There are a million and one different diets out there for anyone to try, but one that has been around for many years and is extremely popular is the Keto diet.
Also known as the Ketogenic diet and often just referred to as a ‘low carb diet’, the Keto diet is a total lifestyle choice as opposed to a quick fix.
What Is Keto and How Does It Work?
The purpose of the Keto diet is to essentially reduce your carb intake while upping your fat and protein consumption in an attempt to put the body in a state of increased metabolism known as ‘ketosis’. During this state, the body will more effectively burn fat whilst also turning fat into ketones which are believed to naturally provide the body with a number of health and wellness benefits.
The daily consumption of all food groups and nutrients differs from person to person, but it’s generally recommended to keep carbohydrates to under 20g a day whilst ensuring around 70% of your diet is fat which can be anywhere up to 177g of fat a day depending on your total calorie intake!
What Can You Eat on Keto?
Although you need to consume a lot of fat on a daily basis for the keto diet to work, dieters are advised to choose healthy sources of fat, which often includes foods such as:
- Eggs
- Meat
- Fish
- Avocado
- Oils such as coconut, olive and avocado
- Butter
- Cream
- Cheese
- Yoghurt
The main principle of keto is to be low-carb which also includes sugar, so foods that have to be given a miss or at least kept to a minimum include:
- Bread
- Rice
- Pasta
- Potatoes
- A lot of fruits
- Chocolate
- Biscuits
- Ice cream
Fructose, galactose, glucose, lactose, maltose and sucrose are the main kinds of sugar in foods and are all to be eaten in moderation on the Keto diet, hence cow’s milk isn’t recommended due to the high lactose content whereas many dairy-containing cheeses are much lower in lactose.
Keto vs Atkins
Most of us have heard of the Atkins diet and when you read into it, you may think there isn’t much difference between the two but here’s the low down:
Atkins is a branded diet. Similarly to Slimming World or Weight Watchers, the Atkins way of eating is branded, you can buy Atkins food products, cookbooks and pay for a membership to support your weight loss plan, however, the principles aren’t much different to Keto.
Atkins is still a low carb, high-fat diet, however, Atkins dieters are encouraged to opt for healthy fats as much as possible and the plan allows you to make this way of eating a bit more sustainable by creating proper, balanced meals, as opposed to just eating plates of high-fat ingredients.
The Atkins plan can be seen as a more guided way of following the Keto principles with clearer guidelines of how much of each nutrient you should be consuming per day, as well as stronger recommendations for how to follow the diet healthily.
Is the Keto Diet Recommended?
As with every diet, there are advocates and sceptics for the Keto diet. Some people have seen incredible weight loss results with this diet and even claim it has revolutionised their health, whereas others have found the diet simply unsustainable and a totally alien way of eating.
The Keto diet is a lifestyle overhaul. A lot of planning, preparation and thought has to go into what you eat on the Keto diet and that is due to the fact that it is an elimination diet. When you remove food groups from your diet or drastically reduce how much you are ‘allowed’, you then have to think ahead a lot more to ensure the food you have with you at mealtimes is suitable and this can make the diet difficult.
There’s no denying that in some areas, the Keto diet does restrict what you can eat and these kinds of diets do create an obsessive mindset. Dieting and weight loss is known to become more difficult the more you think about it and as this diet isn’t the simplest, you do have to dedicate a lot of time and thought to it which can be a challenge in itself.
Exclusion diets can also lead to cravings – you always want to eat what you’re not allowed, don’t you?
Here at Bodyline Clinic, we offer dietary advice with all of our medical weight loss prescriptions and this exclusion style of dieting is not something we typically recommend. This isn’t because diets such as Keto don’t work, because they do for some, but our medications are all about cutting cravings and losing weight as easily as possible and a diet plan like Keto does not generally promote this.
Have you tried the Keto diet? Did it work for you?
