Benefits of a ketogenic diet…
With all the hypes and positive reviews on the Keto diet, you may be wondering if going Keto is worth it.
The diet proponents claim it can help reverse type 2 diabetes.
Some claim they’ve lost over 50 pounds of fat over a short period of time.
So you may be wondering is it worth going, Keto?
If so how can you benefit from eating a low-carb Keto diet?
To answer these questions, let’s briefly cover some Keto basics.
Keto short for a ketogenic diet is any diet plan “low in carb” enough to put your body into a state called ketosis.
Ketosis is a natural metabolic state where your body burns fat for energy instead of carbs.
It’s is the aim of a low-carb ketogenic diet.
Because ketosis breaks down stored fat along with fats from food sources, it helps you lose fat. And also, it helps facilitates weight loss along the way.
Because you limit your carb intake, the Keto diet naturally reduces insulin levels.
This leads to improvements in many health risk factors associated with insulin spikes.
These include high cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, and more.
So if you’re wondering how a ketogenic diet can benefit you, here are 5 proven health benefits of going keto.
5 Major Benefits of a Ketogenic Diet
1. Help You Lose Weight
The ketogenic diet helps you lose weight by putting your body in a state of ketosis. Ketosis is a metabolic state your body goes whenever there aren’t enough carbs to turn to fuel.
In this state, your body switches its primary energy source from carbs to fat to continue to fuel itself.
As a result, your body begins to produce ketones out of either stored fat or fat from food sources for energy use.
Because your body is actively burning fat in ketosis, it’s natural to see weight loss success.
2. Decrease Your Appetite
Another way the ketogenic diet helps you lose weight is through appetite control.
When you are in ketosis, your body produces ketone, a substance used to fuel the body and the brain.
Ketone production impacts both appetite suppressing and appetite-stimulating hormones.
In ketosis, ghrelin, hunger-stimulating hormone gets suppressed, making you eat less (1). This is particularly unique to the keto diet and the opposite of dieting on a non-keto diet.
This is mostly due to the presence of high-fat content on the ketogenic diet.
Another way a ketotic helps with appetite control is in their high-fat intake.
Since the body doesn’t absorb fats as fast as the other macros, it slows down digestion and keeps you full longer.
3. Better Mental Focus
It is well known that a low-carb keto diet causes weight loss and helps with type 2 diabetes.
But can it help with brain health?
The problem with carbs being an energy source is that they cause your blood sugar levels to spike and fall. This swing and inconsistency of the energy source make it harder for the brain to stay focused for a long time.
On the contrary, when you are in ketosis, your brain uses ketones as an energy source.
Ketones are far more consistent in fueling the brain allowing your brain to have a deeper focus (2).
You also don’t have a cloudy mind.
It’s really hard to explain the feeling because when you’re eating carbs you don’t realize that your mind isn’t at 100%.
Once you’re in ketosis you will begin to see the difference, especially if you spend a day or two eating carbs again.
4. Enjoy More Energy
Traditional diets are often heavy on starch and sugar, causing a spike in insulin.
While a rapid rise in insulin causes sluggishness, a low-carb diet like a keto diet prevents it. A low carb diet like keto diet help to decrease blood sugar and stabilize insulin in the body (3).
Simply put, it ends fatigue by cutting out carbs and sugar.
As your insulin levels go down, tiredness disappears and your energy levels increase.
This is one of the main benefits of ketosis.
5. May Help Manage Type II Diabetes
Halle Berry is one of the biggest proponents of the keto diet.
She claims the keto lifestyle has helped her manage her type II diabetes and maintain her health.
So how does the low-carb keto diet help with type 2 diabetes?
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the body is unable to use blood sugar effectively (4).
The exact cause of this is unknown.
Type 2 diabetes occurs when insulin is produced normally, but the body is unable to move glucose into the cells for fuel.
The pancreas tries to solve this by creating more insulin to overcome the body’s resistance.
But eventually the cells “wear out.”
At that point the body slows insulin production, leaving too much glucose in the blood.
The keto diet helps with diabetes by getting your body to use fat instead of glucose.
It does this by drastically cutting back on carbs.
Since carbohydrates turn to sugar when digested, it causes blood sugar spikes.
Cutting out carbs helps to improve blood sugar levels and reducing the need for insulin.
The Bottom Line
A low-carb ketogenic diet can help you lose weight, manage your blood glucose levels and more…
Few diets are as well established in studies as the keto diet. Following a Keto diet can benefit your health and even lower your risk of many diseases.
Sources:
- (1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5813183/
- (2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15123336
- (3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5780644/
- (4) https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000313.htm
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