A Beginner's Guide To The Keto Diet

Table Of Content

1. introduction
2. What is the keto diet?
3. What is the idea behind the keto diet?
4. What types of foods can you eat on a ketogenic diet?
5. Keto Diet Meals
6. The benefits of following a ketogenic diet
7. Why low carb diet is popular? 
8. Dawnside to keto diet 
9. Ketogenic diet isn't for everyone 
10. The important thing about the keto diet 

Today we'll be talking about the ketogenic diet, otherwise known as the keto diet. Super popular diet, but what is it? What kind of foods can you eat? Is it good for you? What are the downsides of trying keto? Plus, we'll give you some meal ideas and hopefully help you decide if trying the keto diet is right for you.

What is the keto diet?

It's a high-fat, moderate-protein, ultra-low carbohydrate diet. So very different than the way that most people eat. The ketogenic diet is set up so that about 70% of your calories come from fat, about 20% from protein, and no more than 10 percent of your calories are coming from carbohydrates.

What is the idea behind the keto diet?

Is that it puts your body into ketosis. Normally our bodies run mostly on carbs. We break down the carbohydrates we eat into smaller molecules into simple sugars called glucose and then we're able to absorb that and use that as energy. 

When there's no carbohydrates left, we can tap into the small amount of carb sources we have in our muscle but most of our energy stored as fat in the body or if we're not eating any carbs we can get that energy from fat in our diet.

What types of foods can you eat on a ketogenic diet?

Think about foods like meat, red meat, pork, chicken, bacon, and sausage. You can eat nuts and seeds, you can eat low-carb vegetables, so think about spinach asparagus, and again some of those moderate carbohydrate containing veggies like onions and peppers may also have a place in your diet because it's not zero carbs it's just low carbs. 

So some fruits you may find on a ketogenic diet like berries tend to be lower in carbohydrates than fruits like: 

• mango
• pineapple
• bananas

You can also include lots of different oils and fats in your diet so 

• avocado oil
• olive oil
• butter
• coconut oil

Those can all be part of your diet. So when it comes to the list of foods you can't eat you may think that feels a little bit longer when you decide to start a keto diet because some of your favorite foods like: 

• pasta
• rice
• brownies
• ice cream 

So anything that's super starchy anything that's really sweet might not be allowed on the keto diet because of the carb intake or the carb count on those Foods.

Keto Diet Meals

Now, it helps if you know how to cook and you have a little bit of creativity. But some breakfast ideas on a ketogenic diet might be a Cheesy omelette. 

So you're having eggs, cheese, and you add some of those non-starchy vegetables in, maybe asparagus or a little bit of peppers. 

A lot of people doing keto may also stray from traditional breakfast foods and have some other meats or avocado for breakfast. 

So again, instead of putting avocado on toast, you might use avocado as a topper for an omelette or an egg muffin so that you're keeping that fat high and those carbs low. 

Some lunch and dinner ideas for the ketogenic diet might be putting together things like chicken salad or a shrimp salad, making them with the full-fat versions of mayonnaise or Greek yogurt, serving them with a side of greens dressed with olive oil. 

You can get creative with different stir-fries, again using low carbohydrate sauces to put together meals. And instead of serving your meals with rice or over noodles, 

you can make zucchini noodles or try cauliflower rice. So with a little bit of creativity, you can still have a diet that has a lot of different varied fat sources, vegetable sources. 

Again, trying some of those things for snacks that may be lower in carbs like berries paired with something higher in fat like a full-fat Greek yogurt. And then again, sometimes just grabbing a handful of nuts or something like that, which are higher in fat, do have a little bit of carbs but not a lot. 

Also, the keto diet may seem really appealing because technically you could eat all the bacon and sausage and cheeseburgers without buns that you want and still maintain your fat and carb ratios. 

You could do that but then you'd be getting a lot of processed meat in your diet which isn't linked with great health outcomes so to truly get the benefits you're going to want to focus on eating things like: 

• sardines
• salmon
• avocado
• nuts 
• and less of the ultra-processed foods

The benefits of following a ketogenic diet

Most people who follow a keto diet will lose weight. While you get to eat all those high-fat foods you're probably ending up consuming fewer calories than you were on whatever way of eating you were before you went keto. 

That's because it's really hard to overeat high-fat foods they're very satisfying very filling and so you tend to have smaller portion sizes and a lot of those easy to grab snack foods like:

• potato
• chips
• pretzels
• popcorn

Those won't fit on your diet so weight loss tends to be at least a short-term benefit for people following a ketogenic diet.

