A Beginner’s Guide to the Ketogenic Diet: An Effective Way of Optimizing Your Health
Many people suffer from various chronic diseases such as diabetes and obesity, and the main culprit is usually the food they eat. The standard diet contains excessive amounts of protein and carbohydrates, neither of which is good for your health because it eventually causes you to develop insulin and leptin resistance.
As a result, you gain excess weight, develop inflammation and become prone to cellular damage.
To avoid this problem, significant changes in your diet are necessary, and the best way is inducing your body into a state of nutritional ketosis, a condition where your body burns fat as its primary fuel instead of sugar. In order to reach nutritional ketosis, you must follow a ketogenic diet. But what exactly is a ketogenic diet?
This guide will tell you everything you need to know about a ketogenic diet — how you can apply it to your lifestyle and what positives you can reap from it.
The Various Benefits of the Ketogenic Diet
A ketogenic diet is a dietary approach that focuses on minimal carbohydrates, moderate amounts of protein and high healthy fat consumption — the three keys to achieving nutritional ketosis. In fact, it's what I recommend for most people who would like to optimize their health.
There are many reasons why you should try a ketogenic diet. It can be very beneficial for people suffering from chronic conditions, or for people who would simply like to be healthier than their current state. You'll be excited to know that a ketogenic diet can help with the following:
• Weight loss
If you're trying to lose weight, then a ketogenic diet is one of the best ways to do it, because it helps access your body fat so that it can be shed. Obese people in particular can benefit from this method.
In one study, obese test subjects were given a low-carb ketogenic diet and a low-fat diet. After 24 weeks, researchers noted that the low-carb group lost more weight (9.4 kilograms) compared to the low-fat group (4.8 kilograms).1
Even my own body was able to feel the benefits of following a ketogenic diet. I was able to drop my weight from 180 to 164 pounds, despite eating 2,500 to 3,000 calories per day. Since then, I have increased my consumption to 3,500 to 4,000 calories just to maintain my ideal weight.
• Anti-inflammatory
The human body can use sugar and fat as fuel sources. However, the latter is preferred because it is a cleaner, healthier fuel, as it releases far fewer reactive oxygen species (ROS) and secondary free radicals.
By eliminating sugar from your daily food consumption, you're decreasing your risk of developing chronic inflammation throughout your body.
• Lowering risk of cancer
One exciting discovery about the ketogenic diet is how it can help prevent cancer. Dominic D'Agostino, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of South Florida, recently made headway on how the ketogenic diet can help impact this dreaded disease.
D'Agostino explains that all of your cells (including cancer cells) use glucose as fuel. However, cancer cells do not have metabolic flexibility and cannot adapt to using ketones as energy, which your regular cells can. Once your body enters a state of nutritional ketosis, the cancer cells starve to death.
• Increasing muscle mass
Jeff Volek, Ph.D, is a registered dietitian specializing on how a high-fat, low-carb diet can affect health and athletic performance. In one of his books, he states that ketones have a similar structure to branched-chain amino acids that can be useful for building muscle mass.
Ketones spare these amino acids, leaving higher levels of them around, which can help promote muscle mass.
• Reducing Appetite
Constant hunger can cause you to consume more calories than you can burn, which can eventually lead to weight gain. A ketogenic diet can help you avoid this problem because reducing carbohydrate consumption can reduce hunger symptoms.
In one study, participants who were given a low-carbohydrate diet had reduced appetites, helping them lose weight easier.2
• Lowering Insulin Levels
When you consume carbs, they are broken down into sugars in your body. In turn, this causes your blood sugar levels to rise and leads to a spike in your insulin.
Over time, you may develop insulin resistance, which can progress to type 2 diabetes. By altering your diet to a ketogenic approach, you can reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
In a study published in Nutrition & Metabolism, researchers noted that diabetics who ate low-carbohydrate ketogenic diets were able to significantly reduce their dependency on diabetes medication, and may even reverse it eventually.3
Different Types of Ketogenic Diets You Can Try
There are several variations of the ketogenic diet based on specific needs:4
• Standard Ketogenic Diet (SKD)
SKD is the type I typically recommend for most people, because it is very effective. It focuses on high consumption of healthy fats (70 percent of your diet), moderate protein (25 percent) and very little carbohydrates (5 percent).5
Keep in mind that there's no set limit to the fat, because energy requirements vary from person to person, depending on their daily physical activities.
