In recent years keto or ketogenic diet is one of the most famous high fat and low carb eating pattern. It is renowned due to its unlimited benefits, especially weight loss. This diet proves to be helpful for absolute people in achieving their weight loss goals.
This article will help you understand how the keto diet is helpful for health benefits, weight loss, and many more you need to know about it. So let start this article with the basic yet essential information.
Does the keto diet work for everyone?
If you are the one who keeps up with the latest health trends, then you must have heard about the keto diet. You have primarily heard about it through doctor’s magazines, Twitter, or Instagram feed of your favorite celebrity or health and fitness website because this diet is everywhere for the past two years.
This diet is undoubtedly the best diet plan to lose weight by enjoying countless other benefits as well. But the question that arises here is that whether it works for everyone or not? Then remember, if you are following this diet properly, then, fortunately, there are maximum chances that it will work for you.
If you think of giving a try to this diet, then here is everything you need to know about it.
What is the keto diet?
For the treatment of epilepsy, the keto diet was developed in 1920. The Keto diet helps to put your body on ketosis that is a process of burning fat cells for energy.
Does the keto diet work?
According to the research, low-carb and high fat in a diet can result in weight loss. People lose weight with the keto diet, but the question arises can you properly follow it.
In the keto diet case and other diets, it is essential to maintain a healthy lifestyle and follow the diet plan properly for the best results.
Who should try a keto diet?
As discussed earlier, it surely helps good health and weight loss, but it is not for everyone. So then, who is the best candidate for the keto diet? For people suffering from seizures, the keto diet is undoubtedly the best option.
This diet is also helpful for the person who is looking for help in:
- Resetting or improving their insulin sensitivity
- Losing bodyweight and fat with the help of a sedentary lifestyle
- Improving health biomarkers like blood pressure
Who shouldn’t try a keto diet?
Some people should avoid the keto diet or consult their doctors for proper guidelines.
- Like any other restrictive diet, children, breastfeeding women, and pregnant ladies should avoid this diet.
- Elite athletes
- The person has a disorder eating pattern.
- The diabetic patient diagnosed with fat metabolism disorder or diabetic ketoacidosis should consult their physician first.
Ketogenic diet and diabetes
Diabetic patients are often good candidates for the ketogenic diet because the keto diet improves insulin sensitivity. But it doesn’t mean it is suitable for every diabetic patient. But diabetic patients with diabetic ketoacidosis or any other fat metabolism should avoid this or maybe consult their doctor for details.
Can it promote water weight loss?
Keto diet also helps to lose water weight loss by the proper reduction in your water weight. The other reason is the presence of water in the stored form of carbohydrates in your body. Therefore when you reduce your carbohydrate intake, then the carbs with additional fluids releases that result in weight loss.
Calorie balance
To understand whether the keto diet can be a beneficial option for your weight loss. First, you have to know how weight loss is usually achieved. To reduce weight, firstly, you have to take fewer calories than you burn daily, which is a calorie deficit.
Keto diet weight loss effects are more likely to reduce calories intake due to satiety signals related to low-car and high-fat diets.
Keto supplements
Since the keto diet is all over due to its benefits and popularity, several supplements appear in the market for keto dieters, and some of them are helpful.
Here is a small list of beneficial keto supplements along with their functions:
KETO Complete Advanced Energy Ketones
KETO Complete Advanced Energy Ketones will put your body in ketosis
Become healthy, slim, and confident with our Keti complete advanced energy ketones. Keto complete is ideal for both men and women as it’s a dynamic, potent ketosis dietary supplement that helps in weight loss, improves sleep and digestion, and promotes abdominal fat burning.
- Burn fat for energy
- Weight loss
- Get into ketosis completely
- Maintain the lean muscle mass
- Improves mental health
- Burn fat in the problematic area
- Fast recovery after a workout
- Maintains your lean Muscle mass
Keto electrolytes
Generally, there is a depletion of electrolytes at the start of a keto diet due to loss in water weight. These supplements help prevent electrolytes deficiency like magnesium, potassium, and sodium.
