Weight loss is one of the benefits of a Low Carb Ketogenic diet and is the reason most people initially try this way of eating. The difference between this and other “diets”? It’s sustainable because you won’t feel hungry all the time. With other diets you deprive yourself and eat foods that you don’t necessarily like. This can cause you to have a bad relationship with the food you’re eating. You may resent the diet itself and feeling like you have to eat this way if you want to be healthy. Whereas with a Low Carb Ketogenic diet you can feel good about the way you’re eating and eat foods that taste amazing and make you feel full and not deprived. And you’re not only losing weight, you’re getting healthy from the inside out!
How does this work???
“Carbohydrate is driving insulin is driving fat”. – George Cahill, retired Harvard professor of medicine and expert on insulin.
You have to think of insulin as the gate keeper of the locked away fat that you want to get rid of. In order to release/burn stored away fat you have to lower your insulin levels. Insulin is a hormone that tells our cells to pick up glucose in the bloodstream and either give it to the brain, give it to the muscles to burn immediately or to the cells for later use. Your liver will store some of the glucose as glycogen that may need to be released later to keep the blood sugar in your bloodstream balanced. But there’s only so much glycogen that the muscles and liver can store before your liver needs to start converting it to fat (lipogenesis). Once the glucose is converted to fat for storage, it cannot be converted back. And remember….. in order to burn stored away fat our insulin levels must be low.
How do I lower my insulin levels??
By eating a Low Carb High Fat Ketogenic diet! Insulin responds to glucose and glucose comes from carbohydrates AND carbohydrates come from sugar! So in order to release the fat you have to lower your insulin levels by lowering your carbohydrates and sugar intake. Every time you eat something that causes insulin to release it starts storing more fat.
What about Exercise???
The traditional theory of eat less, exercise more doesn’t work. Exercise is great but cannot be used as the first step to weight loss and maintenance. And the calorie myth of “calories in, calories out” is just not the case. Eating less and exercising more will cause you to feel increased hunger, slow your metabolism, cause muscle loss and eventually will not be sustainable because you will give in to the hunger and instead overeat. You cannot exercise yourself out of a bad diet and all calories are not processed equally in the body. If you think it’s ok to eat that piece of cake because later you will go to the gym and burn it off then you probably shouldn’t eat the cake, because the stored fat from that cake doesn’t just burn off. (Ever feel like all you do is exercise and not lose weight?) Exercise because it makes you feel good, do what you enjoy, but don’t exercise with the expectation that it will cause you to lose weight.
This is explained in more detail in more detail in the book “The Calorie Myth” by Jonathan Bailor.
What about Calories??
Calories are a measurement of the heat-energy released by a food when it is burned up. The problem is that this number has nothing to do with the way our bodies metabolize these foods. A calorie of cake is completely different than a calorie from broccoli or butter. Our bodies use calories in different ways. And weight gain is not caused by eating too many calories, it is caused by eating the wrong kinds of foods that mess up our insulin metabolism.
What about Muscle? If I eat a moderate protein diet I won’t build muscle….
Actually you will. The body only can use two kinds of fuel to function, glucose and fat (ketones). The body cannot use protein for fuel. Protein is only used when it is converted to glucose. This is the reason for a moderate amount of protein in the keto diet. You will actually build and maintain muscle on a keto diet. And all you need to train is 2-3 times per week.
The American Nutrition Association would have you believe that you need a certain amount of carbohydrates for fuel. But you do not. By eating carbohydrates/glucose for fuel its like using the money in your wallet for spending, its more accessible and therefore burned through quickly as opposed to using fat for fuel which is like using the money in your bank account that is less accessible, burns slower and lasts longer.
Some info on “Low Fat” diets…
”For a large percentage of the population, perhaps 30 to 40 percent, low-fat diets are counterproductive,” says Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, director of obesity research at Harvard’s prestigious Joslin Diabetes Center. ”They have the paradoxical effect of making people gain weight.”
A low fat diet doesn’t make you feel full like a higher fat diet therefore you end of overeating because you’re hungry. Have you ever ate half a pizza and still felt like you could eat the other half?
And if the theory eating fat makes you fat was true then you would think farmers would be feeding their cows this way to dramatically increase their weight. Instead they feed them grains and corn. Starting to make sense?
History of Ketogenic, Low Carb, High Fat….
Our ancestors were in a constant state of feasting and fasting being that they would eat when they were able to catch something and fast in between until they caught something else. When fasting their body would use their fat stores for energy. When they ate they valued fat as the most important part of their meal giving the leaner cuts of meat to the dogs. They were able to travel greater distances when they burned fat for fuel and not glucose. This was prior to when farming began and they had to hunt and fish mostly for food. They ate small amounts of in season fruits and above ground vegetables, but mostly fat and protein allowing them to be keto adapted. It is the preferred fuel source for your body.
When babies are born they are born in a states of ketosis and the breast milk they drink (natures perfect food) is comprised mostly of fat and is ketogenic. They use ketones and fat for energy and for brain growth. So you would think if Mother Nature intended for us to be born this way and our ancestors thrived living this way that their might be something to it. Especially considering the statistics of obesity and diabetes skyrocketing with the modern western way of eating starch, grain and sugar.
