The ketogenic diet is a type of diet that includes a high fat and low carb diet offering numerous health benefits. The Keto diet helps improve health and is also known to have amazing weight loss results.
It is a perfect diet for patients with diabetes, epilepsy, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease. Let us create a detailed Keto guide for beginners.
What Do You Mean By A Ketogenic Diet?
As discussed, a ketogenic diet is a high fat and low-carb diet that excessively reduces carbohydrate intake and replaces it with fat. This metabolic state of reducing carbs in the body is called ketosis. The body starts to burn its stored fat for energy. Ketogenic diets help to reduce insulin and blood sugar levels that lead to significant health benefits.
Types Of Keto Diets:
A lot of versions of Keto diets are being followed across the globe. The major ones are:
1. Standard Keto Diet
A Standard Keto diet is a low carb, high fat, and moderate protein diet. The combination comprises about 10% carbs, 20% protein, and 70% fat.
2. Cyclical Keto Diet
A Cyclical Keto diet includes some high carb intakes after fixed intervals. For instance, a week of standard Keto diet can be followed by one high carb day.
3. Targeted Keto Diet
A Targeted Keto diet will add carbs to your diet around the workouts to get an instant energy boost.
4. High protein Keto Diet
A High protein Keto diet is almost like the standard Keto diet with a slight change in protein intake. The diet is often 35% protein, 60% fat, and 5% carbs.
Understanding Ketosis:
Ketosis can be termed as a state of metabolism where the body makes use of the stored fat instead of carbs to fulfill the energy needs. This phenomenon happens when the consumption of carbohydrates is reduced drastically, which limits the sugar supply to the cells.
Since the carbs are the primary energy source, the body burns the stored fats for energy requirements. The diet is substituted with fat sources like meat, eggs, fish, nuts, & oils. Protein consumption is also administered. Intermittent fasting also helps in faster ketosis.
Ketogenic Diet Advantages:
A Keto diet is effective to reduce weight and lead a healthy life. It is also effective in maintaining a healthy triglyceride level and blood pressure. In addition, it lowers blood sugar levels and improves insulin levels in the body. Ketogenic diets are great for diabetic patients. Diabetes leads to disturbed metabolism, impaired insulin function, and high blood sugar levels.
The ketogenic diet helps to lose that extra fat and leads to improved insulin levels. The ketogenic diet also works wonders for neurological diseases like epilepsy. It can reduce the risk factors like blood pressure, cholesterol levels, fat levels, and blood sugar and reduce the risk of heart diseases.
The diet is proving to be suitable for cancer patients too. It leads to lowering of the tumor growth. The Keto diet also helps to treat the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. It slows down the disease’s progression.
Research also proves that a ketogenic diet can help reduce seizures in children. Since it helps maintain insulin levels, a Keto diet can also help treat polycystic ovary syndrome. However, it depends on an individual’s condition and the acceptability of the body for such diets.
Foods That Need To Be Avoided In Keto:
Food with a high carbohydrate level needs to be avoided. The list is mentioned below:
- Sugary foods like soda, smoothies, fruit juice, ice cream, cake, candy, etc.
- Food with starch like rice, wheat, cereal, pasta, etc.
- Generally, all fruits need to be avoided except a few berries
- Some beans like peas, lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas, etc.
- Vegetables like potatoes, carrots, sweet potatoes, etc.
- Products like salad dressings and low-fat mayonnaise,
- Sauces like barbecue sauce, honey mustard, ketchup, etc.
- Avoid unhealthy fats like processed vegetable oil
- Avoid beer, liquor, wine, mixed drinks
- Foods like sugar-free candies, puddings, syrups, desserts, etc.
Foods That Need To Be Eaten In Keto:
You must include the following foods in the meal:
- You must include high-protein red meat, ham, steak, bacon, chicken, sausage, and turkey
- Include fish like salmon, tuna, trout, and mackerel
- Include eggs
- Add butter and heavy cream
- Eat unprocessed chees like goat, cheddar, cream, & mozzarella etc.
- Eat a handful of nuts like walnuts & almonds
- Eat seeds like flax seeds, chia seeds, & pumpkin seeds.
- Use avocado oil or extra virgin olive oil
- Eat fresh avocados
- Eat many green veggies, onions, tomatoes, peppers, etc.
- Spice it up with salt, herbs, pepper, and spices
Summary:
Following a Ketogenic diet can be a healthy option, but you must remember that everybody is different. You must see that the diet suits you. You must also exercise regularly to keep fit and live a long and happy life!
