Lifehack: how I kept the weight off after quitting keto

The Keto diet was a powerful tool for me.  When I started it, I was 180 lbs.  After 3 months, I had dropped down to 155.  Nowadays, I walk around at about 160.  Besides losing weight, keto changed my relationship to food. And it’s because of this new relationship that I have been successful at maintaining the losses.

This hack would not have been possible without my time in ketosis, because frankly, I didn’t understand how fickle my food cravings actually were.  If you’ve been in ketosis, you’ve felt how cravings usually last about 10 minutes, and then they can be gone for hours.

It’s also important to have been in ketosis at some point in the past, because it increases your body’s ability to burn fat as energy.  Once those fat-burning mechanisms are in place, they stick around.

Without further ado, here is my routine:

1. I consume 2 Tbsp (~250 Cal) of fat with my morning coffee (8 am)
2. My first food craving comes 2-3 hours later, and when it comes, I drink 10 oz of water
3. If the craving is particularly strong, I gargle mouthwash. This buys me at least an hour where I don’t want to eat.
4. I aim for my first meal around 1 pm, later if possible. The longer I can go, the better. I can often make it until 3 pm before I have my first bit of food.
5. I eat a normal dinner, and cut off all food at 8 pm.

The trick here is realizing that the first craving is often simply your body looking for blood sugar, not real food. On keto, I often would just have 1 meal a day, as it felt like my body already had all the fuel it needed.

Bottom line: you can build a habit of skipping early meals, and it cuts your overall daily intake. Like in intermittent fasting, you simply won’t be able to recoup those daily calories you would have had with breakfast plus snacks.  Not to mention, starting the day with fats encourages your body to continue burning fat, just like in ketosis.

Have you had success keeping weight off after keto?  I’d love to hear how you did it, or where you’ve struggled with it. Drop me a line at erik (at) getgrasso.com, or reply to this post!