Is The Ketogenic Diet Right For You? Nutritionists Weigh In
You may be hearing a lot about the ketogenic diet as a way to slim down while noshing on butter and heavy cream. This way of eating is suddenly hot among venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, who believe it will help them live longer and healthier, CNBC reports. Some praise the high-fat/ultra low-carb plan for helping them to lose weight and have energy all day long. Other advocates say it finally helped them to get control of their body. How does it work and could it help you? We asked Bonnie Taub-Dix, a registered dietitian nutritionist and author of “Read It Before You Eat It”; and Keri Glassman, nutritionist, registered dietitian and TODAY Tastemaker. To start with, both said they would never advise the ketogenic diet for weight loss. “Cutting out carbs is usually an invitation to overeat them at another point,” Taub-Dix said. “For a diet where you’re looking to lose weight, look good and feel good… I would not recommend a diet like this.” “For safe and effective weight loss, the carb reduction is too extreme,” Glassman added. RELATED: Read inspiring stories of ordinary people slimming down in TODAY's My Weight-Loss Journey Here’s what you need to know: What is the ketogenic diet? It’s a diet fine-tuned in the 1920s to help treat epilepsy. It does help to control seizures in some children, but it’s not recommended for adults “mostly because the restricted food choices make it hard to follow,” the Epilepsy Foundation says. The diet has just recently begun to be touted as a weight loss plan, Glassman noted. She described it as eating “mostly fat with a teeny bit of protein and carbs.” How does it work? Your body normally relies on carbohydrates for energy. It breaks them down into glucose, which is your main source of fuel. If that� Continue reading >>
What Is Ketosis And How Does It Work?
Spokane Weight Loss What Is Ketosis? Ketosis is a metabolic process that your body normally does to keep functioning well. Typically, when the body does not have enough carbohydrates to burn for energy for your cells, it burns fat in its place and in the process makes ketones. A healthy person eating a balanced diet normally has their body control how much fat it burns and ketones are not part of the process. When you cut back on your carbs and calories, then your body turns to ketones for energy. The history of ketosis started way back in the 1920s as a treatment for epilepsy. Ultimately, the body is functioning at a better state when it is utilizing ketones for fuel. This goes beyond a sharper mental awareness, which is a key by-product of ketosis but also greater performance on the overall functioning of your body. Your body works better when it’s utilizing ketones for energy instead of sugar. A Nutritional Ketosis Diet Dr. Werner Marksfeld of Spokane Weight Loss gives the example of when you’re on a sugar-based diet eating lots of carbs; you’re going to have highs and lows where you have instances when you crash and burn. On the other hand, when you’re on a diet that induces nutritional ketosis, which is quite different from diabetes ketosis, it helps you perform longer and gives your body more sustainable and long-term functionality both in your faculties in terms of concentration and focus and also performance. In effect, you do not have the highs and lows in terms of energy or performance that you would normally have on a carbohydrate-based diet. Many athletes are now utilizing nutritional ketosis diet to allow them to peak their health and peak their performance as an athlete. Ketosis as a Weight Loss Tool Can Ketosis be utilized as a tool for weight los Continue reading >>
How Ketosis Helps You Lose Weight Through Suppressed Appetite
One of the reasons The Bulletproof Diet with Bulletproof Coffee works so well for people looking to lose weight is that Bulletproof Intermittent Fasting helps your body to more easily enter a state called cyclical ketosis, which is great for a whole bunch of reasons. Ketosis is a cornerstone of becoming Bulletproof; listen to these recent Bulletproof Radio episodes with ketosis experts Jimmy Moore and Dominic D’Agostino to get the scoop on how and why it works. It’s what happens when your body switches to burning fat instead of sugar for energy, and it only happens when you eat almost no carbohydrates, or when you hack it using certain kinds of oils. Many people first stumble upon the idea of ketosis while looking for a weight loss strategy. That can be a major part of it for so many people out there who have tried just about every other diet out there but haven’t