It’s hard to stay on a keto diet. But the following three variations are a lot easiest to stay true to and they still offer the benefit of weight loss.

The keto diet allows for enjoying high-fat, low-carb foods like avocado, butter, bacon, burgers, and cream. But you have to severely reduce the amounts of added sugar, most fruit, grains, starchy vegetables, and nearly all processed food. That’s hard to do consistently!

The keto diet is very popular among many of Hollywood’s A-listers. But it’s hard to stay on a keto diet without a private chef preparing fantastically fatty snacks and meals for you. If you’re determined to stay on keto, enlist the help of professionals. No, you don’t have to hire a specialty chef. But you can hire a crew of certified nutritionists, personal trainers, and chefs to create an 8-week custom keto meal plan for you.

‘Us Weekly’ magazine article online: ”Celebs Crazy for Keto: These Stars All Swear by the High-Fat, Low-Carb Ketogenic Diet”

Fortunately, there are some keto variations more accommodating to those of us lacking the fortitude to follow the ketogenic diet. The standard keto diet puts our bodies into the state of ketosis where we burn fat for energy instead of carbohydrates. Promoting fat loss. With the keto variation, you will be moving into and out of ketosis. But you’ll still lose weight, just not as much weight or as efficiently. Keep reading to learn how the keto diet and its variants work.

The original ketogenic diet

The original keto diet is high-fat, low-carb, and moderate protein. Calories from your macronutrient consumption are distributed like this: 75% fats, 15-20% proteins, and 5-10% carbohydrates.

Meals and snacks are planned around fatty foods like avocados, butter, fatty fish, fatty meat, olive oil, etc. An average person requires around 150g of fat per day to move their body to where they are metabolizing fat for its energy. That’s probably 3 times the fat you’re consuming now. You also have to cut your carb intake to 50g or less per day from a typically more than 300g per day. Fifty grams of carbs is a little more than what you might find in a breakfast muffin. That means you have to limit yourself to leafy greens, above-ground vegetables, low-carb fruits like berries, and some melons. Lastly, you will be limited to moderate amounts of protein (meat, fish, or poultry). That’s ~90g per day, 30g per meal (about 4 oz. per meal).

The targeted keto diet

The targeted keto diet macronutrients break down like this: 65-70% fats, 20% proteins, 10-15% carbohydrates.

Targeted keto is popular with athletes and active people wanting the keto lifestyle but requires more carbs. Targeted keto allows for up to 30 additional grams of carbohydrates. The extra carbs are to be consumed just before and right after workouts. This allows for greater intensity exercising and faster recovery. Total carbs can be 70-80g per exercise day. The best choice for these extra carbs is fruit, grains, or nutritional sports products. Since the extra carbs are quickly burned off they won’t be converted to fat and stored in the body.

Related reading: “Endurance Athletes And Ketogenic Diet“

The cyclical keto diet

The macro breakdown for the cyclical keto diet is 75% fats, 15-20% proteins, 5-10% carbohydrates on keto days, 25% fats, 25% proteins, and 50% carbohydrates on the off keto days.

The cyclical keto diet is a way of cycling into and out of ketosis. This cycling allows for a more enjoyable diet on the off days. One approach to keto cycling is to be off keto two days a week. The two-day-a-week method can be especially handy for special occasions. You can schedule your two days to coincide with birthdays, holidays, vacations, or weekend getaways. The best results come from eating whole foods that are carb-rich. On your off days choose fruits, dairy products, grains, and root vegetables. Avoid added sugars and processed foods.

The high protein keto diet

In the high protein version your macros look like this: 60-65% fats, 30% proteins, 5-10% carbohydrates.

You can see here we’re shifting from fats to proteins while keeping carbs in line with the original diet. To make that shift you’ll eat ~120g of protein per day. That’s roughly four 4oz portions of meat, fish, or poultry. And limit your fat consumption to 130g per day. A lot of ketoers find this variation of the keto diet easier to follow than the standard keto diet due to the increased allowance of proteins and less fat. One cation though, with the variation you may not get into ketosis because protein can be metabolized into glucose for energy. Nevertheless, weight loss is generally a byproduct of the high protein keto diet.

Each of these variations of the keto diet will result in weight loss. But none will work as quickly as the original keto diet. We know it’s hard to stay on a keto diet. Meal planning is the most difficult part of being on a keto diet. But meal planning can be very easy when you let someone else do it for you. Take the time to check out this video to learn more about the original keto diet and what our 8-week custom keto diet plan can do for you.

Are you ready to start your Keto Diet? One way to get started with a Keto Diet is to have an 8-week “Custom Keto Diet Plan” created for you based on your height, weight, age, level of physical activity, and personal weight goals. Click the banner to learn more about your customized keto diet plan, or click here to go straight to your custom keto diet meal planner.