Clean Keto Challenge: 28 Day Jumpstart to Health

Save to FavoritesPrint

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.

Introducing my Clean Keto Challenge! This is the ultimate guide to clean eating– say goodbye to dirty keto foods and get your body in better health with clean, real food! Featuring tips, tricks, FAQs, meal plans, food lists, printables, and more!

Welcome to the Clean Keto 28-Day Jumpstart to Health Challenge. I’m so excited you are here and have taken the first step to live a healthier lifestyle.

The next 28 days are to challenge you to create better everyday habits that will last for the long haul. Your health is worth fighting for, and I’m so happy to be taking this journey with you! I have put together amazing resources for you, including clean keto recipes, meal plans, keto food lists, FAQs, an e-book, vlogs, and more!

We all have to start somewhere, so why not start together? You are strong, capable, and motivated to make the changes needed for a better you!

The Peachy Life Podcast: Episode 06, Clean Keto Challenge

Listen to The Peachy Life wherever you get your podcasts!

What do Ketosis, Keto, and Ketogenic Mean?

Ketogenic Diet & Lifestyle

The ketogenic diet gets its name from the small fuel molecules called “ketones,” which are produced by your body as an alternative fuel source when blood sugar is in low supply. Instead of burning carbs, your body begins to burn stored fat. Once your body starts producing ketones, your body is in ketosis.

Our body’s first choice of fuel for energy is carbohydrates, and the standard American diet is very high in carbs. However, when eating keto, you’ll consume fewer carbs, allowing your body to burn fat for energy instead, leading to weight loss. 

Eating Keto

Eating the keto diet is the best way to get your body into ketosis. To do this, you’ll need to track your daily consumption of Net Carbs.  The formula for net carbs is Total Carbs – Dietary Fiber = Net Carbs. You can find this by looking at the nutrition labels of the foods you eat.

Getting into Ketosis

To achieve ketosis, the goal is to keep your net carb intake under 25 grams per day. Some people can enter ketosis by eating up to 50 grams of net carbs a day. However, it takes testing and time to find out how high your tolerance is. 

Since your carb consumption on this diet is very low, your food intake must be high in fat and contain moderate protein. Otherwise, you won’t have enough energy to sustain yourself. You should not feel like you’re starving. Instead, you should feel sustained and have plenty of energy on this low-carb diet.  If you’re feeling very hungry this is a red flag that you’re not eating enough fat. About 70% of the diet should be from fat, 20-25% protein, leaving 5-10% to come from carbs.   

Clean Keto Diet vs. Dirty Keto Diet

The difference between clean and dirty keto is straightforward.  The clean keto lifestyle consists of a diet of wholesome, natural, nutrient-dense foods and healthy fats that your body requires to function correctly. Dirty keto often consists of eating processed foods (like fast food) that may fit under the correct number of carbs each day but don’t necessarily include nourishing, nutritious food. Food quality is important and helps with faster weight loss, long-term health benefits, and better overall health.

clean keto vs. dirty keto

What is the Clean Keto Challenge?

This Clean Keto Challenge consists of eating clean keto with the addition of going dairy-free. This challenge is meant to reset and refresh your outlook on overall healthy living, helps regular blood sugar levels, and improves brain function (goodbye brain fog!) If you want to give your body a jumpstart into everyday healthy living, this challenge is a must.

Clean Keto Guidelines

25g Net Carbs Daily: Sticking to 25 grams of net carbs daily will get your body into ketosis. The whole point of “keto” is to switch your body from burning carbs as fuel to burning fat as fuel. This is the most important part of the program.

No Dairy, Alcohol, Grains or Legumes: No dairy, except for ghee or clarified butter. You may include dairy-free cheese, sour cream and cream cheese in this challenge. Be sure to read labels to ensure clean ingredients. No legumes, with the exception of green beans. No alcohol or grains for 28 days. Removing these items will help reduce cravings and strengthen gut health.

No Added Sugar or Artificial Sweeteners: Removing added sugar and artificial sweetener for the duration of 28 days will help with cravings and gut health. Quitting sugar and artificial sweeteners can also aid in more energy, balanced hormones, especially insulin levels, and clearer skin!

Avoid all Dirty Keto Options: The point of this challenge is to eat wholesome foods full of nutrients to get our bodies back to working efficiently as possible. Dirty Keto options can cause bloating, inflammation, sugar cravings and will often lead to weight gain post-challenge.

