The ketogenic diet or better known as the “keto diet” is low carb diet enables the body to lose weight faster and more effectively. When you start the journey on this diet you can experience lots of health benefits which we will be talking about.
Here you’ll learn how to eat a keto diet based on real foods and visual guides to help you understand better.
1. So let’s begin: What is Keto?
The word “keto” comes from the fact that it allows the body to produce small fuel molecules called “ketones”. Which is another fuel source for the body, which is used when glucose (blood sugar) levels are low.
2. How do I get into ketosis?
Well, ketones are produced when you eat small amount of carbs (for weight loss is recommended to limit intake to <20g per day), moderate amount of protein per day because if consume in excess it will be broken down into sugar and rest of your nutrition should come from healthy fats.
The liver creates ketones from fat. These ketones then are used as a fuel source throughout the body, especially for the brain.
The brain is an organ that is always working and consumes lots of energy, and it can’t run on fat directly (ketones) or it can only run on glucose (sugar).
When you start a ketogenic diet, your entire body switches its fuel supply from glucose to run mainly on fat.
Yes, that means burning fat 24-7. When your insulin levels are low, that’s when the fat burning process begins. Your body becomes a fat burning machine burning fat at all time.
3. Benefits of the keto diet
Besides becoming a fat burning machine, some of the benefits of the keto diet are feeling more energized, feeling less hunger, increasing your level of concentration etc.
4. Who should not do the ketogenic diet
The keto diet seems to be safe for most people, but as with everything there are controversies about its safety.
If you are a diabetic, on suffer from high blood pressure, or breastfeed, please talk to your doctor before starting this eating regimen. Since people may require an adjustment to their medications.
5. What To Eat on Keto
Here are some of the foods to enjoy while on the keto diet. When in keto we calculate net carbs which means digestible carbs per 100 grams. In order to remain in ketosis the lower the number of carbs the better.
Olive oil, coconut oil, avocados, grass-fed butter etc. Fish, seafood, meats, eggs, cheese, almonds, an unlimited amount of green vegetables and vegetables.
One important thing to remember is to avoid eating too many carbs. The best would be to keep net carbs under 20 grams per day but it could also be 50 grams of net carbs depending on your goal.
In the beginning, you can use a carb counter app such as Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker but to be honest, that did not work for me. I found it to be too much work to log everything I was eating. So I just stock to eating veggies and healthy fat at the beginning and added 2 new keto-friendly recipes per week (see my recipes here).
Avoid!
Here’s what you should avoid on a keto diet – carb foods containing a lot of sugar and starch. This includes starchy foods like bread (46 net carbs), pasta (29 net carbs), rice (28 net carbs) and potatoes (17 net carbs). These foods are very high-carbs.
Basically, avoid sugars, process foods, pasta, rice etc. and consume foods that are high in fats no more low-fat food.
6. So, what should I Drink?
Water is your best friend along with, coffee and tea. A small amount of cream or milk in your coffee is okay.
Just know that at the beginning this is a hard diet or lifestyle to follow since most of us are so used to eating high amounts of carbs per day.
Our body will go through detox during the first few weeks of this beginning this diet and let me tell you is brutal. But just keep on going and once you see those extra pounds fall off you will be glad you stuck to it.