Do Ketone Salts Break a Fast?

Alfredo Valdés 11 min. of reading Diets Leave a comment

Can you follow a Keto and Intermittent Fasting Diet at the same time as taking Exogenous Ketone Salts?

Before continuing, you may be interested in reading about the Benefits of Ketone Salts on Health and Sports Performance. In such case, you can access the corresponding post here.

Index

1 Are Keto and Fasting compatible?
2 How to fast on the Keto diet
3 Why do intermittent fasting on a keto diet?
4 Is fasting recommended on the keto diet?
5 What can you consume on a Keto fast?
6 Do KetoSeries supplements break the fast?
7 Recommendations

Are Keto and Fasting compatible?

Completely.

The ketogenic diet is a dietary approach based on intense restriction, usually to less than 10% of the daily energy intake of dietary carbohydrates, replacing them with fat and maintaining, or slightly increasing, protein.

Whereas intermittent fasting is nothing more than a variable period (from hours to days) of food restriction.

Many people following ketogenic diets practice more or less prolonged fasting, and vice versa, as some of the beneficial effects of both protocols have been replicated in their counterpart, and vice versa.

Beneficial effects of different dietary approaches, CR: Calorie restriction / KD: Ketogenic diet / Fasting, on health markers related to the immune, endocrine and metabolic systems (Paoli et al., 2019).

To find out more about Intermittent Fasting, we recommend you visit this post.

You can do intermittent fasting and ketogenic dieting without coming across any problems, as long as at the end of the day (or a period of several days) you cover your nutritional requirements established according to your characteristics and objectives (calories, macro and micronutrients).

Remember that both the ketogenic diet and fasting require a certain adaptation period, so it’s preferable to be adapted to one of the two approaches before starting with the other.

It is not a wise option to start a ketogenic diet and prolonged fasting at the same time because of the possible health problems that can be associated with this simultaneous practice in unaccustomed subjects.

How to fast on the Keto diet

Not eating for a variable amount of time.

Sounds easy, right? It is.

The way to combine fasting and keto dieting is to do your normal ketogenic diet and limit the times of day you allow yourself to eat.

A smart strategy is to adapt your keto diet so that the last meal before fasting is the most energy-dense meal to control hunger during the period of food restriction.

A possible keto diet protocol + intermittent fasting, in a person who is used to ketogenic food, could be:

Week	Fasting hours: Feeding hours
1	8:16
2 and 3	16:8
4, 5, 6, 7	24:24 (day on, day off)
8	23:1 (every day)
9, 10, 11, and 12	48:24 (two days of fasting, one day of feeding)

It’s not advisable to fast for periods longer than 48-72 hours without medical supervision, for safety’s sake.

Why do intermittent fasting on a keto diet?

Because it’s possible for them to act synergistically.

Calorie restriction was the first “big boom” in nutrition, postulating the possibility that this practice would increase the longevity and health expectancy of subjects.

The ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting share mechanisms with calorie restriction, taking advantage of their possible endocrinometabolic benefits.

It’s possible to combine ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting and obtain a greater overall effect, and it can contribute to:

The maintenance and/or restoration of the biodiversity of the intestinal microbiota.
The reduction of cell damage due to oxidative stress, the cause of ageing and cell death.
The promotion of autophagy, or cellular recycling, a mechanism that safely and self-managed eliminates damaged cells before they cause damage or die abruptly and uncontrollably.
Decreasing the production of anabolic hormones and growth factors related to hyperplasia and metaplasia.
Maintaining the correct structure and function of neural networks, decreasing inflammation and protecting nerve cells.

These and other positive effects are theoretical or preclinical, which means that they have not been firmly and unequivocally proven in humans, but the evidence is beginning to be strong in certain results (neurological and metabolic, especially), and is growing steadily.

Changes in the proteomic profile of subjects with metabolic syndrome after 4 weeks of fasting during the day. They reduced their body weight, BMI, fat, blood pressure, insulin resistance; and improved markers of autophagy and cellular repair (MIndikoglu et al., 2020).

These effects appear to be more evident in people with some type of unhealthy metabolic condition (dyslipidaemia, hypertension, abdominal obesity, glycaemic dyscontrol, low functional capacity, or metabolic syndrome).

