Why You Should Consider Following A Ketogenic Diet For Weight Loss.

Ketogenic diet has gained popularity in recent years and for the right reasons being an excellent way to reduce weight.

What is a ketogenic diet?

Basically a ketogenic diet is an extremely low-carb, high-fat diet with an “adequate” amount of protein.

Our bodies normally burn carbohydrates for energy. When we eat fewer amounts of carbs, our body starts breaking down stored fat and puts our body into a metabolic state called ketosis. When this happens, our body becomes incredibly efficient at burning fat for energy.

And what happens is; the liver starts producing ketones from fats. These ketones serve as a fuel source throughout the body, especially for the brain.

And now as our body’s metabolism shifts away from carbs towards fat and ketones, this lowers our blood sugar and insulin levels. And so it becomes much easier to access the fats stored in our body to burn them off.

And Ketosis is a normal physiological process. There’s nothing dangerous about it.

Why Ketogenic diet?

The reason is it has a lot of health benefits, especially with metabolic, neurological or insulin-related diseases.

So let’s talk about few benefits:

The whole aim of this kind of diet is to burn fats for energy so it’s excellent for body fat burning and the best part is even when you’re dieting to burn those fats in your body, you get to eat a lot of tasty food and you don’t even have to worry about being hungry.

And the next one is Improves heart health: It Increases Levels of ‘Good’ HDL (High-density lipoprotein) Cholesterol and simultaneously reduces bad cholesterol.

It Reduced Blood Sugar and Insulin Levels: This type of diet is helpful for people with diabetes and insulin resistance as you eat from little to no intake of refined carbs.

It gives you Steady Energy Levels: As your body adapts to a ketogenic diet and starts burning the fats in your body; this means that you have a more reliable energy source and this gives you steady

Ketones are a great source of fuel for the brain. It is known to improve alertness and cognitive functioning.

Improves health in women with PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome): A high-carbohydrate diet can negatively affect those with PCOS.

Lower Blood Pressure: Low-carb diets are an effective way to lower blood pressure, which should reduce your risk of many common diseases.

Acne: Lower insulin levels and eating less sugar or processed foods may help improve acne.

How to do it?

There are few ways you can follow this diet:

1. Standard ketogenic diet (SKD): Here you eat a very low-carb, moderate-protein and high-fat diet. Typically about 75% fat, 20% protein and only 5% carbs.

2. Cyclical ketogenic diet (CKD): Here you can eat a high carb diet for say 2 days in a week and follow ketogenic for the other 5 days.

3. Targeted ketogenic diet (TKD): In this one you are allowed to eat high carb food around workout, which means when you do something like HIIT you can have some high carb food.

4. High-protein ketogenic diet: This one is similar to a standard ketogenic diet, but includes more protein. The ratio is often 60% fat, 35% protein and 5% carbs.              

But the most effective and common for fat loss is the Standard ketogenic diet (SKD) and you can follow this diet for as long as you want.

What to eat and what not to eat?

Do Not Eat:

Avoid any foods that are high in carbohydrates, that would be;

Your Grains like– wheat, corn, rice, cereal, etc.

Sugary foods like – honey, agave, maple syrup, etc.

And some fruits like – apples, bananas, oranges, etc.

Tubers – potato, yams, etc.

Do Eat:

Meats: (This will give you the protein you need) – fish, beef, lamb, poultry, eggs, etc.

Leafy Greens – spinach, kale, etc.

Above ground vegetables – broccoli, cauliflower, etc.

High Fat Dairy – hard cheeses, high fat cream, butter, etc.

Nuts and seeds – macadamias, walnuts, sunflower seeds, etc.

Avocado and berries – raspberries, blackberries, and other low glycemic impact berries

Sweeteners – stevia, erythritol, monk fruit, and other low-carb sweeteners

Other fats –MCT oil, coconut oil, high-fat salad dressing, saturated fats, etc.

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