Drink 64 oz. Water, Daily: One of the most common side effects of the keto diet is dehydration. Carbs are responsible for your body holding water. Your body will excrete and retain less water. The symptoms of dehydration are often referred to and dangerously brushed off as the “keto flu”.

28 day clean keto challenge

Daily Must Dos

Keep a food journal

Drink at least 64oz of water

Get some exercise!

Get a full night of sleep

clean keto daily habits

Why Should You Complete this Challenge?

You will benefit from clean keto eating in many ways:

  • Improve gut health and reduce inflammation in your body.
  • Less spikes in insulin. This will aid in helping shed a few pounds of body fat.
  • Eliminate cravings.
  • Break through a weight loss plateau.
  • Improved digestion and flatter tummy without all the grains, legumes, sugar, and dairy.
  • Improvement in skin, nails and hair health.
  • Sleep cycle will improve and an increase in energy levels.

Why Go Dairy Free?

There are many reasons why you may want to try going dairy-free. Here are a few reasons below!  

  1. It’s estimated that 75% of the world’s population is actually lactose intolerant.  Lactose is the sugar found in cow’s milk and breast milk.  Infants and children produce enzymes that break down lactose.  However, humans lose this ability as we grow up.  
  2. Dairy has also been linked to cancer in numerous studies.  These cancer types include prostate, breast, and ovarian cancers.  
  3. It also raises your cholesterol levels, increasing the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease. 
  4. It may cause constipation due to a combination of lactose intolerance and the lack of fiber in dairy.  
  5. Dairy products can also contribute to an increase in acne breakouts.  
  6. In order to increase milk production, cows are given growth hormones and antibiotics.
  7. PCOS – One of the many possible symptoms of PCOS is insulin resistance. Eating dairy can lead to higher levels of insulin in your body.  The excess insulin causes your cells to absorb too much glucose from your blood and causes the liver to release less glucose, which creates a dangerous low blood sugar condition called hypoglycemia.  Having too much insulin can also cause your ovaries to produce more androgens, such as testosterone.  An increase in testosterone in a woman’s body can suppress normal menstruation and ovulation.  

Clean Keto Food List: What Can I Eat?

clean keto food list

Amazing Clean Keto Recipes!

25 Clean Keto Soup Recipes

30 Clean Keto Lunch Recipes

25 Clean Keto Crockpot Recipes

25 Clean Keto Chicken Recipes

How to Track Net Carbs

There are a ton of apps that will track your net carbs. Below are my favorites:

carb manager, an app to calculate and track macro foods

What about Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting can be paired with this challenge, although it will depend on the person. For me, when I add fasting to my diet and compact my eating window, it becomes way too restrictive. This brings back a lot of issues with my past eating disorders.

Some people swear by fasting and in these cases, it does wonders for their bodies. However, I’m just not one of those people. I love listening to my body and eating when I’m hungry. So if I wake up starving, I don’t want to punish myself and wait 5 hours until I can eat. If I wake up not hungry then I have the option to wait until I am. For me, it’s too much pressure on my already fragile mind. Waking up and listening to what my body wants works way better than setting a time frame around food.

Clean Keto Free Resources!

For 20+ FREE resources to set you up for success, click on the photo below, or follow this link.

clean keto resources for keto challenge with green veggies on the front

Once you subscribe to my email list, you will receive a “confirmation” email. You must confirm the subscription. Once you do this, you will receive a welcome email with a link to download the full guide. If it’s not in your inbox, be sure to check your spam folder.

Shop My Clean Keto Must Haves on Amazon!

Click Here for my Amazon Store

Favorite Clean Keto Items

  • Athletic Greens: These greens are your one stop shop with over 75 vitamins and minerals and supports gut health, immunity, energy, recovery, focus, aging, and more. Take control of your health routine with one simple drink every morning. USE THE LINK HERE to get a FREE year supply of D3 +K2 and FREE Travel Packs
Athletic Greens® - Official Site
  • Seed Probiotic: 24-Strain Pre + Probiotic. Next-Generation Technology. The Evolution of Probiotics is Here. Refillable Glass Jar. Free Travel Vial. Free Shipping. Vegan. Sustainably Delivered. This is my go-to pro and prebiotic that you can tell is working on day 1! It will really help improve your gut microbiome. Use Code MAC20 to get 20% off
Seed Daily Synbiotic | Goop

Clean Keto Meal Plans: Week 1

7 day keto meal plan with clean keto recipes

Common Reader Questions, Answered!

