Does The Keto Lifestyle Help With Weight Loss?

Introduction

Generally, losing weight is a struggle that is all too familiar to many people. This is because gaining weight requires no effort – but losing weight is hard work.

While being overweight can inconvenience your day-to-day life by making it difficult to do the things you want to do, it is the risk of developing lifestyle diseases that motivate most people to reduce their weight.

Diet and exercise are the most common methods of losing weight. There are different types of diets that have been linked to weight loss and the keto diet is one of them.

A keto diet is a low-carb diet that enables the body to get higher amounts of calories from fats and proteins, and fewer amounts from carbohydrates. This means you reduce your intake of most easy-to-digest carbs like soda, white bread, pastries, and soda.

Keto diet is due to the fact that consuming less than fifty grams of carbohydrates per day causes the body to reduce the amount of blood sugar in three to four days.

To generate energy, the body begins to break down and proteins for energy – a process referred to as ketosis. This phenomenon is utilized by the ketogenic diet for weight loss – but it offers numerous other health benefits.

For instance, the keto diet can help people with medical conditions such as heart disease, epilepsy, and certain brain diseases. However, patients who have these conditions should consult a doctor first before shifting to a keto diet.

Facts about Keto Diet

Keto diet was developed in the 1920s to help treat epilepsy. However, the diet registered numerous health benefits, causing it to be used by people who are not epileptic.

Most people opt for a keto diet or keto weight loss supplements when they want to lose weight. The diet forces the body to burn excess fat reserves through a process known as ketosis.

During ketosis, body fat is converted into energy through the production of ketones. Ketosis only occurs when the body is deprived of glucose, which is its main source of fuel or energy.

Varieties of Keto Diet

There are different varieties of the keto diet. These are:

Modified Keto

This version of the keto diet is meant to offer fewer restrictions. For people who have not taken the Keto diet, this is the best variety to start with. It also serves as a good switch for people who have been taking the classic keto diet for a long time and want to get down to something more sustainable and long-term.

Classic Keto

This is the most strict variety of keto diet. If you opt for a classic keto diet, the ratio of fats to proteins or fats to carbohydrates in your means must be 4:1. This diet is structured in a way that fats contribute 90% of calories, proteins contribute 6% and carbohydrates 4%.

Modified Atkins

In this variety of keto diet, there is a limit to how much carbohydrates one can have in modified Atkins but fat intake is encouraged. There are no limits on proteins as well. Also, any carbohydrate consumption should be accompanied by fats.

Intermittent Fasting

This version of the keto diet serves as a launchpad into ketosis for the body by reducing the time when you take meals during the day. A good example is eating during the first eight hours of the day and then in the remaining 16 hours of the day. This extended fasting period forces your body to burn fat to generate energy.

Medium Chain Triglycerides (MCT)

This keto diet involves taking higher amounts of carbohydrates and proteins than those taken in the classic keto diet. An MCT diet uses fat supplements consisting of MCT oil or fats only. Traditionally, this diet is more flexible compared to the classic keto diet and contains a larger food variety as a result of the higher protein and carbohydrate allowance.

It is worth noting that out of these keto diet varieties, only the high-protein and classic keto diets have been subjected to extensive studies and research by professionals. The other keto diet versions are mostly used by athletes and bodybuilders.

Keto Diet and Weight Loss

Keto diets help with weight loss and as a result, the diet lowers the risk of developing some chronic illnesses. Traditionally, low-fat diets are recommended for persons who want to reduce weight. However, studies show that keto’s high fat and high protein diet provides a much better way of losing weight.

Most diets cause one to experience feelings of hunger after they have consumed the day’s set amount of calories, but this does not happen with the keto diet. Instead, keto diet provides you with a dieting method that is both filling and satisfying. For those who stick with keto diet as a way of reducing weight, their weight loss goals can be achieved even without doing calorie counts as that could deter them from sticking to their diet.

The main reason why the keto diet is a more efficient way to cut weight than low-fat diets is the increased intake of proteins. Generally, a higher intake of proteins helps boost metabolic health and promotes weight loss. Even so, keto diet should be adopted for a short time – it is not advisable to stay on it for a long time.

How the Keto Diet Boosts Weight Loss

As mentioned earlier, keto diet can help with weight loss.  It works well for people who wish to lose a significant amount of weight in a period of three to six months. There are several ways that keto diet helps with weight loss. These are:

Depleting Sugar Reserves

The effectiveness of keto diet in weight loss is associated with the fact that the body needs more calories to convert fat into energy than it requires to convert carbohydrates instead. Also with keto diet, the human body is able to break fat reserves in the body into energy.