seen the results they’d hoped for. But when people experience the mental clarity and focus that ketosis brings, the game changes! This post walks you through one of the most important yet underrated mechanisms that makes ketosis so effective for people who have tried everything else to lose weight and failed to keep it off: appetite suppression. Ketosis works for weight loss in the short term, but that’s not why it’s so amazing. Short term weight loss is easy (I’ve lost at least 200 pounds of short term weight…because it always roared back on with a vengeance so I could lose it again!) When you look at keeping your weight off forever, ketosis provides a level of appetite suppression that is actually liberating. Ketosis helps you literally stop thinking about food all the time. Why Calorie Counting Is So Ineffective One of the reasons old-fashioned, calorie-restricted diets tend to fail is becau Continue reading >>
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7 Signs You Might Be In Ketosis When Doing The Ketogenic Diet
One of the main goals of starting the ketogenic diet is to get your body into a metabolic state known as ketosis. Note: If you don’t know what the ketogenic is all about then check out the Ketogenic Diet: Beginner’s Guide to Keto and Weight Loss. This is when your body starts to produce a lot of ketones to supply energy for your body. Why is this good? Because it means your body has converted from a sugar-burner to a fat-burner. If your body is burning fat for energy then something amazing starts to happen. The fat on your body starts to disappear. But how do you know when you’re in ketosis? Besides using test strips or an instrument there are some signs that your body will give. 7 Signs You Might Be in Ketosis These don’t 100% guarantee that your body is in ketosis but if it is in ketosis then these signs will appear. 1. Weight Loss One of the obvious signs of ketosis is weight loss but this can also be pretty deceptive because many people don’t experience the kind of weight loss that they expect. This can happen for a variety of reasons but when you get close to entering ketosis or do enter ketosis you’ll find that you lose a healthy amount of weight quickly. For example, when you switch to low carbs you usually experience significant weight loss in the first week. In fact, my wife lost 12 lbs in the first 28 days of Keto and I lost 13. This isn’t your body burning fat but finally being able to release the water that was being held by the fat cells. If your fat cells don’t release this water then they can’t flow through the bloodstream to be used as fuel so losing water weight is a good thing. After the initial rapid drop in water weight, you should continue to lose body fat consistently if you are able to stick with the low-carb aspects of the diet Continue reading >>
Ketosis: What Is Ketosis?
Ketosis is a normal metabolic process. When the body does not have enough glucose for energy, it burns stored fats instead; this results in a build-up of acids called ketones within the body. Some people encourage ketosis by following a diet called the ketogenic or low-carb diet. The aim of the diet is to try and burn unwanted fat by forcing the body to rely on fat for energy, rather than carbohydrates. Ketosis is also commonly observed in patients with diabetes, as the process can occur if the body does not have enough insulin or is not using insulin correctly. Problems associated with extreme levels of ketosis are more likely to develop in patients with type 1 diabetes compared with type 2 diabetes patients. Ketosis occurs when the body does not have sufficient access to its primary fuel source, glucose. Ketosis describes a condition where fat stores are broken down to produce energy, which also produces ketones, a type of acid. As ketone levels rise, the acidity of the blood also increases, leading to ketoacidosis, a serious condition that can prove fatal. People with type 1 diabetes are more likely to develop ketoacidosis, for which emergency medical treatment is required to avoid or treat diabetic coma. Some people follow a ketogenic (low-carb) diet to try to lose weight by forcing the body to burn fat stores. What is ketosis? In normal circumstances, the body's cells use glucose as their primary form of energy. Glucose is typically derived from dietary carbohydrates, including: sugar - such as fruits and milk or yogurt starchy foods - such as bread and pasta The body breaks these down into simple sugars. Glucose can either be used to fuel the body or be stored in the liver and muscles as glycogen. If there is not enough glucose available to meet energy demands, th Continue reading >>
