Everything You Need To Know About The Keto Diet
POSTED ON February 7, 2017 BY Drew Canole A ketogenic diet is a low carb, high fat diet. One of its main goals is to train your body to get its energy from a whole different source ketones, rather than glucose. When you eat carbs , your body naturally converts them into glucose and insulin. Glucose is the easiest molecule for your body to convert into energy and is your bodys immediate go-to for fuel. Insulin is what carries the glucose all through your bloodstream and gets the converted energy to where it needs to go. Because of this process, the fats you eat dont often get used and end up getting stored away. They are considered as more of a backup for your body and because of the high amount of carbs the majority of people consume, fats rarely get touched. The ketogenic diet (AKA keto diet) breaks this cycle. Through the dramatic drop in carbs, your body starts to go into a state known as ketosis. This is what happens when the amount of healthy fats you eat greatly outnumber the amount of carbohydrates you eat. When you start doing this, your body has no choice but to resort to this ketosis state. The fats you eat will start getting converted into ketones through your liver and those ketones will become your bodys main source of energy. This is a whole different way to get your body into a metabolic state . Rather than starving it of calories, you are starving it of carbs, training your whole system to make ketones as your bodys main source of energy. Standard Ketogenic Diet (SKD) This is the typical form of the diet. It is very low carb and moderate protein. 75% fats, 20% protein and 5% carbs. Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (CKD) This is a more advanced form of the diet, typically used by athletes. It involves high carb days. For example, 5 keto days will be followed by 2 Continue reading >>
15 Common Mistakes People Make When Trying To Lose Weight
INDYLIFE 15 common mistakes people make when trying to lose weight Losing weight can seem very tough. Sometimes you feel like you’re doing everything right, yet still not getting results. You may actually be hindering your progress by following misguided or outdated advice. Here are 15 common mistakes people make when trying to lose weight. 1. Only focusing on the scale weight It’s very common to feel like you’re not losing weight fast enough, despite faithfully sticking to your diet. However, the number on the scale is only one measure of weight change. Weight is influenced by several things, including fluid fluctuations and how much food remains in your system. In fact, weight can fluctuate by up to 4 lbs (1.8 kg) over the course of a day, depending on how much food and liquid you’ve consumed. Also, increased estrogen levels and other hormonal changes in women can lead to greater water retention, which is reflected in scale weight (1). If the number on the scale isn’t moving, you may very well be losing fat mass but holding on to water. Fortunately, you can do several things to lose water weight. If you’ve been working out, you may be gaining muscle and losing fat. When this happens, your clothes may start to feel looser — especially around the waist — despite a stable scale weight. Measuring your waist with a tape measure and taking monthly pictures of yourself can reveal you’re actually losing fat, even if the scale number doesn’t change much. Bottom Line: Many factors can affect scale weight, including fluid fluctuations, muscle mass gain and the weight of undigested food. You may be losing body fat even if the scale reading doesn’t change much. 2. Eating too many or too few calories A calorie deficit is required for weight loss. This means yo Continue reading >>
Top 10 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight
These are the top 10 reasons you’re not losing weight on a low carb diet. A great FREE printable for the fridge and an easy reminder to stay on track. Just click on the image below to save the PDF for printing. UPDATE – watch the quick video below. No compatible source was found for this media. Top 10 Reasons You’re Not Losing Weight Eating LCHF Too Many Carbohydrates – are carbs starting to sneak back into your diet? Be honest and start tracking everything using KetoDietApp. A little treat here and there adds up. Some are more carb sensitive (or insulin resistant) than others. I know that my carbs have to be around 50g/day to be feeling great and in control of my appetite. Lower than that and I will lose a little bit of weight, above that and I know my weight loss will stall. I generally go between 35-70g/day without too much tracking because I have done it for so long. Too Much Fruit – yes I use berries on my breakfast and desserts, but that is it. I allow my children to eat fruit (without gorging) as they are fit, healthy and in the normal weight range. For me, the sugar and fructose in fruit is too much. Sure, enjoy it as a treat and eat only low carb nutritent dense berries. See fruit as an occasional sweet treat. Packed with fibre, antioxidants, nutrients……… “If you are overweight, fruit is not your friend” Too much Dairy – my biggest downfall is milk. I love my lattes and flat whites. Now milk is great, full of protein and calcium, but it also contains about 5% carbs. A latte can range from 9g to 15g carbs depending on the size you choose. Most dairy such as milk, cream and yoghurt contains approximately 4- 5% but you are more likely to drink a large glass of milk, eat a bowl of yoghurt or drink a large latte than eat 250g of full fat cheese Continue reading >>
