The Keto Diet Basics: Important Things You Should Do
- Lifestyle Health
Alessia Braun- 0
- 10 minutes read
The keto diet is a high fat, low carb diet that has many health benefits. In fact, much research shows that this form of diet can help one to lose weight along with improving their health. This diet may even be beneficial against cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, as well as Alzheimer’s disease. Here is a beginner’s guide on understanding the basics of a ketogenic diet.
The Basics Of Keto Diet
The ketogenic diet is very low on carbs, a high on the fat diet that has many similarities with the low carbs and Atkins diet. It reduces the intake of carbohydrates drastically and replaces that with fat. This decrease in carbs puts the human body in a metabolic condition that is known as ketosis. There are many keto diets for beginners available on the internet which one can look for.
When this occurs, the human body becomes incredibly effective at burning the fat to gain energy. It also alters the fats into ketones in the liver, which helps in the supply of energy in the brain. This diet can cause a notable decrease in the insulin and blood sugar levels. This added with increased ketones has high health benefits.
Different Types Of Ketogenic Diet
The Ketogenic diet is not limited to a single form, there are several forms of this diet. Let us have a look at those forms.
- Standard Ketogenic Diet (SKD): This type of keto diet is extremely low in carbs, high in fat, and is moderate in proteins. The keto diet plan comprises 70% fat, 20% protein, and just 10% carbs.
- Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD): This diet involves ages of increased carb refeeds, similar to 5 ketogenic days followed by 2 high carb days.
- The targeted ketogenic diet (TKD): This diet enables the human body to add carbs during workouts.
- High protein ketogenic diet: This is similar to an SKD, but has more protein. The ratio is mainly 60% fat, 35% protein, and 5% carbs.
However, only the high and standard protein ketogenic diets have been researched extensively. Targeted or Cyclical ketogenic diets are more high-end methods and mainly used by athletes or bodybuilders.
The data and facts in this article mainly apply to the standard ketogenic diet (SKD), even though many of the same theories also apply to the other variants.
What Is Ketosis?
Ketosis is a metabolic condition in which the human body uses fat for energy in place of carbs.
It happens when the human body specifically decreases their consumption of carbohydrates, limiting their body’s supply of glucose (sugar), which is the primary source of energy for the cells.
Abiding by a ketogenic diet is the most efficient way to enter ketosis. Mainly, this has a limited carb intake to nearly 20 to 50 grams every day and fills up on fats, like meat, eggs, fish, nuts, and healthy oils. These are the only keto diet foods.
It’s also essential to moderate your protein intake. This is the case as protein can be changed into glucose if taken in high amounts, which may slow the transition into ketosis. Practicing another form of diet like intermittent fasting could also help the human body to enter ketosis quicker. There are many varied forms of intermittent fasting, but the most common technique involves limiting the intake of food to nearly 8 hours every day and fasting for the remaining 16 hours.
Blood, breath, and urine tests are accessible, which can help to evaluate whether you have entered ketosis by calculating the number of ketones generated by your body. There are certain symptoms that may also imply that a human body has entered ketosis, which includes dry mouth, increased thirst, decreased hunger or appetite, and frequent urination.
Keto Diet In Weight Loss
A keto diet is an efficient technique to lose weight and decrease the risk factors for disease. In fact, studies show that this diet may be as useful for weight loss as for a low fat diet. This diet is so complete in itself that anyone can lose weight without measuring calories or tracking their intake of food.
One review of 13 researchers found that abiding by a very low carb, the keto diet was a bit more effective for prolonged weight loss compared to a low fat diet. People who did the keto diet lost an approx of 2 pounds (0.9 kg) more than the group of people that did a low fat diet. This diet also led to a decrease in triglyceride levels and diastolic blood pressure.
Another research in 34 older adults reported that those who performed a ketogenic diet for 8 weeks lost approximately five times as much their total body fat as those who did a low fat diet. The raised ketones decreased blood sugar levels, and enhanced insulin sensitivity may also have a key role in this.
Other Health Benefits Of Ketogenic Diet
The ketogenic diet mainly began as a tool for the treatment of neurological diseases like epilepsy. Studies have now proved that this particular diet can have benefits for a large variety of various health conditions:
- Heart Disease: The ketogenic diet is effective in improving risk factors like HDL (good) cholesterol levels, body fat, blood pressure, and blood sugar.
- Cancer: This diet is presently being explored as an added treatment for cancer, as it may help slow down the growth of tumors.
- Alzheimer’s disease: The keto diet may also help in the reduction of symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and also slow its progression.
- Epilepsy: Studies have shown that the ketogenic diet can be helpful in significantly decreasing seizures in epileptic children.
- Parkinson’s disease: Even though more studies are required, one study concluded that the diet helped in improving symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
- Polycystic ovary syndrome: This diet can also help in the reduction of insulin levels, which may have a crucial role in polycystic ovary syndrome.
The Bottom Line
The keto diet is a high fat, low carb diet. It decreases the blood sugar and insulin levels and alters the metabolism of the body away from carbs and toward fat and ketones. It has many health benefits as it helps in curing heart diseases, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and many other diseases which we have discussed in this article. You will get many free keto diet plans on the internet which you can abide by for your diet.
