If you are searching for ways to lose weight or simply improve your health, then you have probably heard about the Ketogenic Diet and the rising hype around it. That is mostly because it is far from the traditional caloric diets that people are used to undergoing. In case you haven’t heard of it yet, well then, this is your chance. Either way, I am here to explain what the Keto diet is, and why you are missing out. 

What is Keto?

First, let me start by explaining Ketosis. It’s a process that occurs when our body doesn’t have enough carbohydrates to burn for energy, so it burns fat instead and produces ketones which are used as fuel for energy. Actually, we are all born in a state of Ketosis, meaning our body uses fat as its main source of energy. 

That said, the Ketogenic diet focuses on eating fulfilling, clean, real, and fresh food away from anything industrialized. Isn’t that how our ancestors used to eat? It is actually more of a lifestyle that revolves around boosting your body with good natural fats and making it your first source of energy instead of carbs that are easy to digest like sugar, soda, pastries, and white bread. That is how your body switches to using your own fats and starts losing the extra weight. 

Why Keto?

As a Ketogenic expert, my main objective is to help people get to their ideal weight in the most comfortable way possible. This means eating healthy fulfilling food and feeling comfortable with their healthy lifestyle, instead of simply going through a diet process for the mere sake of losing weight. Believe me, once you feel good about your new diet, you will find yourself willingly embracing that lifestyle, especially when you also get to heal illnesses! 

A crucial part of the Ketogenic diet is to find the main reason behind unwanted fat in our bodies. Addressing and fixing those reasons helps us cure any resulting illnesses and symptoms in the process. So by now, you know that Keto is a very beneficial diet, but let’s go through some of its most significant benefits, shall we? 

Benefits of Keto

There are so many benefits of Keto, and we will discuss the major ones in a bit. But before, I need you to know that the positive effects of the diet on your health depend on the quality of your diet. As much as it thrills me that the Ketogenic diet is getting the attention it deserves, mainly due to the easy online sharing of information, it also pains me to notice wrong practices and inaccurate instructions coming from unqualified people. Therefore, be sure to seek professional guidance and consume healthy nutritional food. Here are the major benefits of Keto on one’s health:

Prevents and Treats Illnesses

The ketogenic diet prevents and treats numerous illnesses and their respective symptoms. I am listing below some of the most common ones, but add them Gout a painful form of arthritis, Dementia and Alzheimers disease, Parkinson’s, traumatic brain injury, and multiple sclerosis. 

• Diabetes type II

It’s a metabolic disease characterized by rising blood sugar levels known as hyperglycemia. It is caused by a lack of insulin, the hormone that connects with certain receptors in the blood to lower blood sugar. But, excessively consuming sugar and carbs lead to chronic insulin resistance. The keto diet helps by normalizing blood sugar levels that some patients can even stop medications. 

• Heart and Cardiovascular Diseases 

Heart diseases, Triglycerides, and Cholesterol. Eating healthy fats such as avocados, cheese, and eggs instead of unhealthy fats like vegetable oils, sausages, and fried foods improves your heart health by reducing Cholesterol. Hence, you reduce your risk of heart complications. 

• Fatty Liver 

Fat builds up in your liver either due to alcohol or unhealthy fats. The latter is more complex because many factors can lead to it like obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. The ketogenic diet teaches our body to burn fat instead of storing it, which consequently cleans a fatty liver. 

• Epilepsy 

Epilepsy is a disease that causes seizures due to excessive brain activity. The Ketogenic diet helps people who don’t respond to anti-seizure drugs or cannot tolerate their side effects overcome the disease. Keto has been shown to reduce seizure frequency and severity in both children and adults. 

Prevents and Cures Certain Cancers

That is one major benefit that has caught the attention of many. The ketogenic diet reduces the risk of certain cancers by avoiding what triggers them in the first place. Elevated blood sugar, obesity, and type 2 diabetes are linked to breast cancer and other types of cancer. We basically increase our risk of developing cancer by excessively consuming simple sugars found in refined and concentrated foods such as soft drinks, candies, pastries, etc. High intakes of sugar are associated with increased body weight and inflammation, which increase the risk of cancer. Therefore, restricting sugar as well as carbs to lower blood sugar and insulin levels helps prevent the growth of tumors. 

As for people who are diagnosed with cancer, the ketogenic diet can help cure the disease by restricting sugar. In all its forms, sugar is considered one of the main energy sources that feed cancer cells. Through keto, we starve those cancer cells and kill them by simply eliminating their primary source of fuel. Here, it’s important to bear in mind that the ketogenic diet does indeed cure cancer, but it depends of course on the stage that the disease has reached. 

