It’s no secret that lots of people hit a stall or plateau when trying to lose weight on a keto diet. Nothing is more frustrating than weight not moving when you’re working hard and doing “everything right.”
So, how can you break a stall and get stubborn fat moving again? The Speed Keto™ program is a popular strategy that promises to help you get results when a standard keto diet fails. Should you try it? Let’s take a closer look.
What is Speed Keto™?
Speed Keto™ gives a branded name to—and puts a price tag on—something you can do for free: a ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. (Specifically, it calls for eating just one meal a day, commonly abbreviated as OMAD.) It’s marketed as a simple and effective approach to keto, particularly for people for whom keto isn’t bringing the desired results.
According to the Speed Keto™ website, the creator of the program, Dr. Harlan Kilstein, has a doctorate in education and is “an expert coach and motivator.” There’s no indication that he has any training in nutrition or health.
That doesn’t mean his approach isn’t effective—after all, numerous popular keto influencers have no formal credentials in nutrition or medicine, yet they’re highly respected and sought-after speakers at big-name conferences, including ones at which talks are approved for CMEs (continuing medical education credits) for healthcare professionals.
So formal training isn’t necessarily a requirement to be able to provide useful information and to help people. However, if you’re considering trying a program, it’s worth at least being aware of the background of the person behind it.
The program website states, “Speed Keto was created for people who are struggling to see real results from following a standard keto diet.” It does this by “combining delicious meals, intermittent fasting and OMAD (one meal a day)—it gets the results when traditional keto fails.”
That sounds reasonable, but a fair question is: What is “traditional keto?”
Why do keto diets fail?
Contrary to popular belief, keto diets don’t work through “macros.” Weight loss and the other effects of keto don’t come from constructing your diet to match specific percentages of calories from fat, protein, and carbohydrate.
The cornerstone of a keto diet is keeping your carb intake ultra-low. It’s not about cramming as much butter, heavy cream, and MCT oil into your body as you possibly can. Unfortunately, misinformed but popular influencers have convinced people that keto is a high-fat diet and that you need to “hit your fat macro” in order for it to work best.
And while some people do well eating lots of fat, for others—particularly those who are struggling with stubborn weight—overdoing fat can be the culprit behind pounds that won’t budge.
So, if you’re stymied by a stall in your weight loss, it might not be “keto” that’s the problem, but rather, the way you’ve been implementing keto.
Does Speed Keto™ Really Simplify Things?
The Speed Keto website claims that the program is “the perfect version of keto” and that the branded approach is “easier” because it calls for:
- NO complicated counting of macros or calories
- NO more “keto stalls”
- NO hunger pains or pesky cravings
- NO wondering what to eat
- NO drugs, painful shots, or risky surgeries
- NO prepackaged “TV dinner” meals to buy
This may well be true for the Speed Keto program, but the fact is, it’s true of keto in general. You don’t need to buy a special program to get these benefits. I’ve already cleared up the macro myth, and when keto is done right, there’s no need to count calories. You don’t have to wonder what to eat, because keto is far more about what you don’t eat (sugar, starch, and high-carb foods in general).
And for most people, being in ketosis controls appetite and reduces or eliminates sugar cravings, so those, too, aren’t unique results that you can only get from Speed Keto. Some people find themselves eating OMAD not because they’re deliberately limiting themselves to that, but because the appetite-suppressing effects of keto are so strong for them that they’re genuinely hungry for only one meal a day.
As for not having to buy prepackaged meals, that’s another aspect that’s true of keto in general: you don’t need to rely on meal delivery services or specialty items. Eat animal proteins, add some healthy fats and non-starchy vegetables if you enjoy them, and you’re good to go. Keto is only as complicated as you make it.
Why do Speed Keto™?
It seems that the main goal of the program is to break weight loss stalls or speed up weight loss (hence the name). I certainly understand the desire—often the desperation—people feel regarding weight loss. After all, keto seems to be practically magical for so many people. So when keto doesn’t work so well, it’s natural to assume there’s a special trick or “hack” that will make the difference for you.
And maybe there is. If you eat OMAD, there’s a good chance you’re going to reduce the total amount of food you consume, and this is one way to possibly get weight moving again. OMAD can also help reframe your relationship with hunger: it’s okay to feel hungry. You don’t have to have a snack or a meal the second a hunger pang hits you.
So… is it worth it?
