Does The Keto Diet Really Work?
The world’s fastest-growing diet is the ketogenic diet and all around the world, it is been used to improve health, fight cancer and lose weight. This controversial diet goes against the tradition of all the others due to it containing high-fat and low carbohydrates. Its aim is to dramatically increase the fat levels and decrease the carbohydrate level so the body burns fats rather than carbohydrates for energy.
What Is The Keto Diet?
Ketone bodies are produced by the liver when the level of carbohydrate is significantly decreased. This metabolic state greatly increases the body’s efficiency of breaking down fat to use as fuel. The effects it has enables the body to burn far greater body fat which is why it is commonly used for weight loss.
This goes against traditional diets as high fat was completely avoided and seen as something you must avoid if you want to lose weight.
Excluded Foods For Keto Diet
The main aim of the keto diet is to dramatically reduce food containing carbohydrates. These include breakfast cereals, bread, quinoa, pasta, couscous, potato, corn, legumes, and fruit. These are replaced by high fat based foods that include, butter, cream, coconut oil, olive oil, fatty meats, and nuts.
Keto Diet Breakdown
A typical keto diet would be made up of around 60% fat, 30% protein, and only 10% carbohydrates. The intake of carbs should be limited to less than 50 grams each day in order to create a ketogenic metabolic state.
Is The Keto Diet Safe?
The short-term effects of the keto diet have the largest benefits. It is not recommended to do this diet over the long term. It is due to the body missing out on the nutritional benefits of healthy carbohydrate foods. The research is however still in its early stages. So it would be a few more years until we know the true picture of the long-term effects of maintaining the keto diet into your everyday life.
Keto Diet Side Effects
The side effects vary a great deal depending on each individual and in some cases, it can cause what is known as “The Keto Flu”. The side effects can include: brain fog, low levels of energy, sleep problems, increased hunger, digestive discomfort, reduced exercise performance, and nausea. A common side effect is a bad breath which is caused due to the high production of acetone smelling ketones.
Keto Diet For Weight Loss
The keto diet can greatly help people lose weight but the results are on an individual basis and will not work for everyone. If used in combination with exercise. It can have dramatic results in the short term. Due to the diet containing extremely low levels of carbs, it makes it very hard to maintain it over the long term. It is why it is common for this diet to be used over a period of 1 to 6 months.
Conclusion
All of the recent research shows that this diet can be extremely effective in helping the body fight off cancer by putting the body in a metabolic state that break down harmful fats in the body. The long-term results are not fully known so if you are considering doing it then set a period of 1 to 6 months.
