Connect
To Top

How Effective Is Keto Diet When Losing Weight?

Food is a necessity and a lifestyle. One needs to take it to get proper nutrition and have the energy to do the day’s work, while others are lucky enough to put discipline in their food choices and healthy physical activities to compensate the amount of their food intake.

People have evolved and created a list of ways to find a diet that suits them. Dozens of diets have been introduced while one stands out among them. The ketogenic diet has been put into the lists of diets that a lot of people wanted to try.

What is Keto Diet?

the Ketogenic Diet Food Pyramid

The ketogenic diet was initially used as nutrition therapy for patients with epilepsy. The epileptic seizure episodes are reduced thanks to the help of ketogenic diet. While other diets have been focused on increasing protein intake, keto is comprised of minimal carbohydrates ratio, high fat, and moderate protein. High fat means that your meal will be comprised of 80% fat, a protein with 15% protein and leaving carbohydrates with 5% for your meal.

Keto has been used by people as a diet and just like any other diet it has basic principles. The benefits of doing keto are worth the effort. Going keto while honoring your dietary bounds depends upon your restrictions.

What About Dairy?

Dairy would be a tough one since it is one of the healthiest sources available for fat. It’s linked to good cardiovascular wellness and health in general. It usually relies on most of the keto adherents. Dairy is a good way to get probiotics, healthy fat, and calcium but what do you do when you restrict yourself with dairy? Be sure to know the part of dairy that you are unable to handle.

Anita Jankovic/unsplash
Consuming Dairy As Part of Fats Can be Tough for Lactose Intolerant

Say, if you have a lactose intolerance, do hard cheeses such as pecorino romano, kefir or a well-fermented yogurt since the lacto bacteria consume most of the lactose, ghee, butter, and cream except runnier cheeses and fluid milk.

These are dairy foods with much protein and/or fat but only have little protein. Those that are very sensitive can opt out everything except ghee.
The diet would require being consuming about 400 fat calories for a 500-calorie meal which leaves you 75 calories for protein, and 25 calories for carbohydrates. There are variations about the diet meal you could follow that must be overwhelming with fat. This could lead to disproportionate amounts of the needed micronutrients.

Is Keto Diet a fat diet?

Keto diet has been dubbed as the miracle weight-loss method. There were a lot of endorsements and testimonials about the diet’s success and inspired a lot of people. Like any other diets that require reducing a portion of your meal, Keto also requires to cut back and not have it all. Using fat as an energy source is called ketosis. This is a normal occurrence in our body. The body experiences this when the main energy source, glucose, is dwindling in supply at the moment.

John Baker/unsplash
Keto Diet Relies Heavily on Healthy Fats To Lose Weight

Going for Ketogenic diet would promote the use of more energy with the use of fat. This is due to the limited consumption of carbohydrate as required by the diet. Losing fat is not the only benefit of Keto, according to studies, ketosis suppresses the ghrelin, the hunger hormone.

This will result in eating less than you did before. Stored carbohydrates like glucose are called glycogen. The use of glycogen results in rapid weight loss. The more you lose glycogen, the more you lose water. This means that the first thing you lose is not yet fat but water.

The Effects

While the diet is effective Keto is also restrictive and is poised to fail the test for sustainability. Failing to sustain the diet can result in accumulation your previous weight and stature, weight rebound, and possibly a heavier one at that.

Expect constipation since dietary fiber is primarily found in carbohydrates. The other will argue about taking some supplements but this would compromise the required ratio of the diet. Note that deficiency in fiber may result in an increased risk of medical conditions like heart diseases and cancer.

More in Nutrition