Keto 101: What Is a Ketogenic Diet and What Are the Benefits?

foods in ketogenic diet

According to Cosmopolitan Magazine, the ketogenic diet is the most popular weight loss trend around at the moment.

Everyone from the star of Keeping up with the Kardashians, Kim Kardashian, and the actress and founder of Goop, Gwyneth Paltrow have taken up the keto diet.

However, this diet isn’t just a fad! There is hard-core scientific evidence that shows the diet helps you to lose weight, according to Harvard Medical School.

But you might be wondering – what exactly is the keto diet? And also, what are the benefits of switching to the keto diet?

By the end of this article, you’ll get the keto 101 lesson! Let’s go!

What is the Keto Diet?

The ketogenic diet is essentially a low-carb and high-fat diet.

With the keto diet, you need to significantly reduce your consumption of carbs by replacing it with fats.

In other words, say yes to meat, eggs, and fish. But no to bread, pasta, and ice-cream.

Some people find the keto diet easy, while other people really struggle. But either way, it’s definitely worth it.

By reducing carbs in your body you transition to a metabolic state which is known as ketosis – hence the name ‘keto’. This allows your body to effectively burn fat.

You can find out more about the diet at Ketogenic.com. But now, let’s discover more about the health benefits.

1. Lose Weight

The keto diet helps your body to effectively convert the fat in your body into energy. Therefore, there is substantial evidence that the keto diet helps with weight loss.

However, you don’t have to count the calories, as you do with many other types of weight loss diets. You just avoid particular foods, while eating more of others.

Plus, you don’t have to be hungry all the time.

2. Reduce Risk of Diabetes

By reducing the amount of fat in your system, you also reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes.

This is also because diabetes is linked to high blood sugar and poor insulin function. However, studies show that the keto diet can improve your insulin management by up to 75 percent.

3. Reduce Risk of Heart Disease

The keto diet has also been shown to reduce many of the factors which increase the risk of heart disease. These include high body fat, high blood pressure, and blood sugar levels.

4. Treat People with Cancer

According to studies, people with certain types of cancer can also benefit from switching to the keto diet. The diet has been linked with the slowing down of the growth of tumors.

5. Alzheimer’s Disease

There is no known cure for Alzheimer’s Disease. However, studies have shown that a healthy diet, such as the keto diet, can help to combat the onset of Alzheimer’s.

6. Epilepsy

In fact, the keto diet was originally developed to treat people with neurological conditions, such as epilepsy. The diet has been demonstrated to reduce the number and intensity of seizures, especially among children with epilepsy.

Keto 101

Now you know the keto 101, you can decide whether to give the weight-loss trend a go yourself.

If you want to find out more about how to live a happy and healthy lifestyle, we have many more blog posts like this one on our website. Check us out!