Why I don’t support the keto diet.
Things to know about this trending “diet”
This is my personal opinion based off of my studies in nutrition and dietics. Nutrition is not a cookie cutter approach, everyone is different and everyone has the right to choose any diet they want.
Recently the ketogenic diet has become huge! If your not familiar with it I will briefly explain (It is however an extremely complicated physiological process). Basically what you do is consume a diet high in fats and extremely low in carbohydrates to force the body into ketosis which uses fat as the primary fuel source, instead of carbohydrates. By doing this it also forces the body to metabolize stored fat in the body leading to weight loss. It sounds like a dream come true, eat fats and lose fat.
The idea of forcing the body into ketosis has a history that dates back to the 1920s. Long story short the keto diet was used to treat epileptic patients and medical conditions/disease. The use of the ketogenic diet under medical guidance and a controlled duration has been proven to be very useful for treatment for several conditions. However, the research becomes conflicting and unclear when it comes to the use of the diet as a weight loss tool. Because of the recent surge in the use of ketosis as a diet, research is lacking in long term effects of the ketogenic diet on healthy individuals.
Here are some of the potential effects and why I do not support the keto diet:
High consumption of fats puts a huge strain on the liver and gallbladder. Reason being that the liver and gallbladder produce bile which helps break down fat for digestion. Excessive fat= constant needs for bile potentially leading to liver or gallbladder failure.
Mainstream keto diets are also huge advocates for eating high amounts of unhealthy fat sources such as red meats, aka saturated fat and LDL cholesterol overload! I was at Barnes and Nobles the other day and the cover of a keto cookbook pictured a stack of bacon.. BACON! I was like wtf!! Like come on it goes without saying that eating bacon isn’t good for you and is a recipe for heart disease! I hear stories of coworkers eating steak 🥩 everyday for lunch 🤦🏼♀️. Large amounts of these foods have been proven to lead to heart disease- heart attacks, clogged arteries, high blood pressure.
It’s highly suspected that if you choose to get off the keto diet and switch back to carbohydrates your body will gain the weight back because the body will be depleted of glucose and hold on to as much as it can to build its supply back up.
Fats are an inefficient source of energy compared to carbs especially during high intensity exercising. Basically it’s because carbs can be used as fuel with or without oxygen while fats need oxygen.
It’s a tough diet to safely follow. It require strips you have to pee on to make sure you have plenty of ketones in your body. I believe that if any “diet” or healthy lifestyle was given that much attention and closely followed it’s possible to lose the same amount of weight. There’s even a huge belief in the medical/nutrition field that suggests that the keto diet leads to weight lose due to caloric restricting like most diets.
While first transitioning youll probably get flu like symptoms aka “keto flu” because your body’s metabolic functions are being completely changed. Once the body has adjusted it is said that it goes away.
The keto diet is biohacking, hacking the body into altering its natural function to get the results you want. I don’t consider it to be a long term healthy lifestyle which is why I only refer to it as a “diet”. Can you lose a lot of wieght on the keto diet? Yes, absolutely! but I would rather eat a healthy balanced diet and exercise to lose weight.
“The Ketogenic Diet: A Summary” Gildea, Martin DC, CFMP. Oct, 2017.
“Practical Applications in Sports Nutrition.” Fink, Heather Hendrick; Mikesky Alen. Fourth Ed. 2015
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