Keto diet
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Highlycaloric
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Keto diet
Hey, guys! I recently started the keto diet, but I am still a bit weary of it because I don’t know how to feel about the high fat diet. I’ve done research on it but it seems that any articles on it are going to be either extremely for it, or extremely against it. I am worried about whether or not it is actually healthy for your heart, and I’ve talked to friends of mine who swear by keto and say that it has no effect on your heart, if you are eating the right kinds of fat. Just curious as to what everyone’s thoughts may be about this, because I haven’t seen a thread on keto yet.
Sail away from the safe harbor
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kitty90095
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Re: Keto diet
Hi!
The keto diet is a high fat diet, which means all your daily calories essentially come from fats (usually on a normal diet, it comes from carbohydrates). What this means is that instead of using glucose (from carbohydrates) for energy, our body has to break down stored fat into ketone bodies, and the cells will then use ketone bodies to make energy instead. This is a process called ketosis, which is where the name "keto" comes from (short for "ketogenic" diet).
When it comes to looking at the benefits and disadvantages of any diet, it's always important to consider short term and long term. So let me break down the keto diet for you. In the short term, the keto diet essentially trains the body to metabolize fat for energy, which means it can effectively result in fat loss. Cutting carbohydrates also means your body will not store water (carbohydrates hold water), and water loss also equates to weight loss.
In the long term, research shoes that the keto diet may be beneficial for people with bipolar disorder or epilepsy (although this may not be the key point in today's discussion, as we are primarily talking about weight loss). You must understand that the keto diet is a highly restrictive diet, as you are allowed very few carbohydrates, which normally accounts for 50% of the typical American diet. This means it is hard to stick to, and you may also not be taking in enough essential micronutrients (vitamins, minerals) which are usually found in veggies, fruits or superfoods (these are all carbohydrates). Such deficiencies may have complications.
To address your concern about heart disease: yes, your friends are correct in saying that good fats will not necessarily increase the risk of heart disease. There is a risk of heart disease amongst the ketogenic dieters, because it is pretty difficult to reach your fat intake just on good fats, and sometimes dieters will increase their intake of unhealthy trans and saturated fats (i.e. "bad" fats), and that will definitely have complications on the heart. Therefore, you must be careful about the types of fat that you're eating, and what fats are considered to be "good" or "bad". (Bad fats are found in red meat, skin of poultry, cheese, butter etc.) This brings me back to the point of the keto diet being restrictive, because you can see that I basically eliminated some major foods in the typical American diet already in that small list.
I hope that was helpful. Let me know your thoughts!
The keto diet is a high fat diet, which means all your daily calories essentially come from fats (usually on a normal diet, it comes from carbohydrates). What this means is that instead of using glucose (from carbohydrates) for energy, our body has to break down stored fat into ketone bodies, and the cells will then use ketone bodies to make energy instead. This is a process called ketosis, which is where the name "keto" comes from (short for "ketogenic" diet).
When it comes to looking at the benefits and disadvantages of any diet, it's always important to consider short term and long term. So let me break down the keto diet for you. In the short term, the keto diet essentially trains the body to metabolize fat for energy, which means it can effectively result in fat loss. Cutting carbohydrates also means your body will not store water (carbohydrates hold water), and water loss also equates to weight loss.
In the long term, research shoes that the keto diet may be beneficial for people with bipolar disorder or epilepsy (although this may not be the key point in today's discussion, as we are primarily talking about weight loss). You must understand that the keto diet is a highly restrictive diet, as you are allowed very few carbohydrates, which normally accounts for 50% of the typical American diet. This means it is hard to stick to, and you may also not be taking in enough essential micronutrients (vitamins, minerals) which are usually found in veggies, fruits or superfoods (these are all carbohydrates). Such deficiencies may have complications.
To address your concern about heart disease: yes, your friends are correct in saying that good fats will not necessarily increase the risk of heart disease. There is a risk of heart disease amongst the ketogenic dieters, because it is pretty difficult to reach your fat intake just on good fats, and sometimes dieters will increase their intake of unhealthy trans and saturated fats (i.e. "bad" fats), and that will definitely have complications on the heart. Therefore, you must be careful about the types of fat that you're eating, and what fats are considered to be "good" or "bad". (Bad fats are found in red meat, skin of poultry, cheese, butter etc.) This brings me back to the point of the keto diet being restrictive, because you can see that I basically eliminated some major foods in the typical American diet already in that small list.
I hope that was helpful. Let me know your thoughts!
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MikeGibson
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Re: Keto diet
Keto's a hot topic for sure. The whole high-fat thing can be puzzling, especially with conflicting articles out there.