Elizabeth Wells - Keto Meal Prep: The Step-by-Step Manual for Beginners to Save Time and Eat Healthier with Meal Prepping for the Ketogenic Diet

The ketogenic diet, otherwise known as the keto diet, is a simple, yet beneficial diet plan that has helped many reach their health and weight loss goals. Unlike many other diet fads, the keto diet doesnt rely on a low caloric intake to promote weight loss. When on the keto diet, your calories will come primarily from fat and protein sources while limiting to cutting out all carbohydrates and sugars. This works because the liver naturally produces something called ketones when in ketosis.

Ketosis is an essential process the body goes through when food sources are low, particularly in carbohydrate and sugar sources. This is when the body reaches for fat stores that it has gathered over time to use as fuel for the body. During this process, the ketones, which are the direct result of fats used as energy, are produced in the liver. Because the keto diet is composed of mostly fats, it tricks the body into only using fat stores for fuel, because it thinks that is the only fuel available. Diets that focus on calorie restriction are unhealthy and can be detrimental in the long run, as you are restricting your body and depriving it of essential nutrients.

When the body is calorie deficient, it enters starvation mode, which is a cause for concern. In starvation mode, your body weight will eventually drop, however, what youre losing isnt fat. In starvation mode, your body attacks its own muscle and holds onto fat stores for dire emergencies only. In a way, it is a form of self-destructing in the form of panic because of the lack of nutrition available. The keto diet, however, puts your body into a different form of starvation mode. Instead of starving the body of nutrition and food stores, it starves your body of only carbs. Because of the manipulation of your bodys process that this diet works with, your body receives all of the weight loss benefits of starvation, but it doesnt suffer the negative consequences of starving. Such consequences are hair brittleness and even loss, feeling faint and weak, and different illnesses.

During the time of hunting and gathering, humans had to rely on finding their nutrient sources each day. Some days, these sources were hard to come by and the body would be nutrient deprived. As a survival mechanism, any time a person consumed more calories than they burned for the day, the extra energy would become fat stores for later use. These stores would become energy reserves for times of starvation when food was hard to come by. Unfortunately, this mechanism isnt necessary for many people now as food is common and easy to come by. Because people often consume more calories than they burn because of the calorie-dense foods available and the inexpensive, unhealthy foods available, fat stores are never used up and continue to build up over time. The longer this goes on, the higher the chances of diseases and complications such as heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, high bad cholesterol, and strokes. The creator of the ketogenic diet, Russel Wilder, at the Mayo Clinic, took all of these facts into consideration and created the keto diet we all know today.