Understanding a Keto Diet

Keto often means more meat and less carbs

The ketogenic diet has been increasing in popularity and not just because everyone loves bacon. We receive many questions about the keto diet from our patients, so here’s some basic info and perspective on the topic. 

What is Keto?
A ketogenic diet is any diet or eating pattern that causes the body to spend significant periods of time in “ketosis” - the state in which our body burns fat rather than carbs/sugar/glucose as the primary source of fuel. Burning fat over sugar not only helps with weight management and blood sugar control. It also promotes a reduction in inflammation throughout the body which can result in an improvement in a wide range of health issues.

It is best to think of frequent and significant time spent in ketosis as a fundamental expectation of our human bodies just as much our bodies expect to get good amounts of sleep, activity, and un-processed organic foods. These are simply the circumstances under which our bodies and genes developed and precisely that for which we are designed. To reiterate, NOT spending significant periods of time in ketosis on a regular basis can be just as detrimental to our health as NOT sleeping enough, NOT being active enough and NOT eating high-quality foods. For this reason, it is fair to say that we are adapted for long periods of ketosis and that we are unlikely to achieve optimal health without it.

How can you create Ketosis?
How do we ensure that we are spending enough time in ketosis to create healthy changes? The most common strategies are by dramatically restricting carbohydrate intake or incorporating long periods of fasting. Most keto dieters will end up combining these strategies in some way to maximize their results, however it is often easiest to implement one strategy at a time. The good news is that each strategy can help to initiate positive outcomes in body-composition and energy levels among many other beneficial outcomes. Also, a good week or two of implementing either strategy often makes it that much easier to implement the other.

Two ways to get started:

1. If modifying the content of your meals sounds easier than reducing the frequency of meals then you’ll likely have a better time with the carb-restriction strategy first. In this case you’ll want to work your way down to 20 grams or less of total digestible carbs per day while shooting for approximately 70-80% of your calories from fat and 20-30% of your calories from protein. Even if you continue to eat frequently, keeping your total carb count below 20g per day will surely cause your body to spend increasing amounts of time in ketosis, burning fat as your primary fuel source.
2. If modifying meal times and reducing the frequency of your meals sounds easier than reducing carb intake then you may want to focus on fasting initially. We’ll define fasting as only consuming water or non-caloric drinks like tea and coffee. There are many ways to incorporate fasting, but one of the simplest methods is to shrink your eating window down to around 6 hours. As an example, If you shift to consuming food (all calories) between noon and 6p, you will in effect be creating an 18-hour fasting time from 6p-noon, giving your body little choice but to switch over into ketosis for meaningful periods of time.

Going “keto” can fit perfectly into the anti-inflammatory eating picture that we discuss so often with our patients, however some individuals go “keto” in ways that are not nearly as helpful at reducing chronic inflammation- we’ll dig into this more in an upcoming article so stay tuned.

P.S. Both of the strategies for increasing time in ketosis outlined above will lead to improved metabolic flexibility and better immune system functioning with respect to addressing viral infections, so here’s just one more great reason to go “keto”.

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