Why You Should Analyze What You Eat With The Keto Diet
The ketogenic or keto diet has gained popularity in recent years because of its effectiveness in helping people shed off the pounds. Adherents of this technique say that, aside from weight loss, they’ve also experienced better cognitive and physical performance.
The diet entails reducing your carbohydrate intake to less than 50 grams per day and focusing on eating high-protein food. The premise is that you can lose weight effectively when you deplete your body’s primary source of energy, which is carbs.
When you consume high-carb food, your body converts it into glucose and uses it as fuel. This is why sugar is also a big no-no in the keto diet.
By forcing yourself to lower your carbohydrate intake, you train your mind into looking for other energy sources, which will now be fat. With this, you improve the chances of weight loss because your body will be getting energy from your fat storage.
Here are the reasons why you should analyze what you eat with the keto diet:
1. Faster Results
Your primary motive to stick to the rules of the keto diet should be to attain faster results. As with every eating plan, you have to follow the proportions set by your nutritionist or doctor on what food you can consume.
If you don’t follow the low-carb, high-protein structure of this diet, you won’t achieve your ideal weight and will only end up being frustrated with yourself. Equip yourself with knowledge and learn more through resources like KetoDietLiving.com, which provides resources on the practices and tools that you can employ to succeed in this endeavor.
Aside from weight loss, these are the other results you can enjoy with the keto diet:
- Lessen Acne – One significant cause of acne is having high blood sugar. When you reduce your carb intake, you’re also lowering the glucose that goes into your bloodstream, thus reducing breakouts and other skin conditions.
- Lower Cancer Risk – Studies on the effectiveness of the keto diet show that this meal plan complements chemotherapy and radiation treatment for cancer patients. Once again, it may boil down to lowering blood sugar levels and reducing insulin complications, which has been linked to some cancers.
- Boost Heart Health – You must remember that you can’t just eat any type of fat in the keto diet. You still have to consume healthy fats or high-density lipoproteins (HDL), like those in avocados, cheese, and fatty fish. Following the keto diet properly can boost good cholesterol levels and promote better heart health.
2. Achieve Ketosis Quicker
Ketosis is the technical term for your body not having enough carbs and, instead, burns fats. The process produces ketones, which are used as fuel.
Watching and analyzing what you eat can help you achieve ketosis quicker and get the body you want as soon as possible. If you don’t have diabetes, you can get into keto faster by taking supplements to boost ketone levels in your body.
However, make sure that you consult with your physician to ensure that you won’t encounter complications if you drink exogenous ketones.
On top of taking in supplements, these are some tips to help you achieve ketosis quicker:
- Consume Coconut Oil – Coconut oil is one of the top sources of healthy fats, specifically medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs). This type can be easily absorbed into the body and delivered to the liver, where it’s converted into ketones for energy.
- Do Endurance Exercises – Complement your weight-loss efforts through the keto diet by doing some form of physical activity daily. Walking, jogging, dancing, or playing sports can facilitate your body’s conversion of fats into fuel.
- Eat Lots of Healthy Fats – As mentioned above, you still need to be mindful of the type of fat that you consume. Healthy fat sources, aside from coconut oil, avocados, cheese, and fish, include eggs, nuts, chia seeds, and dark chocolate. Of course, remember to take everything in moderation.
- Try Going on a Fast – Fasting can trigger ketosis and hasten your body’s process of turning your fat stores into fuel sources. A lot of keto dieters go on intermittent fasting, which is the practice of limiting your food consumption to a specified period. Most people follow the 16-8 method, where they fast for 16 hours each day and eat only within 8 hours of their waking time.
3. Gain More Energy
Lots of keto diet adherents report that they’ve improved their physical and mental performance when they went on a keto diet. The energy you gain from converting fats into fuel is more substantial than the one from turning carbohydrates into glucose for energy.
4. Develop Discipline
Because the typical American diet relies heavily on carbs, it can be very challenging to do the keto eating plan. You may experience headaches and fatigue as your body goes on ketosis, especially if this is your first time to go on a diet, and it’s a relatively new situation for you.
However, you just need to keep moving forward and remember that the worst of the hunger pangs and other symptoms will eventually pass after a few days. Once your body has become accustomed to this new state, you may even be able to do some keto-friendly exercises.
5. Boost Your Confidence
Knowing that you overcame the grueling initial stages of the keto diet and learned how to discipline yourself can significantly boost your confidence. It can help you realize that you can do whatever you set your mind to, even when you had to suffer physically at first.
Conclusion
As with any other meal plan, you need to analyze what you eat when you’re on the keto diet. This is because sticking to the recommended food intake can help you get faster results through achieving ketosis quicker. Moreover, you can gain more substantial energy by converting fats into fuel than from turning carbohydrates to glucose.
The process of knowing what you can eat and consuming only healthy fats can develop your discipline. The weight-loss effects and knowing that you’ve accomplished such a feat can significantly boost your confidence as well.