Exogenous ketones
Exogenous ketones are the opposite of endogenous ketones and are provided to the body through a source outside the body. These ketones help increase the levels of blood ketones and also help to achieve ketosis more rapidly.
MCT Oil
This oil helps keto dieters to stay in ketosis by adding more fats to their diets. If you compare it with other traditional fats, it is easily digestible.
Keto protein powders
This protein powder is suitable with a keto diet due to its low carb content.
Digestive enzymes
At the start of the keto diet, some people may experience digestive issues due to the high-fat content in the keto diet. In this case, digestive enzyme supplements, especially lipase, are beneficial for the breakdown of fat.
In the keto diet, keto supplements are not essential, but they are beneficial for the dieters and increase their chances of accepting the diet. MCT oil and exogenous ketones help avoid the side effects of diet and get you into ketosis early. But it is not recommended to use them as weight-loss supplements as they can reduce your appetite.
Other things that can affect your weight loss
When you are following a ketogenic diet, there are some other things that you should consider to continue your progress.
Exact carb intake
By following a keto diet, you can keep track of the number of carbohydrates you are taking. It will not only help you to enter your ketosis quickly but will also avoid the symptoms associate with keto flu. The keto flu’s symptoms include brain fog, headache, and others when starting a keto diet.
If you are not following your diet correctly and taking too many carbs, you can lose the diet’s potential benefits. Most people having less than 50 grams of carbs per day is enough to stimulate ketosis.
Are you getting proper sleep?
In the case of any diet, we rarely consider the importance of proper sleep. But the fact is your stress, and improper sleep can have an adverse result on your weight loss results. This rule is the same when you are following the keto diet.
According to studies, your insufficient sleep can hurt your hunger hormones, such as leptin and ghrelin. In this case, your appetite will increase, and the hunger-reducing effect of your keto diet will reduce automatically.
To improve the keto diet results, ensure that you are getting proper sleep of at least 7 hours per night.
Physical activity
A Keto diet is helpful for weight loss, and adopting a proper exercise routine will help you enhance its results. It’s because when you exercise, your body will use your fat as a primary fuel for exercise. It is even more beneficial in the case of endurance-based support.
To avoid any side effects, ensure that you are fully adjusted to the keto diet before moving towards intense exercises. When you are talking about weight loss through any diet, many other things need your time, like sleep, training, and more.
Sustainability of the diet
One of the essential things in the keto diet is its long-term sustainability, especially for weight loss. However, the keto diet is quite restrictive, due to which it becomes difficult for some people to adhere to it for a long time.
When you are dining with your friends and family, especially on holidays, it becomes difficult to control yourself from these delicious foods. And according to studies, this diet can show side effects if you followed it for a very long time.
If you are willing to start a keto diet, then prepare yourself mentally for it because you have to follow it properly for a long time, even at gatherings.
What to eat on keto?
In the keto diet, you have to eat high in fat and low in carbohydrates. In the keto diet, you don’t just have to avoid bread, pasta, and other junk foods, but some vegetables and fruits contain carbohydrates.
Here is a list of some popular keto-friendly foods.
- Meat and poultry
- Avocados
- Low-carb vegetables like spinach, cauliflower, and mushrooms
- Eggs
- Nut butter
- Nuts, seeds, and monounsaturated oils
- Dairy products like cheese, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and whipping cream
- Bacon, jerky, and sausage
Due to the popularity of the keto diet, there are several recipes according to the diet specification. But remember to take complete information and lots of preparation and planning.
Benefits of ketogenic diet
The eating plan focuses on healthy food containing healthy fats, sufficient proteins, and few carbohydrates. The goal of the keto diet is basically to get more calories from healthy fat rather than carbohydrates.
This diet works by depleting your body’s sugar reserves, which will break down your body fat for energy. In addition, there is the production of ketones that your body will use as its energy source in its results. The burning of body fat will lead you to your weight loss goal.
Here is a small list of the benefits of the ketogenic diet
1. Supports weight loss
ketogenic diet supports your weight loss mission in different ways, either by reducing your appetite or supporting your metabolism. This diet will reduce the hunger-stimulating hormone and may fill you up. That’s the apparent secret behind the keto diet working for weight loss.
