Introduction:

The Ketogenic Diet involves eating fats and proteins while eliminating virtually all carbohydrates.

It is a low carb diet, where the body produces ketones in the liver to be used as a source of energy. It’s a diet plan that riggers ‘ketosis’ in your body!

Ketosis is a natural process by which the body helps us to survive when food intake is low. During this state, we produce ketones, which are produced from the breakdown of fats in the liver. On a ketogenic diet your entire body switches its fuel source almost entirely on fat. Insulin levels become very low and fat burning increases dramatically. It becomes easy to access your fat stores to burn them off. This is obviously great if you’re trying to lose weight, and studies show that ketogenic diets lead to more weight loss.

Our bodies are incredibly adaptive to what we put into it – when we overload it with fats and take away carbohydrates, it will begin to burn ketones as the primary energy source. Optimal ketone levels offer many health, weight loss, physical and mental performance benefits.

Many of the benefits of following a ‘keto’ dieat can be summed up as:

• Weight Loss
• Controlled blood sugar
• Controlled blood pressure
• Increased mental focus
• Accelerated energy and normalized hunger
• Fight Acne
• Healthier skin , hair and nails
• Enhanced mood
• Better sleep

The ketogenic als has  a healthful effect on serious health conditions such as:

• cardiovascular disease
• diabetes
• metabolic syndromes

This diet has also been used under medical supervision to reduce seizures in children with epilepsy who do not respond to other forms of treatment.

Other conditions are also being studied to see if a ketogenic diet might be beneficial!

Side effects

When starting a low-carb ketogenic diet and reaching ketosis it’s common to get some side effects during the first week. Possibilities include headache, lethargy, irritability, leg cramps, constipation and heart palpitations.

These side effects are usually relatively minor and transient, and most of them can be avoided by getting enough fluid and salt.

Must know about ketosis!

Mild ketosis is a natural phenomenon that occurs in humans during fasting and lactation . Postexercise ketosis is a well-known phenomenon in mammals. Although most of the changes in the physiological parameters induced following exercise revert back to their normal values rapidly, the level of circulating ketone bodies increases for a few hours after muscular activity ceases.

In addition, ketosis has a significant influence on suppressing hunger. Thus, a ketogenic diet is a good regulator of the body’s calorie intake and mimics the effect of starvation in the body. (NCBI)