keto diet for beginners

What is keto?

I’m sure you’ve seen it all over the place and are at complete loss of where to begin, have no fear, we’re here to help.

First, you need to understand what is keto or ketogenic diet and how it works.

It is low-carb, high-fat diet that burns stored fat instead of sugar that can help you lose weight and control (or in some cases reverse) type 2 diabetes (if you have it).

Great. 
But how does that really work?

When you eat carbs, whether it’s bread, pasta, or anything with sugar (as we all know, sugar is a simple carb, but we don’t want to dive too deep into that), your body breaks it down and you get glucose from it, and that is what fuels your body.

So, what the keto diet does is that by having the minimum amount of carbs in your body, your body is then forced to produce something called ketones (the other fuel that your body uses, specifically your brain) which takes it from the fat in your body.

It does it through this complicated process using the liver, but I’m sure you don’t really want to know the complete breakdown of it.

So, point is, by taking the carbs out of your diet, you force your body to burn off the fat that is already there in order to keep your energy up. 

On a keto diet, your whole body switches its fuel supply to run mostly on fat, constantly burning it all day, every day.

When insulin levels start going down, fat burning can increase intensely. It becomes a whole lot easier for your body to access that fat storage and burn it off.

So not only does the keto diet have the benefit of getting you healthier but also gets you to lose weight with just some slight changes to your diet (unless you love your carbs, then you will have to make big changes, sorry!). 

Foods that you can still eat while on the keto diet include eggs, meat, fish, avocadoes, natural fats such as butter and olive oil, cheeses, vegetables (not potatoes, those are loaded with carbs and starch that will end up breaking down into sugar in your body and we don’t want any of that), so you don’t have to feel completely overwhelmed with changing what you eat.

Things that you do have to avoid at all cost are bread and pasta (obviously!), rice, fruits, sweets, juice, soda, and alcohol.

Even though it’s hard to being with, think of all the positive change that will happen with your body.

You’ll feel healthier.
Fun fact about keto diet, it originally was meant for children who have seizures and is actually proven to help a good percentage of those children to completely eradicate seizures from their life although with a slight chance of returning after a few years, but that was only after they were taken off the diet.

So fun facts aside, keto diet is relatively very safe for most people but if you take medication for high blood pressure, insulin, or you are breast feeding it is always best to consult your doctor or physician to know the best course of action to take.