Blog: My Six Week Ketogenic Diet Experiment
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Catalyst. This blog is not meant in any way as medical advice. Please consult a medical profession before commencing any new eating regime. What would you say if I told you there’s a diet where you can eat all the food you normally deny yourself, stop counting tedious calories, shift some weight, gain extra muscle and get an energy boost too? If you’re anything like me you’d be asking ‘where do I sign up?’! So when I heard about the ketogenic diet from a colleague I was immediately intrigued. This simply sounded too good to be true. Could I really eat fat and get lean? Enjoy peanut butter treats and squeeze into my skinny jeans? Never one to shy away from a challenge, I decided to see for myself, and so my six week experiment with the ketogenic diet began….. So what actually is a ketogenic, or ‘keto’, eating plan? In its most simple form, this is an extremely low-carb, high-fat diet. By lowering your carb intake your body is pushed into a metabolic state known as ketosis (key –tow –sis), where your body switches from burning carbs as its primary energy source to burning fat. To be more precise, it uses ketone bodies or ketones from the breakdown of fatty acids in the liver. Hence the name, ketosis. Now fatty fuel can come from a meal you’ve just eaten or from the stores of fat on your body (aka, the evil muffin top). While it may sound a little questionable, ketosis is actually an entirely natural metabolic process that the body initiates to help us survive when our food intake is low. Typically our body runs on glucose derived from the breakdown of carbs – this is because glucose is the easiest molecule for the body to convert and use as energy, so it will b Continue reading >>
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Can Eating Mostly Fat Help You Lose Weight?
Every January, fat's in the crosshairs of health columnists, fitness magazines, and desperate Americans. This year, PopSci looks at the macronutrient beyond its most negative associations. What’s fat good for? How do we get it to go where we want it to? Where does it wander when it’s lost? This, my friends, is Fat Month. The ketogenic diet didn’t start as a weight-loss method. It was a treatment for epileptic kids—one of the few that worked, especially for those who had already tried traditional medications. But odds are the only people you’ll hear talking about it today are those looking to drop a few pounds without giving up butter. Keto, as it’s known among dieters, is based around getting most of your calories from fat, some from protein, and almost none from carbohydrates. It’s like a more extreme form of Atkins, except keto actually came first. It became an epilepsy treatment back in the 1920s, whereas the weight-loss paper that inspired Dr. Atkins to establish his low-carb diet wasn’t published until 1958. The idea of eating fat in order to lose fat is obviously appealing. Oils and fats are filling and soothing, so prospective dieters feel they might not have to sacrifice as much. And everyone knows that carbs are the devil anyway, right? If it started as a medically-prescribed diet, surely it must be healthy. But like your opinion on most fad diets, your thoughts on keto are probably based on vague notions sourced from the nightly news. Food trends tend to skyrocket to fame and fall from grace before science ever has a chance to weigh in. But you should want to see solid research before you commit to a whole new way of eating. In honor of PopSci’s Fat Month, let’s do a quick refresher on what keto really is—and whether it works. What is the Continue reading >>
Everything You Should Know About The Ketogenic Diet
Recently I had a client tell me that she and her husband were eating more than 2 pounds of bacon a week—usually three strips for breakfast and one or two with a salad for dinner. I’ve been a dietitian for almost 20 years. Few things surprise me. But I had to ask: “Why?” She told me that her husband had heard about a new diet on TV, the keto diet, and they decided to try it. Six months and countless packages of bacon later, her husband had lost 20 pounds and said he felt more energetic. I’m beginning to hear more and more people lecture me about the benefits of the ketogenic diet. “Keto burns fat fast! It turbo-charges your energy! It fights disease! You can eat all the bacon you want!” But as is so often the case with diets, underneath all the initial excitement, there’s a gut check. Here’s everything you should know about the ketogenic diet and whether or not you should try it for yourself. Ketogenesis has existed as long as humans have. If you eat a very low amount of carbohydrates, you starve your brain of glucose, its main fuel source. Your body still needs fuel to function, so your brain signals it to tap its reserve of ketones. It’s like a hybrid car that runs out of gas and reverts to pure electricity. Okay, but what are ketones? They’re compounds created by your liver from your fat stores when blood insulin is low. “Your liver produces ketones all the time, but the rate depends on carbohydrate and protein intake,” says Jeff Volek, Ph.D., R.D., a professor of human sciences at Ohio State University. Eat a normal amount of carbs and protein, and ketogenesis idles. Cut carbs and protein back, and you push to half throttle. This takes about three days to induce. A ketogenic diet requires that fat comprise 60 to 80 percent of your total calo Continue reading >>
How To Track Progress On A Ketogenic Diet? 5 Ways For Keto Success
