The title says it all -- how long did it take you to truly feel the benefits of being in ketosis, namely to get the big energy boost, the reduced appetite, etc.? Some places say it takes a few days, others say four weeks, others say three months, others say up to a year.

I'd love to get a better idea of how long I really need to stick with it to be sure I've given it a fair shot and that the fabulous energy boost just ain't going to happen for me. The longest I've lasted is two months without a slip-up, and right now I'm wondering if this is really worth committing to a lifetime without fruit, I miss it more than anything.

Being keto (fat) adapted is a highly individualized thing, IMO. How much time it takes sort of depends on the state of your metabolism when you start, the level of carb restriction that you follow, and other factors unique to the individual. When I started I was morbidly obese times 10, I was a type 2 diabetic, and I had high blood pressure. I was totally insulin resistant. My metabolism was a disaster. I'd done low carb diets on and off for decades, but cheating was always part of my diet plan. Only this time did I choose to make this a permanent WOE. When I made cheating not an option everything clicked and I started receiving the full benefits of this WOE. Doing keto right paid dividends. I found the success that I'd longed for since the weight started piling on in the early 1990's.

I find it difficult to answer your question even as it applies to me. I don't know that I can really define when I became keto/fat adapted. I did notice some "stages" along the way after I went all-in with this way of eating (i.e. no cheating - LC everyday). Here is what I recall happened...

I started with a diet plan of less than 30 net carbs per day. For me at my size that was well within the keto zone for me.

As is typical with a very low carb diet I lost a significant amount of water weight in the first 10 days and suffered from symptoms of keto flu (felt crappy, lack of energy, etc.).

Within two weeks I was over the keto flu thing and feeling better. High blood sugar from diabetes had me feeling wiped out and lethargic in the months before the diet, so by switching to low carb my blood sugar stabilized and my energy levels returned to normal. 3 weeks into this WOE I was feeling much better, much healthier. I had a reasonable amount of energy for someone who still weighed more than 400 pounds. I still had carb cravings and it did take willpower to stay on plan those first few weeks, but I managed to do it.

The period between 2 weeks and 6 weeks was my honeymoon period. I liked the food I was eating. I was feeling better. I was losing weight. Everything was going great. THEN as time went on the food boredom phase kicked into gear. I started getting tired of the food I was eating; really tired of it. The thought of eating another egg, another salad or a piece of meat or cheese or green beans, etc., practically gagged me. The pull to dive back into the carbs really intensified. I did not give in. I stuck to OP foods no matter what. If necessary I would eat more OP foods than usual, even going over my carb count an a given day to keep me from diving into the junk. For me this was the hardest period in my transition to this WOE.

At about 3 months into the diet some magic started to happen. I started getting fidgety from sitting too long. I felt compelled to get up and move more. At the same time my appetite started to plummet. I was eating low carb those first few months, but I was eating a ton of LC food. Almost overnight I started not wanting to eat so much. I then had a week of terrible insomnia and when that ended I'd morphed from a night person who loved to sleep in on weekends into a morning person who goes to bed early and wakes up with the sun. I had never been a morning person for my entire life, then suddenly I was and I've been that way ever since. This period, about 3 months into this WOE, is when I think my metabolism started functioning properly. I was eating less, waking up early, and I had a tremendous boost in energy. At 375 pounds I started a regular walking regimen. I was compelled to be more active as if I didn't really have a choice. My active lifestyle continues to this day.

After about the 4th month of 100% OP eating my cravings for carbs, including fruit and other old favorites, started to fade. The pull to want them started to disappear. At the same time the LC food boredom phase came to and end. I stopped missing the foods that I no longer ate. I started enjoying the LC foods I was eating more and more each day. LC foods that could hardly choke down just weeks before became my new favorite foods. I think this is when my carb addiction started to break. My brain was letting go of the desire for carbs and rewiring itself around my new WOE. At this stage of the game my "diet" stopped feeling like misery and deprivation. The "diet food" was simply becoming the normal, everyday foods that I eat. It was at this point that I knew that I could sustain this WOE for the long haul. I still had fond memories of junky old carbs, but the pull to eat them slowly came to an end.

