Fad Or Fab? 10-Point Guide To Ketogenic Diet For Beginners
Image Credit: Ketogenic diet is becoming a rage in the world of fitness

What is common between celebrities like Bollywood actor Huma Qureshi, basketball legend Lebron James and reality TV star Kourtney Kardashian? Well apart from the facts that they are all incredibly popular faces in their respective fields, they have also been very vocal about their love for a certain diet. You guess it, we are talking about the ketogenic diet. The controversial diet that has divided health experts around the world encourages people to give up on carbs completely and eat more and more high-fat foods. Want to know more about the diet? Read on.  

  1. The Ketogenic diet which is now popular for its purported weight-loss benefits was originally designed for epileptic patients.
  2. As part of a keto diet, you are supposed to bring down your carb intake drastically, and up your fat-intake. It borrows a lot of Atkins and low-carb diet.  
  3. For a ketogenic diet to work, you need to obtain an optimum state of ketosis. Ketosis is a metabolic state where your body starts burning fats for energy, instead of carbs. By limiting your body supply of glucose (sugar), the main source of energy, you force your body to turn towards fats for energy and thus end up burning more fat
  4. A successful ketogenic diet also turns fats into ketones in liver that supplies energy for brain. In addition to weight-loss benefits, ketogenic diet has been linked to diabetes control too in some studies.
  5. Ketogenic diet requires tremendous amount of good fat intake like nuts, cheese, fish etc. In addition to this, one must also have high-protein foods like lean meat, eggs, legumes etc.  
  6. There are many different versions of ketogenic diet. Such as Standard Ketogenic Diet, Cyclical Ketogenic Diet, Targeted Ketogenic Diet and High Protein Ketogenic Diet.  
  7. While standard ketogenic diet allows about 70% fat, 20% protein, and only 10% carbs. In the Cyclical Ketogenic Diet, there are days of carb refeeding. In other words, you are off carbs for a certain number of days, followed by days where you eat loads of carbs. This diet is usually prescribed to athletes or body-builders, hence you just not try it on your own.
  8. The Targeted Ketogenic diet revolves around consuming carbs around the high on energy work-out regime. The High Protein Ketogenic diet is similar to standard ketogenic diet, but with more protein intake, up to 35 percent.  
  9. There is also a Lazy Ketogenic Diet Plan, which restricts carb intake, but there is no restriction on calories, or there is no specified percentage of nutrients you need to have per day.
  10. It is always advised that you consult a certified nutritionist before you go on keto as it is also associated with many side effects like fatigue, dizziness, bad breath etc.  

Before giving your diet a complete makeover, it is always a good idea to consult a dietician or a certified expert, Keto may work wonders for some, and can fail too. Therefore, caution and moderation is key when you are starting.