What is the Keto Diet?: A Short Guide

What is the Keto Diet?: A Short Guide

Any time my weight loss came up and I mentioned keto, I’d always get the same question, “what?” It’s a diet that’s commonly misunderstood, but it’s more likely most people haven’t even heard of it. Truth be told, it’s been around for a while, but might have been under different names. For example, the Atkins Diet induction phase is basically a ketogenic diet. It’s something that can be a little difficult to explain and understand, so I’m going to try to hit the highlights with this article. The blog is called “Keto Smarts”, so let’s learn something. 

Bottom Line Up Front

The keto diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet.

Why low-carb, and what the hell is ketosis?

Generally, while eating on the keto diet, you restrict your net carbohydrates to less than 50g a day, although it’s more effective when restricting to 20g. Net carbs being [carbohydrates – fiber = net carbs] because it’s still important to get fiber in your diet for healthy bowels.

Ketosis is basically the state your body goes into when your body switches from using glucose as fuel to utilizing ketone bodies. If you’re not on a low-carb diet, glycogen is essentially what’s providing your body with energy. When you stop providing the body with carbs, your liver will break down fatty-acids and turn them into a different fuel source: ketones. Ketones are another source of energy that can fuel the same bodily functions that glucose does. It might take some time for your body to fully adapt, but once it does, your body will be just as effective as it was on glucose. If you’re familiar with fasting and some of the health benefits associated with that, a lot of those benefits come from the body being fueled by ketones, as when you’re fasting, your body will enter ketosis.

But doesn’t my body need carbs?

This is where fat comes in. Fat is not evil, despite what you might have heard. I won’t even tell you carbs are evil. Carbs themselves are a completely normal and safe nutrient to consume. However, I will say that sugar isn’t good for you, and it’s responsible for a lot of the carbs in our foods today. In ketosis, you’re cutting out that specific source of fuel and the backup source takes over. Think of it like how a wired smoke detector works. If you lose power in your house, the main supply is cut from the detector, but the battery that’s in there will keep it functioning properly all the same. Once glycogen stops being the primary source in your body, your liver kicks in and starts creating the backup fuel, ketone bodies, out of fat. If you’re trying to lose weight, chances are you already have fat stored in your body, and when your body enters ketosis, it becomes more efficient at burning fat overall. That is essentially the entire thought process behind this diet.

Health Benefits of Keto

There are numerous health benefits from the ketogenic diet. It was first created to treat epilepsy in children [Martin, K].

Is keto for me?

One of the biggest questions and concerns associated with the keto diet comes with asking this question. A lot of people might experience the “keto flu” when they first start adapting to a keto diet. I’ll go into more detail on that in a separate post, but one of the common symptoms is feeling lethargic. This tends to make people wonder if it will hurt their performance exercising or in sports. After all, one of the most important parts of a healthy lifestyle is exercise. The short answer is “no.” However, it really depends what you do. Are you a powerlifter, football lineman, or sprinter? It might not be for you [6]. Are you a runner, endurance athlete, cyclist [7],  or just a general fitness nut? It’ll work for you. Basically it comes down to the efficiency of the energy source you’re providing for your body. Fat is more of a long term energy source, it breaks down slower and provides a more consistent stream of energy for the body. Carbohydrates, however, provide a short term energy supply meaning they’re better for faster, more powerful movements.

There are weightlifters/bodybuilders who utilize keto during weight cutting cycles (or pre-show carb cycling) and it might work for them, but every person’s body is different. Assuming that you want to give it a try, you’re the best judge of your own strength and energy levels in the gym, although I’d recommend not giving up within the first week wherein your body is still in the process of becoming keto-adapted.

If you don’t have control over the food you prepare and consume, keto might also not be for you. If you’re living with your parents and have to eat what they provide, then eating on a ketogenic diet might be difficult. It’s a pretty restrictive diet and most it’s going to be extremely hard to eat under 20g net carbs per day without the person who is cooking checking labels.

The success of keto varies from person to person. It might work out great for you, and it might not. I will never say that keto is the only way or the best way to diet. I stand by it because it’s what has worked personally for me. The truth is, you might not find it right for your lifestyle and it might not work as well for you. If you’re looking into different diets and are looking to lose weight, then I recommend checking out keto (that’s why you’re reading this, right?) and giving it a shot. However, I strongly encourage you to do more research.

Also, as a personal side note; if you’re recovering from an eating disorder, I would not recommend keto for you. Since it’s a lifestyle that revolves around restricting your diet, if you have had issues with things like counting calories in the past (or BN/Mia/EDNOS for example) I, again, would not recommend an exclusion diet for you.

Conclusion

As a final point, let me say that even though I’ve linked some studies in relation to low-carb diets, there still is not a general scientific consensus on it. It hasn’t been studied nearly enough, and the true long-term effects are still yet to be seen. If you’re interested in starting this diet, I strongly encourage you to take this information provided and research it further. I probably did casual research on it for a few weeks, if not a month, before deciding it was right for me and committed to it. Educating yourself on the diet and the processes your body will go through is an important first step to deciding if keto is right for you. It’s also recommended that you talk to a doctor or nutritionist before starting any kind of diet.

If you make the decision to jump on board with keto, I hope you’ll look back to Keto Smarts for recipes and some inspiration.

Citations

[1] Dashti, H. M., Mathew, T. C., Hussein, T., Asfar, S. K., Behbahani, A., Khoursheed, M. A., … Al-Zaid, N. S. (2004). Long-term effects of a ketogenic diet in obese patients. Experimental & Clinical Cardiology, 9(3), 200–205.

[2] Youm, Y., Nguyen, K. Y., Grant, R. W., Goldberg, E. L., Bodogai, M., Kim, D., . . . Dixit, V. D. (2015). The ketone metabolite β-hydroxybutyrate blocks NLRP3 inflammasome–mediated inflammatory disease. Nature Medicine, 21(3), 263-269. doi:10.1038/nm.3804

[3] Gunnars, K., (2017) 23 Studies on Low-Card and Low-Fat Diets, Healthline  https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/23-studies-on-low-carb-and-low-fat-diets

[4] Martin K, Jackson CF, Levy RG, Cooper PN. Ketogenic diet and other dietary treatments for epilepsy. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2016, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD001903. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD001903.pub3.

[5] Ketogenic diet reduces mid-life mortality and improves memory in aging mice DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2017.08.004 https://www.buckinstitute.org/buck-news/ketogenic-diet-improves-healthspan-and-memory-aging-mice

[6] Phinney, S. D. (2004). Ketogenic diets and physical performance. Nutrition & Metabolism, 1, 2. http://doi.org/10.1186/1743-7075-1-2

[7] Zajac, A., Poprzecki, S., Maszczyk, A., Czuba, M., Michalczyk, M., & Zydek, G. (2014). The Effects of a Ketogenic Diet on Exercise Metabolism and Physical Performance in Off-Road Cyclists. Nutrients, 6(7), 2493-2508. doi:10.3390/nu6072493

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