oils and capsules.

But, which one is best? We’ve researched ingredients, price, results, customer feedback, guarantees and manufacturing practices to provide a comprehensive picture to help you decide the best options for your own personal keto journey.

Keto Meal Replacements

From a keto shake mix to a keto protein bar, people are hungry to get their hands on some type of keto meal replacement. Every year more and more keto products find their way onto the market because there is a huge appeal to buying grab-and-go food. Most people agree that such foods provide:

• Convenience
• No need for a meal plan
• Replaces food list
• Easy keto diet plan for beginners

However, are these keto meal replacements so popular because they’re beneficial to the keto diet or because it’s easier than preparing homemade food?

Our Research

When analyzing labels of various protein bars and keto protein shakes, the largest deficiency we noted was insoluble fiber. Fiber is the indigestible plant material which our bodies cannot break down on their own, but which is extremely beneficial to our digestive system. The differences in fiber can be seen below.

• Soluble fiber – Found in fruits and legumes, which are usually avoided in a ketogenic diet. This dissolves in liquids and forms into a gel-like substance which slows down carbohydrate digestion.
• Insoluble fiber – Found in low-carb, keto-friendly vegetables. This stays intact through the digestive system and aids smooth digestion and elimination from the body.

Keto meal replacements such as keto diet protein powder or a keto protein bar, will usually get their calories from carbohydrates from soluble fiber. This leaves no room for insoluble fiber. In addition to filling you up and aiding digestion, insoluble fiber also boosts ketosis.

Gut bacteria breaks down insoluble fiber in a process called fermentation, into short-chain fatty acids, such as butyrate. As this is easily converted to BHB (Beta-hydroxybutyrate), eating insoluble fiber increases the ketone level in your bloodstream boosting ketosis.

Additionally, most protein bars and keto protein shakes are sweetened in ways that are not actually beneficial to a ketogenic diet. Either there is an addition of sugar in the form of corn syrup or honey which is not recommended on a keto diet, or they are artificially sweetened with sugar alcohols which can cause cramping and upset stomachs. Furthermore, by giving in to your sweet tooth, you’re encouraging your carb cravings instead of training your body to get used to not having food rich in sugar.

Another significantly notable point is the expense. The cost of each keto bar or keto shake mix is not worth the serving size. If you consider buying nuts in bulk instead of nut bars, you can save yourself a lot of money as well as unwanted carb calories.

Finally, we must mention that keto meal replacements often fit in the “dirty keto” category. This refers to foods which technically fit the requirements of the keto diet but which omit nutrients, such as processed and packaged foods. While your macros may be in the correct ratios, and you can enter ketosis, this is not sustainable or advisable for positive long-term health.

Bottom Line

As a seldom treat, keto meal replacements serve a purpose. However, with the amount you would have to eat to actually boost ketosis, you would be ingesting too many unhealthy, processed ingredients and not enough insoluble fiber, not to mention the cost issue.

There is no substitute for keto friendly nutritious food, after all, as in life, you get out what you put in. Preparing homemade food can be done faster than you may think and is worth the extra effort. There are a plethora of keto diet cookbooks online with an endless amount of recipes to fit busy lifestyles and a multitude of palates.

Keto Supplements

The aim of keto supplements is to increase the ketone level in the blood and in this way boost ketosis. Additional benefits of a high-quality supplement will be to suppress appetite, replace electrolytes and mitigate keto flu symptoms, such as constipation, diarrhea, headaches and muscle cramps. The main benefits of a nutritional keto supplement is that it:

• Boosts ketosis faster
• Alleviates keto flu
• Suppresses appetite
• Replaces electrolytes
• Does not contain added soluble fiber
• Does not contain added sweeteners or dirty keto ingredients
• Is easy to take
• Is cost Effective
• Often comes with a guarantee

Our Research

After perusing the scientific studies, we saw irrefutable proof that ingesting ketones does boost ketosis faster and more efficiently, without presenting any harmful side effects (as long as the manufacturer’s instructions are adhered to). The real issue we found is that not all supplement companies are held up to the same standards when it comes to creating a nutritional keto supplement.

We researched numerous ketogenic diet supplements to ascertain an in-depth analysis of what is very likely to get you great results and what is a total waste of your money and time.  We determined that high-quality keto supplements should contain:

• 2000mg BHB ketones – more than the recommended 1800mg
• 4 different ketone salts – most only contain 2 or 3.
• MCT oil – the majority of products do not include this in their formula.
• BioPerine® – shockingly omitted from the majority of products we took a look at.
• Vegan friendly
• Good money back guarantee
• No additives, preservative or unnecessary ingredients

If you see additional ingredients in your keto supplement labels, be aware that these can be preservatives which dilute the potency and won’t do much for your keto diet.

Bottom Line

For maximum efficacy when undertaking the keto diet, we recommend taking a supportive nutritional keto supplement alongside a clean keto diet with as few packaged keto products as possible. A high-quality keto supplement will boost ketosis faster than if doing a ketogenic diet alone.

Our Ketogenic Diet Product Choices

We chose supplements which we feel confident in recommending to get great results and are worth your investment and time. The companies we chose have excellent reputations, high-quality products, external independent monitoring, and testing, coupled with incredible money back guarantee policies ensuring that the choices we recommend are the ones that you can trust.