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7 Steps to Start the Ketogenic Diet

So, you’ve decided to give the ketogenic way of eating a try. I’m glad! I hope that you will share this video and invite a friend to join you. Any kind of weight loss journey or improvement in your health is so much easier and more fun if you do it with a friend. So, feel free to share this video with someone and say, “Hey, let’s keto together!”

This video is about the seven very first steps to converting from the standard American diet or the standard Western diet to the healthy, ancestrally appropriate ketogenic diet. I’m going to keep this video very simple and basic. I have many other videos about the ketogenic way of eating on this channel. I have a whole playlist called Keto 101, so if you’re brand new to this and want to learn how to keto properly, Keto 101 is the resource you want to check out.

Step 1: Remove All Sugars from Your Diet

There are so many people who know that sugar in the sugar bowl and the sugar they add to their coffee is bad for them. We all know that the sugar in donuts and pastries is bad for you. But a lot of people think that the sugar in organic agave nectar is good for them. It’s not; it’s just sugar. Many people also believe that locally sourced, organically produced honey is very good for you. I don’t believe it is at all. It’s nothing but sucrose and fructose, which are sugars. All that stuff needs to be taken out of your diet, whether the food manufacturer added the sugar, the restaurant added the sugar, or you added the sugar. It’s still sugar, and it all needs to go. This is honestly the most important step. Many people, just by doing step one, will start to feel better immediately. That’s how powerful step one is.

Step 2: Remove All Grains from Your Diet

The most common grains are wheat, rice, oats, and corn. All those need to go. None of these grains contain nutrition that you can’t get better from another source. All of them are very inflammatory to your gut. Some people have immediate, obvious inflammation if they eat grains; for others, the inflammation is much more subtle. It may not show up in the gut but may appear as inflammation in a joint or the skin. To be on a truly healthy ketogenic diet, you have to remove all grains from your diet. This includes grains in processed foods that come in a cardboard box or a plastic bag, as well as organic stone-ground grains. Grains, in order to be healthy for humans to eat, have to go through a multi-step process of soaking and sprouting before they’re even remotely healthy. Let’s just dispense with all that trouble and not eat grains. It’s very easy to do, and there are still thousands of foods you can enjoy on a ketogenic diet. So, step two is to get rid of all the grains.

Step 3: Remove All Factory Seed Oils or Vegetable Seed Oils from Your Diet

Manufacturers love to call these “vegetable oils,” even though there are no vegetables in these oils. These include canola oil (from the rapeseed plant), corn oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, and peanut oil. All of these have a terrible omega-6 to omega-3 ratio and are inflammatory in nature. They will inflame your gut and other parts of your body. All margarine needs to go in the garbage. Don’t even give that to your neighbor. All shortening, vegetable shortening, canned Crisco, and Country Crock need to be thrown away. Never eat industrial factory-processed seed oils again. They’re very bad for your body. That’s step three.

Step 4: Stop Being Afraid of Good Healthy Fats

This includes butter, ghee, bacon grease, beef tallow, avocado oil, and olive oil. These are natural oils that you don’t have to go to a factory to get. You can actually make these oils in your own home with the right supplies. These oils are much more ancestrally appropriate. Our ancestors have made oils from these sources for hundreds and even thousands of years. They don’t involve any chemicals, detergents, or other industrial processes. Just make the oil from the oily source. Stop being afraid of these fats. These fats are not going to lower your HDL, raise your triglycerides, or raise your A1C. They will only move your markers for chronic disease in the right direction.

Step 5: Stop Being Afraid of Salt

Salt is good for you. All mammals, from the smallest to the largest, love salt and need salt. There is a reason that animals will walk miles to lick on a salty rock, and that’s because all mammals need salt. If you prick your finger and taste the blood, it’s very salty. That’s normal. We are salty creatures. Stop being afraid of salt. However, don’t just thoughtlessly use the table salt that comes out of the umbrella girl container or the salt they give you at the restaurant, as they will buy the cheapest variety they can find. Use a good quality rock salt that’s been mined from deep underground. It’s the safest and has the most minerals. I’ll put a link down below to a salt just like that.

Step 6: Eat Whole, Real Foods

The ketogenic way of eating is becoming very popular, and therefore people are starting to make keto products like keto bars, keto shakes, keto powders, and keto ready-made meals. While these are probably better than eating a Snickers bar, how about we just follow step six and focus on eating real, whole foods that don’t have a list of ingredients? If you buy a t-bone steak, it’s just beef. If you buy broccoli, it’s just broccoli. For at least the first few months of your ketogenic journey, focus on eating real, whole ketogenic foods.

Step 7: Mind Your Electrolytes

Make sure you’re getting plenty of sodium, chloride, magnesium, and potassium. These are vital for your good health, to keep you from having keto flu, and to help you feel your best. Fifty thousand years ago, we got all the minerals we needed from drinking water out of streams, rivers, and lakes, which were rich in minerals. But I wouldn’t recommend drinking from those sources these days. You can get a good product that has all four electrolytes or buy several products that have them individually. I’ll put a link down below to the electrolytes I use.

Those are the first seven steps. This is very simple, and if you follow these steps and check out my Keto 101 series, which will pop up either here or here (I can never remember), you can make the ketogenic way of eating the healthiest, easiest, most sustainable diet you’ve ever eaten. It can become the permanent way that you eat, and you can reap all the health benefits from that.

If you enjoyed this video, please take one second to click that subscribe button and the little bell button right beside it. That way, every time I get a bright idea, you’ll be one of the very first to know. If you have found that my videos have helped you in some small way and you’d like to join our keto family and help me have more time to make videos just like this one, click on my Patreon link. It’s right down there in the show notes. You can sign up very quickly and throw a buck or two my way to help me have more time to make videos just like this one.

This is Dr. Berry. I’ll see you next time.

Read More: Exploring The Benefits Of The Keto Diet – A Comprehensive Look At Weight Loss And More