What is a Ketogenic Diet?
The ketogenic diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet that resembles the Atkins and low-carb diets in many ways. It entails dramatically lowering carbohydrate consumption and substituting fat. This decrease in carbs causes the body to enter a metabolic condition known as ketosis.
Your body becomes extremely good at burning fat for energy as this happens. It also causes fat to be converted to ketones in the liver, which can be used to provide energy to the brain.
Ketogenic diets can lower blood sugar and insulin levels significantly. This, together with the increased ketones, has several health advantages.
Is a Ketogenic Diet Good for You?
We have strong evidence that keto meals can help children with epilepsy, often as well as medicine. Questions have been raised about the potential advantages for other brain conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, sleep disorders, autism, and even brain cancer due to these neuroprotective effects. However, no clinical trials have been conducted to support the use of ketosis to treat these conditions.
A ketogenic diet has also been shown to increase blood sugar regulation in type 2 diabetes patients, at least temporarily. When it comes to the impact on cholesterol levels, there is even more debate. According to a few reports, some patients’ cholesterol levels rise at first, then fall a few months later. There is, however, no long-term study examining its impact on diabetes and high cholesterol over time.
Benefits of Keto Diet
The diet works by causing the body’s sugar to be depleted. As a result, it will begin to break down fat to generate energy. This causes the body to produce molecules called ketones, which it uses as fuel. The body’s ability to burn fats will then result in weight loss.
The Standard Ketogenic Diet and the Cyclical Ketogenic Diet are two different forms of keto diets.
Promote Weight Loss
The ketogenic diet can help you lose weight in various ways by increasing your metabolism and decreasing your appetite. Ketogenic diets consist of foods that fill you up and can help you lose weight by lowering hunger-stimulating hormones. Low-carb, ketogenic diets have been shown in studies to result in significant weight loss over time. Obese people were able to lose 15 kg on average for a year. This was a 3 kg increase over the low-fat diet used in the study.
Controlling Blood Glucose Levels
The ability of a ketogenic diet to reduce and stabilize blood sugar levels is another major factor why people with diabetes should adopt it.
Carbohydrate is the food (macronutrient) that has the greatest impact on blood sugar levels. Since ketogenic diets are very low in carbohydrates, they prevent blood sugar spikes.
Other forms of diabetes, such as type 1 diabetes and LADA, may also see a significant drop in blood sugar levels and increased control.
It’s worth noting that if blood glucose regulation improves over time, the risk of complications decreases.
Fight Against Diabetes
Ketogenic diets have the added advantage of helping people with type 2 diabetes minimize their reliance on diabetes medication because they effectively lower blood sugar levels.
In the Westman mentioned above report, 95% of the participants could minimize or eliminate their diabetes medication.
To avoid hypos, people taking insulin or other hypo-causing medications (such as sulphonylureas and glinides) may need to reduce their doses before beginning a ketogenic diet. Get advice from your doctor on this.
Controlling High Blood Pressure
In Asia, it is estimated that 16 million people have high blood pressure.
High blood pressure is linked to several health problems, including heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease. It’s a symptom of metabolic syndrome, too.
A ketogenic diet has been shown in many studies to lower blood pressure in people who are overweight or have type 2 diabetes.
Keto Diet Plan for One Week
The following menu has a total carb count of fewer than 50 grams per day.
This is a general one-week keto diet plan that can be tweaked to suit your specific dietary requirements.
Monday
- Breakfast: Two eggs fried in pastured butter served with sauteed greens
- Lunch: A grass-fed burger served on a bed of greens with cheese, mushrooms, and avocado
- Dinner: Green beans sauteed in coconut oil with pork chops
Tuesday
- Breakfast: Mushroom omelet
- Lunch: On a bed of vegetables, tuna salad with celery and tomato
- Dinner: Roasted chicken with a cream sauce and sautéed broccoli
Wednesday
- Breakfast: Stuffed bell pepper with cheese and eggs
- Lunch: Hard-boiled eggs, ham, avocado, and blue cheese on arugula salad
- Dinner: Grilled salmon with spinach sauteed in coconut oil
Thursday
- Breakfast: Keto granola on top of full-fat yogurt
- Lunch: Cauliflower rice, cheese, spices, avocado, and salsa in a steak dish
- Dinner: Bison steak with cheesy broccoli
Friday
- Breakfast: Avocado egg boats baked in the oven
- Lunch: Caesar salad with chicken
- Dinner: Vegetables with pork chops
Saturday
- Breakfast: Cauliflower toast with avocado and cheese
- Lunch: Salmon burgers with a pesto topping
- Dinner: Meatballs topped with parmesan cheese and zucchini noodles
Sunday
- Breakfast: Chia pudding with coconut milk and walnuts on top
- Lunch: Greens, hard-boiled eggs, avocado, cheese, and turkey cobb salad.
- Dinner: Coconut chicken curry
What Role Does Eatology Play in a Keto Diet?
It’s never been easier to stick to a ketogenic diet in Hong Kong. Our personalized keto meal plan menu, which includes over 100 original recipes created by qualified nutritionists and dietitians, changes every day, ensuring that you never eat the same meal twice. Based on the most recent scientific findings, our team of nutritionists has optimized the simple keto diet to make it healthy for long-term use. There’s a lot of fiber, a good amount of protein, and a lot of electrolytes. Fibers will keep the bacteria in your intestines alive and well, while proteins will help you retain muscle mass as you lose weight. The electrolyte will compensate for the water loss.
Do you have any more questions about how to get started with your keto meal plan? Call us and we’ll set you up for a meeting with our dietician.
References:
References:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319196