Fixes Hormonal Imbalances

For far too long, we have been told to avoid fat, and so we substituted it with carbs. Sadly, this contributed to many hormonal challenges women face nowadays. The good news is that the Ketogenic diet balances hormones in your body in several ways:

• It relies on fat

No, I’m not talking about unhealthy industrialized fats. The Keto diet relies on good and healthy fats that support the production of hormones and help maintain a hormonal balance because they contribute to building and producing sex hormones like estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. 

• It boosts insulin sensitivity

Since a keto diet limits the intake of carbohydrates, it helps regulate insulin levels which, when out of balance, drop your hormone levels. Keto makes your body insulin sensitive, meaning the latter is regulated and used properly by your cells. Consequently, you get fit more easily and lower the risk of heart and bone diseases.

• It eases premenstrual syndrome (PMS)

High Estrogen levels and not enough progesterone is often the cause of symptoms such as cramps, acne, and fatigue during PMS. Tell me about it, right? Well, one of the main reasons for this imbalance is too much sugar and refined carbohydrates, which are eliminated by following a ketogenic diet! 

• It fights PCOS

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which is one of the main causes of infertility among women, develops from unbalanced sex hormones, overweight, poor blood sugar regulation, and insulin resistance. As you may have guessed, the ketogenic diet fights PCOS by addressing insulin problems.

• Controls Cortisol 

Cortisol is a hormone released by adrenal glands when we are stressed. And if we fail to control stress, we end up with high cortisol levels which affect the production of progesterone, estrogen, and testosterone. The ketogenic diet helps stabilize cortisol and improve hormonal balance. 

Lose Weight

To simplify things for you, the Ketogenic diet helps with weight loss in two main ways:

• Fat Burning 

As you know by now, the Ketogenic diet helps you lose weight through Ketosis. When you minimize your intake of carbohydrates, your liver starts producing ketones from your body fat. So basically your liver burns body fat to produce Ketones for energy instead of carbs. 

Also, when you restrict carbs, you prevent high blood sugar, regulating your insulin levels. Here’s another mind-blowing fact for you: By lowering insulin levels, the ketogenic diet facilitates access to stored body fat, particularly belly fat! Once your body can easily access fat to burn for fuel, fat loss becomes much easier.  

• Hunger management

Fat and protein are more satiating than carbs which is why it’s harder to stay hungry or overeat during a Keto diet. You feel full longer and won’t crave any snacks between meals. A dream right? Actually, Keto has proven to reduce your hunger hormone Ghrelin, which signals hunger to your brain and pushes you towards snacking. So as long as the Keto diet keeps the hunger hormone under control, there will be less overeating and less weight gain.   

Talking about cravings, I totally get that carbs are really hard to resist. So many people are addicted to sugar that they can’t even control it. However, through a ketogenic diet that is low-carb, you strip your brain from the idea of easily accessible carbs. Eventually, like any habit, your body gets used to not wanting carbs anymore. In short, fewer carb cravings mean less weight!

Side Effects of Keto

If applied the wrong way without professional support, the ketogenic diet can have side effects because it suddenly changes one’s diet from carbs and sugars to one excluding those. During the first week of the diet, some people might experience flu-like symptoms, that are thought to be a result of either sugar and carbohydrate withdrawal, changes to the gut bacteria, or an immune system reaction. 

People applying the diet alone will probably exclude some foods that are necessary to the ketogenic lifestyle. This is exactly why I recommend working with a professional whose role is to ensure that people take in all the essential minerals, vitamins, and electrolytes to prevent the slightest discomfort. This brings me to a common and modern mistake: referring solely to the internet to start a ketogenic diet. This is very dangerous, especially for individuals who have diseases. 

There are also over-the-counter supplements in the form of pills, powders, oils, and other forms that claim to raise your ketone levels. Don’t you get too excited and go buying any of those before you check with a professional expert because there is no actual proof whether they are safe. 

To avoid unwanted side effects, it is crucial you refer to a ketogenic expert when you decide to embark on this health journey. A good professional always requests recent blood tests and discusses with you your medical history and any health conditions you may have before starting the diet because every body is unique. Let them guide you safely through your journey so you can cure any diseases and reach your health objectives. 

There is so much more to the Ketogenic diet than merely losing weight, and that is what makes it so special. Save your health, your money, your time and effort, and adopt a lifestyle that makes you comfortably healthy. Despite all the misconceptions and fake information out there, I hope you now have a clear idea of what the Ketogenic diet is. Now whether you feel inspired and want to take the leap, or have some more questions, feel free to get in touch!