At 9 months into LCHF/keto I'd lost around 100 pounds. But my rate weight loss began to slow down. I began to work on bad habits (snacking) and introduced intermittent fasting into my regimen to help keep the scale moving. At about this time I start checking my blood sugar on a regular basis and was surprised to find that it was still higher than normal. My fasting blood sugar was still at prediabetes levels. I was controlling my diabetes through diet, but it was not cured. Even just a few too many carbs in a meal could shoot my blood sugar to unsafe (damaging) levels. Then suddenly - over a matter of a few weeks - my blood sugar normalized. My fasting BG fell from at or around 110 to being between 75 and 85 on most days. My insulin resistance appeared to be resolved. After that shift in BG I could tolerate more carbs in my diet without high spikes in blood sugar. IMO, I'd reversed my diabetes. Some sort of healing had taken place and I started having exceptionally stable blood sugar from my low carb meals. Even the occasional higher carb meal did not result in a diabetic-like BG spike as it once did. Since that all happened (about 10 months into the diet) I've considered myself no longer diabetic. I'm in diabetes remission.

So that's what I remember about the beginning period of adopting the LCHF/keto lifestyle. It really was a healing process with several memorable events along the way. It was hard work to make a break from how I used to eat and make this permanent. I've tweaked my diet some since those early days, but I am still doing it going on 5 years now. I like how I eat. I'm keeping the weight off. Keto works, so I'm sticking with it.

You mentioned missing fruit. I did too in the early months. I limited myself to only a few berries every now and then, but I missed apples, bananas, and grapes just like I did pizza, bread, cookies, and candy. Later I stopped missing fruit, bread, potatoes, etc. They were no longer a temptation. I could take 'em or leave 'em. They weren't part of my new WOE, so I didn't eat them. The funny thing is... While I no longer have any special cravings for fruit, I do eat more fruit these days. I tolerate carbs better. A lot of healing has taken place. I've increased my carb limit over what it was in the beginning. As long as I stay less than 45 net carbs and stick to real food I seem to do OK. As long as it falls within my current carb limit I do allow myself more fruit. I'll sometimes mash a 1/2 banana into a flax muffin. I will eat a grape or two or have a decent size serving of apple slices or cantaloupe. I no longer crave it and now that I can take it or leave it, I can have it and keep things in moderation. That was certainly not the case in those early months. I needed that period of healing to happen first. I still don't eat much fruit these days, but I don't avoid it like the plague like I once did. Occasional fruit, very much in moderation, works for me in my current, slightly higher carb version of LCHF/Keto.

I can't add any information beyond what Ken has related in his excellent post. I will point out that while each person is different in terms of becoming keto adapted, which I define as meaning that you are burning fat as your primary fuel, it also depends on where you start. If you are highly Insulin Resistant due to years of eating poorly with many processed carbs, adaptation will take longer. If you have been following a LCHF WOE for several months and want to go into ketosis by further lowering your carb intake, adaptation will happen faster. If you cheat or deviate from low carb periodically and you haven't been fully fat adapted yet, it will seem like it's never going to happen. The carb fueled metabolism doesn't want to let go of the ready energy source carbs supply. For me, being fully fat adapted for several months meant that it took a lot to, and I hate this term, "knock me out of ketosis." No two people will have the same experience, so assigning an average time to when adapting to ketosis should happen is not productive. Also, and this is my belief, getting a good quality blood ketone meter as opposed to keto urine strips or a breathalyzer, is a much more accurate way of confirming when you have a level of ketones (BHB) that indicates successful adaptation. Good luck.

My path has been similar to Ken's. When I start feeling bored I spend more time on this site looking for new ideas (such as IF) and foods to try. For a while I made myself pick one new LC vegetable a week to try - jicama, daikon radish, fresh artichokes, etc. and search for different ways to prepare them. With butter on the table, they all taste good and some became new favourites.

I keep frozen blueberries in the freezer and measure out an amount that fits my carb limit, whir it in the blender with 2T water and have instant sorbet. Initially I added a few drops of stevia and cream, but now I like it plain and slightly tart. I do occasionally have a few bites of other fruits when I am out, but don't bring it home where it would need to be eaten up before it goes bad.

