What is the Ketogenic Diet?

Diet

What is the Ketogenic Diet? The keto diet, or the keto diet, the ketogenic diet, ketogenic, all these names revolve around a diet that began as a treatment for epilepsy patients in the 1920s to reduce epileptic seizures and was later used as part of a treatment program for some cancers. It is called ketogenic because it depends on ketone bodies as its primary source of energy.

 

Then the keto diet spread to lose weight, so what is the keto diet? What are the pros and cons of the keto diet? Details are as follows:

 

The keto diet:

The ketogenic diet depends on eating high levels of fat and protein (75% fat and 25% protein) and very small proportions of carbohydrates from non-major sources that do not exceed 5% of a person's daily intake, which is estimated at 50 grams per day.

 

How to lose weight with keto diet?

Usually, the body depends on the calories from carbohydrates that come from sugar as the main source of energy, and this method is preferred because it provides the body with energy quickly.

 

What happens in the keto diet is that the body does not eat any source of carbohydrates, which lowers the levels of the hormone insulin in the blood, and this causes the body to search for another source of energy, so it begins to break down fats and amino acids inside the liver to produce a new type of energy, which are ketone bodies.

 

This occurs after entering the body through a phase called the state of ketosis, or ketosis, or ketosis, and thus the main source of energy becomes fat instead of carbohydrates.

 

The ketogenic diet

After 3 days of cutting the intake of carbohydrate sources, the levels of glycogen or glycogen (glycogen) in the blood decrease, so the body resorts to withdrawing the stores of glycogen from the muscles and liver, and the body is forced to produce ketone bodies from the liver as an energy substitute after going through a series of reactions inside the body, and some symptoms appear on A person is in this stage and the symptoms of entering the state of ketosis are called (temporary symptoms) and they are:

 

Headache and headache.

·        Dizziness.

·        Feeling very tired and general body fatigue.

·        Feeling of a fever or the flu.

·        Feeling of pain in the extremities of the body.

 

After 6 days of following the keto diet, the following symptoms appear:

·        Your body will improve and you will feel like a new person full of activity.

·        You will not feel hungry.

·        The color of urine becomes dark due to the excretion of excess ketone bodies in the urine (you should drink 2 to 4 liters of water daily).

·        Severe constipation (it is recommended to eat flaxseed).

·        Or excessive diarrhea due to the excretion of fats through the digestive system.

 

It takes 4 days for the body to start showing symptoms of ketosis, 10 days to enter ketosis, and 120 days to adapt and reach the highest levels of ketone body production.

 

Foods allowed on the keto diet:

·        Meat (red meat, chicken, fish).

·        eggs.

·        Beneficial fats such as: (butter, ghee, olive oil, soybean oil, coconut oil).

·        Low in starch nuts.

·        Vegetables (avocado, leafy greens, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant).

·        Peanut Butter.

·        Almond butter.

·        Cheeses of all kinds.

·        Dairy.

 

Foods that are not included in the keto diet:

·        Sugars from all sources.

·        Starches of all kinds.

·        Legumes of all kinds.

·        the fruit.

·        Starchy vegetables like potatoes and carrots

·        Trans fats (because they are harmful to the health of the body, and they also do not produce lactobacilli).

 

The downsides of the ketogenic diet are:

·        Severe constipation.

·        Feeling sick.

·        Digestion problems.

·        Vomiting

·        Bad breath (due to ketone bodies produced by the body).

·        kidney stones.

·        Leg cramps.

·        Osteoporosis.

 

Pros of the keto diet:

·        Rapid weight loss.

·        Improving body activity.

·        Not feeling hungry.

·        Feeling better in the stomach.

·        Feeling not tired or exhausted.

·        Improves good cholesterol and lowers bad cholesterol.

·        Useful for patients with high insulin (type 2 diabetes) and patients with insulin resistance.

·        Epilepsy treatment.

·        Protection from cancer (because cancer cells are primarily fed sugar).

 

Tips for keto dieters:

·        Consult a nutritionist or a doctor before starting to follow this diet, as it is a treatment regimen in the first place, and follow-up body changes monthly with them.

·        Take vitamins (nutritional supplements) to make up for what the body loses in terms of abstaining from sources of vitamins.

·        Drink 2 to 4 liters of water daily to maintain a healthy urinary system.

 

Types of keto diet:

There are 4 types of the ketogenic diet:

1- The basic ketogenic system (standard): depends on food intake of 75% fat, 20% protein, and 5% carbohydrates from indirect sources (such as cheese and vegetables).

2- The cyclical ketogenic system: It depends on following the basic ketogenic diet for 5 days a week, while high carbohydrates are eaten two consecutive days of the week.

3- The targeted ketogenic system: It depends on following the basic ketogenic diet, with eating carbohydrates only before exercising.

4- High-protein ketogenic diet: Food ratios are 60% fat, 35% protein, and 5% carbohydrates.

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