You’ll be fine if you wait a while. (After all, you’ve got several thousand calories worth of energy all over your body in the form of stored fat!) As popular keto-friendly doctor Jason Fung, MD, often says, hunger comes in waves. It doesn’t build and build endlessly until you chew your arm off. It builds for a while but then it subsides.
Sticking to a strict OMAD approach can help you train your mind to understand that feeling hungry isn’t an emergency. It’s not a crisis that needs to be dealt with immediately.
Or maybe you’d be able to stick to keto if you had a support group to turn to for encouragement and cheerleading. Speed Keto has a private Facebook group for this purpose. Some people are strong-minded and can do whatever they set their mind to; others do better when they have a supportive community to lift them up.
Speed Keto also provides a meal plan, recipes, and a shopping list. These can be helpful if you need specific ideas or some inspiration, but again, keto can be simple if you let it be. Fatty protein + non-starchy vegetable: done.
Potential downsides to Speed Keto™
If we take people on social media at their word, some people thrive eating OMAD. However, that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate or ideal for everyone.
I’m concerned that many women would not consume an adequate amount of protein in just one meal a day. Falling short of your protein needs once in a while won’t cause any harm, but skimping on a regular basis can set you up for increased hunger, sugar cravings, mood swings, hair loss or weak, brittle hair and nails, plus potentially losing lean muscle mass—and that’s the last thing you want if you’d like to avoid having a slower metabolism and regaining weight in the future.
I would also not recommend Speed Keto or OMAD in general for anyone with a history of eating disorders or for someone who is currently living with an eating disorder. Restricting yourself to just one meal a day could potentially lead to rebound binging or disordered thinking about food. (Thinking that this is the only thing that works, that you must fast if you want to lose weight, or that you’re doing something wrong or dangerous if you eat more than once a day.)
Plus, remember that with programs like this, we see before and after pics, but what about after the after pics? How are these people faring six months, a year, or two years after? Do they typically maintain the fasting regimen and maintain their weight loss, or are most using Speed Keto as a temporary way to lose weight quickly in between periods of “eating normally?”
Bariatric surgery and the popular injectable weight loss drugs (like Ozempic and Wegovy) typically result in very impressive initial drops of weight, but then, more often than not, the longer-term result is a regain of the weight—sometimes all of it. Is the same true for Speed Keto?
Other ways to break keto fat loss stalls
Promises of quick weight loss are appealing to anyone dealing with especially frustrating weight loss stalls or plateaus. But before trying the OMAD approach, I would advise looking at some basic things first.
Start with your carb intake. Are you eating more carbs than you realize? Or maybe you’ve been overdoing it with fats and oils. Remember, keto isn’t a license to eat unlimited fat, no matter how delicious your coffee is with a truckload of heavy cream, butter, and coconut oil in it.
And if you’re eating when you’re not hungry—just snacking out of habit or boredom—you don’t need to follow a special program to stop that. Start with being mindful of how much you’re eating overall, and whether habit snacking or emotional eating is leading you to eat more food than your body needs.
Or maybe your diet isn’t the problem at all. What if you have undiagnosed or improperly treated hypothyroidism? This can definitely be a roadblock to fat loss—and eating one meal a day isn’t going to fix it.
What about medications? Several different medications can cause weight gain or make it more difficult to lose weight. Here again, eating OMAD might not be a magical fix.
So, if a keto diet isn’t giving you the results you want, analyze how you’ve been doing things and see if there’s something you can change without shifting to OMAD as the first thing you try.
So, should you try Speed Keto™?
If you’re already following a low-carb or keto diet but the results you want aren’t coming, before trying something like Speed Keto, consult a keto-savvy nutritionist, dietitian, or health coach. Get professional guidance from someone who has experience helping people troubleshoot their diets and non-diet factors, and who can advise you in making adjustments safely.
Find an approach that is effective, enjoyable, and sustainable. It doesn’t matter how effective something is if you hate every second of it and you can’t wait until you can quit it and “go back to normal.”
Find a way of eating that makes your “normal” something that you’re comfortable doing for the long term; otherwise you’ll set yourself up for cycles of losing and gaining rather than having an approach to food that works for you every day.
That being said, if you’re currently following an OMAD approach and you’re satisfied with how you look and feel, then “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” It’s okay to eat OMAD if it works well for you. Just reassess periodically to see if it’s still working as well as it did in the past, or if it’s time for a change. Don’t keep yourself stuck in a diet rut.
Sometimes what works best at one point isn’t what your body needs at a later time.
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