This is a guest post by Louise Hendon, co-host of The Keto Summit and author of The Essential Keto Cookbook
The Ketogenic diet has been making waves lately.
In fact, you’ve probably seen the name being mentioned by various health-and-wellness bloggers on the internet. But what is it, exactly? And how is it different from all the other diets out there?
We’ll run through what the ketogenic diet is, what foods you can eat on the keto diet, how the diet benefits your health and some beginner’s tips for getting started.
What Is the Ketogenic Diet?
It’s a diet that changes your body’s metabolic state – instead of mainly burning glucose, you’ll be mainly burning fat instead.
That’s because the ketogenic diet limits your carbohydrate intake which means there’s simply less glucose available for your cells to use as fuel. And as a result, your body is forced to start burning up your stored fat.
This metabolic state is called nutritional ketosis and it has all sorts of health benefits (more on those later).
Keto Diet foods: What can you eat?
You’ll be eating a moderate amount of protein, lots of fats, and very few carbohydrates.
Healthy foods to eat include:
- Non-starchy vegetables (so leafy greens like spinach and kale)
- Meats, organ meats, fish and shellfish
- Nuts and seeds (in moderate amounts)
- Healthy fats like ghee, coconut oil and olive oil
- Herbs and spices, like cinnamon or paprika: Joi has a great article on their health benefits
And the foods to avoid are:
- Starchy vegetables like potatoes and squashes
- All legumes, aka lentils, beans, and soy
- All grains, such as wheat, oats and rice
- Vegetable and seed oils
- Processed foods, meaning chips, crackers, cookies etc.
If you’d like a more extensive list of what foods you should be eating and avoiding, feel free to check out our list of Keto diet friendly foods.
How does Keto benefit your health?
There are many health benefits to the keto diet, and we’ve rounded up just a few below:
- It stabilizes your energy levels by balancing out your blood sugar levels. When you’re not consuming carbs, your energy no longer spikes and dips – you feel more alert and don’t have to deal with brain fog or the dreaded “mid-afternoon slump.”
- It can help you beat your sugar addiction because you’ll be going cold turkey on all the sweet treats you’re addicted to. Plus, another benefit of having stabilized your blood sugar levels is you avoid the blood sugar crashes that trigger cravings in the first place.
- It decreases your hunger levels naturally and researchers have shown that a low-carb diet leads to lowered food intake because it influences the hormones which control hunger. This then helps with weight loss and combating overeating.
- It’s great for weight loss, and just by scanning through some of the many success stories on the web you’ll be able to see how effective the keto diet is for losing weight!
- It could be used as a therapeutic treatment for a wide range of diseases. It’s already being used to treat epilepsy, and research is being done to see if it can help reduce the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, PCOS, and cancer.
How does Keto benefit your health?
There are many health benefits to the keto diet, and we’ve rounded up just a few below:
- It stabilizes your energy levels by balancing out your blood sugar levels. When you’re not consuming carbs, your energy no longer spikes and dips – you feel more alert and don’t have to deal with brain fog or the dreaded “mid-afternoon slump.”
- It can help you beat your sugar addiction because you’ll be going cold turkey on all the sweet treats you’re addicted to. Plus, another benefit of having stabilised your blood sugar levels is you avoid the blood sugar crashes that trigger cravings in the first place.
- It decreases your hunger levels naturally and researchers have shown that a low-carb diet leads to lowered food intake because it influences the hormones which control hunger. This then helps with weight loss and combating overeating.
- It’s great for weight loss, and just by scanning through some of the many success stories on the web you’ll be able to see how effective the keto diet is for losing weight!
- It could be used as a therapeutic treatment for a wide range of diseases. It’s already being used to treat epilepsy, and research is being done to see if it can help reduce the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, PCOS, and cancer.
Tips for getting started on Keto
It’s tough getting started on any diet – here’s our advice for keto:
- In the beginning, just focus on reducing your carbohydrate intake. Make sure you focus on eating less than 25g of carbohydrates per day and then, once you’ve adjusted to that, take a look at your protein/fat intake. Especially if you’re used to consuming a Standard American Diet, reducing carb intake will a big enough change in the beginning.
- Choose one meal in each day to skip because it will make starting a keto diet much easier if you only have to think about/plan for two meals each day instead of three. Some folks like to skip breakfast and some folks like to skip dinner, so experiment a little to see what works for you. If you have circadian rhythm issues, then skip dinner (or lunch) instead of breakfast.
- Find a buddy (friend/husband/wife) as it’ll help you stick to the diet if you’ve got someone else to keep you accountable. And if you can’t find a buddy, then at least share your goals with your friends/family or on social media – it’s been proven to increase your chances of success.
- Choose the right week to start by making sure you pick a week when you’re not overloaded with work and don’t have too many social plans. It can be a little tough adjusting to keto in the beginning, so you’ll be much more likely to succeed if you pick a good week to start. Don’t wait forever though!
- Plan your meals and re-stock your kitchen to make sure you’re prepped ahead of time…and aren’t stuck in the supermarket wondering what you can/can’t buy and what you should make for dinner. A little bit of planning will go a long way towards making your keto diet journey a stress-free one.
Would you like some simple keto recipes to get you started? Check out my cookbooks here.
