There have been numerous diets over the years like the Atkins diet, paleo diet and even a baby food diet, to name a few, but now let’s talk about one diet specifically: the ketogenic diet.
The ketogenic diet or keto for short, is a diet I’m sure you have all heard about. It’s one of the most popular diets sweeping the nation and it has gained major recognition over the past few years. It’s a low-carb and high-fat diet. Those who embark on this diet journey limit their carbohydrate intake while eating more fatty foods.
The point of this diet is to send your body into a metabolic state known as ketosis. A ketosis state is when the body produces more ketones than glucose. Glucose, which turns into sugar, is the main energy source for cells. When in ketosis the body instead uses stored fat to create the ketones that are later flushed out of your system during urination.
Doesn’t this sound a little daunting? Yet millions of people all over the world have participated in this fad. Why? To lose weight, of course.
Heaven Longo, 22, started the diet for this exact reason. “Within the first month I probably lost about 25 pounds. I saw a significant change in my weight loss,” Longo said.
While participating in the keto diet, you have to avoid a lot of foods. Foods such as grains and starches, most fruits, beans or legumes, sugary foods, root vegetables or tubers, low fat or diet products, some condiments and sauces, unhealthy fats, alcohol and sugar-free diet foods are off limits. Someone on the keto diet will instead eat more foods like meat, fatty fish, eggs, cheese, nuts and seeds, healthy oils, avocados, low carb vegetables and spices.
For some, this might be the most difficult part of the whole ordeal. “I changed my diet a little… I would eat healthy sugars like salads, fruits and smoothies to compensate for my lack of carbs… just to have energy in the morning.” Longo said.
A certified nutritionist, Connie Fessette, had quite a lot to say about the diet, and a lot of it was not positive.
Due to the fact that human cells absorb glucose and sugar from carbohydrates, but the point of the keto diet is to cut carbs from your diet, you have to train your body to fuel itself on the fat being consumed.
“Long-term keto diets are not advisable. Some people have other problems like kidney stones and liver disease, [so] short time dieting is okay. But it’s sometimes not safe for patients with a pancreatic problem,” Fessette said.
This proved to be true with three-month keto dieter, Charnora Simon:
Because I was on a high-fat diet it gave me a horrible flare up with my pancreatitis; it even sent me to the hospital. I had a gallstone that traveled to my pancreas. Alcohol and fat are two things that flare up your pancreatitis. I didn’t realize while on keto that I had pancreatitis, but I was eating over 60 grams of fat a day. I can never do keto again, even though it does help with losing weight.
While Longo did not claim to have any underlying health issues, she did note that she had encounters with the keto flu.
Some may experience the keto flu when beginning or ending their diet, and it occurs because the body is going through such a severe change.
“I mostly felt more sick when I started eating carbs again. Your body gets used to only consuming meat and dairy,” Longo said. “I felt like I would fatigue a lot faster just based on the fact that I was eating all meat and dairy with no carbs. It was a lot harder to sustain the energy you normally would if you were on a different diet.”
While there seems to be a lot of negatives with the keto diet, according to the nutritionist there is some good that can come from it.
“Keto helps to manage an epilepsy problem. It’s had health benefits for a long time, and there’s a lot of research out about it,” Fessette said.
At the end of the day, diets don’t work for everyone, which is proven with the keto diet. Always consult your doctor before making any substantial changes to your diet.