Ketogenic diet: how keto diet help you lose weight

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that in medicine is used primarily to treat difficult-to-control epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates.

What is a keto diet:

The ketogenic diet is a very low-carb, high-fat diet that shares many similarities with the atkins and low-carb diets.

It involves drastically reducing carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat. This reduction in carbs puts your body into a metabolic state called ketosis.

When this happens, your body becomes incredibly efficient at burning fat for energy. It also turns fat into ketones in the liver, which can supply energy for the brain 

What do you eat 

Because the keto diet has such a high fat requirement, followers must eat fat at each meal. In a daily 2,000-calorie diet, that might look like 165 grams of fat, 40 grams of carbs, and 75 grams of protein. However, the exact ratio depends on your particular needs.

Some healthy unsaturated fats are allowed on the keto diet — like nuts (almonds, walnuts), seeds, avocados, tofu, and olive oil. But saturated fats from oils (palm, coconut), lard, butter, and cocoa butter are encouraged in high amounts.

Protein is part of the keto diet, but it doesn't typically discriminate between lean protein foods and protein sources high in saturated fat such as beef, pork, and bacon.

What about fruits and vegetables? All fruits are rich in carbs, but you can have certain fruits (usually berries) in small portions. Vegetables (also rich in carbs) are restricted to leafy greens (such as kale, Swiss chard, spinach), cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, bell peppers, onions, garlic, mushrooms, cucumber, celery, and summer squashes. A cup of chopped broccoli has about six carbs.

A sample keto meal plan for 1 Week

To help get you started, here is a sample ketogenic diet meal plan for one week:

Monday

• Breakfast: Bacon, eggs and tomatoes.
• Lunch: Chicken salad with olive oil and feta cheese.
• Dinner: Salmon with asparagus cooked in butter.

Tuesday

• Breakfast: Egg, tomato, basil and goat cheese omelet.
• Lunch: Almond milk, peanut butter, cocoa powder and stevia milkshake.
• Dinner: Meatballs, cheddar cheese and vegetables.

Wednesday

• Breakfast: A ketogenic milkshake (try this or this).
• Lunch: Shrimp salad with olive oil and avocado.
• Dinner: Pork chops with Parmesan cheese, broccoli and salad.

Thursday

• Breakfast: Omelet with avocado, salsa, peppers, onion and spices.
• Lunch: A handful of nuts and celery sticks with guacamole and salsa.
• Dinner: Chicken stuffed with pesto and cream cheese, along with vegetables.

Friday

• Breakfast: Sugar-free yogurt with peanut butter, cocoa powder and stevia.
• Lunch: Beef stir-fry cooked in coconut oil with vegetables.
• Dinner: Bun-less burger with bacon, egg and cheese.

Saturday

• Breakfast: Ham and cheese omelet with vegetables.
• Lunch: Ham and cheese slices with nuts.
• Dinner: White fish, egg and spinach cooked in coconut oil.

Sunday

• Breakfast: Fried eggs with bacon and mushrooms.
• Lunch: Burger with salsa, cheese and guacamole.

• Dinner: Steak and eggs with a side salad.

Final Thoughts

• Ketogenic diets were originally developed to help improve symptoms of epilepsy (specifically in children who didn’t improve from other treatments), but today very low-carb diets are used to help adults, too, including those suffering from many other chronic health problems like obesity, cancer and diabetes.
• Does the keto diet work? Yes! Rapid and reliable weight loss will occur in even a keto for beginners diet, due to lowered insulin levels and the body being forced to burn stored body fat for energy.