What is Keto and how does it work?
Keto refers to the diet where carbs are essentially eliminated (dropped to about 5% of calories) and fats (70-75% of calories) are used as the primary source of calories, with protein making up the remaining calories (20-25%). This occurs once the body has used up all its stored glycogen and is forced to use Ketones to replenish ATP. Ketones are produced via the oxidation of fatty acids in the liver to be used as energy. Despite what some people want to believe without question (rather than reading a peer-reviewed article, guess we can’t all be cool like me) our body produces Ketones without being in Ketosis. Ketosis simply refers to the point when the body switches from Glycogen -> Ketones as the primary fuel source. Now we know what Keto is and how it works, time to answer the real question…
Why is Keto so popular?
The short answer? It’s a fad and it’s easy for most to follow. Let’s say you have 3 choices, you can follow a cookie cutter diet that tells you to eat veggies with high protein periodically throughout the day with a handful of pills, Learn to set-up and track your own macros (a daunting task for most but I promise its easy, ask a coach if you need help *hint I’m available hint*), or be told you can only eat protein and fats (did your mind immediately jump to unlimited chicken wings?) and you’ll lose 2-8lbs your first week. It’s appealing to people and it appeals to our “I want it now” approach to most things, the instant gratification of dropping weight immediately is addictive.
Sadly that doesn’t last, but why does it so quickly in the beginning? Glad you asked! Carbs breakdown to glucose in the body which is turned into glycogen and stored via water into cells. When we stop eating carbs there is no more glycogen to store and all that water just “falls off”. We hold a decent amount of water weight so when we cut out one of the main things holding it, we drop scale weight fast. This also ties into why people say “once you stop keto your body goes right back to storing fat”. Sigh…. That’s just not how it works, yes the body goes back to using glycogen as the primary fuel source but it doesn’t MAGICALLY decide all fat should now be stored because fuck those new pants you got. The weight gain we see when coming off keto, which should be very little if you do it correctly, is simply water used to store the glycogen. The only way you gain FAT back is by being in a calorie surplus, so if you are still eating at or below your maintenance calories you will not “blow up”. Big spoiler again, burning more calories than we consume is how we lose weight, that’s what ALL diets are trying to achieve. Not one diet is special or unique or better than another, whatever you can stick to that puts you below your maintenance calories is going to lose fat.
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