2. Take measurements, forget the old scale When it comes to progress in a ketogenic diet, the best and most effective way that Im always recommending my clients is to forget the classic bathroom scale and measure their bodies monthly. Not seeing results on the scale means you may be losing inches and fat, not pounds. A lower body fat percentage means you will be less at risk of developing health issues like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and many others. Measure your body at the beginning of the month and then at the end and compare the numbers to see how much progress you have actually made. The key body part s to measure are waist, hips, thighs, calves, bust. A body fat analyzer is a sophisticated tool created to measure some metrics related to health and fitness. This modern scale keeps track of your progress in an app that comes with the product. I ordered a body fat analyzer from Amazon this summer out of curiosity. I have this one from RENPHO. The app tracks: I love the fact that it can keep a history and makes charts based on your data. It can be also used by different members of the family. The price very reasonable for such a high-quality item. I recommend you get one of these scales because for me its a good motivator. It has many other functions and the free app syncs with APPLE HEALTH, GOOGLE FIT and FITBIT APP. These types of scales function us a technology called bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) to measure body fat. A very low electrical current is sent to your body. The electrical current runs quickly through water and muscle than bone or fat, the scale measures the speed of the current. After this based on that number, the scale estimates body fat using a multi-step, mathematical formula. If your clothes get loose but you cant see a Continue reading >>
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Why Am I Not In Ketosis Yet?
[Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. If you buy something after using one of those links, I might receive a small financial compensation, at no cost to you.] If you're having trouble getting into ketosis, one of the following 12 stumbling blocks might be standing in your way. Ketosis occurs when your glucose supply runs out, but sometimes the body can fight back pretty hard. In addition, all of those little cheats, low-carb products, daily stress, and even your current weight all affect your body's ability to burn fat for fuel. Are you ready to discover what's standing in your way? If so, this post will show you. I definitely know how you feel. Some people have lots of difficulties getting into ketosis, but don't let that fact overwhelm you and convince you to turn back. Just because you don't seem to be making any progress and other people are losing a ton of weight on Induction, that doesn't mean that a low-carb diet is the wrong choice for you. There's still hope even if nothing you've tried so far has worked, and even if you can't seem to get into ketosis no matter what you do. If your clothes are still tight, the scale isn't budging, and your Ketostix are either still tan or barely pink, all is not lost. Okay? There's always a reason why you're craving those chocolate chip cookies the kids are eating. There's a reason why you're having a hard time at work and still feel exhausted all the time. You just gotta find the barrier to ketosis and banish it from your life. Yes, I know that's more difficult than it sounds, so if you're like most people, you're probably wondering: What am I doing wrong? Why am I not in ketosis yet? Here's the fact: Ketosis occurs when the body has exhausted all potential sources of glucose. For most people, that happens in on Continue reading >>
A Comprehensive Beginner's Guide
What is a Keto Diet? A keto diet is well known for being a low carb diet, where the body produces ketones in the liver to be used as energy. It’s referred to as many different names – ketogenic diet, low carb diet, low carb high fat (LCHF), etc. When you eat something high in carbs, your body will produce glucose and insulin. Glucose is the easiest molecule for your body to convert and use as energy so that it will be chosen over any other energy source. Insulin is produced to process the glucose in your bloodstream by taking it around the body. Since the glucose is being used as a primary energy, your fats are not needed and are therefore stored. Typically on a normal, higher carbohydrate diet, the body will use glucose as the main form of energy. By lowering the intake of carbs, the body is induced into a state known as ketosis. Ketosis is a natural process the body initiates to help us survive when food intake is low. During this state, we produce ketones, which are produced from the breakdown of fats in the liver. The end goal of a properly maintained keto diet is to force your body into this metabolic state. We don’t do this through starvation of calories but starvation of carbohydrates. Our bodies are incredibly adaptive to what you put into it – when you overload it with fats and take away carbohydrates, it will begin to burn ketones as the primary energy source. Optimal ketone levels offer many health, weight loss, physical and mental performance benefits. Make keto simple and easy by checking out our 30 Day Meal Plan. Get meal plans, shopping lists, and much more with our Keto Academy Program. Looking for Something Specific? There are numerous benefits that come with being on keto: from weight loss and increased energy levels to therapeutic medical appl Continue reading >>
Is There A Dark Side Of Ketosis?
