while achieving your fitness goals, workouts-moderate or intense- alone will not help. Maintaining a well-balanced diet is also essential. Not maintaining healthy ratios of carbohydrates, protein, and fat in your diet, any fitness routine will not bring the desired result. Let’s optimize your fitness goals through the keto diet.
What is a keto diet
The keto diet refers to maintaining a delicate ratio of fat, protein, and carbohydrates in your meal. This ratio is 70% fat, 20% protein, and 10% carbohydrates. Consuming food in this ratio lets the body get more calories from fat, and less from protein, and carbohydrates. Fitness enthusiasts embrace the keto diet since following this diet helps weight loss and minimizes the risk of certain diseases.
keto Diet Principle or How the Keto Diet helps weight loss
The main objective of the keto diet is weight loss. How does it happen? Carbohydrates are the primary source of energy in your body. When you eat carbs like bread, pasta, potatoes, cereals, and many other types perhaps most of which you like, they break into glucose molecules. These glucose molecules provide energy to all living beings.
Eating fewer carbs means your body produces less glucose. Production of less glucose will result in scarcity of these main energy-generating molecules. The body will compensate for glucose scarcity by pulling stored glucose from the liver. After some certain time, all glucose in the body will diminish. How does the body then fuel it to keep it active? It will use fat as an alternative source of energy. Consumption of the fat will result in weight loss.
How the body enters ketosis
Ketosis is a metabolic state when your body switches to fat instead of carbohydrates due to its minimal availability to produce ketones. Ketones will then fuel the body like glucose. Entering into the ketosis state requires you to limit your carbohydrate consumption to as low as 50 grams per day for 2 to 4 days. Your body cannot store glucose in large amounts. A small amount of glucose is stored as glycogen in your liver and muscles. When you are on low-carb like 20 to 50 grams per day for 2 to 4 days, all glucose molecules in your body will diminish. Your body will then switch to fat to produce ketones. And, this is how your body enters ketosis.
Key macronutrient ratios and food choices
In the ketogenic realm, there are no ideal macronutrient ratios. All keto diet followers maintain one basic rule: they all keep carb consumption the least amount compared to the other two macronutrients fat, and protein. A diet is considered a keto diet when 70 to 80% of total daily calories come from protein, 10 to 20% from protein, and 5 to 10% from carbohydrates. If a person requires 2000 calories per day, the macronutrient breakdown for a keto diet regime for supplying 2000 calories would be 165 grams of fats, 75 grams of proteins, and 40 grams of carbs.
There are different versions of the keto diet plan available. However, all versions of the keto diet plan place a strict restriction on carbs consumption. Several commonly consumed foods like white bread, cereals, rice, pasta, cookies, potatoes, corn, starchy vegetables, and fruit juices are well-known carbs. Most fruits, beans, and legumes are less prominent carbs. Since fats are the major macronutrient in a keto diet plan, all such diet plans allow foods rich in high saturated fats like processed meats, lard, and butter. Foods with unsaturated fats like nuts, seeds, avocadoes, plant oils, and oily fish can also be included in a keto diet plan.
Benefits and Potential drawbacks of the keto diet for Fitness
Although the keto diet or KD has become a buzzing word in the last decade, the diet has been around since the 1920s. The KD drew much attention when it proved its efficiency in reducing seizures in patients with epilepsy. The diet gets further limelight thanks to the exposure made by social, and electronic media. Before starting a new diet plan like KD, you must know the diet’s potential health benefits and drawbacks.
Benefits of Keto diet
Weight loss
The keto diet has become so prominent especially in the last decade because many people claim that the diet helps weight loss. The claim is not scientifically established yet though the explanation supporting the claim is convincing. Unlike other diet plans, people on the keto diet claimed they feel less hungry. The keto diet’s main macronutrient is fat which is 75%. Fats take a longer time to break down. The less craving for food claimed while on a keto diet plan is also convincing. While on a keto diet, weight loss is possible because two effects work together: ketosis, and the reduction in total calorie consumption by eliminating food groups.
Indulge in Food with high-saturated Fat
Do you love food rich in high-saturated fat? Welcome to a keto diet plan. To follow a diet plan like KD, 70 to 80% of daily calories need to be supplied by foods loaded with high fat. people who love fatty foods like butter, ghee, lard, cheese, sausage, bacon, and fatty cuts of meats will embrace the keto diet sooner rather than later.
Health-friendly diet for specific people
Apart from reducing seizures in pediatric patients with epilepsy, the diet helps to dispose of fats for bodybuilders, and endurance athletes within a short period. The diet is studied closely by researchers to ascertain that the diet can reduce symptoms of neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease.
Cons
Difficult to continue
Adhering to a keto diet plan is difficult because when it provides quick results in weight loss, a sense of. accomplishment overwhelms many people which distracts them from maintaining a stringent diet plan. When they discontinue the diet plan, they gain weight again.
Fewer carbs are not suitable for everyone
A high-carb diet is essential for endurance athletes since they require high–energy to perform their daily routines. A high-carb diet is also beneficial for athletes to keep their bodies in shape.
Nutrient Deficient
When you are on a keto diet, you are depriving yourself of vitamins, minerals, and fiver since foods like fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains have no place in the diet. These health-beneficial nutrient deficiencies have negative side impacts including feeling exhausted and foggy. The side effects resulting from the keto diet are also referred to as the keto flu. Constipation is also common among the keto diet followers due to the absence of fiber in the diet.
Negative impacts on heart health
The diet helps in weight loss but could result in cardiovascular diseases. The KD is rich in high saturated fat which could trigger CVDs. The American Heart Association recommends limiting high saturated fat intake to 5 to 6 percent. The keto diet followers ignore this limit resulting in a high amount of lipids in their blood which raises the chance of cardiovascular diseases.
Renal Risk
Patients with kidney diseases who are on the keto diet live at an increased risk of dialysis since their renal system needs to process the additional ketones resulting from ketosis.
Hydration and electrolyte balance on a keto diet
Switching to a keto diet does not necessarily mean eating a low amount of carbs, and a high amount of saturated fats. Adequate hydration and electrolyte balance are equally important. When your body enters into ketosis, it sheds excess water. The expulsion of excess water will result in the imbalance of electrolytes in your body. The consequences of the electrolyte imbalance mean affecting a keto diet follower with keto flu with symptoms of fatigue, and dizziness.
Maintaining a healthy diet plan is essential to achieve a fitness goal like weight loss, or muscle building. In the last decade, many fitness enthusiasts have relied on the keto diet due to its immediate positive impact on fitness. The diet is especially beneficial for weight loss, and muscle building. If your fitness goal is either of these two, start the keto diet from today.
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