How keto diet works
how keto diet works .What are the advantages and disadvantages of keto diet ? What are the common problems with the Keto diet ? Keto diet — a low-carb diet that causes your body to burn fat instead of glucose for energy. Proponents of the diet claim it is the most effective way to burn fat and achieve or stay slim. This diet is also used in medical Settings.
This diet is too restrictive to be sustainable for many people. Find out more about the side effects and health risks of the Keto diet before deciding if it’s right for you. Check with your doctor before starting such an eating plan, especially if you have an underlying health problem.
The Keto diet severely restricts carbohydrates and forces the body to burn fat. However, this diet restricts carbohydrates so much that it limits vegetables and fruits, which limits fiber and nutrients. Restrictive diets often lead to long-term weight gain.
Background to the Keto Diet
Ketogenic diets have been used in medical Settings for about 100 years. Medical researchers say the diet was developed in the 1920s and mimics a fasting diet that was used as early as 500 BC to treat epilepsy and other epileptic conditions. While it has been used successfully to treat the disease for many years, the introduction of antiepileptic drugs (AED) in the 1990s reduced interest in the diet.
However, the diet has become popular again with the identification of some forms of drug-resistant epilepsy and other epilepsy syndromes in children. Ketogenic diets have been used successfully in these patients
In recent years, the ketogenic diet for use in medicine has been expanded, the project is sometimes used in the treatment of other diseases, including headache, nerve trauma, alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), mitochondrial diseases, cancer, stroke, brain trauma, mental disorders, autism, and migraine
The diet is also popular in some sports and weight loss communities. It was understood that patients on the diet tended to lose weight, leading to its popularity as a quick way to lose weight.
How keto diet works
On a ketogenic diet, your body goes into ketosis, burning fat as fuel. This process produces ketones, hence the name “ketone” for these diets.
On most ketogenic diets, you consume 70-75% of your calories from fat. For the rest, you consume about 5-10% of your calories from carbohydrates, with the rest coming from protein
Diets are dominated by healthy fat sources such as fatty fish, meat, nuts, cheese and oil.
Dietary recommendations are made for fats high in medium chain triglyceride (MCT), such as coconut oil and medium chain triglyceride oil, because these fats are easily converted by the body into ketones.
In general, people on ketogenic diets tend to eat a lot of monounsaturated and saturated fat foods like olive oil, butter (grass-fed cows are recommended), avocado and cheese.
This diet doesn’t have a lot of flexibility in food choices because carbohydrates are severely restricted.
Advantages and disadvantages of the Keto diet
Those who lose weight on this diet may soon see results, as cutting out high-carb foods may reduce overall calorie intake, as well as water weight.
However, when your body is adapted to ketosis, there might be some negative symptoms, including fatigue, weakness, dizziness, headache, slight irritability, moreover, this kind of diet to eliminate or severely limit foods high in fiber and other nutrients, which can lead to health problems such as constipation and vitamin or mineral deficiencies.
Ketogenic diets are usually only short-term, and it’s easy to abandon them if they’re too strict. A highly restrictive diet often backfires and leads to weight gain. In addition, there is insufficient evidence to support the effectiveness of long-term use of ketogenic diets (beyond one year). Therefore, more scientific research is needed to understand the effectiveness and safety of long-term use of this diet
Common misconceptions and problems
Q: How do I know if my body is in ketosis?
Most people on ketogenic diets are tested for ketogenic bodies. Ketone bodies — these are the byproducts of ketogenesis that your body excretes in urine and people often use a urine stick to check ketone levels and whether ketosis is present. It may take days or weeks for your body to enter a state of ketosis.
Q: If I stick to a ketogenic diet, will I be tired all the time?
Not at all. As the body learns to burn fat for fuel, most people eventually adjust. However, you should feel tired during the first week.
Myth: Ketogenic diets are dangerous and can even lead to death.
Some are confused with ketosis and ketoacidosis. Diabetic ketoacidosis is a dangerous condition that affects insulin deficient people and is mostly seen in type 1 diabetes or insulin-dependent type 2 diabetes. In diabetic ketoacidosis, ketone levels are higher than in diet induced ketosis. In the state of diabetic ketoacidosis, ketone bodies may reach dangerously high levels, and blood pH changes to become acidic to clarify the confusion of these two conditions, ketosis is sometimes referred to as “nutritional ketosis “.
Myth: On a ketogenic diet, you can eat all the high-fat foods you want, like bacon, cheese, French fries, and ice cream.
While it is true that the ketogenic diet consists mainly of high-fat foods, many high-fat foods are also rich in carbohydrates. For example, foods like ice cream and French fries are high in fat, but they’re also high in starch (French fries) and sugar (ice cream). So these foods are not recommended on a ketogenic diet plan.
Myth: Ketogenic diets eat a lot of meat.
In fact, ketogenic diets contain less meat than you might think. Eating a high-protein diet will counteract the macronutrient balance needed to achieve and maintain ketosis. If you increase your protein intake, your body may burn protein for fuel instead of fat (a process called gluconeogenesis)
Myth: You can’t be a vegetarian and stick to a ketogenic diet.
While it’s difficult to become a vegetarian and stick to a ketogenic diet, it’s not impossible. However, plant-based fat sources are lower than dairy and meat fat sources. So you’re going to have a very limited range of foods.
Keto diet compared to other diets
If you’re know how keto diet works and consider to star a ketogenic diet, compare it to other diets
Atkins diet
The diet is carried out in stages, allowing for more fat consumption in the first phase of the plan
Limit your carbohydrate intake, too
Include ketogenic foods in your food plan
Encourage consumption of low-carbohydrate carbohydrates later in the diet
Low-carbohydrate diets
Limit carbohydrate intake, although usually not as strict as ketogenic diets. Most low-carbohydrate diets suggest at least 20-30% calories from carbohydrates, much higher than a ketogenic diet.
Meals are usually vegetables-based and fat intake is usually unrestricted.
Scarsdale diet
It is often compared to the Atkins diet and promises fast weight loss
The diet plan is very strict, limiting calories and carbohydrates. However, those on this diet ate more high-protein foods.
The Scarsdale Diet isn’t as popular as it once was, in part because it’s been criticized by nutrition experts.