Ketogenic diet

Keto diet is a diet which puts the body in the ketosis state. As a result, the body burns fat instead of glucose to meet its energy needs.

A low carb, high-fat diet, the ketogenic diet transforms your body into a fat-burning machine. You body runs entirely on fat, your insulin levels become low and fat burns drastically. The main focus of this diet is to get all the calories from the consumption of healthy fats rather than proteins or carbohydrates. 

• The keto diet is applauded as a useful weight loss tool due to the dramatic carb intake decrease.
• Ketones help you burn fat for energy, powerfully reduce inflammation and show promise in preventing and eradicating diabetes, cancer, autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and many, many other health concerns.

Ketosis occurs when the body is burning fat for fuel and producing ketones (in the liver). The ketogenic diet is not for everyone and you should check with your physician before starting it.

The dos and don'ts:

• DO eat real food. Try vegetables that grow above ground, beef (organic, grass fed), chicken (organic, pastured), salmon (wild-caught), butter and heavy cream (organic is a must, raw dairy is even better).
• DO replace your electrolytes but not with diet Gatorade or sugary energy type drinks. Drink bone broth or chicken broth. Think sea salt. Make sure you get at least 2 teaspoons per day.
• DO eat plenty of healthy fats! Coconut oil, avocado oil, avocados, butter, heavy cream, extra virgin olive oil, animal fats (preferably from grass-fed animals) butter and MCT oil. Fat is a source of energy and provides mental clarity, it's brain food!
• DO use natural alternative sweeteners versus artificial ones (i.e. don't use sucralose/Splenda). DO use stevia or erythritol.  
• DO avoid fast food. Even though you can get burgers without a bun at McDonald's or wherever, fast food just isn't healthy. It is full of chemicals and preservatives and they usually don't even use real cheese and the meat often has fillers. Even the salads could have hidden sugars.
• DON'T eat low-carb tortillas, "sugar-free" candies or jello, low-carb packaged bread, diet soda, low-carb bars, shakes, frozen microwaveable meals, zero calorie artificially sweetened drinks or water flavoring.
• DON'T eat low-fat food. Avoid buying fat-free or low-fat cheese or yogurt.  You need to eat full-fat cheese and plenty of healthy fats.  If your Keto diet includes yogurt, make sure it is full-fat yogurt (no sugar added).
• DON'T eat bad fats! Corn oil, vegetable oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated oil and canola oil are the worst!
• DON'T look up nutrition information after you've eaten something, always look it up before! 

Foods to eat:

• Low-starch veggies: Asparagus, broccoli, celery, kale and other green, leafy veggies.
• Small amounts of certain fruits: A handful of berries or a few sections of grapefruit.
• Proteins: Grass-fed beef, lamb, eggs (preferably pastured and organic), hard cheeses (cheddar or parmesan).
• Nuts and seeds: Macadamia nuts, pecans, coconut (unsweetened), pumpkin seeds, raw cacao nibs, etc.
• Fats and Oils: Coconut oil and butter, grass-fed butter or ghee, extra virgin olive oil, cocoa butter, tallow, etc.
• Sweeteners: Stevia (organic drops preferred), monk fruit, erythritol.

What’s the most important thing to do to reach ketosis? Avoid eating too many carbs. You’ll likely need to keep carb intake under 50 grams of net carbs per day, ideally below 20 grams. (source)
 

Foods to avoid:

• Grains (pasta, breads, cereals, cookies, cakes, etc.).
• Beans.
• Most fruits.
• Starchy Vegetables (potatoes, carrots, corn, most squashes, etc.).
• Low-fat dairy.
• Alcohol.
• Artificial sweeteners.
• Many condiments contain hidden sugar (ketchup, salsas, teriyaki sauce, pickles, etc.).
• Oils high in omega-6's like canola, corn, safflower, etc..

How the ketogenic diet works

To understand the ketogenic diet, you need a quick primer on how the human body gets energy. We are fueled primarily by glucose, or blood sugar, much of which we derive from carbohydrates in foods like bread, fruit, potatoes, and sweets.

If glucose levels in the blood drop to really low levels, we’d pass out and die. But, interestingly, the body can’t store much glucose — only enough to last a couple of days. So if we forgo eating carbs for a few days, we need other ways to keep going. One of those is a process called ketogenesis.

In ketogenesis, our livers start to break down fat into a usable energy source called ketone bodies, or ketones for short. “Organs like the brain that normally rely primarily on glucose for fuel can begin to use a substantial amount of ketones,” said Kevin Hall, a National Institutes of Health senior investigator who has studied the ketogenic diet. So ketones can stand in for glucose as fuel for the body when there’s a glucose shortage. “It’s an amazing physiological adaption to starvation that allows tissues like the brain to survive,” Hall added.

Once ketogenesis kicks in and ketone levels are elevated, the body is in a state called “ketosis,” where you’re burning stored fat. There are a few ways to get into ketosis. One is through fasting: When you stop eating altogether for an extended period of time, the body will ramp up fat burning for fuel and decrease its use of glucose (which is part of the reason people can survive for as long as 73 days without food).

Another way to get into ketosis is by eating less than 20 to 50 grams of carbs — or a slice or two of bread — per day. So people on a ketogenic diet get 5 percent of their calories from carbohydrates, about 15 percent from protein, and 80 percent from fat. Note that that’s a much lower ratio of protein and a lot more fat than you’d get on other low-carb diets, but it’s this ratio that will force the body to derive much of its energy from ketones. If you eat too much protein, or too many carbs, your body will be thrown out of ketosis.

In practice, that means subsisting mainly on meats, eggs, cheese, fish, nuts, butter, oils, and vegetables — and carefully avoiding sugar, bread and other grains, beans, and even fruit. Again, if this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s not that different from the Atkins diet, among the most famous very low-carb diets that promise to get your body burning fat.