Is Keto good for me?
My questions to you….
What is your goal with keto?
What does a keto diet look like to you?
How do you plan to get into ketosis?
What does your diet currently look like?
Just like any protocol there’s a method to the madness and the recipe needs to be followed to achieve the results. One can’t just take bits and pieces and expect miracles in a short amount of time. But it does go deeper, the recipe will have to be adjusted to your body and how it functions and processes nutrition and toxins.
My concerns with clients jumping into keto alone
How is their liver health? This is important! Once the body switches over to ketosis it starts to burn large amounts of fat for energy. Great, that’s the goal, right?
Keto diet is when the body is running off fats and proteins that creates an increase of ketones within the blood. The foundation that needs to be addressed – what organ is going to process all of the toxins released when the fat is being mobilized. Your toxins are stored in your fat cells. So, when you start to mobilize large amounts of fat cells you are also mobilizing large amounts of toxins through the body.
This can do a few things:
- Toxins increase free radicals in the body. I want to make sure there are enough antioxidants going into the body. This will stabilize deterioration, inflammation, and pollution that free radicals cause in the body. This initial surge is part of the “keto flu” symptoms.
- Your liver is what processes all the toxins to eliminate from your body. I want to assure the liver is being supported for phase 1, 2, and 3 of liver detox. Here is access to pharmaceutical grade supplements and you are able to see my recommendations for liver detox and ketosis. The last thing we want is for the toxins to go into the liver and just bog it down and to be recycled back into the system without ever being eliminated fully from the body. There are a few ways we can support the liver with supplements through the first few months of ketosis, or do a week liver cleanse with supplements and food prior to ketosis. This is very important especially for patients that I know have history or current for alcoholism, fatty liver, Diabetes, or just very poor diet.
Getting into keto with intermittent fasting. Fasting has great effects on the body. But again, let’s do it right. What I see a lot of my clients do when they come to me after jumping head first, is the intermittent fasting.
I realized for majority it’s a lot easier not to eat then plan and prep the meals. What I do get concerned about is the one meal a day, eat whatever you want for the limited period of time in the afternoon and call it good. Let’s look at sugar stabilization and hormones in this approach. Sure this approach may still render weight loss for those coming from a high calorie diet to begin with. Know that “calorie in calorie out” does not work for everyone and if it does it will only work for a short period of time. Know that depending on the person it can take 3 days to 3 weeks before the body switches over to ketosis and is no longer running off of sugar.
So…. when one goes an extended period of time during the day without eating the body’s metabolism slows down to reserve energy that no energy (calories) are being provided. When the body has been depleted of vital nutrition during the day, when it does get food it wants to “store it”. A way you can bypass the storing and get into ketosis safely without spiking your insulin with a meal and storing it would be to have the meal portioned correctly with fats, patients and vegetables.
I say correctly portioned because large amounts of protein in one sitting can also elect an insulin response. Do not add a sugar/carbohydrate. The goal of keto diet – you want the body to run off of fats and proteins and not off sugars. The reason it can take so long for someone to get into ketosis is because you have to deprive the body of sugar to use all the glycogen from the liver and muscles and force it to run off a different energy source.
If you continually put surges of sugar in while slowing the metabolism and trying to get into ketosis you are simply working against yourself and creating a high spike and drop in your insulin production. Spikes and drops in insulin are never beneficial to the body. This can keep the body stressed and in a storing state while also influencing hormones negatively.
Aside from all of that; proteins, vegetables and fats are much more nutrient dense than carbohydrates and the body still needs to feel fully supported with nutrients to function properly. Honestly a lot of my clients that come to me for weight loss already only eat one time a day. They cannot lose weight and are even continuing to gain.
This is from the slowing of the metabolism and eating the one meal of “what they want”. What they want is usually a whole pizza, or a “balanced” meal that contains rice or pasta or potato plus the deserts and snacks. The body has felt depleted all day. It has been using up energy that was not being provided though food continually through the day.
When the quick sugar energy was provided, it spiked insulin, the liver took what it could handle for one sitting and stored the rest as fat. For the same meal if no carbs or sugars were introduced the body would still be depleting the body of glycogen and it’s being reinforced to switch over to fats and proteins for an energy source.
Vegetables, proteins, and fats stimulate the metabolism without the large spikes and without storing. Those food choices take longer to break down and digest and stabilize the blood sugar so the body can process the meal fully. They are also much more nutrient dense! This is huge because the body NEEDS nutrients to function! Needs them for healing, for processing, for sleep, for energy, for everything! If the body is not feeling supported with nutrients it will also tend to want to store and your energy will not pick up like the keto journey shows.
Ketosis can be tricky to get into. For some people keto is easy and they will be in ketosis within a few days. For others, it can take weeks. On top of that there are 5 different levels of ketosis.
When you just get into ketosis, you’ll be around the first or second level. From there it is very easy to kick yourself out if you have any sugar, carbohydrates, or alcohol. Once you get into the deeper levels of ketosis an occasional sugar off plan won’t be detrimental to your progress.
I highly recommend utilizing Keto strips, or if you’re really serious, the breath version to monitor what level of ketosis you’re in (links below).
Studies have shown very positive health benefits from following a ketosis diet. One study showed that the diet was safe, improved depression, fatigue, promoted weight loss, along with reduced proinflammatory adipokines.
In another study, Ketogenic Diet had been shown to inhibit cancer cell glycolysis and proliferation. It had also showed benefit by lowering insulin levels, enhancing mitochondrial substrate oxidation resulting in a sustained mild elevation of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species production and a hermetic anti-oxidative adaption, along with specific anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory effects.
Depending on what your diet looks like currently may give an idea of what approach to get into ketosis, how hard you’ll detox, what supplements to assist you detoxing and speed up the process of getting into ketosis. Everyone is different. Some are all or nothing and need to eliminate everything, get the supplements and go all in. Some want to do it more gradual as they find recipes they like to incorporate and detox more slowly and get slower results but are good with still moving in the “right” direction.
To get all your questions answered and a personalized game plan to reach your goals, schedule an appointment.