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Keto made simple for 40 and Over.

The ketogenic diet (or keto diet, for short) is a low-carb, high fat diet that offers many health benefits.

The ketogenic diet is a very low-carb, high fat diet that shares many similarities with the Atkins and other low-carb diets. It involves drastically reducing carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat. This reduction in carbs puts your body into a metabolic state called ketosis.

What is a Ketogenic Diet?

Keto made simple is simply a method of eating certain foods and certain combinations that cause the body to run on ketones. When you burn fat, your body makes ketones and ketones can be used as an alternative fuel source. In fact your body loves running on ketones. It’s actually a much healthier fuel source.

There’s less waste, it’s more efficient, there’s more energy in ketones and your body has a lot more stored fat than it does stored sugar. An average person who’s not overweight has roughly between ninety and a hundred thousand calories of stored fat, versus that same person only has about 1,700 calories of stored sugar.

So what makes more sense running your body on a hundred thousand calories of stored energy or this small reserve of stored sugar? If you rely only on sugar fuel or stored sugars called glycogen you rapidly run out of energy.

When you start burning fat and you get into fat burning you can go a lot longer without being hungry and especially without craving carbs. So the real big advantage of the ketogenic diet versus other diets is that your hunger goes away and your cravings go away making it very easy sustain.

It is simply a method of eating certain foods and certain combinations that cause the body to run on ketones. When you burn fat, your body makes ketones and ketones can be used as an alternative fuel source. Inf act your body loves running on ketones. It’s actually a much healthier fuel source.

Keto Diets Can Help You Lose Weight

If we compare the ketogenic diet to a low calorie diet or a low fat diet both of these diets are a high carbohydrate diet.

It’s the carbohydrates that actually prevent fat burning so when someone does a low calorie diet or a low fat diet yet it’s a high carbohydrate diet. A person is going to struggle. They’re going to be dependent on doing more exercise. They lose some temporary water weight, but they’re going to pretty much give up and this is basically why 98% of diets fail.

Simply because they’re not sustainable. Why? Because you’re hungry all the time and you’re craving carbs all the time making it actually impossible to stick to because of all the temptations you have around you constantly. So what makes a person go in to ketosis or basically making ketones is lowering your carbohydrates. You need to lower your carbohydrates between 20 and 50 grams, the lower the carbohydrate the more you get into ketosis. So really you can look at the ketogenic diet as a fat burning diet. Now if you’re going to lose weight wouldn’t you want to burn fat? So basically to make it really simple you lower your carbohydrates. You don’t do a high protein diet it’s a moderate protein diet. So here’s a little point that people have a confusion on. They have this idea that the higher fat is awful for them but if you keep your carbs low there is no danger in consuming more fats. So when you go into ketosis you’re simply shifting your fuel source from the sugar to the fat and this takes three days and the way to get into this is to lower your carbs because then it forces your body to look at other sources of energy, your stored fat.

Health Benefits of Keto Explained Simply

In addition to weight loss, a keto diet can potentially improve your health and quality of life in many ways. It might sound too good to be true, but diabetes reversal, normalized blood pressure and a reduction in IBS symptoms are some of the most common benefits people see, simply by changing their way of eating. The ketogenic diet can boost insulin sensitivity and cause fat loss, leading to significant health benefits for people with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes.

Improving energy levels and sleep.
Gaining muscle and improving endurance.
Fighting some types of cancer.
Focusing the brain (increased memory, cognition, clarity, and seizure control; less migraines).
Decreasing inflammation (which improves acne, arthritis, eczema, psoriasis, IBS, pain, etc…).

Side effects of Switching to a Keto Diet

Most people have already heard about the keto flu, which can happen when you start the diet. It’s a result of the body adapting to the low-carb state. Lowering carb intake forces the body to burn ketones for energy instead of glucose. So once the body is in ketosis — burning fat for fuel instead of glucose — the keto diet is working. But you may not feel so great at first, hence the term keto flu.

Symptoms of the keto flu can include everything from:

Headache
Weakness
Irritability
Constipation
Nausea
Frequent urination
Vomiting
Muscle soreness

For most people, the keto flu only lasts about a week or two. Once this passes, you will feel energized and have much more mental focus.

The Bottom Line Of A Keto Diet.

Keto isn’t the only way to lose weight or change your life, obviously. Dietitians say it is not essential to cut back on as many foods, since a moderate low-carb diet may still hold benefits for diabetes or weight loss. One thing is certain: Any meaningful change starts with behavior. Are you at a right point to make a change in your life? Ask friends and family to support you, confer with a doctor, incorporate physical activity and begin to think of it not as a temporary measure but more of a lifestyle change.

Conclusion

It is important to discuss any intended diet plan with a doctor, dietitian, or trusted healthcare provider, especially for people who are trying to manage a health problem or disease. People looking to start the keto diet should seek consultation with a doctor and check if they have diabetes, hypoglycemia, heart disease, or any other health conditions to ensure the keto diet is a safe alternative lifestyle for you.

The choice is yours, millions of people have successfully used a type of low carb diet including the ketogenic diet as a way to lose weight. It’s a popular way to lose weight since it is highly effective. It uses the body’s natural fat burning ability to burn fat without leaving you hungry, experiencing cravings, or suffering from the negative effects of too few calories.

Will it work for you? Maybe or maybe not. Remember that you’re in this for the long haul. It’s an investment in your health as you get older. Have patience. Your long-term goal is to make a permanent lifestyle change as well as lose the excess fat. With keto, you’ll get much better results if you treat low-carb dieting as a lifestyle choice and not a short-term fix. That way, you’ll not only lose weight, but you’ll keep it off for good too.

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