I am going to assume that you have heard about the ketogenic diet or keto at least once before in your life. Keto is basically the diet that everyone is trying or planning to try. This diet promises very fast weight loss. Many celebrities and instagram influencers swear by it for shedding a couple pounds off quickly. If for some reasons you haven’t heard about keto, or you just need to learn more about it, this post will tell you everything that you need to know about keto diet.
What is the ketogenic diet?
The ketogenic diet or keto was developed in 1921 with the main purpose to help patients with epilepsy1. This diet requires that you focus on a high-fat, very low carbs and some protein diet. According to this article, keto usually follows a 4:1 ratio; in other words, 90% of the person’s diet should be fat, while the remaining 10% should be a combination of protein and carbohydrates. Like I previously mentioned, this diet was developed as a treatment for patients with epilepsy, especially children. Studies have shown that keto helps reduce seizure in children by at least 90%; Also, those children were not on any medications.
What about the modern day keto diet?
The modern day keto is very similar to the original one with the exception that it focuses on loosing weight. Now as I mentioned in (this) article, the diet industry always find new ways to take your money while making you feel bad about yourself; It all revolves around diet culture. Now if you haven’t yet, check out this post to learn more about diet culture. The modern day keto diet is a very restrictive diet which requires you to drastically cut out carbs in your diet; which includes fruits and vegetables where you get great intakes of macro- and micronutrients.
There are different types of keto diet. Some of them have different ratios of macronutrients, while others follow a 5 days standard keto and 2 days of high carb diets. Once you’re doing the KD, you’re supposed to avoid several foods. Here’s a short list of the foods that “can’t have”:
- Grains and starch
- Sugary drinks and foods
- Fruits. All of them except a small portion of berries.
- Root vegetables and tubers
- Beans and legumes
- Alcohol
I found this list on the healthline website, and it goes on and on! This right here should be a red flag to any diets. Your body needs several nutrients that you can only get from certain foods. Therefore, cutting out several
Benefits of the keto diet?
As mentioned previously, the ketogenic diet is very beneficial when it comes to helping people, especially children with epilepsy. Several studies have shown that patients with epilepsy are able to get off their medication when they follow the ketogenic diet1. It is also an effective but very unhealthy and harmful weight loss tool.
Risks associated with keto…
Some side effects of the keto are nausea, headache, fatigue, insomnia, constipation amongst others. These side effects mentioned above can last from days to weeks. Another risk associated with keto is hepatic steatosis which is when large amount of fat is accumulated in the liver; which can in turn leads to more severe diseases. One can also develop a hypoproteinemia condition which is when the blood has a very low content of protein. The two conditions previously mentioned are long term compared to the other side effects. There are so many other risks associated with keto. Hence, it is very important to do your research before you decide to try it. Again, if this is about weight loss, there are healthier alternatives. Therefore, keep that in mind.
Should you try the keto diet?
The short and simple answer to this question is no. However, I cannot tell you what to do. Although I would never recommend someone to try the keto diet as a weight loss method, this decision is entirely up to you. There are so many healthy and safer ways for people to lose weight. True, they might take longer and more work than keto. However, like I previously stated, they would be healthy and safer.
I hope that this post gave you an overview of everything you need to know about keto. Definitely leave a comment to tell me what you think of keto or if you’ve tried it before!
Letβs be friends on Instagram @smileymaruth , I post a lot of encouraging, motivating, inspiring words on my stories and feed. I also share my meals and workouts on there regularly.
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