Why Keto Might Not Be the Best Diet for You
The ketogenic diet seems to be all the rage when I’m writing this.
Keto was originally a medical diet to help manage seizures in children. For those who care how it works, your body normally relies on glucose (sugar/carbohydrate) for energy for everyday processes. When you eliminate carbohydrates from the diet, your body no longer has glucose to draw upon, so your liver begins producing ketones, an alternative fuel source, from fat. A true ketogenic diet heavily emphasizes fat intake, even over protein. Theoretically, your body then starts burning fat, including stored fat, as its preferred fuel source.
Logically, sounds great! I know several people who have lost a lot of weight on keto. That’s fantastic. I’m not here to knock keto. However, I want to look at the real reason why keto works for short term fat loss, and why it might not be great long term.
The Good
Following ANY structured diet is usually enough to start losing weight. Very few people intentionally overeat to gain fat. It just happens through negligence over a long period of time. So when you start tracking your food and paying attention, most of the time you’ll start losing weight. You stop mindlessly snacking or eating nasty bar food when you go out. You may limit or eliminate sodas or alcohol. This is true regardless if you’re doing a high-carb, low fat diet, or if you’re doing keto.
Keto and other low carb diets are effective because processed carbohydrates are plentiful in the Western diet and are very easy to overeat. When you cut out chips, sodas, sugar, and bread, you’ve eliminated the main foods most people snack on all day. You’re left eating meat and vegetables, which certainly is a better option.
By cutting these carb-heavy foods, you’ll almost certainly put yourself in a caloric deficit. Thus, you lose weight. Simple enough. There isn’t anything magical about cutting carbs. They’re just the easiest thing to cut to see drastic results quickly.
The Bad
The ketogenic diet hasn’t been studied long-term. Anecdotally, it’s effective for fat loss in the short term. Excessive saturated fat intake from high-fat meats can be a concern, but can be managed by getting most of your fats from unsaturated vegetable sources. We just don’t know for certain what happens to the body if you eat this way for a long time.
If you’re an endurance athlete, keto is probably less than ideal for you. Your long-duration activities require lots of carbs for fuel, and your performance will suffer if you eliminate as many carbs as required. Does that mean there’s not a special snowflake out there who has succeeded as an endurance athlete on keto? I’m sure that person exists, but I doubt it’s you.
The Ugly
The main problem with the ketogenic diet (and any other restrictive diet) is that it doesn’t prepare you for weight maintenance. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat down with a new client and they’ve told me how their weight has yo-yo’d up and down for their entire adult life, sometimes by dozens and dozens of pounds. This is most definitely not healthy. They’ve “tried everything” and “nothing works.” Maybe that’s you.
Restrictive diets don’t teach you anything about habits, long-term health, physical fitness, proper activity levels, or weight management. There’s nothing wrong with you and you don’t have a slow metabolism. You’ve been misled by people pushing these diets.
Anyone can follow cut and dry rules for a short period of time. The challenge is making your short-term changes stick. What happens when you go off keto? If you don’t have a plan, prepare to regain the weight. Maybe not overnight, but it will happen. Go here to learn some simple strategies to get off the weight loss merry-go-round.
If you do have a plan for weight maintenance, great! Keep doing what you’re doing. Just keep the pitfalls I’ve mentioned in mind.
If you’re looking for a fitness trainer in the Mt Juliet/Hermitage/Nashville TN area, online fitness training, or just need some advice to get your fitness program started, contact me