Everyone slips up sometimes, but to me, the most important fact is that in 2-3 days of Induction/ketogenic eating the hunger & cravings are reduced to where I start feeling in control again. No other way of eating does that for me - slips on other diets would send me on week, month or year-long junk-eating benders. Now I know how to get back in control quickly and don't have to give up anything forever, though I now find most of the things I used to think I could never do without don't taste that great or make me feel exhausted and not worth having again for a long time.

Getting enough salt, vitamins & minerals is important for energy. Too much or too little caffeine saps my energy, so through trial & error I found my optimal amount. Trying an elimination diet and adding foods back one at a time also helped me to find that certain foods (grains, dairy proteins, legumes/PB, flaxseed & eggs of flax-fed chickens, walnuts) sap my energy too. I now avoid them most of the time.

Hi. For me, I felt more energetic after a few weeks, but I wasn't exactly dead on my feet or anything. I worked part-time mostly evenings and weekends at the time - rarely getting up with an alarm, no stress.

But I really think it's going to depend on the extent to which your fatigue is actually caused by metabolic problems. From your other thread, it really sounds like there's something else going on, and ketosis isn't necessarily going to solve that issue. It's arguably the healthiest WOE out there, IMO, but it's not a panacea.

This is a great reading thread.

~khrussva -- thank you for that very detailed post! Your weight loss is really incredible! I'd love to halve my weight too but at this point I'll settle for a stable appetite and weight.

I seem to be plateauing at your two week mark -- I feel better when I get over the low carb flu, but there's no improvement after that. But I'm definitely in your post-honeymoon period too, I can't help thinking about how perfectly a buttered Kaiser bun would go with with my clam chowder, and how much I'd love an orange for dessert . . .

That's really interesting that you became a morning person after a while! I'm a serious night owl right now, I don't go to bed until five in the morning, I simply can't fall asleep before then.

I can't even eat berries, I'm too close to my carb limit, I used up frozen cherries I found in the freezer a while ago but even an extra 5 carbs per day messed me up. I'd love it if I could tolerate more carbs later on but that's so long to wait.

~GRB5111 -- that's exactly what's happening here, I'm trying so hard to stick to it but in the four months since I got into ketosis I've had two slip-ups, possibly three, and I'm just not adapting. I just don't know if I have the willpower to go three months without making one single mistake.

How long would you recommend staying on the diet? I know you said that everyone's different but surely there's a point where if something was going to happen it would've happened by then? I figured that was the three month mark.

I'm not actually checking my ketone levels, I can't afford it, I'm going by how I feel. I do feel a change after the low carb flu ends, I think that means I'm in ketosis but I don't know for sure.

Thank you, I could use some luck here!

~deirdra -- one of my problems is that it's very hard for me to get to the store, I try to go only once a month, twice at the most, so I'm very limited in the vegetables I can buy. I was buying frozen veggies but the bags all have broccoli in them, and now that I'm going to try the low FODMAP diet I'm at a dead loss for what to eat vegetable wise.

I love that idea for a sorbet! I wonder if you could make ice cream by using cream instead of water? My blender would probably die a horrible lingering death if I tried that though.

I'm lucky, treats don't really trigger cravings for me, they might not satisfy my hunger and I might binge on them though! In the past I'd treat myself to a piece of chocolate cake or bag of chips after I went shopping or cooked to make up for the extra work I did and then get right back to my usual meal plan.

I'm taking a multivitamin and using half salt so hopefully I have the vitamins and minerals handled! The low FODMAP diet is an elimination diet so I guess I've got that one down too, though I won't start that until I use up my homemade frozen dinners.

~Kristine -- you adjusted really fast! How were you eating before then, were you already eating low carb or did you go straight from a high carb diet?

I'm sure there's something else going on too, I didn't expect a cure, but I thought that being in ketosis would do something, you know? Provide some kind of a benefit? I keep asking myself why I'm bothering anymore and not coming up with any real answers. I love the food but I'm so sick of being hungry and I'm desperate for fruit.

