These top 5 mistakes that people make on a Ketogenic diet do not come from some comprehensive study performed in a laboratory, but from my own experience helping people correct issues or put on muscle while on a ketogenic diet. They are also mistakes I have made recently.

After my 2 1/2 month ketogenic diet experiment where I stayed in Ketosis without any cheats (had to prove that it wasn’t unsafe or unhealthy to do it) I experienced a lack of headaches, my energy was through the roof and I was putting on muscle more effortlessly than ever before by only working out two days a week for around 30 minutes.

After the blood test that showed every number across the board improved I began eating the SAD (Standard American Diet) once again to see what would happen. Here’s a few things I discovered I did wrong during the diet.

Probiotics – I took zero probiotics during my ketogenic diet experiment. Our food has been so processed, washed and infected with pesticides that the normal bacteria we would come in contact with has greatly diminished and with it our ability to digest a lot of foods. My sensitivity to guar gum causes me immense pain now if I eat a single milkshake from Chik-Fil-A. One of the outcomes I want it to be healthier but I also want to be more resilient and able to tolerate every food I use to be able to eat. A healthy and well balanced digestive tract should give me more lee way to handle foods then to continue limiting what my body can handle. Probiotics is one of the ways to accomplish this since we do not get anywhere near the 150+ strains of bacteria that a healthy human body tends to have. Grass Fed Beef – Half the meat I ate during the 67 days was from processed grain fed beef. This type of meat is convenient and easily accessible but it is vitamin and mineral depleted and let’s not even talk about the imbalance of Omega 6’s! Grass fed beef is so much healthier for the long run. Low Carb substitutes – Most of us in the low carb community got results from cutting out carbs because we had so abused our bodies with large quantities of High Fructose Corn Syrup and the general large amount of carbs we consumed most of our lives. I’ve said it a thousand times and I’ll say it again. If I could live off of Mountain Dew and Donuts I would give it my best try! To feed our sugar habit we tend to always look for substitutes like beef jerky and some type of low carb bar. These can be great if used sparingly or for the occasional treat but for other some of us it becomes the equivalent of taking a hit of meth! It greatly intensifies sugar craving and in some cases can even give way to increase sugar craving and possibly raise insulin levels. Diet Sodas – My achille’s heel while on the ketogenic diet was Pepsi Max. It had a sweet taste and the more I drank of them the slower I lost body fat. Those of us who have trained our body to expect sugar when something sweet hits our tongue will possibly have an insulin response from these types of artificial sweeteners. Not eating real food – If there is one place to start doing things right it is here. EAT REAL FOOD! If you want something sweet, go ahead and have an orange or a peach or an apple. Not apple juice, not apple pie or an orange diet soda. It’s extremely interesting how eating a real orange ends up just being 1 orange or 1 peach. If you eat food in it’s natural state and not out of a cardboard box you will find that you feel better and still be able to lose weight. If you do HIIT or Crossfit style workouts then you need to also make sure that you replenish your muscle glycogen and the best time to do it is immediately after a workout and it should be in the form of a starch like sweet potatoe, yam or potato. This is the biggest mistake I made. I felt great while on a ketogenic diet but it became very obvious to me that the quality of the food I was eating was lacking in high vitamin and mineral content. Do not make this mistake because it is the most important part of a healthy low carb lifestyle. People can lose weight on a low carb diet or a low fat diet but they don’t tend to last long on either when they have depleted the vitamins and minerals from their system. Nothing functions right without all the compounds needed for a healthy body and lord knows the soil is depleted enough as it is!

If anyone has similiar or different thing they did wrong on a low carb or ketogenic diet please let us know. It may help someone avoid them in the future.