A Guide to the Beef and Butter Fast Diet

Last Updated on: 21st December 2022, 07:33 pm

The purpose of the beef and butter fast diet is to throw your body into ketosis while ridding yourself of foods that may stall you in your weight loss.

While this 4-day challenge is not recommended as a regular diet, it’s a method that can jumpstart your keto lifestyle, or help you to overcome a plateau in your current keto diet.

What is ketosis again?

Ketosis is the metabolic process your body enters when it has depleted its stores of glucose (sugar) and starts to burn stored fat. The result is a conversion of fat into ketones, that build up and produce desirable effects including weight loss, cellular repair and improved mental health.  

How is this diet different?

A strict 4-day beef and butter fast is different to intermittent fasting, crescendo fasting or even the fast mimicking diet.

  • You’re not stopping the amount of times you eat.
  • You’re not restricting the amount of food you eat.

Instead, you’re restricting the type of food you eat.

You’re only eating beef and butter, and there’s a good reason for this.

So why just beef and butter?

By heavily restricting the available options of food, you eliminate any variables that may stall ketosis.

Remember, the idea of a keto diet is to consume foods that are very low in carbohydrates, high in protein and high in fat.

Beef and butter meet these conditions.

Using a strict beef and butter diet as an “induction phase” is a great way to jumpstart ketosis. 

Below we outline a plan for your 4-day beef and butter fast and provide you with tips on how to manage, maintain and conquer the challenge.

It's strict. It's simple. The beef and butter fast diet is one of the quickest ways to get results on keto.

Preparation

While it is not always necessary to track numbers, many find the structure helpful.

As you prepare for the 4-day meat and butter fast, it is important to know exactly what supplies you will need. Remember, your body will be going through something new as it is, so don’t add disorganized stress on top. 

Start with calculating your ideal food intake, or the optimal breakdown of macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fat) you will need to consume per day. This can be done with a little bit of baseline research, or you can use a handy macro calculator online

Plan your meals

After you understand how much you need to consume in order to achieve the desired result, start planning your meals for each day.

Remember, stay strict and don’t allow yourself any deviations. Examples of beef and butter fast meal plans can be searched online, or you can click our meal plan examples for some inspiration. The higher quality beef and butter (and the more organic), the better the results. Steak might be a more expensive meat

Write down your progress

Finally, have some accessories and add ons ready to set yourself up for success. Make sure you get a notepad or a journal to plan out and document your challenge. Not only will this be useful to track your progress and monitor your moods, but you can carry it on when you continue to go keto following the fast. 

Testing for ketosis will boost your motivation

The beauty of this fast is that it’s so simple there’s not much chance of getting it wrong. That said, knowing you’re in ketosis is a powerful motivator. We’ve put together a round up of the best ketone meters to help you learn more.

Treat yourself

Remember how we said this was a strict diet? Well the good news is it doesn’t have to be that strict.

So if you think you might crack, make sure you have a few diet supplements on hand to ease the stress on your body’s cravings. If you’re a coffee drinker, don’t fret. Coffee is allowed and even recommended in order to speed up metabolism.

Make sure, however, to skip the cream and sugar, and opt for a bulletproof coffee instead.

Finally, we believe that you can make it through the full 4 days, but just in case you need a substitution to get you over the hump, you can find a list of them here. Maybe stock a few of these for a worst-case scenario. 

Execution

Once you’re properly prepared, it’s time to start your fast.

Remember, follow the meal plans and stay disciplined – you’ll thank us later.

Keep hydrated

The keto diet is a flushing diet, so make sure to be replenishing your electrolytes constantly. Have some pink Himalayan salt on hand, and use it freely. Drink lots of water. If you start to get a bit of a headache, feel lightheaded or constipated, it’s a sign that you are dehydrated, so replenish! 

Monitor your weight

Some fasters prefer to weigh themselves every morning, and others wait until the final weigh-in on day 5. Regardless, do a weight check at the beginning and monitor the results in your journal.

Be careful with exercise

If you normally workout, you can maintain your regular routine with no change. If you don’t normally do an extensive amount of exercise, it is not recommended to start while you are doing the beef and butter fast, as the added stress on your body could cause bloating or fatigue. 

Remember, this challenge should be fun. Don’t get frustrated if you slip up, just get back on track and work on that discipline. 

I’ve done the beef and butter fast diet – what’s next?

Log the results of your diet

After you have completed the beef and butter challenge, be sure to do your final weigh-in and track your results. Write down how you feel, what differences you have noticed in your other activities (sleep, focus, digestion), and what sort of effects you have felt on your physical body.

Don’t worry if you didn’t lose a significant amount of weight – remember this fast is meant to get our body into ketosis. Once we are in ketosis, we need to maintain a diet that will allow fat to burn efficiently. Avid keto dieters might do a beef and butter fast challenge (or equivalent) every couple of weeks, or every week! 

If you have previously been on a keto diet but noticed a stall in weight loss, this challenge is a great way to push through that stall and continue the progress. 

Notice how your body reacts to other keto foods

The beef and butter diet is a strict fast – you can think of it as almost a type of cleanse; it conditions your body to eating only two types of foods. This means the end of the fast is a great time to evaluate the keto foods you have been eating as part of your normal diet.

So when you’ve finished, don’t go straight back to your normal diet, instead, slowly add back the other keto friendly items in your diet and see how your body reacts to them.

Look at other keto challenges

If it is your first go at this sort of thing, look into other keto challenges or make your own using some of the substitutions. Remember, low carbs, high protein and high fat is the key.

Take it slow

Sticking to eating only beef and butter, even if only for a few days, takes a toll on the body. So when you’ve finished, it’s iommportant to celebrate your effort, no matter what the tape or scales say.

Make sure not to wear down your body too much – if you’re new to this stuff it might take some time to adapt.

But remaining determined to challenge your metabolism with new keto foods and creative combinations will continue to yield positive results. 

Happy beef and butter fasting!

Bonus Idea

A lot of our readers have had success with this four-day fast. If you’re looking for a similar idea, why not check out our post on the Fasting Mimicking Diet? It’s a five day, plant-based diet with a heap of clinically-proven benefits that go well beyond weight loss.

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