Ketosis, Ketones, And How It All Works
Ketosis is a process that the body does on an everyday basis, regardless of the number of carbs you eat. Your body adapts to what is put in it, processing different types of nutrients into the fuels that it needs. Proteins, fats, and carbs can all be processed for use. Eating a low carb, high fat diet just ramps up this process, which is a normal and safe chemical reaction. When you eat carbohydrate based foods or excess amounts of protein, your body will break this down into sugar – known as glucose. Why? Glucose is needed in the creation of ATP (an energy molecule), which is a fuel that is needed for the daily activities and maintenance inside our bodies. If you’ve ever used our keto calculator to determine your caloric needs, you will see that your body uses up quite a lot of calories. It’s true, our bodies use up much of the nutrients we intake just to maintain itself on a daily basis. If you eat enough food, there will likely be an excess of glucose that your body doesn’t need. There are two main things that happen to excess glucose if your body doesn’t need it: Glycogenesis. Excess glucose will be converted to glycogen and stored in your liver and muscles. Estimates show that only about half of your daily energy can be stored as glycogen. Lipogenesis. If there’s already enough glycogen in your muscles and liver, any extra glucose will be converted into fats and stored. So, what happens to you once your body has no more glucose or glycogen? Ketosis happens. When your body has no access to food, like when you are sleeping or when you are on a ketogenic diet, the body will burn fat and create molecules called ketones. We can thank our body’s ability to switch metabolic pathways for that. These ketones are created when the body breaks down fats, creating Continue reading >>
Does A Ketogenic Diet Cause Anxiety?
Ordinarily no. However there’s some caveats which means “maybe” in some cases: Some of the side-effects can be really unpleasant and may cause some level of discomfort and (perhaps therefore) secondary anxiousness. Furthermore (agreeing with Doug here) if you push too hard for too long this might also cause a further stress response increasing cortisol etc which will feel fairly close to being anxious I suppose. One of my friends who originally joined me on my journey had a very rough time at one stage (including feeling anxiety), such that he basically eventually gave up the diet. Subsequently having learnt more and looking back with hindsight, we both agree and came to the conclusion that he was perhaps pushing too hard too fast for too long and that what he experienced was caused by this and likely a case of stress response, further exacerbated perhaps by real anxiety due to lingering doubts in the back of his head about the diet (he suspects). Bottom line, a ketogenic diet properly followed does not cause anxiety directly, but there may be some symptoms that either feel like you’re anxious, or cause you to feel perhaps secondary anxiety due to their presence in the beginning (first several weeks perhaps). Or you’re experiencing stress that’s close enough to feel like anxiety. (Perhaps the difference is moot.) Anyway, mostly these are due to loss of minerals and can be resolved by taking mineral supplements to compensate (bouillon mix highly recommended in the beginning, as well as possibly potassium and magnesium supplements, off the top of my head) and perhaps backing of slightly. I’m not really in favour of cyclical keto (cheating periodically), however if you run into trouble sustaining a really low carb level for too long, then there’s no shame i Continue reading >>
What Everybody Ought To Know About Ketosis
Recently I wanted to explore the world of Ketosis. I thought I knew a little bit about ketosis, but after doing some research I soon realised how wrong I was. 3 months later, after reading numerous books, listening to countless podcasts and experimenting with various diets I know have a sound understanding of ketosis. This resource is built as a reference guide for those looking to explore the fascinating world of ketosis. It is a resource that I wish I had 3 months ago. As you will soon see, a lot of the content below is not mine, instead I have linked to referenced to experts who have a greater understanding of this topic than I ever will. I hope this helps and if there is something that I have missed please leave a comment below so that I can update this. Also, as this is a rather long document, I have split it into various sections. You can click the headline below to