The focus of the keto diet is to restrict yourself of carbohydrates, our body stores carbs as glycogen which holds water. Depleting the glycogen stores can end up with you having dehydration so you need to make sure you are drinking a lot of water and replenishing that which is lost.

When on a keto diet you can drink the following.

Water:

Well, that is necessary for survival and there are no negatives of drinking water. You can have it iced, hot or sparkling or with lime, there are no restrictions. 

Coffee

You can drink sugar-free coffee. Perfect keto coffee is the bulletproof coffee which contains extra energy from fat, you can make it by stirring in fat in the form of butter or coconut oil. 

You have to avoid drinking milk as milk contains a lot of sugar (one glass contains about 15 grams of carbs).

You can use milk mildly in your coffee about 5 ml or a tablespoon. Avoid latte which has too much milk and can halt the progress of your keto-diet.

Bone-broth 

A warming soup like bone broth is a perfect beverage to go in a keto diet.1 bowl of Bone broth contains 0 carbs, 9 grams of protein and less than 50 calories.it can be any broth whether it is homemade or not. Stirring it with some butter is a great way to make it more flavorsome and you can get extra energy from it too.

Tea

Like coffee, tea must be sugar-free ,low-carb and calories free. Herbal tea is ideal,  and you can take that at night too as it doesn’t impact your sleep.

Alcohol

You can drink dry wine whether it’s red or white, champagne without sugar. Spirits such as vodka, rum, and whiskey have 0 grams of carbs per ounce serving. Mixing these with plain water or unsweetened sparkling water rather than fruit juice or soda can help you enjoy alcohol and at the same time cut the carbs out of it.

Sodas 

You would not even have questions when it comes to sodas in a keto diet. All of them have high amounts of sugars so they have to be avoided. The confusion starts when you start to think about diet sodas. Diet sodas generally are keto-friendly but according to studies, it is suggested artificially sweetened sodas tricks the body into craving the calories and carbs it believes it’s getting from the diet soda. When your body realizes it isn’t, you end up overeating.

When considering going for keto-diet people often get confused about what foods to eat and what to avoid. Here, we are going to solve your confusion and simplify the keto-diet for you.

Proteins:

A normal keto diet should be high in fat and moderate or slightly higher in proteins. You should go for 0.7-0.9 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight or 1.5-2.0 grams per kg. Proteins in a keto-diet must be regulated accurately because excessive protein consumption on a keto can prevent ketosis which helps you in losing weight especially if you have diabetes.

Meat:

Unprocessed meats are the ones which you should go for, they are often low carb and can be eaten in a keto diet. 

Processed meats are usually high carb, they often include sausages and meatballs and make sure you avoid them as they contain added carbs in the form of bread crumbs and other foods.

Seafood

You can eat fish especially salmon as they contain fats. All other fish are also a go-to for a keto diet.

Vegetables 

When considering what vegetables to eat always go for vegetables that grow above the ground, this is because vegetables grown above the ground are generally low in carbs but vegetables growing above the ground such as potatoes are a big No because they are high in carbs.

Consider going for Leafy vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, zucchini, and avocado.

To make your meal interesting try fried or sautéed vegetables in olive oil with a steak or any other keto meal as they can add variety to the meals.

Eggs

Eggs are a perfect go-to food in a keto diet. You can eat them as boiled, scrambled, omelet and fried in olive oil. Just make sure you don’t make a white bread toast with it as it is a high carb food and always eat your eggs considering your cholesterol levels.

Nuts

Certain nuts are a good keto option like macadamia and pecan nuts as they have the lowest amount of carbs per serving on the other hand nuts such as walnuts, cashew, pistachio, pine, and peanuts have to be avoided as they are the one with the high carbs. 

You can certainly eat nuts when you are hungry and you need energy but you can’t snack one them even the nuts with low carbs because nuts contain high fats and snacking on them means adding tons of extra fat, this all will result in your body burning the fats from nuts instead of your stored body fat.

Fruits 

Fruits are known as natural sugars. It contains a lot of carbs. For keto diet berries that have fewer carbs like raspberry, blackberry and strawberries are usually fine when taken in small portions. Blueberries are the ones to be avoided among berries as they are high in carbs.

Other fruits such as bananas, oranges mangoes and watermelons are high in carbs and should be avoided.

Fruits nutrients are necessary for a diet and your question will be that where do I get these from? Well, some vegetables such as bell peppers and kale have more vitamin C than any of the citrus fruits fewer carbs and sugars.

Which oil should I use to cook my keto food?

You should consider natural fats whether you are cooking your food in it or you are adding the sauce for the flavor. Feel free to use fats in cooking like butter, olive oil or coconut oil. Add any amount of olive oil to your vegetables as in keto the main dietary source is fats. You can eat high-fat sauces like ranch, vinaigrette, wasabi-cucumber-avocado dressing.

You can also add cheese to your meal especially a high-fat cheese and heavy cream is great for cooking as well.

There are three main types of the keto diet that you can choose when planning to go on a keto.

• Standard Ketogenic Diet (SKD)
• Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD)
• Targeted Ketogenic Diet (TKD)

You will have to choose your keto plan according to your lifestyle, your workout and exercise intensity and choosing according to your lifestyle will greatly help you in achieving your desired goal.

The Standard Ketogenic Diet:

The standard keto diet (SKD) is a diet that is very low in carbs, moderate in proteins and very high in fats.

It is the keto diet that people generally think of when they hear someone is going for a keto diet. 

Those people should go for SKD who are looking to lose fats fast and their lifestyles only consist of activities with low intensities like walking, cycling and light weight lifting. 

With this standard keto diet, you have to restrict your carbs from 50 percent in a conventional diet to 5 percent (30grams) in the SKD. Generally, this is difficult to pull off but studies in 2004 in internal medicine have shown that a low carbohydrate diet had better participation retention than other diets. 

This is because keto foods are generally more fulfilling. A 200kcal Worth fish and vegetables will be more full filling than a 200 kcal pasta.

The main question will be that which foods should you eat in an SKD? The primary sources of energy on the SKD will be low carb green vegetables, nuts, seeds, and high-fat dairy products.

The Targeted Ketogenic Diet

The Targeted keto diet is designed for those individuals who do high-intensity workouts, during these high-intensity workouts you need immediate glucose which your body fails to provide as you are depriving yourself of glucose. These individuals should go for TKD which consists of eating carbs usually 30 to 60 min before workouts. This maintains high-intensity exercise performance and promotes glycogen replenishment without interrupting ketosis for long periods.

Individuals that start an exercise program and are not ready to perform the amount of exercise needed to optimize a CKD diet are also recommended to go for a TKD.

The Cyclical ketogenic diet:

The CKD is the keto diet that bodybuilders, Heavy weight lifters and athletes should go for if they want to lose fats. The CKD is a diet that is designed to combine carb-loading days with the ketogenic diet. Carb loading days mean that you eat carbohydrates for a day or two in a week so that you replenish your glycogen stores.

These athletes need high-Intensity training now and then and this is not possible without the necessary carbs for this reason they should go for CKD where they should replenish glycogen stores for the workouts.

The main goal for CKD is to completely replenish the glycogen during carb loads and deplete glycogen and increase ketone levels between the carb.