How much weight can you expect to lose on keto?

How much weight can you expect to lose on keto?

How much weight can you expect to lose on keto?


Weight loss is one of the most common goals of the ketogenic diet. If you’re using keto to drop pounds, you’re probably wondering how quickly you can expect to see keto diet results.

Since everyone is different, it’s hard to get an exact answer, but this article will cover the average weight loss rate for most keto dieters, tips for successfully losing weight on keto, and how to avoid common weight loss mistakes.


Weight Loss on Keto: Everyone Is Different

Everyone’s body is different, which means the weight loss rate for each person is different too. Your individual keto diet results can vary depending on four main factors.

How Much Weight Can You Lose on Keto in a Month?

Here are a few things that can affect your rate of weight loss during keto:

1. Your Current Body Composition

Body composition is a term used to describe the percentage of fat, muscle, bone, and water in your body. The more body fat you have, the easier and faster you’ll lose weight.

That’s why you often hear people say that they can’t seem to lose those last few pounds.

As you become leaner, your rate of weight loss will decrease. This is what’s called metabolic adaptations to weight loss.

2. Your Current Health Condition

Weight loss can be a tad slower if you have thyroid issues, insulin resistance, or blood sugar problems.

Your current metabolic state can also affect your rate of weight loss.

Things like yo-yo dieting, diets that drastically cut your calories can negatively impact your metabolism, making it more difficult to lose weight and making you more prone to weight regain.

But don’t worry if you have health issues, you’ll still lose weight, obviously, just a little slower than expected.


3. How Fast Your Body Adapts to Fat

It takes a few days for your body to start producing ketones and start using fat as its main energy source.

If your body’s used to a high carbohydrate diet and has never been in ketosis before, it might take you a bit longer to reach ketosis.

4. Your Eating Habits

Just because you’re on a high-fat diet doesn’t mean that you should eat lots of processed meats and fast food as long as they don’t have carbs.

Regardless of which diet you choose, the majority of your calories should come from nutrient-dense/whole foods.

A big mistake people on keto make is taking for granted foods with hidden carbs (we’ll talk more about this later).

5. Exercising

Exercising, especially weight training, will deplete your body from glycogen (the stored form of carbohydrates), this will help reach ketosis a little faster.

TAKEAWAY
Several things, such as metabolism, underlying health conditions, exercise, and eating habits can affect how fast you lose weight on keto.

 Average Weight Loss During Keto

Week 1

During your first week, you can lose anything from a few pounds to as much as 15 pounds. While some of it will be fat, the majority will be water.

This is because 1 gram of glycogen holds about 2-3 grams of water.

When you eat, your body uses carbohydrates as energy and stores the excess in your liver and muscles in the form of glycogen.

For your body to enter a ketogenic state, it must use all of its glycogen stores first. Once all of the glycogen is gone, so will the water.

This is why people tend to lose a lot of weight in the first week of keto or a low-carb diet.

But don’t worry, this drastic loss of weight is a great indicator that your body is emptying itself from carbs, and getting ready to enter ketosis.

Week 2

In the next few weeks, your rate of weight loss will become a little more realistic and steadier.

At this stage, your body starts getting adapted to fat as it switches from using carbs to using fat as its main energy source.

During fasting, your body also switches to using ketones for energy, that’s why many people who start the keto diet also start intermittent fasting.

TAKEAWAY
While several things can affect how fast you lose weight, most people tend to lose 15-25 pounds on keto in a month.

How Quickly Should You Lose Weight?

If you’re fairly lean, losing 1% of your body weight per week is ideal to prevent losing too much muscle mass.

However, if you’re overweight or obese, losing 1.5-2% (maybe even a little more) of your body weight per week is completely acceptable.

Your body has enough stored fat to get energy from that losing muscle won’t be much of a concern. Just getting the fat off your body will be a huge benefit to your health.

For example, if you’re overweight at 250 lb, you can lose from 4-5 lb per week (even a little more) without issues.