be sent straight to the section that interests you. For those that are really time poor I have created a useful ketosis cheat sheet guide. This guide covers all the essential information you should know about ketosis. It can be downloaded HERE. Alternatively, if you're looking for a natural and sustainable way to improve health and lose weight head to this page - What is Ketosis? What Are The Benefits from being in Ketosis? Isn’t Ketosis Dangerous? Ketoacidosis vs Ketosis What Is The Difference Between a Low Carb Diet and a Ketogenic Diet? Types of Ketosis: The Difference Between Nutritional, Therapeutic & MCT Ketogenic Diets Is The Ketogenic Diet Safe? Long Term Effects Thyroid and Ketosis - What You May Want To Know What is a Typical Diet/Macro Breakdown for a Ketogenic Diet? Do I Need to Eat Carbs? What do I Eat On a Ketogenic Diet? What Do I Avoid Eating on a Ketogenic Diet? Protein Consumption a Continue reading >>
A Keto Diet For Beginners
A keto or ketogenic diet is a very low-carb diet, which turns the body into a fat-burning machine. It has many proven benefits for weight loss, health and performance, as millions of people have experienced already. 1 Here you’ll learn how to eat a keto diet based on real foods. You’ll find visual guides, recipes, meal plans and a simple 2-week get started program, all you need to succeed on keto. Get even more, custom meal plans, ask the experts and low-carb TV, with a free trial. 1. Introduction: What is ketosis? The “keto” in a ketogenic diet comes from the fact that it makes the body produce small fuel molecules called “ketones”. 2 This is an alternative fuel for the body, used when blood sugar (glucose) is in short supply. Ketones are produced if you eat very few carbs (that are quickly broken down into blood sugar) and only moderate amounts of protein (excess protein can also be converted to blood sugar). Ketones are produced in the liver, from fat. They are then used as fuel throughout the body, including the brain. The brain is a hungry organ that consumes lots of energy every day, 3 and it can’t run on fat directly. It can only run on glucose… or ketones. On a ketogenic diet, your entire body switches its fuel supply to run almost entirely on fat. Insulin levels become very low, and fat burning increases dramatically. It becomes easy to access your fat stores to burn them off. This is obviously great if you’re trying to lose weight, but there are also other less obvious benefits, such as less hunger and a steady supply of energy. When the body produces ketones, it’s said to be in ketosis. The fastest way to get there is by fasting – not eating anything – but nobody can fast forever. A keto diet, on the other hand, can be eaten indefinite Continue reading >>
Why Doesn't Ketosis Work?
There is a reason why people who use ketosis to lose weight usually end up gaining the weight back. If the goal is to lose weight quickly, then yes, ketogenic diet will work for you! If the aim is to lose weight and keep it off without damaging hormones, then the ketogenic diet will fail you. I know, on paper it makes sense right? Cut out the carbohydrates, and the body is forced to burn fat as fuel. But, what’s going on behind the scenes when people deprive their bodies of carbohydrates for too long? Leptin Ghrelin Testosterone The big three hormones when it comes to weight loss and muscle building sink dramatically. Being sunken for a long time, the harder it becomes to regulate our hormones. Low carbohydrate combined with low calorie leads to drastically lower leptin levels when comparing to just a normal caloric deficit. As levels of leptin begin to decline more and more, the hunger levels humans experience will raise in parallel. Leptin also affects our muscles and thyroid hormones, and decreased quantities of it will stall our metabolism. All of the attribute to lower leptin levels causing weight gain. It also affects Adiponectin, which sends out glucose levels out of whack as well as fatty acid breakdown. Another hormone affected is Ghrelin by decreasing HGH output and increasing appetite artificially. I wrote an article “the holy grail of weight loss” that talks all about the ill effects of low carb diets. To summarize it: Once the body realizes fat is its primary/only source of energy, the body drives energy usage way down. The body cuts energy for all things, like creativity, concentration, metabolism to name the top sectors that get hit first. The body doesn't give a shit about your work or personal life; the body solely cares about having enough energy Continue reading >>
Does The Ketogenic Diet Work Well For Crossfit Training?
