The Powerful Effects of a Ketogenic Diet 

EFFECTS OF A KETOGENIC DIET

By Larisa Segida

Are you tired of all diets? Are you fed up with boring lectures, palate books, and wordy online posts on how you are supposed to look and what you should eat? No doubt that you just want to be happy with your comfort food and moderate exercise. Why crazily burn yourself in gyms and torture your mouth with tasteless raw greens? To cultivate balance in body and mind does require some effort, but perhaps it doesn’t need to be a battery of discomfort, but instead a natural approach to input versus output.

FAT, PROTEIN, AND CARBS

Fortunately, you live at the right time! Almost 100 years ago, Russell Wilder introduced the ketogenic diet to the world. In a nutshell, it is a diet which gives you great energy, health, movement and intensity, by eating a great amount of fat, a defined amount of protein, and a minimum of carbs. 

The scientist successfully treated children’s epilepsy with this natural approach to diet, but the pharmaceutical progress swept the treatment away with effective antiepileptic drugs, and the diet became unfairly forgotten at the end of the last century.

However, history repeats itself. Like the Phoenix, the diet was reborn, and for the last 15 years, it has been demonstrating its beauty to all contemporary human beings who are obsessed with health, longevity, and their hot look.

CAUSE AND EFFECT

Let’s look at how this magical ketogenic diet works, and what happens when the fat-protein-carb formula is applied with a balanced approach.

When you eat daily mostly fatty foods (definitely, you love them, as they are yummy, warming, and homey!), one gram of protein per pound of your lean body mass, and less than 35 grams of carbs, your body will respond in one of three ways:

1. You will lose weight if you subtract 250-500 calories from your diet;
2. You will gain weight if you add 250-500 calories to your diet; and
3. You will be in optimal shape when you eat enough calories through a great amount of fat, a defined amount of protein, and a minimum of carbohydrates. 

If you still doubt it, here is a bit of biochemistry for you. When your body has no free carbs, your liver breaks down your fat, so that you can get the energy to live and enjoy life. This biochemical process is called ketogenesis. It produces ketones that supply energy to certain organs and particularly to your brain. The input versus output ratio takes in the fat and outputs the energy.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Sounds like the best diet ever! Who doesn’t like fatty-juicy meals? Miracles are wonderful but they won’t happen without your effort. There are two key rules:
 

1. You must watch how much fat, protein, and carbs you consume. 
2. You must live in motion. 

Remember, what Heraclitus said? “Walking is the best medicine.” The ketogenic diet is amazing as you don’t need to exhaust yourself in high-intensity activities because a lack of carbs in this diet won’t help you to restore your energy every 10 seconds.

When you eat a high-carb diet, your muscles rely on glucose for energy–every 10 seconds on average–but in your keto diet, the speed of energy restoration is slower. You will have to exercise 2 minutes before your body shifts from the glycolytic pathway, which burns carbs, to another metabolic pathway that burns ketones. This diet can limit your performance in high intensity achievities such as swimming or soccer, and can also support moderate activities such as yoga. For each body type an adjustment can be made on input versus output to adapt to your physical lifestyle preferences. No one’s saying you need to get rid of soccer. But if that’s a once a week, or once every two week event, and the rest of the time you’re on the yoga train, a specialized approach might improve your overall health.

At Visit Natural Detox Resort we have many natural detox packages and practitioners to choose from who can help you create an input versus output diet — amongst others — that is right for you.

BRING ON THE BACON

Do you wonder what lovely meals you can have in this diet? Meat (bacon, pork sausages, smoked turkey, butter chicken), fish (fried or smoked salmon or other fish), eggs, butter-sautéed vegetables, high-fat dairy (cream-cheese, homogenized milk, sour cream, cottage cheese), and low-carb protein powder shakes should be your daily friends. Magically this diet somehow maintains to cultivate balance.

Let’s imagine one day on this fabulous ketogenic diet. Breakfast is the king of the day as you fasted the whole night. Spoil yourself with four pan-fried slices of bacon, scrambled eggs with onion and cream, and unsweetened herbal tea or coffee with 2 tbsp heavy cream (500 calories). Remember, it’s the start of your day. You are going to burn all that fat by simply being awake and engaging in natural movement. At lunch, pamper yourself with grilled chicken, 3 cups green salad sprinkled with 2 tbsp olive oil and cheese, 1 celery stock with Ranch dressing, and unsweetened sparkling water (800 calories).

You’ll notice we got a little leaner on the type of protein. Chicken has less fat content than bacon. Most people tend to exercise less in the afternoon, meaning that it will be easier for their body to digest simpler protein instead of fat protein. Dinner is the queen of the day as you deserve the best joy after all your hard work is done. Indulge in grilled salmon, 2 cups spinach sautéed in butter and cheese, Romaine lettuce with high-fat dressing, and unsweetened herbal tea or coffee with 2 tbsp heavy cream (600 calories). Again, easy to digest butter, and notice the fish – an extremely easy protein with almost no fat content to break down. Total: 1900 calories!

Visit our Natural Detox cafe – Wild Tribe and let our chefs compose true excellence for your palate, body and mind.