Is fasting recommended on the keto diet?

It depends.

Both dietary schemes have benefits that, in healthy people, outweigh any possible detriment they generate (such as initial fatigue until adaptation).

Therefore, the combination of both is advisable to the extent that we sequence the adaptation of one and the other, first using the one that’s more comfortable, simple or attractive, and gradually introducing the other.

In general, it’s advisable to combine both types of diet only as long as they fit into your daily life:

Because it’s possible that for certain people, (such as high-level athletes, night shift workers, type 1 diabetics and other people with immuno-metabolic pathologies), intermittent fasting is not the most advisable practice, though a convenient tool for a large part of the population.

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What can you consume on a Keto fast?

Good question, with a very difficult answer.

The RAE (Royal Spanish Academy) dictionary defines fasting as: “Abstaining totally or partially from eating or drinking”.

A closer look at the definition quickly reveals why the answer to this question is so complex:

Fasting can be conceived in many different ways, from total restriction of food and drink, to allowing calorie-containing or calorie-free drinks, or even allowing non-glycemic foods (such as oils).

Based on this, we can establish 5 levels of “restrictive fasting” and look at what can be consumed during their practice:

Level	Restriction	Allowed foods
1	Carbohydrate-rich foods.	Sugar-free drinks (water, herbal teas, etc.). Mineral salts. Proteins (and amino acids). Ketones and other non-carbohydrate energy compounds. Fats.
2	Insulinogenic foodstuffs.*	Sugar-free drinks (water, herbal teas, etc.). Mineral salts. Ketones and other non-carbohydrate and non-protein energy compounds. Fats.
3	Solid foods.	Drinks with and without sugars (water, herbal teas, milk, carbohydrate and electrolyte solutions). Mineral salts. Any source of nutrients (proteins, carbohydrates, fats and ketones) in liquid form.
4	Caloric foods.	Acaloric drinks (water, herbal teas, etc.). Mineral salts.
5	Total.	Nothing during the fasting period.

*That produce an endogenous insulin secretion response.

Do KetoSeries supplements break the fast?

Each product in the KetoSeries range is either permitted or restricted depending on the level of fasting practised by the user.

The products in the KetoSeries range have been developed to reach level 3 of restrictive fasting.

Let’s now analyse each of them so that you can find out whether their use is permitted in your particular case:

Product	Level
KETO MCT OIL 60/40 (C8/10)	3
KETO OCTANE
KETO BHB (EXOGENOUS KETONES) WITH NATURAL CAFFEINE	3
KETO BHB (EXOGENOUS KETONES)	3
KETO SHRED WITH NATURAL CAFFEINE	3
KETO MATCHA LATTE (WITHOUT MILK)	3
KETO INSTANT COFFEE	3
KETO HYDROLYSED COLLAGEN (BOVINE) POWDER	2
KETO WHEY PROTEIN	2
KETO AMINOS	2
KETO INSTANT COFFEE + COLLAGEN	2

Recommendations

There are many reasons for fasting, and each reason has a sense of restriction.

There are Islamic practices known as Ramadan, where practitioners of the religion in its original conception restrict food and drink completely from sunrise to sunset.

Fasting that’s carried out for functional reasons (its potential health benefits), should not reach level 5 on any occasion, and fluctuate between levels 3 and 4 depending on the interest of the individual.

In fact, one of the smartest practices is to adapt the fasting period to the time of the day with the most activity, and to relieve the feeding window to the period of rest or less physical activity.

So ketones do break a fast?

Leaving aside the levels described above, if you’re someone practicing fasting because it fits into your daily life, and you also follow a ketogenic diet and want to benefit the most from the benefits of both approaches, you can take exogenous ketones without worry.

Do they have calories?

Yes, approximately 2.5kcal/g.

However, bear in mind that the amount of net ketones contained in one serving of a ketone salt-based supplement will be less than 10g, even in the most concentrated product.

For 25kcal, do you think you’re going to lose the potential benefits of 16, 24 or 48 hours of fasting?
Why limit the positive cognitive and functional effects of exogenous ketones by such a restrictive practice when you are looking to feel better by fasting?

There are no black and whites in nutrition, those who are smart and follow smart practices position themselves in the grey scale and benefit smartly from the options available that are compatible with their desires.