The Benefits of Keto and How to Do It Right
Ketogenic diets, otherwise shortened to “Keto” is a very popular diet that seems to be on everyones radar lately. This is probably due to it’s well-known ability to burn fat, allowing people to seemingly fast-track their weight loss journey.
You may still have questions though, such as what is actually involved? What are the benefits and is it right for me? In this article, we will uncover these questions so you can determine if this diet is going to be right for you.
What Is The Ketogenic Diet?
The ketogenic diet involves drastically limited our dietary carbohydrate intake, which is often as little as 15 grams. This essentially means that many breads, beverages, fruits, starchy vegetables, nuts and seeds are often excluded from this sort of diet.
When we restrict this sort of intake of carbohydrates, our body is basically forced to switch it’s primary fuel source from glucose, to burning our own body fat, which creates an alternative fuel source known as ketones. There are many supplements that promote an accelerated activation of this fuel-switching stage, Ketao Keto Activate is one we recommend.
What Are The Benefits of Keto
One primary benefit of ketogenic diets is that it drastically accelerates fat loss, and over time, teaches our body to become more efficient fat burning machines.
Gradually, as we begin to do this diet across a longer duration, we begin to see improvements in other physiological areas of our body. Often, individuals who implement a ketogenic diet begin to see additional improvements in as little as 3 weeks. Improvements include cognitive function (Vinciguerra et al., 2020), cardiovascular function (Nasser et al., 2020) better blood sugar control and a decrease in inflammatory markers (Gershuni, Yan, & Medici, 2018).
This essentially means that the ketogenic diet has the potential to make us feel better, think better and and overall, function better, assuming we’re doing it right.
How Do We Do The Ketogenic Diet Right?
When we first look into doing the ketogenic diet, you may come across the range of symptoms that could follow in the early stages, often known as the “keto flu”. These range from irritability, headaches, slight brain fog, and sometimes a bit of digestive issues. This is just our body adjusting to our now sudden drop in carbs, which means our body has to adjust to the lower insulin levels, and attempting to re-balance out our electrolyte levels.
When we go ketogenic, we retain less water due to a reduction in insulin, which often influences our water retention ability. When we retain less water, we have a greater loss of key electrolytes including magnesium, potassium, calcium and sodium. This means, staying hydrated and keeping our electrolyte levels topped up is important.
This also means that going ketogenic isn’t an excuse to eat copious amounts of bacon, coconut oil, butter, and more bacon, this will only dehydrate you faster, leaving you feeling worse on a ketogenic diet. Consuming non-starchy vegetables and leafy greens on a keto diet becomes more important, while also ensuring again, we’re staying hydrated. Adding a good quality salt into our meals is also a good idea, the most affordable way is having a good Celtic salt in your pantry.
Alternatively, a good magnesium complex can help, including Fusion’s Magnesium Advanced.
The Takeaway Message
Ketogenic diets are definitely a great tool in accelerating our weight loss journey, and can make us think clearer, and feel better. On the other hand, we also must ensure we’re eating a variety of mineral rich vegetables, and ensuring we’re staying hydrated.
About The Author: Stephen Brumwell
As a Nutritionist, Biohacking enthusiast, self-experimenter, research fanatic, and self-taught writer, Stephen immerses himself deep into the literature of human optimisation and holistic wellbeing. His goal is to help people better understand the science of human health, and how they can use it to perform better and live a life that is absolutely limitless.
References
- Gershuni, V. M., Yan, S. L., & Medici, V. (2018). Nutritional ketosis for weight management and reversal of metabolic syndrome. Current Nutrition Reports, 7(3), 97-106. doi:10.1007/s13668-018-0235-0
- Nasser, S., Vialichka, V., Biesiekierska, M., Balcerczyk, A., & Pirola, L. (2020). Effects of ketogenic diet and ketone bodies on the cardiovascular system: Concentration matters. World Journal of Diabetes, 11(12), 584-595. doi:10.4239/wjd.v11.i12.584
- Vinciguerra, F., Graziano, M., Hagnäs, M., Frittitta, L., & Tumminia, A. (2020). Influence of the Mediterranean and ketogenic diets on cognitive status and decline: A narrative review. Nutrients, 12(4), 1019. doi:10.3390/nu12041019
