Your Expert Tips to Sticking With Your Vegan Keto Diet, Week 2

When you start any diet the hardest part can be sticking with it. Here Lisa Danielson, the plant-based nutritionist who designed this meal plan, offers helpful advice and expert tips on how to stay on track, or what to do if you momentarily lapse. We think you'll appreciate this next tip.

In case you missed it, for the first week of expert tips, got back to this story and get your helpful tips for days 1 through 7. Here are the expert tips for days 8 through 15. Next week, you'll get even more great advice! Want to share your best tips and advice, head over to The Beet's Facebook page and let us know how it's going!

One cocktail a week won't derail your goals. Fall in love with tequila. Or vodka, or whiskey, all of which are low-carb. Most alcoholic drinks contain carbohydrates and most of the time, you will want to save those carbohydrates for food. But if you know you are seeing friends or going out to dinner for a special occasion, you can still bank some carbs to have a drink. Just understand that drinking alcohol will slow down the fat-burning process but sometimes life happens and to stay on the diet, you need to give yourself a little fun every now and then.

Your best choices are clear spirits like tequila or vodka, but you can even allow yourself an occasional glass of bone-dry wine or a shot of whiskey. One important thing to note: your tolerance for alcohol will be much lower while in ketosis, so you won't need that second glass with dinner. Better yet, tell friends or loved ones you'll be DD and stick to seltzer.

Just the fact that you are on a low-carb diet full of vegetables and healthy plant-based foods will improve digestion and help move the numbers on the scale. Finding out if you are in ketosis means using something to help you, and the strips are the least reliable so if you try it and get a result that isn't what you want don't get discouraged.

If you are eager to know whether you are actually in ketosis, there are three ways The most accurate and also the most expensive is a blood ketone meter but this is not necessary since it involves a finger prick. A cheaper option but still very accurate is a breath test device such as one from My Biosense. The most common but least inaccurate is the urine strips you can buy at your local drug store but can be used if the other two aren’t an option.

Any measurement of .5 mml/L of ketones or above is considered ketosis.

But even without the strips or gadgets, you can be successful on a keto diet. If you reduce your carb intake drastically, even if you are not technically in ketosis, your body will need to burn fuel from somewhere so if your carb intake is lower than your activity output, those extra calories are going to come from fat. This is especially true if you are extremely active such as when you go skiing or walk for long periods or you're outside both burning calories and keeping warm in a cold climate. So rather than fixate on being in ketosis, focus on moving more and getting outside as often as you can to burn more calories.

Can you eat out while on keto? Is a common question. The fact is that you can find vegan keto options in most places, such as a veggie burger (sans bread) a vegetable soup, a side of brussels sprouts or spinach, and a mixed green salad-- all of which can be a vegan keto-friendly meal. But it makes it easier to succeed if you mostly stick with eating the recipes in this plan since they are calibrated to keep your energy up and your carbs down.

You can go out to eat if needed (three weeks is a long time to never have a restaurant meal for most people) but here are some rules to remember: 1. Your meal needs to have fat; nuts, oils, avocado, and coconut are some great options. 2. Skip the sauces. 3. Keep to the keto-approved veggies such as broccoli, cauliflower, mushrooms, green beans, and spaghetti squash.

Can you cheat while on keto? The answer might be a little more complicated than yes or no. Anytime you have a "cheat meal" it is usually very high in carbohydrates, which is the opposite of what you are trying to accomplish when you go on the Vegan Keto diet. BUT it's better to cheat than to give up completely, so if you feel yourself craving something that is not on the diet, just eat it and then keep going and get back on track. Just one cheat meal or snack can knock you out of ketosis, which means the fat burning will stop for the time being.

You may also feel a little nauseous or feel sick since you're not used to rich carbohydrate food. But the good news is that you can hop right back on the keto diet. So if you do have a cheat meal, jump right back on the meal plan the very next day so you can get back into ketosis as quickly as possible. Chances are you won't feel good after eating a meal of carb-rich food and you won't want to do it again.

The term “keto adapted” or “fat adapted” means that your body has achieved a good balance with ketosis and you are now producing ketones which are acids that occur when fat gets broken down, but you are no longer feeling any ill side effects like you did during the keto flu.

Once you become keto-adapted your body will burn fat all day and night even if you are eating slightly more food. If you find yourself getting hungry, once you achieve this state, which you will know because you are losing weight steadily, you can raise your calorie intake by about 100 calories of protein or fat and still keep losing weight every week.

When your body is switching over from glucose to ketones it will usually cause an energy di. If in the first week you feel like exercise is too hard, focus on the diet and then add in some light cardio, stretching, yoga, and low-impact workouts when you feel better.

Bottom line: Try to get back to exercising every day, even if it's yoga or stretching just aim to get 30 minutes or more of walking a day. Moving more is always a good idea when you go on any diet! The first two weeks expect to be low on energy, but by week three you will want to trade your light walks and stretching for spinning and sprinting as your energy kicks back in. Once you become keto-adapted try to stay as active as possible and resume high-intensity exercises, and you're likely to see better numbers than ever.