TAKEAWAY
1% of your body weight per week is considered a safe rate of weight loss. For overweight and obese individuals, that number can go up to 1.5-2% per week.

 What Research Says About Losing Weight on Keto

Study 1

This study (2) showed that obese subjects lost 30 pounds after 2 months on the keto diet (about 4 pounds per week).

It also showed that more than 88% of subjects lost more than 10% of their initial weight by the end of the study without losing much muscle mass.

Study 2

In this other study (3), subjects with type 2 diabetes and obesity lost an average of 25 pounds in 24 weeks.

It also led to improvements in glycemic control and medication reduction/elimination in those with type 2 diabetes.

Study 3

This meta-analysis (4) gathered data from 13 different studies and found that subjects on the keto diet lost more weight than those on a low-fat diet.

The keto diet has been shown to be more effective for weight loss than the often recommended low-fat diets.


Weight Loss Plateau

Everyone, no matter which diet they do, will get to a point where weight loss will slow and eventually stall.

This is because our metabolisms adapt to our new calorie intake/diet and activity levels. This is completely normal and is our body’s way of preventing us from starving.

Here are a few things you can do when this happens:

. Give it a couple of weeks

Again, this is normal, so don’t get discouraged when weight loss stalls. Just stay on your diet and give your body some time to jump back into weight loss mode.

. Increase your calories

Yes, you read that right. If you’ve been dieting for a few months and your calories are already pretty low, you might need a diet break.

Keep eating the same foods but increase your calories by 400-500 for a week. You might start losing weight after increasing your calories.

. Decrease your calories

If you’re still eating a decent amount of calories, you might, instead, need to drop them a little. Try cutting calories by 300.

TAKEAWAY
Weight loss plateaus are normal and are to be expected when losing weight with any diet.

 Common Keto Mistakes

1. Not Being in Ketosis

People often believe they’re in ketosis when they actually aren’t. You need to pay attention that the foods you eat don’t have hidden carbs that can prevent you from reaching ketosis or kicking you out of it.

Here’s how to avoid this mistake:

. Watch for hidden carbs

Don’t be fooled by their front marketing cover that says “healthy” or “low-carb.” Instead, look for the actual nutrition label and make sure there aren’t any hidden carbs.

These hidden carbs are often found in processed foods.

. Watch your vegetables

Vegetables contain carbs so you need to be careful about how much you eat.

Eating too many vegetables can kick you out of ketosis, however, not eating enough vegetables can cause you to not get enough fiber in your diet, which can negatively affect your gut health.

Try going for low-carb vegetables, such as spinach, cabbage, zucchini, cucumber, asparagus, broccoli, and cauliflower.

. Limit artificial sweeteners

Some sweeteners can cause an insulin spike high enough to kick you out of ketosis.

2. Not Paying Attention to Your Calories

Just because you’re not eating carbohydrates or sugar during keto, it doesn’t mean you can eat as much as you’d like.

Eating more calories than you need will make you gain weight regardless of which type of diet you’re on.



Here’s how to avoid this mistake:

Track your calories

In the beginning, is important that you track your calories so that you can get familiarized with food composition and portions.

After a few months, you’ll get the hang of it and might start eating by intuition.

If you need help with tracking calories, you can check out my article on how to use MyFitnessPal.

Fats have more calories

Keep in mind that 1 gram of fat has about 9 calories compared to 4 calories per gram of protein and carbs.

So it’s easy to overeat smaller foods like nuts that look like they’re not much but come packed in calories. Some nuts also contain more carbs than others so keep an eye for those.

Don’t eat too little

While it’s necessary to eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight, making drastic cuts to your calories can cause your metabolism to slow even faster and increase cravings and the chances of weight regain.

That’s why it’s important that you don’t jump on crash diets and instead take a smarter and safer approach to weight loss that will be best in the long-term.

If you loved learning about how much weight you can lose on keto in one month and are ready to start your weight loss journey, the Custom Keto Diet plan is the place to start!

This plan helps men and women lose fat without starving themselves or giving up their favorite foods.