The basic answer is that it is a low to no carb, high fat diet. Simple as it seem, living it is hard. Especially if you are a foodie like I am. I love food, especially the bad kind.
You know, ice creams, cheesecakes, chocolates, bubble milk teas, anything with sugar, I can demolish. But deep inside, I know that this kind of food is slowly killing me.
I had to change. My late night snacks Netflix binges is going to have to stop. Or at least cut out sugar in my life, yes, no more cheesecakes, no more chocolates. Aargh! Kill me now.
But, you know what, after 3 weeks on it, I feel like Superman. Maybe without the strength, lazer eyes and the ability to fly but I feel great.
What does Keto Diet do to my body?
When you starve your body of carbs, it will start looking for alternative energy source. What we have in abundance of alternate energy source? It is fats.
The body switching to burning fats instead of carbs, is called ketosis. Hitting ketosis is achievable after eating a low carb diet in 3 - 4 days.
To be more technical, ketosis is a process when the liver breaks down fat into fatty acids. Then your body further break these fatty acids and turn it into ketones. A ketone called acetoacetate is then formed which supplies the body of energy.
Once ketosis state is achieved, our body becomes a fat burning machine.
Benefits of a Keto diet
Weight Loss
As mentioned, once you achieve a ketosis state, your body starts burning body fats, resulting in ideal weight loss.
Diets high in fats and low carbs are very hunger suppressing. While the opposite is true to high carb diets. Personally, I was on a high carb diet and I was more hungry compared to being on a ketogenic diet.
My big bowl of oats will have me ravenous after 3 hours. While my 2 eggs omelette can get me through without snacks for 7 hours or far longer.
Reduces Cancer Risk
Studies from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4215472/ states that it causes more oxidative stress to cancer cells than normal cells. Also by ‘starving’ the cancer cells of sugar, some types of cancer are prevented.
Improves Heart Health
Another study from NCBI https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2716748/ where they put 83 people whom are obesed and with high cholesterol, found that the ketogenic diet can help improve cardiovascular health. After checking week by week in a total of 24 weeks, researchers found that HDL (good cholesterol) significantly increased in a weekly basis. While LDL (bad), has lowered.
No Workout
Ever since I started the diet, I had never touched a single dumbell nor gone on a run. Yet, I am still losing weight.
No Calorie Counting
I achieved weight loss before by counting calories. It worked but counting calories from the food you eat day in and day out can be a chore.With ketogenic diet, I never cared how much calories is in a crispy pork or in an omelette.
How Long Should You Do The Diet?
I always believed that a diet is not something you do in a month or so then get back to eating what you normally have, like a cheesecake or those sweet Filipino dessert called Halo Halo. I think that diets are lifestyles.
With the ketogenic diet, I believe that sustaining this kind of eating long term, may have a negative effect on the body. The body’s preferred energy source is from carbs and changing that may have an adverse effect.
It is like depriving yourself of what you want. Imagine craving something so much, but you can’t have. You might go mental or do something unthinkable. Your body might do the same. My claim is unfounded so take this with a grain of salt.
Also, you are depriving your body of nutrients from whole foods such as potatoes, beans, brown rice, apples, mangoes, oranges and all those good carbs that are considered superfoods.
So how long am I doing this diet for? I am allowing myself a maximum of 24 weeks. Or, after I achieve my ideal weight. It is not really the weight loss but more the matter of fat loss. I guess, when I look good naked is when I will stop. I joke, I joke.