What is a ketogenic diet. A ketogenic diet is when you consume a low-carbohydrate diet in order to force your body into a state of ketosis. When there’s a different name to it. The low-carb diet has become popular because people believe it will help them lose weight or be healthier. There are many different versions of the diet. Kelly Schmidt, a nutrition consultant in Columbus, Ohio, notes that Americans typically eat more than 200 grams of carbohydrates per day. She states that a diet with carbohydrate intake below that amount is considered a low-carb diet.
The Mayo Clinic advises that 45-65% of an individual’s daily caloric intake should come from carbohydrates. This is how many calories a person on a 2,000 calorie diet would get from carbs: 900 to 1,300 calories, or 225 to 325 grams of carbs per day.
The low-carbohydrate diet trend is still popular and some research suggests that it can help people lose weight, at least in the short term. Although some researchers believe the keto diet is a sustainable and safe long-term eating approach, others are warning against it. Researchers who studied the diets of 15,428 adults over the course of 25 years found that those who ate the least amount of carbs were 32% more likely to die from cardiovascular disease, and 50% more likely to die from a stroke or cancer than those who ate the most carbs.
The findings of the study should be considered if you are thinking about going on a low-carb diet. There are many different types of diets, from the ketogenic diet to the Dukan diet. Yet the name isn’t the biggest thing that matters. Essentially, the type of low-carb diet you want to do is not as important as making sure you eat more real food than processed food.
5 Risks of Eating Too Many Carbs
Carbohydrates are turned into glucose in your body and become the primary energy source for your cells. The glucose from the carbs in a banana or sandwich is absorbed into your bloodstream.
Next, your pancreas produces insulin. Insulin regulates your carbohydrate, fat, and protein metabolism. If you eat too many carbohydrates, it can upset the balance between insulin and glucose in your body, which can lead to various chronic health problems.
#1: Insulin Resistance and Type 2 Diabetes
This means that your pancreas has to make more and more insulin to make up for this resistance. When your pancreas can no longer keep up with the demand for insulin, you develop diabetes. cells don’t respond well to insulin -> body has to make more insulin -> when pancreas can’t make enough insulin, you get diabetes because you have consumed more sugar than usual, your pancreas produces more insulin to make up for it. The result of this is that your blood sugar and insulin levels will increase over time.
One of the things that can lead to type 2 diabetes, gestational diabetes, and prediabetes is insulin resistance. You can experience insulin resistance without being overweight, although it is closely related to obesity.
#2: Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease
Insulin resistance is a medical condition that can lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Since insulin affects the way fat, carbs, and protein are used by the body, it also affects how much fat is produced.
When you eat carbs, your liver converts the excess glucose into fat for storage. You can develop non-alcoholic fatty liver disease if your liver produces too much fat. This is the most common chronic liver disease in adults and children in the United States.
#3: Weight Gain
Many studies have found that low-carb diets are more effective than low-fat diets when it comes to weight loss. Even if people eating a high-fat diet do not limit their calorie intake, this is still true. A high-fat, low carbohydrate diet also appears to be more effective at reducing abdominal fat than other diets.
#4: Cardiovascular Disease
A high-carb diet that triggers insulin resistance can have negative consequences for your heart health. If you’re insulin resistant, it means your body isn’t able to use insulin properly. This can lead to high blood sugar levels, which can increase your risk of a number of cardiovascular diseases, such as high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, heart attack, and stroke.
#5: Energy Crashes
Foods with a high glycemic index are more likely to cause an energy crash because they contain more carbs. A study found that those who ate a high-glycemic meal fell asleep faster than those who ate a low-glycemic meal. This is because the high-glycemic meal caused increased blood sugar and insulin levels.
Health Benefits of a Low-Carb Diet
There are several benefits that can be gained from adopting a low-carb diet.
#1: Rapid Weight Loss
A study found that a low-carb diet is the best way to lose weight quickly, and that it is recommended for people who are obese or have high cholesterol.
A low-carb diet can help suppress cravings, change food preferences, and reduce hunger, leading to natural weight loss. Eating a strict low-carb diet with 20 or fewer grams of carbs per day has been shown to reduce cravings, increase satiety, and make you feel fuller, longer:
#2: Enhanced Exercise Performance
Increasing your intake of carbohydrates for one day out of the week, after eating a low-carb diet the rest of the time, has been known to improve your athletic abilities. Athletes on a low-carb diet had better performance and burned more fat without lowering their glycogen stores, which is necessary for muscle health and growth. The athletes involved in the study also showed increased endurance and ability to burn fat.
#3: Improved Mental Clarity
The energy molecules that fat creates in your body are called ketones. While glucose may be the body’s go-to source of energy, fat can actually offer some benefits to cognitive performance that glucose cannot. When you obtain energy for your body by consuming the ketones that originate from eating fat, your brain’s performance improves because there is less glutamate present. Glutamate is a neurotransmitter that, if present in high enough concentrations, can damage and kill neurons. Ketones effectively flush them out of your brain.
#4: Disease Prevention and Treatment
A low-carb diet has been shown to be helpful in the prevention and treatment of several medical conditions. The keto diet has been shown to be beneficial for a variety of health conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. It has also been shown to greatly reduce inflammation, which is known to cause several diseases.