I can’t remember what appetizer she pointed to, but the woman sitting to the left of me said this so casually, and several folks at the table knew exactly what she meant, confirming what I’d long suspected: Ketogenic diets have officially gone mainstream – or recognizable at a party mainstream at least – in 2017. Let’s back up and demystify ketosis, which simply means you’re utilizing ketone bodies – more commonly called ketones – rather than glucose as your body’s primary fuel. Just like your car uses gasoline, your body needs fuel. That usually means glucose. But let’s say you’re on a very-low carbohydrate, higher-fat diet. Your body doesn’t get a lot of glucose, which primarily comes from carbohydrate and to a lesser degree protein. That means your liver’s backup glucose (glycogen) also becomes in short supply. Unlike your car, your body doesn’t just shut down. Thankfully, you have an alternative fuel source called ketones. Ketones are organic compounds your liver always makes. You’re cranking out ketones right now as you read this. During starvation or (more likely) when you restrict carbohydrate and increase fat intake, your body uses ketones as its primary fuel. In other words, when your body doesn’t receive or can’t make enough glucose, it shifts to this alternative fuel. Almost every organ can utilize ketones except for your red blood cells (which don’t have ketone-metabolizing mitochondria) and liver. Your liver, in fact, does the heavy lifting. This hardworking organ metabolizes fat into three ketone bodies: acetoacetate (ACA), beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), and acetone.(1) BHB is the first substrate that kicks ketosis into action. Among its benefits, BHB reduces chronic inflammation and restores healthy inflammation levels. In Continue reading >>
Should Endurance Athletes Go Keto? Ketosis And Ketogenic Diets For Endurance Athletes
When it comes to weight loss and endurance performance, dietary ketosis is the strategy everyone is asking about this year. On the surface, ketosis or a ketogenic diet offers everything an endurance athlete could dream of: endless energy, freedom from bonking, and an efficient pathway to weight loss. The diet has been all over mainstream magazines, it’s the subject of several new books, and the supplement companies have already jumped in with new products and a ton of marketing dollars. So, is it time for cyclists, triathletes, and runners to go Keto? First, a refresher course on what a ketogenic diet is. To achieve dietary or nutritional ketosis you need to severely restrict carbohydrate intake (fewer than 50 grams of CHO/day) so the body transitions to using ketones for fueling muscles and the brain. Ketones are produced from fat, which is why nutritional ketosis is so appealing to sedentary people as a weight loss solution. It’s appealing to athletes because we have a virtually unlimited reserve of fat calories to pull from but can only store 1600-2000 calories worth of carbohydrate in muscles, blood, and the liver. An athlete fueled by ketones would be theoretically “bonk-proof”, since bonking is the result of running low on blood glucose. [blog_promo promo_categories=”coaching” ids=”” /] Dietary ketosis for athletes is one of the most hotly contested subjects right now. Proponents point to the metabolic advantage of relying on fat instead of carbohydrate, and critics point out the physiological limitations of eliminating carbohydrate as a fuel for performance. You’ll find bias in both groups, either because scientists and coaches (including me) have been in the high-carbohydrate camp for many years, or because there’s a lot of money to be made b Continue reading >>
How I Fixed The Biggest Ketosis Mistakes
The ketogenic diet isn’t always as easy as it seems. I tried for a long time, but not until I dove deep into the research and found out how to fix all of the common mistakes was I able to enjoy the full state of ketosis. This article is to help you avoid those same mistakes. Why Try the Ketogenic Diet First, why would you want to even try ketosis? I truly enjoy trying diets and eating methodologies to research what I like and what works for me. I’ve experimented with low-carb diets, high-carb diets, and everything in between, but I’ve never cut them out to the point to achieve ketosis. What’s most exciting about the ketogenic diet to me is that, yes, it’s amazing for weight loss, but it’s not just a “diet.” Ketosis is literally a state of metabolism. You are either in or you’re out. I wanted to see and feel for myself the benefits everyone is talking about from going full Keto. My Keto Coach has a great line that goes like this: I was sold and needed to try this and commit. If you are new to researching ketosis, a quick review of the popular benefits: Mental Clarity [2] Fat Loss [2][3][4] Feeling Full [1][2] Better Sleep [1] Better Mood [1] Better Skin [4] The list goes on and on, including disease and inflammation reduction, better cholesterol, etc. For my purposes I didn’t care about weight loss or fat loss, I just cared about doing the diet the best I could, and to do that, I needed to prepare accordingly. Preparation Stage – Learning the Keto Basics Here is what I did to educate myself and prepare for six weeks of the Ketogenic Diet. I picked a start date and spent $30 at In-N-Out burger on a massive send-off to carbohydrates. A whole other post could be dedicated to the mistakes I made at In-N-Out. After this epic meal, it was officially time Continue reading >>
How Long Does It Take To Get Into Ketosis?