Source: Stevie D Photography Have you heard of the ketogenic diet? The keto diet was originally developed by Dr. Russell Wilder in 1924 as a way to combat epilepsy. As a ketogenic diet coach, I have helped lots of people, including athletes over the years transform their physical and mental health conditions using the ketogenic diet. So, I thought I would share with you my experience with keto and some of the benefits of the diet you probably did not know about its success rates with athletes, and particularly those who are undergoing a CrossFit program. What is the Ketogenic Diet? Before we explain why keto is beneficial for crossfit, I guess I should properly explain what it is. Basically, this diet is a low carbohydrate, high fat and adequate protein diet. The ketogenic diet can help a person lose weight and improve his or her overall health, reduce blood sugar and stabilise insulin levels in the body. The ketogenic diet, sometimes called keto, share a few similarities with the Atkins Diet or the low-carb diet. The idea is that energy is burned from fats and proteins rather than from carbs. The reduction of carbs in your nutritional intake can put you in a state referred to as “ketosis.” How does the ketogenic diet work? Ketosis occurs when you eat a low carb (less than 50 grams) high protein diet, which in turns makes your body run out of glucose, which it uses as fuel. The body has no option other than to start breaking down the available proteins and fats to use for energy, creating molecules known as ketone bodies. These ketones replace glucose and are used as fuel by the muscles and the brain. This process can in return cause weight loss. A study conducted by The National Institute of Health revealed that the brain prefers ketones to glucose. Certain individ Continue reading >>
Does The Ketogenic Diet Work For Type 2 Diabetes?
You’ve probably seen dozens of headlines about the ketogenic diet by now, which has made its way into popular culture largely by celebrities and supermodels giving the long-standing fad diet a repeated stamp of approval. Is this the diet to follow if you have diabetes? Studies suggest the answer isn’t so simple. Some science shows its meal plan may be helpful, while other research, like one study published in September 2016 in Nutrients, highlights the importance of whole grains in the diets of people with diabetes — a restricted food category in the ketogenic diet. While the keto diet can offer many potential benefits for diabetes management, following it requires pretty serious commitment. So take a beat before you take the plunge — and consider these questions that can help you and your medical team determine if it’s right for you: How Does the Ketogenic Diet Work Exactly? There’s a good reason the ketogenic diet is also referred to as a low-carb, high-fat diet. Indeed, following the ketogenic diet means reducing carbohydrate intake to typically less than 50 grams (g) of carbohydrates per day, while increasing fat and protein intake, according to a review published in August 2013 in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. To put that into perspective, an individual on an average, non-restricted diet can easily eat more carbohydrates than that in one typical meal — for instance, a turkey, cheese, and veggie sandwich on whole-grain bread with a small, 1 ounce (oz) bag of classic potato chips would come in at around 51 g of carbs. These dietary changes drive down insulin levels, eventually leading your body into a state of ketosis, during which it is burning fat rather than carbohydrates. What Are Some of the Potential Benefits of a Ketogenic Diet for Continue reading >>
The Ugly Truth About Ketogenic Diets
Here's what you need to know... Ketosis occurs when carbs are in such low quantities that your body relies almost exclusively on fatty acid oxidation and ketone metabolism. Ketogenic diets have about 70-75% of your daily caloric intake coming from fat and about 5% from carbohydrates. Ingesting protein above approximately .8 grams per pound is enough to kick you out of ketosis. Ketogenic diets improve body comp, but so does any diet that reduces calories from any source. There is no literature to support that a ketogenic diet is beneficial for promoting increases in muscle mass. Ketogenic diets affect performance negatively. Questions About Ketosis While the ketogenic diet has been used widely and rather effectively in some cases, there's still a lot of confusion about it. What exactly is a ketogenic diet? How does it differ from low carb dieting? Most importantly, at least for the T Nation demographic, is