The Keto Diet

This diet is for anyone who’s interested in low-carbohydrates diet. It is very similar to Atkins and other low-carb diets. The premise of Keto diet is “eat fat to burn more fat”.

 

What’s Keto diet?

Keto diet is high-fat, low –carbohydrate diet. Our body uses primarily carbohydrates for energy during rest.  The purpose of this diet is to cut carbohydrates from your diet so that your body ill stop burning carbohydrates for fuel, and will start to use ketones for energy. When the amounts of carbohydrates are very low, our body will transport more fat into the liver, and there the fat will be converted to ketones. To put this simpler, your body will become more efficient in burning fat for energy. In Keto diet you’ll have to decrease the amount of carbs that you eat to only 30 grams, some people tend to use 50 grams, but still the effect will remain the same.

 

How to know how much protein and fat I should eat?

First you take your lean body mass and you multiply it by one. This will be the amount of protein that you should be eating per day in grams. Multiply this number with 4 (the amount of kcal per gram of protein) and you’ll get total amount of calories per day that should come from protein. Now the rest of your daily requirement will come from fat calories. You don’t really need to calculate carbohydrate grams specifically because by default you will likely reach your 30-50 grams per day simply by including green vegetables and the incidental carbs that come from your fat and protein sources.

To figure out how many fat grams specifically you want, you would take the total number of calories it takes to maintain your body weight (normally around 14-16 calories per pound of body weight). Subtract your protein calories from that number and then divide by 9 (number of calories per gram of fat). This should give you how many total fat grams you need to eat per day.

Divide these numbers by however many meals you wish to eat per day to get the basic layout for your diet. Be sure to consume plenty of green leafy vegetables for antioxidant and vitamin protection and you are good to go.

 

Types of Keto Diet

There are four different types of Keto diet:

• Standard ketogenic diet (SKD):This is a very low-carb, moderate-protein and high-fat diet. It typically contains 75% fat, 20% protein and only 5% carbs (1).
• Cyclical ketogenic diet (CKD):This diet involves periods of higher-carb refeeds, such as 5 ketogenic days followed by 2 high-carb days.
• Targeted ketogenic diet (TKD):This diet allows you to add carbs around workouts.
• High-protein ketogenic diet:This is similar to a standard ketogenic diet, but includes more protein. The ratio is often 60% fat, 35% protein and 5% carbs.

 

 

Pros and Cons

Keto diet is very successful in losing body fat by putting the body in metabolic state of ketosis. Different types of Keto diet are making this diet a good choice for athletes, but for those who are involved in high-intensities sprint activities it may not be a beneficial choice.

The side effects that may come from Keto diets are:

High cholesterol. Some protein sources like fatty cuts of meat, whole dairy products, and other high-fat foods can raise cholesterol, increasing your chance of heart disease. However, studies have shown that people on the Atkins diet for up to 2 years actually had decreased “bad” cholesterol levels.

Kidney problems. If you have any kidney problems, eating too much protein puts added strain on your kidneys. This could worsen kidney function.

Osteoporosis and kidney stones. When you’re on a high-protein diet, you may urinate more calcium than normal. There are conflicting reports, but some experts think this could make osteoporosis and kidney stones more likely.