• Speed Keto is a high-fat diet approach designed to bring you into a fat-burning condition known as ketosis as rapidly as possible.
• Speed Keto mixes keto with intermittent fasting when you only consume one meal daily.
• According to experts, Fast Keto is unsustainable in the long run and may harm some people.

Keto evangelists have made the high fat, low carb diet popular as a way of life. Yet, for most individuals, the keto diet is restricted, making it challenging to stick to.

Speed Keto, a more severe variant of keto, has just entered the diet scene.

By including a regulated version of fasting, the latest variation on keto claims to tap into the body’s fat-burning mechanism faster.

People frequently combine the keto diet with intermittent fasting, commonly 16:8, which means eating only during an 8-hour window each day and fasting for 16 hours.

Speed Keto goes further by advocating eating only one meal daily. Of course, the dish should be keto-friendly.

For most keto enthusiasts, the prospect of weight loss is the key selling factor. It has also been shown to reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer, although it may have negative health consequences for others.

We asked two nutrition experts to evaluate Fast Keto’s protocols for advantages and risks and to address the question: Should you attempt this diet?

What is Speed Keto?

“Speed Keto is a method of obtaining quicker ketosis that was established by Harlan Kilstein, who is not a medical professional or nutrition expert, but a coach,” said Cynthia Thurlow, NP, a nutritionist who specializes in intermittent fasting.

Like the regular keto diet, the Fast Keto regimen asks participants to follow a high fat, low carb diet.

Similarly, it focuses on bringing the body into ketosis, a metabolic state in which your body burns fat for energy rather than glucose. When your body is in ketosis, it transforms into a fat-burning machine, giving keto its reputation as a weight-loss aid.

What makes Speed Keto different? You are only allowed to consume one meal every day. The meal should adhere to the typical keto macronutrient parameters of high fat and low carbohydrate macronutrients.

“Its major purpose is to become fat-adapted faster than a more standard ketogenic diet.”

“Fasting can assist speed up the process of going into ketosis,” said RSP Nutrition nutrition expert Tony Castillo, MS, RDN, LDN.

“It can normally take 2 to 4 days to enter ketosis if you consume less than 50 grams of carbohydrates per day,” he said, noting that various factors, including what you eat, age, and activity level, can all contribute to the length of time it takes to enter ketosis.

While Speed Keto may help you enter fat-burning ketosis faster, seeing a lower number on the scale may be deceiving.

“Since standard keto and Fast Keto focus on [eating] fats, your body will excrete more water because fats do not like water.

“This indicates that the weight reduction you’re seeing is likely water or muscle weight rather than actual fat loss,” Castillo explained.

Such an extreme diet comes with downsides

While you may enter ketosis more rapidly, the experts we spoke with pointed out many drawbacks to Fast Keto.

“Diet regimes like this are often unsustainable and can be difficult to maintain over time,” Castillo added.

Even following keto procedures when dining out with friends might be difficult. Dieters who use Fast Keto confront the additional challenge of eating one meal daily.

According to Castillo, the long-term implications of the keto diet and Speed Keto remain unclear.

When deciding on a program, you should also consider your health objectives. Speed Keto and the regular keto diet, for example, might make muscle building more challenging.

It will most likely give you the “keto flu,” or transient flu-like symptoms produced by entering ketosis, and make you tired.

Speed Keto, according to Thurlow, “is not a healthy or sustainable nutritional philosophy” and should be explored only in the short term.

“I fear that most individuals would not get enough macronutrients within their meal window, which might contribute to muscle breakdown, such as catabolism or sarcopenia, as well as stresses to the thyroid, adrenals, or sex hormones,” Thurlow said.

“[This diet] is extremely bio-individual, which means that everyone has distinct characteristics that might make or break this plan,” she explained.

Apart from keto regimes, the one meal a day (OMAD) restriction does not suit everyone.

While some people thrive on OMAD, “many cannot acquire all of their macros for a whole day in one meal, and others are just too full and uncomfortable digesting that much food in one sitting,” according to Thurlow.

Apart from the physical repercussions, the cycle of fasting followed by a vast meal may be detrimental to certain people’s mental health.

“When diet plans include intermittent fasting, it’s vital to evaluate prior eating history because intermittent fasting may not be optimal for someone with a history of binge eating problem,” Castillo said.

If you find that the intermittent fasting or OMAD components of Speed Keto work well for you, remember that you can apply them to a more balanced diet.

“Intermittent fasting, not just keto, can be used with most dietary plans with tremendous effectiveness,” Thurlow added.