What Is Ketosis? And How to Get Ketogenic Fast

The keto diet is one of 2023’s most popular ways of eating. 

That’s hardly surprising when you look at its potential benefits. Keto can help with weight loss, metabolic problems, food addiction, and more. It can supercharge your productivity and enhance your energy levels. And while these things are impressive, they’re really just the start! [1][2][3]

Keep reading to learn more about keto — and how to get your body into a ketogenic state faster than once thought possible. 

• What is Ketosis? Keto 101

• Ketosis: How to Access It

• How to Avoid Keto Flu and Get Ketogenic Fast

• Keto: Enhanced Energy, Less Stress, and More

• Keto-Friendly Foods: Our Top Picks

• Keto Diet: Potential Downsides 

What is Ketosis? Keto 101

Technically speaking, ketosis isn’t a diet at all. It’s actually a special metabolic state.

So when someone talks about the ketogenic diet, it means they’re talking about eating in a way that guides the body into burning fat, not carbohydrates, for fuel. 

Keto might have gotten super popular in the last few years, but it’s actually been around since the 1920s. Nutrition specialist Dr. Russel Wilder had already noted that fasting stabilized certain neurotransmitters, and he correctly deduced that a diet capable of mimicking fasting-level blood sugar might do something similar. In 1924 Dr. Russel proposed a rather extreme ketogenic diet comprised of 90% fat, 6% from protein, and 4% from carbs. [4]

Dr. Russel soon found out that ketosis does indeed mirror the fasted state. While the body normally burns carbs for energy for much of its fuel, the human metabolism is adaptable. It can burn anything available: carbs, proteins, amino acids, fats . . . or ketones. 

If deprived of carbs for long enough, the liver and muscles will eventually run out of their stored carbohydrates, or glycogen. Once that happens your body reaches a transition point where protein ( think muscle tissue!) is sometimes burned as fuel. 

Thankfully this muscle-burning mode is short-lived. The liver quickly adopts and switches roles, processing fatty acids to create a special type of fat called the ketone body. True ketosis occurs when the body is burning more ketones for fuel than anything else. Read more >