How to Use Intermittent Fasting, Keto & Exercise to Get into Ketosis

Today, many people are turning to ketosis to improve their performance. Ketosis is a metabolic state in which you burn ketones for fuel, instead of glucose. Intermittent fasting and ketosis promote many health benefits - including increased energy, mental clarity and weight loss. 

Below, we walk you through how to use exercise and intermittent fasting to get into ketosis and enhance your performance. 

Does Intermittent Fasting Work Well with Keto?

Combining intermittent fasting with keto can produce amazing results. Why? They both promote ketosis. 

Intermittent fasting involves abstaining from food for set periods of time during the day or week. Keto is a low-carb, high-fat diet. Both involve drastically reducing your carb intake and cause an important metabolic shift. 

By restricting the amount of carbs in your diet, both intermittent fasting and ketosis trigger ketogenesis - or the production of ketones. Ketones are a powerful, alternate fuel source for your brain and body. Once there are enough ketones in your system, you enter the state of ketosis. 

Using intermittent fasting and ketosis together helps you stay in ketosis for longer periods of time. You can enter ketosis during your fast, but you’ll kick yourself out of ketosis if you load up on carbs during your eating window. Following a ketogenic diet during your eating window allows you to stay in the fat-burning state of ketosis all day long.  

How Many Hours Should You Intermittent Fast on Keto?

It’s important to choose the correct strategy when implementing a keto/intermittent fasting meal plan. Fasting for a longer period of time allows you to burn more fat and get more deeply into ketosis. As always, be sure to consult your physician before making significant lifestyle changes, especially regarding intermittent fasting and ketosis, as well as exercise for ketosis.

There are several popular methods for intermittent fasting with keto - each has their own fasting and eating windows. The most common intermittent fasting method is 16:8. When following 16:8 fasting, you have an 8-hour eating window and fast for 16 hours. Many people will eat between 1pm and 9pm. 

Another popular method of intermittent fasting is 20:4 where you fast for 20 hours and eat during a 4 hour window. Many people following 20:4 fasting will eat between 2pm and 6pm.

To maximize the benefits of intermittent fasting and ketosis, make sure to eat ketogenic approved meals during your eating window. 

Note: If you’re new to intermittent fasting with keto or struggling with maintaining a longer fast, you should consider drinking Kenetik ketones. Kenetik is fasting-friendly and ketones are known to curb cravings to help you fast for longer. 

How Long Does It Take for Intermittent Fasting to Reach Ketosis?

It typically takes an average of 4 days for your body to reach a state of ketosis through intermittent fasting alone. Pairing intermittent fasting with keto will support ketosis, but won’t speed up the time it takes to get there.

You can get into ketosis more quickly by combining IF with exercise. The rate of this increase depends on a number of factors, including your age, metabolism and current carb intake. Intermittent fasting and exercise for ketosis can be a little different for everyone, so be sure to consult a physician and/or nutritionist if you want to pinpoint the best weight loss strategy for your body.

If you’re looking to get into ketosis in under 24 hours, exogenous ketones can help. Ketone drinks, like Kenetik, increase your circulating ketone levels on demand. This gets you into ketosis as quickly as possible, so you can reap the benefits of ketones while your body is starting to produce its own ketones from fasting.

Thanks to the similar physiological responses to fasting and exercise, these strategies pair well to promote ketosis and myriad other health benefits. 

What Happens if You Exercise While Intermittent Fasting?

Now that you know exercising while fasting gets you into ketosis quickly, let’s look at how that happens with a keto/intermittent fasting meal plan, and exercise for ketosis.

Intermittent fasting and exercise work so well together because they both deplete glycogen stores. Glycogen is your body’s stored form of glucose, or carbohydrates. When you workout while fasted, you burn glycogen stores for fuel more quickly than usual. Once those stores are depleted, your body starts to burn fat to produce ketones and enters ketosis.

Here are some of the benefits of using intermittent fasting with keto along with exercise for ketosis:

Increased Energy

In ketosis, your body is producing energy more efficiently thanks to ketones. Ketones are known to produce energy almost 30% more efficiently than glucose! This will help carry you through long periods of fasting and intense exercise for ketosis.

Sharper Cognition

Ketosis supports better mental clarity and brain activity. As intermittent fasting and exercise support deeper levels of ketosis, you’ll experience sharper cognition when combining these strategies.

Better Fat Burning

While in ketosis, your body is burning fat to produce ketones for fuel. Exercising while in a fasted state will promote better fat burning and weight loss than exercise in a fed state, as ketosis only occurs in the absence of carbohydrates.

These benefits of fasted exercise don’t outweigh the cons of you disliking it or poor performance. Many people combine these strategies because they feel better and perform better when they do. If you’re experiencing low energy, intense hunger or poor performance, using intermittent fasting with exercise for ketosis may not be the approach for you.

That is, until you try Kenetik! Every serving of Kenetik delivers 10g of bioidentical ketones that support better energy, improved performance and curb cravings even while fasted, so intermittent fasting and ketosis both feel easier to access!

What is the Best Exercise to do While Intermittent Fasting?

You can combine intermittent fasting and ketosis with any type of exercise, from cardio to strength training. We recommend beginners start with low-intensity cardio. This allows your body to get adjusted to working out while fasted. As you get more experienced, you can increase workout intensity and vary workout type as you tolerate more intense exercise for ketosis.

Working out in the morning may be the best time to exercise while intermittent fasting. You can see great results when exercising any time during your fasting window. We recommend working out in the morning, as you’ll fuel your body with essential nutrients post-workout when you break your intermittent fasting and ketosis.