The keto diet is easy or hard than other diets? 

The keto diet may also be easier to follow than some more complicated diets. Once you have an awareness of how many carbs are in a food, you have a good sense of whether or not you can eat it.

You don't necessarily need to be counting calories or tracking any of your intake as long as you stick to choosing those high-fat and lower carbohydrate foods more often.

Why low carb diet is popular? 

Low carb diets, in general, have been popular for a long time, so there's typically something for you to work with there. 

But it does require some cooking skills, some basic nutrition knowledge. What's really interesting about the ketogenic diet is beyond weight loss, its effect on certain chronic conditions. 

The diet actually came into existence in the 1920s as a way to help kids who have epilepsy stop their seizures. 

So there is some promising research around following a keto diet and reducing your risk or helping manage symptoms for certain neurological conditions like:

• Alzheimer's symptom
• MS symptom
• Parkinson's symptom

The research is really preliminary because it wasn't until recently that more people were trying keto and more researchers were looking into its effects. 

But we do know that it changes the way that your brain gets fuel and there may be some benefits to following a ketogenic diet for those neurological conditions. That said, we really need to do more research to learn more and when it comes to Chronic conditions and a keto diet, it's not all good news.

Dawnside to keto diet 

Low carb diet and risk of heart disease

 A recent study found that eating a keto diet or a very low carb diet may increase your risk of heart disease. Again, I think it comes down to which type of foods you are choosing to include on your keto diet. Is it olive oil and almonds and salmon, or is it bacon and sausage and processed cheese? Both can fit, 

but which are you choosing more often? Plus, all of our individual disease risks vary, 

so someone who has heart disease in their family or is maybe less active might be at higher risk to begin with. So talk to your doctor as you're thinking through if the ketogenic diet is right for you.

Keto flu

Another downside to following the ketogenic diet is that as some people enter ketosis, they experience what's called the keto flu. 

Now that's exactly what it sounds like—you're truly experiencing flu-like symptoms because of your dietary changes. That may include: 

• headaches
• nausea,
• fatigue
• diarrhea
• constipation

You just don't feel great. One way to help reduce those risks of keto flu is to make sure you're really dialing in your water and electrolyte balance. As you start ketosis, you're cutting out a lot of foods that are rich in electrolytes like: 

• potassium
• magnesium
• sodium 

So you may want to consider being mindful of your intake, again making sure you're getting enough of those non-starchy vegetables. Like celery has potassium in it, but so do bananas and potatoes, which you're not really going to be eating. 

So really being mindful of which foods contain those micronutrients, potentially adding an electrolyte supplement to your water, and making sure you're staying hydrated to help reduce those symptoms. Anecdotally, 

some people say that just going low carb before they enter ketosis can help them because they're not going from eating a lot of carbs straight to an ultra-low carb diet. 

So you may want to consider sort of weaning yourself into keto by just focusing on cutting back on carbs and then deciding to make the leap all the way into a keto diet.

Ketogenic diet isn't for everyone 

The ketogenic diet isn't recommended for everyone. If you are pregnant or nursing, it's not recommended to start a ketogenic diet. 

Also, if you have a history of eating disorders or disordered eating because the keto diet is very restrictive, it is likely not right for you. If you're at higher risk of certain chronic conditions like heart disease, you also may want to talk to your doctor so that you have a better sense of what embarking on the keto diet may do to your health. 

So, talk to a doctor or a dietitian who knows you and your health concerns and issues more closely. 

It also may be helpful for people with diabetes, but it's not the only way to manage your diabetes. So if you do have diabetes and you're interested in this but you really love carbs, just know that you don't have to cut them out to manage your diabetes. 

There are lots of different ways to eat, and you can certainly still have carbohydrate-containing foods and manage your blood sugar if you're doing it in a smart way and choosing more of those good-for-you carbohydrates, more complex carbs that have fiber, so those starchy vegetables, those fruits, and whole grains.

The important thing about the keto diet 

As with any diet, it's really important when you're especially when you're cutting out food groups to be mindful of the foods you are choosing. 

You really want to have nutrient-rich options more often. When we look at the research overall, if you're just doing keto to help lose weight, what the research shows is that the best diet to lose weight is the one that you can stick to long term. 

So if cutting out all carbs forever doesn't sound great to you, you may want to consider changing the way you eat and focusing just on adding more fruits and vegetables or adding more fiber to your diet or lean protein in order to help you meet those weight loss goals without necessarily entering into ketosis.