Documented uses of the keto diet
Doctors have been prescribing ketogenic diets to treat epilepsy for nearly a century, and increasingly believe it holds promise for people with Type 2 diabetes.
But the older keto regimens didn’t work for most people hoping to slim down, and there’s no evidence the newly popular keto diet will be any different.
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It supplies energy under circumstances such as fasting or caloric restriction to certain organs (e.g. the brain, heart, and skeletal muscle).
In ketogenesis, our livers start to break down fat into a usable energy source called ketones. Ketones can stand in for glucose as fuel for the body when there’s a glucose shortage.
Once ketogenesis kicks in and ketone levels are elevated, the body is in a state called “ketosis,” during which it’s burning stored fat.
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.
RELATED IDEAS
- Weight Loss.
- Keto naturally lowers blood sugar levels due to the type of foods you eat.
- Mental Focus: Ketones are a great source of fuel for the brain.
- Increased Energy & Normalized Hunger: Fats are shown to be the most effective molecule to burn as fuel.
- Epilepsy: Keto diet has been used since the early 1900’s to treat epilepsy successfully.
- Cholesterol & Blood Pressure: shown to improve triglyceride levels and cholesterol levels most associated with arterial buildup.
- Insulin Resistance.
- Improvements in your skin health.
Followers must eat fat at each meal:
- Some healthy unsaturated fats are allowed: almonds, walnuts, seeds, avocados, tofu, and olive oil. But saturated fats from oils (palm, coconut), lard, butter, and cocoa butter are encouraged in high amounts.
- Protein is part of the keto diet, but it doesn't typically discriminate between lean protein foods and protein sources high in saturated fat such as beef, pork, and bacon.
- You can have certain fruits (usually berries) in small portions. Vegetables are restricted to leafy greens (kale, Swiss chard, spinach), cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, bell peppers, onions, garlic, mushrooms, cucumber, celery, and summer squashes.
Keto is more than just a diet. It is a cultural identity.
The Keto diet changes how adherents think about medicine and nutrition. With the fake news that dominates the news cycle, it's not surprising that keto went viral. It's anti-establishment.