According to research, the person who follows the ketogenic diet loses more weight than following another diet.
2. Improves acne
There are several different causes of acne and a link to blood sugar and diet in some people. For example, having a diet with highly refined and processed carbohydrates can result in disabling gut bacteria. Because of this situation, the rise and fall of blood sugar can affect your skin health.
3. Reduce the risk of certain cancers
Studies have shown positive results in the prevention and treatment of certain cancers. In some people with certain cancers, the keto diet is a suitable and safe option for radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Because it will make only cancers cells die by causing oxidative stress on them.
4. May improve heart health
It is essential to choose healthy foods if you are following a ketogenic diet. Studies show that Instead of less healthy fats like pork rinds, if you choose healthy fats like avocados, then by reducing cholesterol, you can improve your heart health.
According to studies, a person on a keto diet has a relatively low level of total cholesterol compared to others. During the keto diet, there is a decrease in low-density lipoproteins, triglycerides, and bad cholesterol, whereas good cholesterol increases.
The cardiovascular disease risk increases with the high cholesterol level in the body. Therefore, the reducing effect of the keto diet on cholesterol decreases the risk of heart complications. However, the positive impact of the keto diet on your heart depends upon your diet quality as well. Therefore if you are following the keto diet, try to eat nutritionally balanced and healthy food.
5.May protect brain function
The ketones produce during your keto diet provide neuroprotective benefits that mean they protect and strengthen your nerve cells and brain. Because of this role, a keto diet can prove to be beneficial in managing and preventing Alzheimer’s disease and other conditions.
6. Potentially reduces seizures
In a keto diet, the ratio of protein, fat, and carbohydrate results in ketosis by altering how the body uses energy. Ketosis is a metabolic state in which your body uses ketone bodies produced for power.
The people who have other epilepsy but are not responding to other treatments, the keto diet proves to be helpful.
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7. Improves PCOS symptoms
PCOS or Polycystic ovary syndrome is a hormonal disorder that can result in polycystic ovaries, ovulatory dysfunction, and the production of excess male hormones. The ketogenic diet is helpful in this condition because a high carbohydrate diet can be harmful to people with PCOS, overweight, and skin problems.
According to the studies, the ketogenic diet helps improve several symptoms of PCOS like
- weight loss
- levels of fasting insulin
- ratios of luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH)
- hormone balance
Risks and complications of the ketogenic diet
The keto diet has undoubtedly countless benefits for health, weight loss, and many other. But staying on it for a long time can harm your health. If you continue it for a very long time, then it can result in problems like:
- kidney stones
- excess protein in your blood
- vitamin and mineral deficiencies
- a buildup of fat in your liver
The keto diets have some adverse side effect that you may know it as keto flu. The keto flu includes:
- Fatigue
- headaches
- constipation
- vomiting
- low blood sugar
- nausea
- low tolerance for exercise
These symptoms are most common at the start of the diet as your body is adapting to a new energy source. For some people, it is better to avoid a ketogenic diet, and they include
- People with pancreatic and kidney diseases
- Women during breastfeeding and kidney
- People having eating disorders
- In some cases, diabetic and insulin-dependent patient
People using medications like (SGLT2) sodium-glucose cotransporter, two inhibitors for their type 2 diabetes, should avoid the keto diet. Because this medicine will increase your risk for diabetic ketoacidosis, that is a condition in which the acidity of your blood rises, and it can prove to be dangerous.
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If you want to adopt a diet plan to manage a disease or any health problem, it is better to discuss it with your doctor. To ensure that the keto diet would be a safe option for you, they will check whether you have heart disease, hypoglycemia, diabetes, or other severe health conditions.
In a keto diet, you have a restriction and limitation towards carbohydrates though some carbohydrates provide health benefits. In this case, you should prefer a diet that includes various fibrous carbs, nutrients dense, vegetables, and fruits as they are the source of healthful fats and nutritious protein sources.
Please share with your friends and family, as the Keto diet may prove to be a turning point in their life.
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