Before you start, be aware that many of the trendy low-carbohydrate diets have not been thoroughly researched. Many of the reported benefits of essential oils have not been proven and may only be based on personal experience. With those limitations in mind, here’s a look at 4 popular low-carb plans and how they work:
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A Basic Low-Carb Diet
Although there is no definitive rule, Schmidt says that a low-carb diet restricts carbohydrate intake. This is considered a low-carb diet, with 50-100g of carbs per day. This means that you will have to eat fewer carbs than what is considered normal for you. The advantage of this plan is that it is tailored to your needs, so you can eat the amount that is best for your body. You are given the freedom to choose which carbohydrates you want to eat (fruits, vegetables, dairy, whole grains, nuts, legumes, and seeds) rather than following a plan that tells you what to eat and when. This diet is best for someone who loves freedom and hates spending time on things like counting grams of carbs.
There may be benefits to following this traditional plan. A study published in the journal JCI Insight in June 2019 compared the effects of low-, moderate-, and high-carbohydrate diets on obese adults with metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors (such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and excess belly fat) that increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, as noted by the Mayo Clinic. The low carb group improved their cholesterol levels, whether they lost any weight or not.
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The Ketogenic, or ‘Keto’ Diet
This particular low-carb diet is very restrictive, only allowing you to eat foods that have a total of 50 grams of carbs or less per day. Some experts recommend an even stricter limit of 30 or 20 grams per day. Most people need to consume no more than 30 grams of sugar per day, although active individuals may be able to consume slightly more. Your diet will also consist of a significant amount of fat, up to 80 percent.
A keto diet switches your body’s energy source from carbs to fat. A main reason people come here is because they can lose a lot of weight quickly, and it’s motivating to see results that quickly. Although the ketogenic diet has many benefits, it is not a diet that can be followed long-term because it is so limited.
A review in December 2018 noted that keto diets produce more weight loss compared to a low-fat diet, however these results will most likely not be permanent. After approximately five months, those who follow a keto diet begin to see the weight they lost start to come back.
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A Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet
This seems like it would be similar to a keto diet, but on this plan you would generally eat more carbs and less fat than you would on a keto diet. The percentage of your calories that come from carbs is around 25, while the percentage that come from fat is over 60. The researchers closed their report by stating, “resulting in a [keto diet] that is more easy to follow and also more nutritionally complete.” The good news is that the keto diet is so strict that it’s difficult for many dieters to stick to it, which means that a more liberal carb allotment is “more practical,” according to researchers of a June 2018 article published in the European Journal of Nutrition. The researchers closed their report by stating that the keto diet is “more easy to follow and also more nutritionally complete.” In other words, while these diets may help you lose weight in the short term, it is not clear what the long-term effects of these diets may be. More research needs to be conducted in order to determine the potential risks or benefits of these diets.
Many people do this type of low-carb diet for benefits during a workout, such as increased energy and focus. Advocates argue that the diet can retrain your body to burn fat as fuel, instead of glucose, leading to more sustained energy during long endurance activities. The study found that there was not enough evidence to support the claim that a ketogenic diet can improve performance. If you’re an athlete and you’re interested in this kind of eating, you should talk to a registered dietitian who specializes in sports nutrition to figure out what’s right for you.
4. Bulletproof Diet
The Bulletproof diet was created by entrepreneur and blogger Dave Asprey in 2014. The aim of this diet is to help people lose weight, increase their energy levels, improve their physical and mental performance, store more nutrients, and boost their immune system.
There have been no studies conducted to account for the effectiveness of the Bulletproof Diet, which is arguably the least restrictive diet on this list. The Bulletproof Diet suggests that you should follow your body’s lead. This means that you shouldn’t focus on things like calories or weight when you’re choosing what to eat, but you should still make sure that most of your food comes from healthy fats, protein, and carbs from fruits and veggies.
How the Bulletproof Diet Works
The diet consists of a variety of foods that are classified as green, yellow, or red. These categories are based on their nutrient content and how they fit into your daily macros. The foods that are green are the ones that you can eat without any restrictions, the yellow foods can be eaten in moderation, and the red foods should be avoided altogether.
- Green Zone foods: Meat, seafood, low-glycemic fruits and vegetables, and coconut.
- Yellow Zone foods: Nuts, seeds, corn, potatoes, and fruits with higher amounts of sugar.
- Red Zone foods: Soy, soft drinks, dried fruits, all cheese, vegetable oils, gluten, chickpeas, lentils, and chia seeds.
Foods to Avoid on a Low-Carb Meal Plan
When following a low-carbohydrate meal plan, you will remove foods like starch, sugar, and grains from your diet. Here’s what you should avoid on a healthy, low-carb diet:
- Processed or cured meats, like hot dogs and sausages
- Grains (even whole grains) such as rice, wheat, rye, quinoa, and millet
- Starchy vegetables such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, parsnips, corn, and peas
- High-glycemic fruits including bananas, mangoes, papaya, apples, oranges, grapes, and dried fruit
- Sugar, including cane sugar, coconut sugar, agave nectar, maple syrup, and honey
- Processed foods, including baked treats, ice-cream, chips, soda, and candy
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