Tuesday, December 8, 2015

What is a Ketogenic Diet?

That is probably the most asked question of me over the last month. It has been a lot of fun to answer too. Most of the time it stems off of what I am eating, as the foods are typically higher in fat content, or because I ask for heavy whipping cream in my diet soda (one of my favorite treats when I am having a rough day).

I have gotten a lot of help from my health coach at Elevate Fitness in understanding the process. So to answer the question, a Ketogenic Diet (aka the Keto Diet for short), is known for being a high fat, low carb diet. Our body switches from consuming carbs for energy and starts burning fat instead.

Our bodies have become very efficient at burning carbs or glucose for our source of energy. And because glucose is the easiest substance to use for energy, our body uses it over anything else.

Because our society is so carb heavy, breads, sugars, etc...we have become very insulin dependent. Our body produces insulin to process all of the glucose in our bloodstreams and delivers it around our body for energy. And since we consume so many carbs/glucose, our fat isn't needed and so our body stores it.

When we reduce the number of carbs that we intake, it places our body into a phase called Ketosis. Ketosis is a natural process where our body creates ketones to breakdown the fats in our liver. I don't starve myself of calories, as I consume about 2100 calories a day. But what I have done is starved myself of carbs, and have become fat adaptive, and now my body feeds off of my excess fats.



Hopefully understanding this process will help more people become healthy. I have heard that some doctors feel that it is more for elite athletes, but I am here to tell you that I am not an elite athlete, and it works for me.

In the coming posts, I will go over some of the things that I eat, and share some recipes that I have found. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below, and I will be happy to answer them. I will look forward to seeing you on the next post.

Image Credit to http://www.bodybuilding.com/

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