Keto Diet for Beginners

Keto or Ketogenic diet is a type of diet in which you don’t consume or consume very low amount of carbohydrates and replace it with fat to help your body to burn fat for energy. Benefit of keto diet, is that it help in reducing the weight loss and also lower the risk of developing of any disease.  

Ketogenic diet includes the lower carb, and high fat diet. According to many studies, this type of diet helps one to loose weight and also improves the health. Keto diet also have benefits against diabetes, epilepsy, cancer, and Alzheimer’s disease.  

What is keto diet or Ketogenic diet? 

The Ketogenic diet or keto diet in short is basically the diet with low carb food and high fat food and it shows many similarities with the Atkins and low carb diet. This type of diet mainly focus on reducing of carbohydrate intake and replace it with fat. This reduce of carbs puts your body in metabolic state called ketosis. And due to which your body become efficient at burning fat for energy. It also turns fat into ketones in the liver and it provides energy to the brain.  

Ketogenic diet helps in reduction in blood sugar and insulin levels.  

Different types of Ketogenic diets:-  

Though there are several types of Ketogenic diet, let’s discuss some of them:-  

• Standard Ketogenic diet:- It contains very low carb, moderate protein and high fat diet. It contains 70% fat, 20% protein, and only 10% carbs.  
• Cyclical Ketogenic diet:- This type of diet involves higher carb refeeds. It mainly contains 5 Ketogenic days followed by 2 high carb days.  

• Targeted Ketogenic diet:- This type of diet allows you to add carbs and workout including.  
• High protein Ketogenic diet:- This type of diet is very similar to a standard Ketogenic diet (SKD), but includes more protein. It contains 60% fat, 35% protein, and 5% carbs.  

Only Standard Ketogenic diet and High protein Ketogenic diet have been studied extensively and targeted and cyclical Ketogenic diet are more advance and are mostly followed by the athletes and bodybuilders. 

How is keto diet beneficial?  

1. Helps in weight loss:- The Ketogenic diet helps in reducing the weight and also prevents from the risk of any disease. According to the studies keto diet is effective for the weight loss, as a low fat diet. Studies shows that the people following the keto diet loose weight more quick than those who follow low fat diet.  

2. Diabetes and pre diabetes:- Diabetes mainly takes place because of changes in metabolism, high blood sugar and impaired insulin function. The keto diet helps in reducing the weight which is one of the cause for Diabetes and pre Diabetes. One study also says that following the Ketogenic diet improves insulin sensitivity. 

3. Other benefits of keto diet are as follows:-  

The studies have found that following keto diet can lead to many health benefits. 

• Heart disease:- Mostly the heart disease happens because of the overweight therefore the people who follow the keto diet they loose weight quick and thus have low chances of any heart disease. 

• Cancer:- The keto diet also helps in slow growth of tumor. 

• Epilepsy:- The stuies have shown that Ketogenic diet reduce the seizures in epileptic children. 

• Alzheimer’s disease:- The keto diet helps in reducing the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and may also slow down its progress. 

• Brain injuries:- The research says that it also helps in traumatic Brain injuries. 

• Parkinson’s disease:- Though more study is still researching about it but one study has shown that keto diet reduce the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. 

• Polycystic ovary syndrome:- As we know that Ketogenic diet helps in reducing of insulin level, which plays the key role in polycystic ovary syndrome. 

Ketogenic diet for the beginners. 

You can surely enjoy tasty food in keto diet too, let’s find which food can be included in keto diet. To remain in ketosis one should opt for food with lower counts as they are better.  

• Meat and poultry 
• Eggs 
• Natural fats  

• Ground vegetables like avocado, peas, mushroom, tomatoes etc.  
• Fish and seafood 
• Cheese  

To reach ketosis, one must avoid eating too many carbs. A person who is following the keto diet need to stay under 50 grams of net carbs, and per day it should be less than 20 grams.  

The less you consume the carbs, it will be more effective to reach ketosis, losing the weight and improve type 2 diabetes.  

Though it is beneficial to count the carbs at the beginning but if you will follow the following recipes,  

First let’s discuss the items that you should eat:- 

• Above ground vegetables 
• In fruits berries have less carbs than that of the others.  
• Dairy products  

• Fats and sauces 
• Nuts  
• Tea (without sugar) 
• Coffee (without sugar) 
• Wine is also good 

To start your keto diet you should protein sources, than choose two low carb vegetables and add a healthy source of fat to complete your keto diet.  

• Protein sources like, meat, fish, seafood, eggs, and plant based protein (tofu, and black soybeans etc.).  
• Low carb vegetables like, asparagus, broccoli, bok choy, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, eggplant, green beans, fennel, mushroom, all type of green veggies, okra, onion, pumpkin, radish, spinach, tomatoes etc.  
• Fat like, nut oils (coconut, olive, avocado, sesame, hazelnut, walnut and almond), non dairy fats (lard, ghee, duck fat, chicken fat, coconut cream, coconut milk), dairy (butter, cream, Greek yoghurt, ricotta, cottage cheese). 

The drinks that you can drink in keto diet are, water, tea, coffee but without sugar though you can put some milk or cream in it and wine is also fine.  

The food that should be avoided are  

• Bread, muffins, bagels, and pancakes  
• Pasta  
• Rice 
• Cereal  

• Baked foods like cakes and cookies 
• Sugar and the food items made from sugar 
• Most fruits and fruit juice 
• Below ground vegetables 

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