I have taken all your top questions and built a Q+A blog post that is filled with great tips and tricks. Be sure to click on the photo below to be taken to that post. If you still have questions, be sure to put them in my comments, and I will try my best to add them in for you!

keto diet faqs

Follow Me on YouTube

Be sure to click on the photo below to subscribe to my YouTube Channel. I have daily vlogs throughout the course of the challenge. I will be taking you through all of my meals, tips and tricks, and the ups/downs of the challenge. This is going to be a SUPER helpful resource for you all!

healthy little peach banner

Need More Inspo? Be Sure to Check Out my Peachy Fit eBook:

photo of red workout shoes and kettle bell

Additional Resources

If you are in need of even more Keto resources, be sure to head over to Dr. Eric Berg and/or Natalie at Tastes Lovely. These are two of my favorite resources for all things keto. They have so much knowledge, and I always leave their sites learning a ton.

Natalie is a dear friend and just the sweetest human in the world. She lost over 70 pounds following Clean Keto and has weeks and weeks of free menus along with great tips and tricks. Dr. Eric Berg is another great one because he goes in-depth regarding the science behind why keto is excellent for our bodies!

Be sure to consult your doctor before beginning any new program. I’m not a licensed physician. This challenge is based on my opinion and personal experience.

About Me

Mother, wife, cookbook author, recipe creator an open book

Welcome to Healthy Little Peach. I’m Mac, the lady behind the recipes. I believe in living a healthy lifestyle that consists of a mix of healthy whole foods, and full-fat comfort meals. Life is too short not to enjoy good food while maintaining a healthy body and mind. Here you will find gluten-free, dairy-free, paleo, keto, and even full-fat comfort recipes. Let’s have fun in the kitchen together!

View More Delicious Recipes

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

29 Comments

  1. How can you write starvation? And how can you write starvation is not recommended?

    Fasting is not starvation, fasting has huge benefits on health.

    Educate yourself.

    1. Here a is a tip, How about read what I actually wrote. I said, “If I wake up starving, I don’t want to punish myself and wait 5 hours until I eat. This is coming from a place of having an eating disorder. Maybe try educating yourself by actually reading what I wrote.

      1. I think they are maybe referring to the first paragraph where you say “There are two ways to get your body in ketosis. The first and very unsafe way is starvation. This is absolutely NOT recommended.” That being said, I agree with you that getting into ketosis by starvation is unsafe and unsustainable. My daughter and I are looking forward to joining your 28-day keto challenge tomorrow!! Thank you for all the free resources. I especially love the daily quotes for my fridge. Can’t wait to see my results in a month.

        1. I am a fan of IF, but I read what you wrote and am completely on board. I love the results of fasting, but sometimes its not worth the discomfort. On that note, eating low carb helps a lot with decreasing appetite and supporting IF.

  2. Thanks, good article. I’ve been on a plateau with dirty keto and will try this. Will miss cheese tho. Question, when you say “dairy free cheese, cream cheese and sour cream” are permitted, do you mean “dairy free cream cheese?” I didn’t know such a product existed.

    I’ve been eating the Atkins bars to curb my sweet tooth which I know will be a no no on clean keto. Curious, just how many large blackberries are safe to eat on clean keto? If I don’t count them out, I’ll eat the whole container. That is the only thing that I can think of to eat when I want something sweet on clean keto.

  3. After I іnitially lеft a comment I appear to have clicked
    on the -Notify me when new comments are aԀded- checkbox
    and now each time a comment is added I receive four emails with the same cⲟmment.

    There has to be a ԝay yօu can remove me from that
    serviⅽe? Appreciate it!

    1. I think you will have to do it on your end. There is not a button I can click. You can go back to the comment section and uncheck what you had initially checked.

  4. Day one in the books! It was a bit easier than I thought the first day was going to be, but I suspect that the coming days will be harder. I had a question though. Do you have any tips for getting enough fat in my diet? I dont eat much meat, only poultry and seafood. I think the hardest thing for me is going to be going dairy free. I LOVE CHEESE lol and I wanna put it on everything.

  5. It’s ɡoing to be finish of mine day, however before finish I am гeading this gгeat article to improve my experience.

    1. Hi Heather……Let me add your email address again. Let me know if you are still having problems. Thanks for letting me know.