What To Know About The Popular Keto Diet

What to Know About The Popular Keto Diet

If losing weight is your goal, then keto is for you.
It is proven to help you shed kilograms fast but there’s more to this diet than meets the eye.
Keto essentially replaces carbs with fat.

A typical keto diet looks like this:

70% fat
25% protein
5% carbohydrates

Usually, when you eat carbs such as starchy potato enzymes, your mouth, stomach, and small intestines break them down into a form of sugar energy called glucose, which your brain and body use for fuel.
When you first cut out carbs, you might experience some strong sugar cravings for the first couple of days.
This is because your body is switching gears, converting carbohydrates to the only energy source it has left, fat.
Once you are burning fat regularly, you will see those kilograms start to melt away.

Depending on how much weight you need to lose, you might lose up to 1,5 kg within that first week.
As you burn more fat, your levels of insulin, the fat-storing hormone will drop significantly.
This will cause your kidneys to release large amounts of sodium into the blood which can actually lead to a common side effect known as the keto flu.

Many keto dieters report symptoms such as:

Nausea
Headaches
Dizziness
Muscle cramps
Low energy levels

However, most of these symptoms will only occur within the first couple of weeks of starting the diet.
After the first month of being on the keto diet, you should notice a drop in the scales.

It is important to note, that some of the weight loss isn’t actually fat, it is just water.
Glycogen which retains water is included in some of the carbs you metabolize and helps to keep you hydrated.
As a result, you are likely to pee more often, which will lower your sodium levels, even more, leading to dehydration, constipation or diarrhea, and bad breath.

If you stick with the keto diet for a couple of months, you might hit the notorious keto plateau.
This refers to the stage when you find it progressively harder to continue to lose more weight.

The ketogenic diet is a diet that forces the body to switch from burning carbs for energy, to instead getting energy from ketone bodies.
Ketone bodies are produced by the liver from stored fat and are released when the body does not get enough carbohydrates and is low on glycogen.

The keto diet is low in moderate protein and is high in fat.
While similar in some ways to familiar low-carb diets, the keto diet has two distinctive characteristics:
Its extreme carb restrictions, about 20 to 50 grams of carbs per day or even less depending on the version.
It’s a deliberate shift into ketosis.
It takes the body approximately 2-4 days to reach a state of ketosis after you have removed carbs from your diet.

Shopping list for the Keto diet:

Meat
Seafood
Poultry
Eggs
Cheese
Avocados
Coconut oil
Olive oil
Nuts
Seeds
Butter
Low carb vegetables
Unsweetened coffee and tea

Pros of the Keto diet

Treating epilepsy, which is proven and well documented
The actual loss of body fat, resulting in actual weight loss
This could be, because fats are more satiating and you basically eat fewer calories when you are on the keto diet
Stabilizing blood glucose and getting type 2 diabetes under control
Treating some symptoms of cancer
Since cancer cells, unlike normal cells, derive most of their energy from glucose, the keto diet minimizes cancer cell growth
Reducing inflammation
The keto diet helps reduce body fat, which leads to a reduction in the pro-inflammatory effect of adipokines

Cons of the Keto diet

Heart health
Since this diet is high in fat, you should be careful with saturated fats
Too much fat, can cause cholesterol build-up in your arteries.
Liver problems
There is so much fat to process, that the liver becomes overloaded
Kidney problems
They help to metabolize protein and the keto diet may overload them as well
Increased blood acidity
The risk of altering your blood pH towards an acidic state
Symptoms include headaches, confusion, fatigue, tremors
Brain functioning
Low glucose negatively impacts brain functioning
This can lead to brain fog, mood swings, irritability and low energy
Nutrient deficiency
If you are avoiding a variety of vegetables, fruits and grains, you might be at risk of magnesium, selenium, vitamin B and C deficiencies