Getting into Ketosis before Ramadan may make your fasting experience easier.

Firstly Ramadan Kareem to all those partaking from Thursday or Friday this week!

Ramadan fasting can be challenging. That’s not new. Especially for communities living in the northern hemisphere with longer fasting periods.

Fortunately, there are some hacks we can use to help train the body into getting used to fasting in a quick and effective way.

Getting the body into a state of ketosis prior to Ramadan may help your body get accustomed to not eating for long periods of time.

This doesn’t just mean it may reduce hunger, but it may also keep your energy levels balanced while you’re fasting, in order to avoid energy and cognitive crashing; something many of us have experienced at some point during Ramadan!

As an added bonus, because ketosis switches the body’s energy source from glucose (carbs & sugar) to fat, it may result in some fat loss for some of us.

Getting into ketosis for a brief period of time (about a week) may also serve as a way to shrink and rest your appetite – pretty useful if you’ve spent your days in quarantine stuffing yourself more than usual 🌚

So how does one get into ketosis?

Keep your total carbohydrate intake under 50g per day. You will definitely need to track your macronutrients to get this right. I like MyFitnessPal and Chronometer which are pretty easy and free to use.

The downside to this is you may be limited in terms of veggie variety and whole grain intake, however you don’t need to get into ketosis for extended periods of time to get the benefit.

Make sure you maximise on the veg you can have, nuts, seeds, eggs and good quality meat, go easy on cheeses, dairy and other animal fats & processed foods (keto ready made snacks, I’m looking at you).

Going for 3-7 days can give you loads of benefits which will stay with you for a while, and you can repeat whenever needed.

If you don’t want to go down the ketosis route, you can always experiment with intermittent fasting (16-19 hours) which also helps reset and regulate satiety via balancing hormones like insulin, leptin & ghrelin.

More on different methods of fasting tomorrow

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