Following keto diet meal plans can offer many health benefits for fitness enthusiasts. This dietary approach helps reduce inflammation, improve blood sugar, and increase energy levels. It also lets you lose weight effectively, helping you reach your fitness goals.
While it can help you lose weight, the keto diet may be ineffective for some. You should also know that maintaining weight loss can be tricky, and gaining some unwanted pounds can be frustrating for anyone. Fortunately, you can achieve the desired outcomes by making the necessary lifestyle changes.
If you’re ready to achieve your dream body, this article will explain if you can gain weight on a keto diet. We’ll also tackle why keto weight gain happens and how to handle it.
Can I Gain a Few Pounds on a Keto Diet?
Even following a ketogenic diet meal plan, you can still gain unwanted pounds if you consume too many calories. Your body can store excess calories as fat, so you must be careful of how much you eat, even from keto-friendly foods like butter and coconut oil.
Why Keto Weight Gain Happens
Nobody wants to gain unwanted pounds on a ketogenic diet. After answering if you can gain weight on a keto diet, here are seven reasons it occurs and how to avoid it.
1. Chronic Stress and Poor Sleep Quality
Insufficient sleep can make you hungry and crave unhealthy foods, making it challenging to control your diet. Constant stress can also raise your body’s cortisol levels, leading to fat accumulation around your stomach.
You can reduce stress and improve sleep quality by meditating and journaling before bed while limiting exposure to bright lights and electronic devices. Increasing daily activity levels can also help with weight loss and sleep quality.
2. Excessive Pure Fat and Oil in Meals
You can effectively burn body fat by consuming fewer calories than your body needs. You should also avoid adding excess fat to meals and prioritize whole foods like meat, seafood, avocados, cheese, nuts, seeds, and olives. That way, you can get better nutrition and satisfaction with fewer calories.
3. Inadequate Nutrient-Rich Food Intake
Eating whole foods like low-carb vegetables, full-fat dairy, eggs, fish, meat, avocado, nuts, and seeds provides your body with essential nutrients for sustained weight loss and energy. Meanwhile, consuming heavily-processed keto products and ingredients can cause hunger and overeating.
4. Excessive High-Fat Keto Snack Consumption
Snacking on high-fat keto foods can prevent weight loss. Choose lower-calorie and higher-protein snacks like eggs, deli meats, beef jerky, sardines, pickles, and kale chips. Also, have well-balanced keto meal plans and stay hydrated to reduce snacking habits.
5. Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol can impair keto weight loss by adding extra calories, decreasing sleep quality, damaging blood sugar regulation, and fluctuating ketone production. While completely cutting out alcohol is the healthiest option, moderate consumption (below two servings per day for men and one serving per day for women) of keto-friendly drinks is acceptable.
6. Overeating during Cheat Days
Some people find cheat meals helpful in adhering to a keto diet without feeling deprived. While this may result in not being in a constant state of ketosis, it can eventually make weight loss more manageable. You can avoid unwanted weight gain by knowing that high-carb foods can cause water retention and avoid consuming too many calories on a cheat day.
7. Underestimating How Much You Eat
Many underestimate how much they eat, which can be frustrating when losing weight. You can prevent this by using a keto calculator to calculate your macronutrient requirements and adjust your meals accordingly. Also, monitor your intake to understand better what your body needs.
Final Thoughts
Gaining weight while following keto meal plans can be frustrating, but it happens if you don’t eat the right foods. You can reach the desired outcomes by investing in whole low-carb whole foods, managing stress, getting better sleep, and exercising regularly.
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