TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
When it comes to picking out a diet that you will enjoy, there are a ton of choices. Some of them dont make much sense and can cause harm to your health, such as the cabbage soup diet, and others may not have the best methods for helping you to lose weight or improve your health. This can leave you feeling like you are the one to blame when the weight loss doesnt occur. But it often has to do more with the foods that you are eating and the diet that you pick rather than whether you are following it correctly.
The ketogenic diet is going to ask you to follow some different rules compared to some of the other diet plans you may have tried in the past. Most traditional diets ask you to cut out the fats that you are consuming and eat plenty of carbs. But this can be a problem if you arent using up all the carbs that you take into your body since the carbs get converted to fat in the body and can be stored around your stomach. If you are really active, this may not be a problem, but of the average person, it leaves a lot of bulge that they just cant get rid of.
The ketogenic diet asks you to switch things around. You will need to eat more fats and fewer carbs, almost no carbs, in order to force the body to use up this excess fat as energy rather than the carbs you are eating. This may exclude a lot of the foods that you enjoy, but can help you to burn off that extra body fat and lose the weight that you have always wanted.
This guidebook is going to take some time to look at the ketogenic diet and how it can help to improve your overall health. Whether you are looking to lose weight, avoid cancer, or even deal with epilepsy in children, the ketogenic diet is the right one for so many people. This guidebook will look at some of the basics of the ketogenic diet, the foods that you are allowed to eat and the ones that you should avoid, the health benefits of the ketogenic diet, and even some great recipes that will help you to really enjoy this diet.
When you have tried out all the other diets and are ready to find something that really works well for losing that body fat and improving your overall health, you cant go wrong with the ketogenic diet. This guidebook will give you all the help that you need to see some great results and lose weight with the ketogenic diet.
Chapter 1: What is the Ketogenic Diet?
When it comes to picking out a diet plan to help you lose weight and get in the best shape of your life, there are a ton of options that you can choose from. All of them promise to be the best for helping you reach your weight loss goals. Some of them work, though most are going to make promises that are just too hard for them to keep and you will fail.
The biggest issue with many diets is that they are either fads and dont work or they are just too hard to stick with for the long term. They lead you to failing and rather than blaming the diet, we often turn to blaming ourselves for not being strong enough to handle the diet to the end. Most of the time, it can be the fault of the diet, especially if you were following all of the rules and never cheating.
One diet that is really good and can help to give your body all the nutrients that it needs so you dont feel deprived while still losing weight and feeling good is the ketogenic diet. This diet is a low carb, high fat, and high protein diet that is often known for its effectiveness at treating epilepsy in children, but which can be great for people trying to solve many of their other health issues.
The ideas behind the ketogenic are not new; in fact, many famous diets, such as the Paleo Diet, the South Beach Diet, and the Atkins Diet all use some of the same principles to help people to use weight. There are some differences in the type of ketogenic diet that you will choose to go with and often the differences are going to be targeted around how many carbs you are allowed to eat. For severe health conditions, such as epilepsy in children, the carb count may be quite low. But if you are simply using the diet to help lose some weight, you will be better off with the standard ketogenic diet and a few more carbs.
So, the ketogenic is a type of diet that will force your body to go through the ketosis process. The ketosis process is where fats are going to be burned up, rather than carbs, in order to provide your body with energy. In the traditional American Diet, we rely on the body to burn up the carbs that we use to keep on going. This is fine if you are an athlete and running around all day, but if you work at a desk job and dont get to move around as much, what happens to all those extra carbs you are taking in.
If you dont burn up the carbs, the body will transform these into fat, which will get stored in the body along the waist and hips, causing even more problems in the long run. Burning off this fat can seem impossible, especially if you are still consuming a lot of carbs in your diet. The body always reverts the carbs into energy first; these are easy sources of energy and dont take as much effort by the body to convert. Over time, the excess carbs and any fat that you are consuming will be put on the waist and stomach and your weight will continue to gro.
But with the ketogenic diet, you are going to start limiting the carbs you are consuming; in some cases, you will have to stay under 100 grams of carbs in a day. When you restrict your carb intake, and add in some more exercise, your body is going to start looking for some alternative sources for energy. This is where the fat comes in. Your body will start to use up the fat that you are eating on the diet, as well as some of the fat that has been stored in the body, allowing you to still have plenty of energy to make it through the day and lose weight and body fat all at the same time.
Keep in mind that for the first few days of any ketogenic diet, you are going to feel a bit tired and worn down. This is perfectly normal and you just need to push through those few days. At the beginning of this diet, the body is going to be deprived of its main energy source, carbs, and will feel tired as it tries to replenish this loss of energy. Once the body starts working and using the fat as energy, you will start to get over these tired feelings, but keep pushing on through this.
Letting go of some of the carbs that you really enjoyed in the past can be hard. Most of your carbs on the ketogenic diet will need to come from fruits and vegetables, meaning that you will need to leave the breads, pizzas, pastas, and other good desserts on the wayside for this diet to work. This can be hard on some people, but consider taking it slow. Cut out one thing from the diet each week and soon you will start to see some better results. Or add in a cheat day to your diet. This is one day a week or every two weeks where you are allowed to eat whatever you would like regardless of the diet you are on.
Advantages of the Ketogenic Diet
At this point, the ketogenic diet may seem a bit scary and you may be wondering why you should give it a try in the first place. There are so many advantages when it comes to the ketogenic diet that you are going to want to jump on this diet plan as soon as possible. From the satisfied feelings after eating to the great weight loss, the ketogenic diet is the one that you should try out. Some of the benefits that come from the ketogenic diet include:
Control the blood sugar
Eating lots of carbs can do a number on your blood sugar levels. Carbs are known for raising up the blood sugar levels really high in no time and then bringing them crashing down and having you hit a wall. Doing this over and over again can cause a lot of damage to your body, making the body become resistant to insulin and even bringing on the beginning of diabetes. Eating lots of baked goods, breads, pastas, and other foods can really bring on the damage and you never feel like one is quite enough with these foods.