The keto diet is so popular for a good reason, it enhances significant results, from improving blood sugar levels to increasing energy, losing fat, and improving overall health.
Books and celebrities popularized the keto diet and promoted it as an antidote to extra weight and other ailments. Proponents claim that it can trigger substantial weight loss and improve Type 2 diabetes. While the hype around the ketogenic diet started a few years ago, it has a long history of therapeutic uses. Before the discovery of insulin, people with diabetes used this diet to improve their health. Doctors worldwide also use it to reduce seizures in patients with epilepsy.
When you’re lowering the number of carbs you ingest, you stabilize your blood sugar levels and reduce the levels of insulin, a hormone that can lead to weight gain.
What is a keto diet?
The ketogenic diet is a low-carb and higher-fat diet. You eat fewer carbohydrates and moderate protein and fat. You restrict carbs to the point you enter and sustain ketosis. Ketosis is a metabolic state of the body when it uses and burns ketones. To produce them, you must trigger ketogenesis (a process in your liver). The best way to do it is to lower the carbs intake. When you eat few calories, your liver transforms fat into ketones.
Ketones work like a source of energy for your body, and especially for your brain. Your brain consumes most of your daily levels of energy, but it cannot run on fat, like the rest of the organs. It can function only with ketones or glucose.
When you adopt a ketogenic diet, you switch your fuel to fat. Your insulin levels are so low, and your body has to access the fat and transform it into energy. It helps you not only to lose weight but also to fight hunger and improve the levels of alertness and focus.
What are the main versions of the ketogenic diet?
You can pick from several versions of the keto diet.
- The standard diet, also called SKD is 5% carbs, 20% protein, and 75% fat.
- The cyclical diet or CKD involves periods of higher-carb refeeds. You follow the keto diet for 5 days, and you have a high intake of carbs for the next 2.
- The targeted diet or TKD allows you to eat carbs when you exercise.
- The high-protein diet includes more protein than the standard version. 5% carbs, 35% protein, and 60% fat.
Most of the people use the standard or high-protein keto diets. Athletes and bodybuilders prefer the targeted or cyclical versions.
Who can do a keto diet?
There are myths around all versions of the ketogenic diet, but they’re safe for most people. However, three groups shouldn’t adopt the keto diet before they get in touch with a doctor.
- People with diabetes who take medication like insulin
- Patients suffering from high blood pressure
- Women who breastfeed
The keto diet is beneficial for many people, but it can interfere with certain drugs (like insulin) where doses need adjustment. If part of the above categories, discuss all dietary changes with your doctor because they can make relevant lifestyle recommendations.
Keto diets help you achieve an ideal weight
The ketogenic diet is famous for lowering disease factors and assisting people in losing weight. Research proves that it’s superior to standard low-fat diets. People love it because they lose weight without being worried about how many calories they eat.
It’s daunting to track your food intake daily, especially if you’re always busy. For better results, you can pair it with Leptitox, a weight-loss supplement that helps your body burn calories and fats and boosts the energy levels of the body.
People on a keto diet lose two times more weight than the ones on low-fat diets. Because it involves eating healthy foods, it also improves the HDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels. There are two mechanisms behind these results. It lowers calorie intake and increases ketone use. The diet encourages people to eat satiating whole foods and restrict on appetite-stimulating processed aliments. Because they’re eating satiating foods, keto dieters feel full throughout the day, with a low-calorie intake.
What to eat and what to avoid
When starting a diet, people are worried that they’ll no longer be able to enjoy their favorite foods. Well, if you don’t have a sweet tooth, you won’t find it difficult to go with the keto diet. The essential thing to do to reach ketosis is to avoid eating too many calories. It’s ideally to keep the carbs under 20 grams a day, but the diet works even with 50 grams. It’s recommended to start with 50 grams of carbs per day and reduce the intake as your body adjusts to the new lifestyle. The fewer carbs you eat, the most effective is the ketosis process and the more weight you lose.
At the start, it’s helpful to count carbs, but as long as you stick to the recommended list of foods, you can reach ketosis without counting.
Let’s start with the foods you should remove from your diet. Get rid of the sugary, carbs-rich, or starchy aliments. This means you can no longer eat pasta, bread, potatoes, rice, chocolate, candies, some fruits, and drink beer, soda, or juice. Stay away from ultra-processed foods and replace them with whole grains.
If most diets promote low-fat diets, this time, you need to go with foods moderately high in protein ones because fat provides your body energy to function.
Water is your go-to drink. Coffee, tea, and red wine are also excellent choices. As long as you don’t use sweeteners, you can even add a splash of cream or milk in your coffee or tea.
What to eat: meats (poultry, beef, fish, lamb), low-carb vegetables (broccoli, kale, spinach), high-fat dairy (butter, high-fat cream, hard cheeses), seeds and nuts (sunflower seeds, walnuts, macadamias), berries and avocado, sweeteners (monk fruit, erythritol, stevia, and other fats (saturated fats, coconut oil).
Are you ready to change your life?