the question of whether ketogenic diets allow you to put on, or at least keep, muscle. Ketosis: What is it? Ketosis is a metabolic state that occurs when dietary carbohydrates are in such low quantities that your body must rely almost exclusively on fatty acid oxidation and ketone metabolism. That sounds simple on the surface, but let's unpack that explanation a bit. To function, your body requires a substantial amount of energy in the form of ATP. So, let's just assume that the average person uses about 1,800 calories per day to create enough ATP to keep him alive (not including any physical activity). Now this is where it gets interesting. You have this thing in your skull called a brain. It uses about 400 or so calories per day and runs almost exclusively on glucose. (There's some evidence it can use small amounts of fat and lactate, but in the big picture it's not Continue reading >>
A Ketogenic Diet To Lose Weight And Fight Disease
Obesity and metabolic diseases have become the world's biggest health problems. In fact, at least 2.8 million adults die from obesity-related causes each year (1). Metabolic syndrome affects over 50 million people in the US, and can lead to a variety of health problems (2, 3, 4). To combat this, many diets have emerged, few of which are actually backed by research (5). The benefits of the ketogenic diet, on the other hand, are well-supported by science (6, 7). This article explains how a ketogenic diet can help you lose weight and fight metabolic disease. A ketogenic diet is high in fat, moderate in protein and extremely low in carbs (8). As carbs are reduced and fat is increased, the body enters a metabolic state called ketosis. Then the body starts turning fats into ketones, which are molecules that can supply energy for the brain (9, 10). After a few days or weeks on such a diet, the body and brain become very efficient at burning fat and ketones for fuel instead of carbs. The ketogenic diet also lowers insulin levels. This, along with the increased ketones, are two of the main reasons this diet has so many health benefits (9, 11, 12, 13, 14). Staple foods on a ketogenic diet include meat, fish, butter, eggs, cheese, heavy cream, oils, nuts, avocados, seeds and low-carb vegetables. In contrast, nearly all carb sources are eliminated, including grains, rice, beans, potatoes, sweets, milk, cereals, fruits and even some higher-carb vegetables. A ketogenic diet is a high-fat, moderate-protein and low-carb diet. It primarily works by lowering insulin levels, producing ketones and increasing fat burning. There is strong evidence that ketogenic diets are very effective for weight loss (15). They can help you lose fat, preserve muscle mass and improve many markers of disease Continue reading >>
What Is Ketosis?
"Ketosis" is a word you'll probably see when you're looking for information on diabetes or weight loss. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? That depends. Ketosis is a normal metabolic process, something your body does to keep working. When it doesn't have enough carbohydrates from food for your cells to burn for energy, it burns fat instead. As part of this process, it makes ketones. If you're healthy and eating a balanced diet, your body controls how much fat it burns, and you don't normally make or use ketones. But when you cut way back on your calories or carbs, your body will switch to ketosis for energy. It can also happen after exercising for a long time and during pregnancy. For people with uncontrolled diabetes, ketosis is a sign of not using enough insulin. Ketosis can become dangerous when ketones build up. High levels lead to dehydration and change the chemical balance of your blood. Ketosis is a popular weight loss strategy. Low-carb eating plans include the first part of the Atkins diet and the Paleo diet, which stress proteins for fueling your body. In addition to helping you burn fat, ketosis can make you feel less hungry. It also helps you maintain muscle. For healthy people who don't have diabetes and aren't pregnant, ketosis usually kicks in after 3 or 4 days of eating less than 50 grams of carbohydrates per day. That's about 3 slices of bread, a cup of low-fat fruit yogurt, or two small bananas. You can start ketosis by fasting, too. Doctors may put children who have epilepsy on a ketogenic diet, a special high-fat, very low-carb and protein plan, because it might help prevent seizures. Adults with epilepsy sometimes eat modified Atkins diets. Some research suggests that ketogenic diets might help lower your risk of heart disease. Other studies show sp Continue reading >>
