The Ketogenic Diet

What is the Ketogenic diet?

The ketogenic diet is nutritional program which involves restricting your carbohydrate intake to under 20g per day. Your carb sources should come primarily from green fibrous vegetables. All carbohydrates that are high in carb grams must be eliminated from your daily meal consumption to reach Ketosis.

What is Ketosis?

Ketosis occurs when your body switches from burning dietary carbohydrates as it’s primary energy source to burning body fat as a new source of fuel.

What foods do you eat to reach Ketosis?

You must eat 80% fat, 15% protein and 5% carbohydrates in the first stage of trying to reach ketosis.

Fat. It’s all about high fat consumption! 80 percent of your daily intake is what you should aim for during the first 4 weeks. The more fat you can consume in these early stages, the easier it will be for your brain to make that metabolic shift from carb burning to fat burning as your primary source of fuel.

Protein. Protein is very important. We need to get our essential amino acids from protein. Warning: Eating too much protein can make it challenging to adapt in the first 4 weeks. Your protein should be 15% of your total calories in the first stages of trying to reach ketosis. If you eat too much protein, the excess amino acids you eat can convert back into sugar, blocking ketosis!

Carbs. Your carbs should come almost exclusively from fibrous or cruciferous vegetables. Most keto veggies are above ground veggies.

Why eat 80% fat?

To reach ketosis we need to train the brain to understand that fat is a better source of fuel. Fat burns long and even. Once you cut out starchy carbohydrates and sugars and raise your fat intake, your brain begins to realize there is no famine or starvation going on. When your glycogen storages are depleted and blood glucose is lowered, the brain is forced to find a new source of energy.