It is a very low-carb, high-fat diet. People on a ketogenic diet get 5 percent of their calories from carbohydrates, about 15 percent from protein, and 80 percent from fat. It’s this ratio that will force the body to derive much of its energy from ketones. 

That means eating mainly meats, eggs, cheese, fish, nuts, butter, oils, and vegetables while avoiding sugar, bread and other grains, beans, and even fruit.

Advocates of ketogenic diets for weight loss claim that ketogenesis can lead to burning 10 times more fat and an extra 400 to 600 calories per day.

This might sound great, but what’s often lost in all the boosterism is that this is still just a hypothesis.

Keto diets don’t seem to help people lose extra weight in the long run.

In the short term, keto can sometimes help people lose more weight because they cause rapid water loss, which gives people the impression they’ve lost fat. 

But by the one-year mark, it performs equally to any other weight loss diet.