TyLe_RoAd - This is a process. You are not going to wake up one day, jump out of bed, and feel wonderful from that day forward. The energy boost starts in subtle ways. Becoming fat adapted is often confusing at first, as your metabolism has to undergo a radical adjustment from where you started. Many, and I went through this, experience a funky, strange feeling at first, as you body chemistry is changing. So, nausea, being light headed, and experiencing a lack of energy can be the norm. In these cases, make sure you're getting electrolytes, especially salt. Stay hydrated.

Since you're enjoying this way of eating, stay the course and inspect what you're consuming for things that can work against you. Note that certain people have issues with certain foods, sweeteners, and/or medications. Be aware of everything you're consuming to find those things that could be causing you to stall and eliminate them if you even suspect an issue. Doing an elimination diet can help identify those things that aren't helping you. Give it some time and dedicate a 30-day period to eating clean and not deviating. You are human ( ), so you can achieve fat burning mode. It's a matter of being fully aware of what you're eating and giving it enough time to eat clean without exception.

So, to answer your question, 30 days eating a consistent ketogenic way should get you there. Don't expect miracles, do expect success in a dedicated period of time, no deviations of about 30 days. Since you have been following a low carb WOE already, I'm guessing 30 days should do it for you.

For me, eating fruit is not in the cards. I can sometimes (not often) consume blueberries, raspberries, but doing it on a regular basis undermines what I'm trying to achieve. That's me, but I've learned and know my limitations.

By the way, you don't need to check ketone levels to achieve ketosis. Waking up in the morning with a sweet tasting or smelling breath is a key indicator that you're there. But, and I'm repeating myself, it takes consistency.. If you're doing this to simply lose weight and then go back to carbs after that, it's an indicator that you'll be bouncing around with these questions for a while. You can do this. Good luck!

~GRB5111 -- I'm taking multivitamins and salting the heck out of everything I eat using half salt to get more potassium, so I don't think my problem is that. I can't drink any more than I am now without getting sick, I did try an extra glass not long ago but it was a disaster.

I'll be doing the low FODMAP diet as soon as I use up my homemade frozen dinners, I shop and cook and bulk so I still have a few weeks worth of food left.

Oh man . . . I haven't just gone 30 days on the ketogenic diet without a slip up, I've gone two whole months, and I never noticed anything.

I can't say I've ever noticed a sweet taste in my mouth honestly, and I've been below 20 carbs per day for quite some time, except on the days I slipped up.

Oh no, I'm trying to find a way of eating I can stick to long term, and I decided to try the ketogenic diet because of the appetite control and energy boost everyone talks about. I think I have reactive hypoglycemia and I thought eating lower carb would stop the blood sugar swings, but it didn't.

I used to call chocolate my secret weapon for losing weight, whenever I got hungry I'd have a single piece and give it 20 minutes, more often than not my hunger would go away and stop me from eating when I wasn't genuinely hungry. Now that I can't do that anymore I've been binging on foods that don't touch the hunger and making myself sick while still feeling like my death from starvation is imminent, it's horrible.

I'm really beginning to think this way of eating isn't for me, it's just too strict. I mean I lost over 100 lbs without feeling any real deprivation or out of control hunger, but trying for ketosis made me gain 20 lbs back from the binges and I'm absolutely desperate for fruit. If I really have given it enough time to have felt the benefits and I never did, maybe it's time to admit defeat.

What I remember is a change in sleeping at about 4 days into my first attempt at induction DANDR. My wide awake so get up and watch tv for a few hours completely went away. Like, I could not sit down after putting out a dog at 2am ( potting run) as I would fall asleep starting at the doorway back into my room. To be awoken by a barking dog. I learned to lean against the front door waiting for the dog to finish his business, then head back to bed.

As for ketosis, the first time it took a while to get thru the first few weeks. ANd a recent 40 plus days on keto changed how quickly I can jump back into the game after a slip up. These days in two days Im well on my way again. Depends on how much carb consummed in the slip up. If just a little off track, 1 day.

Sorry I cannot offer explainations for any of this.