This leads to the creation of molecules known as ketones that the body users as energy. Ketones are generated in the liver from fatty acids that are derived from body fat or from food. This means the liver burns body fat to make them. As the body burns its fat reserves, the weight of a person reduces significantly.

Decreasing Food Cravings

Because of its high-fat content, the Keto diet is known to decrease food cravings. This is because by taking a diet that is high in proteins and fat, you feel full for a longer period of time.  Studies show that this diet may lower the level of hormones that stimulate appetite and hunger, including insulin. This is because the keto diet is low in carbohydrates. Since insulin is required to break carbohydrates into glucose. The low intake of carbohydrates means the body would produce less insulin.

This drop in insulin levels will reduce the appetite for food. At the same time, the low insulin levels mean the body does not produce high amounts of glucose than it needs. Instead, the body is able to burn fat quickly and with the low amounts of carbohydrates in the body, there is very little fat left to store in the body which leads to reduced weight.

Lowering Appetite for Sugar

While sugar is necessary to have, excess amounts of it can be harmful to the body. A lot of our sugar consumption comes from processed sugar in candies, cakes, pastries, cookies among others. The result of this is weight gain, which puts your health in danger.

A keto diet helps you reduce your daily sugar intake. Since it is extremely low on carbohydrates, sugar is automatically removed from your daily diet. However, if you have a high appetite for sugar, you’ll find it extremely difficult to avoid it during the early days of switching to keto diet. But you’ll gradually adapt to the new diet as you keep off the unhealthy junk as time goes by.

The best way to keep your sugar appetite at bay with keto diet is to find some friendly keto dessert recipes to try. This will give you more control over your cravings as they’ll make up for the lack of real sugar in your diet.

Changing the Perception Towards Food

The Keto diet can help you change your attitude towards food by diversifying your choices. As you delve into this diet, you open yourself up to a whole new world of food and you discover new food recipes that you have not tried before. The focus on taking meals that have moderate protein, high fat and low carb content means that you have to come up with a more creative and strategic meal plan.

It is even better if you prepare the meals yourself because the more time you spend preparing the food, the more learn to think about and even appreciate everything you put in your body.  With time, your attitude changes; you stop taking food without giving it much thought.

Boosting Physical Exercise

Adopting a Keto lifestyle does not necessarily mean that you will be physically fit. You’ll need to do more to get your body physically fit. To achieve physical fitness, you need to combine it with some exercises especially if your work requires you to spend most of the time sitting. A good way to do this is to sign up for gym sessions.

As you continue with the keto diet, your body weight will begin to reduce and you will realize that engaging in physical activities will be easier. Exercises that you would not engage in for ten minutes will become much easier to do and your diet will begin to fuel your body with more energy. The more you engage in physical exercises, the more your body will feel great.

Burning Belly Fat

Most people have belly fat and would want to burn it. The fat that accumulates in the belly is a dangerous kind of fat known as visceral fat. It accumulates deep in the abdomen and tends to surround internal organs. Visceral fat has been associated with lifestyle diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Though for some people visceral fat comes from genes, it can also develop as a result of taking foods that are high in sugar and carbohydrates. While there is no way to target the sections of the body that you want to reduce weight with the keto diet, adopting the keto lifestyle can help you burn belly fat.

Since visceral fat is easily inflamed, taking a well-formulated keto diet can help burn this stubborn belly fat. For best results, you need to combine keto diet with high-intensity physical exercises. For people who have underlying medical conditions, it is important to consult the doctor before trying a new meal or exercise plan.

Lowering Risk of Lifestyle Diseases

When you go on a ketogenic diet, you eliminate a lot of toxic carbohydrates like sugar. This reduces your chances of developing lifestyle diseases like diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, and heart disease. By cutting sugar off your diet and reducing weight, your body mass index adjusts to the healthy range. This lowers your chances of developing most of these lifestyle diseases significantly.

Conclusion

Keto diet is one of the most effective ways of losing weight. Its weight loss, health and nutritional benefits have been researched and proven.

In weight loss, keto diet works by burning the fat that accumulates in  the body. This boosts your energy levels and enables you to lose weight.

A ketogenic lifestyle is highly beneficial to people who are diabetic and overweight because it helps with metabolism.

But like any other weight loss plan, keto diet only works when you consistently stick to your diet plan. The good thing about embracing a keto lifestyle is that you are constantly conscious about the food you eat.

When you begin meeting your weight loss goals and reaping the health benefits that come with it, your personal confidence will increase significantly.

Each milestone achieved builds your confidence and you begin to realize that you have the ability to achieve even bigger things.

About Shannon Clark

Shannon holds a degree in Exercise Science and is a certified personal trainer and fitness writer with over 10 years of industry experience.