However, majority of your calories still need to come from fats, and you still need to limit your consumption of carbohydrates and protein for it to become a standard ketogenic diet.6
• Targeted Ketogenic Diet (TKD)
TKD is generally geared towards fitness enthusiasts. In this approach, you eat the entirety of your allocated carbs for the day in one meal, 30 to 60 minutes before exercise. The idea here is to use the energy provided by the carbs effectively before it disrupts ketosis.7
If you're following this approach, I recommend that you eat carbs that are easily digestible with a high glycemic index to avoid upsetting your stomach. Then, when you're done exercising, increase your intake of protein to help with muscle recovery, then continue consuming your fats afterwards.8
• Cyclic Ketogenic Diet (CKD)
Whereas TKD is focused on fitness enthusiasts, CKD is focused more on athletes and bodybuilders. In CKD, you cycle between a normal ketogenic diet, followed by a set number of days of high carb consumption, also known as "carb-loading."9
The idea here is to take advantage of the carbohydrates to replenish the glycogen lost from your muscles during athletic activity or working out.10
If you're a high-level athlete or bodybuilder, CKD may be a viable method for you. It usually consists of five days of SKD, followed by two days of carb-loading. During the ketogenic cycle, carb consumption is around 50 grams, but when you get to the carb-loading cycle, the amount jumps to 450 to 600 grams. Again, this method isn't recommended for most people who do not have a high rate of physical activity.11
• High-Protein Ketogenic Diet
This method is a variant of the SKD. In a high-protein diet, you increase the ratio of protein consumption to 10 percent and reduce your healthy fat consumption by 10 percent. In a study involving obese men that tried this method, researchers noted that it helped reduce their hunger and lowered their food intake significantly, resulting in weight loss.12 If you're overweight or obese, this may help you at first, then you can transition to SKD after you normalize your weight.
• Restricted Ketogenic Diet
As mentioned earlier, a ketogenic diet can be an effective weapon against cancer. To do this, you need to be on a restricted ketogenic diet. By restricting your carbohydrate and calorie intake, your body loses glycogen and starts producing ketones that your healthy cells can use as energy. Because cancer cells cannot use these ketones, they starve to death.13
A 2010 study helps back up this claim. A 65-year old woman who was suffering from glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), an aggressive type of brain cancer, was put into a restricted ketogenic diet that started with water fasting and then proceeded to consume 600 calories a day only. After two months, her weight decreased and the ketones in her body elevated.
Furthermore, there was no discernable brain tumor tissue detected using magnetic resonance (MRI) or fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) imaging scans.14
Put Away These Foods Before Going on a Ketogenic Diet
Before coming up with an actual ketogenic diet food list, it's important to take a look at what you're eating first and take out anything that's unhealthy. This means that you have to remove sugars, starches, packaged and processed foods from your diet, because a ketogenic diet focuses on eating real, whole food.
Furthermore, avoid drinking milk because it contains the carbohydrate galactose — drinking just one glass can basically eat up your entire carb allotment for the day. In addition, avoiding milk helps lactose-intolerant people to implement the ketogenic diet. Many other products should be avoided, such as hydrogenated vegetable oils (canola, sunflower, etc.), peanut butter, soy products and sodas. They may be low on carbohydrates, but they are unhealthy and can wreak havoc on your health.
The Ideal Foods to Eat for a Ketogenic Diet
So now that you've taken out all the unhealthy food sources, what's the next step? When it comes to the core of an actual ketogenic diet, remember that you need to consume only a moderate amount of protein, or about one-half gram per pound of lean body mass, each day. In addition, carbohydrates must be minimized and high-quality fats increased to serve as your new fuel source.
To ease yourself into a ketogenic diet meal plan, I usually recommend adding C8 medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) oil into your food. It's typically more expensive than other types of MCT oil, but I prefer it more because it converts into ketones more effectively. You can start with 1 teaspoon per day, then gradually increase your consumption to 2 to 3 tablespoons per day.
If your stomach does not agree with MCT oil, you can try MCT powder, which is easier on your stomach. The table below provides a good overview of other foods rich in high-quality healthy fats:
Coconut oil
Animal-based omega-3 fats from healthy sources such as wild-caught Alaskan salmon, sardines, anchovies and krill
Olives and olive oil (make sure they are third-party certified because most olive oils are diluted with vegetable oils)
Raw, grass fed butter
Raw nuts, such as macadamia, almonds and pecans
Various seeds such as pumpkin, sesame, cumin and hemp
Avocados
Grass fed meats
Lard and/or tallow
Ghee (clarified butter)
Raw cacao butter
Organic pastured eggs
When building your ketogenic diet meal plan, it's important to stick to green leafy vegetables because they are rich in fiber, antioxidants and various nutrients. Your best choices include broccoli, spinach, parsley, Brussels sprouts and zucchini.
While fruits are generally healthy for you, majority of them should be are avoided in a ketogenic diet because of their high amounts of sugar. However, certain berries are safe to eat in moderate quantities, such as blackberry, blueberry and cranberry, because they are rich in antioxidants that can support your health.
As for beverages, there are several you can choose from. The most important is water, but you may also drink organic black coffee (without any sweeteners or milk), which is rich in antioxidants. Coconut milk can be consumed as well, as well as herbal teas because they are rich in various antioxidants and nutrients. If you want a more extensive list, Paleo Flourish Magazine has recommendations that encompass various food groups.
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