December 20, 2018By greentea
What is the Keto Diet?
What is the Keto Diet?
A hot trend in diets this year is the Keto diet. The name Keto is short for ketosis which is your body’s response when you severely restrict carbohydrates. The Keto Diet is a rebranded version of the old Atkins diet. When following a Keto Diet, you increase your consumption of fats and severely restrict your consumption of carbohydrates. For the first few days of the diet, your body converts both fat and muscle into carbohydrates for utilization by the body. Since it takes two molecules of body fat to make one molecule of carbohydrate, for the first few days of the diet, you lose weight very quickly. After a few days, your body tries to slow down weight loss by changing your metabolism from burning carbohydrates for fuel to burning fat for fuel. This conversion reduces your need for carbohydrates which in turn helps preserve muscle while reducing the loss of body fat.
The diet works well if you are very strict. However, this is a terrible diet if you cheat. When you are in ketosis, your individual cells are burning fat for energy not carbohydrates. Since your body is burning fat, if you consume any carbohydrates, they are not needed and therefore are immediately converted to fat. As long as you refrain from carbohydrates, everything works fine. However, if you reintroduce carbohydrates into your diet without significantly reducing the fat in your diet, you will regain all of your lost weight.
What is the Keto Diet?
A hot trend in diets this year is the Keto diet. The name Keto is short for ketosis which is your body’s response when you severely restrict carbohydrates. The Keto Diet is a rebranded version of the old Atkins diet. When following a Keto Diet, you increase your consumption of fats and severely restrict your consumption of carbohydrates. For the first few days of the diet, your body converts both fat and muscle into carbohydrates for utilization by the body. Since it takes two molecules of body fat to make one molecule of carbohydrate, for the first few days of the diet, you lose weight very quickly. After a few days, your body tries to slow down weight loss by changing your metabolism from burning carbohydrates for fuel to burning fat for fuel. This conversion reduces your need for carbohydrates which in turn helps preserve muscle while reducing the loss of body fat.
The diet works well if you are very strict. However, this is a terrible diet if you cheat. When you are in ketosis, your individual cells are burning fat for energy not carbohydrates. Since your body is burning fat, if you consume any carbohydrates, they are not needed and therefore are immediately converted to fat. As long as you refrain from carbohydrates, everything works fine. However, if you reintroduce carbohydrates into your diet without significantly reducing the fat in your diet, you will regain all of your lost weight.