A question a lot of people who start a Ketogenic Diet want to know is, how long does it take to get into ketosis? After all, it is being in a state of ketosis that makes the diet, “ketogenic” in the first place. Being in Ketosis not only supercharges your body to be in an optimal fat-burning zone. It also gives you a longer, sustained energy, enhanced cognition, improved focus and other neuroprotective benefits. The Advantages of Ketosis don’t end there Being on a Ketogenic Diet and having your body rely on fats as its fuel comes with cardiovascular benefits as well. It has been shown that ketosis lowers bad LDL cholesterol while increasing good HDL cholesterol, decreasing a person’s risk of heart disease as well as improving insulin resistance amongst others. There are also studies into the ketogenic diet’s effects on Alzheimers Disease, Bipolar Disorder among others that have shown promising results. The Ketogenic Diet itself was used in the early 1900’s to control epileptic seizures and is still used today for those resistant to seizure medication. But we won’t dive deeply into all of that today. Today we’re going to answer the question, how long does it take to get into ketosis? So, how long does it take to get into Ketosis? Nobody can tell you accurately how long it will take to get into ketosis as the time it takes for your body to start creating ketone bodies varies between individuals. We all have unique metabolisms, varying resistance to insulin, previous diet, and other biological factors that differentiate us from one another. If one were to give a timeframe, it would be safe to say that typically you can expect your body to get into ketosis within a period of 2-10 days if you stick to the recommended macro nutrients. (use our keto calculator Continue reading >>
7 Mistakes Keto Dieters Make: A Doctor Explains
"I was feeling great and doing fantastic when bam, I hit a roadblock I couldn’t overcome," my 43-year-old patient Aimee told me a few months after her initial visit. "Despite massive effort to remain in ketosis and mix up my workouts, the scale wouldn’t budge and my skinny jeans are a little less skinny." As an obstetrician-gynecologist, I frequently find that a ketogenic diet helps my patients lose weight, reduce or eliminate menopausal symptoms, regain sex drive, and so much more. Like Aimee, many patients do beautifully on a keto diet—especially as a keto-alkaline diet—for a while, but then an inevitable plateau occurs. I understand how frustrating those plateaus (which can occur on any diet) can become. Occasionally, frustrated patients consider abandoning their plan when roadblocks hit. I encourage them to stay the course; one study found a long-term ketogenic diet was safe, maintainable, side effects free, and significantly reduced weight while improving health measures like lipid levels. At the same time, you want to do everything possible to break that plateau, so here are the top seven mistakes I see my patients make and how to fix them: You know too many carbs can knock you out of ketosis, but so can too much protein. Protein gets a health halo in the diet world, but on a ketogenic diet too much can prevent your body from getting and staying in ketosis. You needn’t become militant, but aim for moderate protein intake (about 20 percent of your diet) and get about 70 to 80 percent of your diet from healthy fats. When you go on a ketogenic diet, your body can become more acidic, creating chronic inflammation that can stall fat loss. Getting alkaline a week before going keto stacks the fat-loss and health benefits in your favor. Toxins congregate in fat, Continue reading >>
Is The Keto Diet Safe? 10 Myth-busting Arguments For The Safety Of Ketosis
Is ketosis safe? The truth is that we can’t say for certain that it is 100% safe. Humans don’t understand everything under the branch of nutritional science and probably won’t for a very long time. As an individual, the only thing you can do is take a look at the research yourself and form your own conclusion. Personally, through the reading I’ve done and the experience I’ve had with the Keto diet, I’ve formed my own conclusion that ketosis is safe. Could I be wrong? Absolutely. But I could also be right. I’m willing to take that risk in order to follow a diet which could maximize longevity, well being and function. My personal conclusion shouldn’t matter to you though. You need to do your own research and come to your own conclusion. I’ve put together this post to organize all of the issues surrounding the safety of ketosis so that you can make your own decision. In trying to prove something to be safe there are two ways to go about it. Disprove the claims of danger Show evidence which may be correlated with safety This article will dispel the top 10 claims people make in an argument to label ketosis as dangerous. Like I said, the science on ketosis is still quite immature. The following data is not meant to 100% prove or disprove the safety of ketosis. It’s merely the information we have available today which can help us form a nutritional strategy we feel is best for ourselves. I’m not a doctor or a researcher. The following information is material I’ve collected in my attempt to feel confident following a Keto diet indefinitely. Most of it is sourced from doctors or authors although I have also included anecdotal accounts from experiences posted on message boards and Reddit. I know, much of the information here isn’t sourced directly from s Continue reading >>
