One of the most popular diets that people still follow is keto, and what upsets me is that it’s not a great diet for most people.
Keto for short, the ketogenic diet is a diet that involves very little consumption of carbohydrates and higher consumption of fats and moderate consumption of protein, according to the Nutrition Source.
Carbs are an essential component of your diet, and reducing them to such a low amount has a lot of side effects.
By almost completely removing an entire macronutrient from your diet, there’s bound to be side effects.
Side effects of the diet are fatigue, headache, constipation, insomnia, dehydration, kidney stones, high cholesterol and lower bone density, according to a Cleveland Clinic webpage.
Food like fruit, vegetables, and whole grains are things that people should be regularly consuming, and keto allows for very little of these foods to be a part of your diet.
These side effects are a result of the body being deprived of its preferred source of energy –carbohydrates (glucose) – for an extended period of time, putting your body in a state called ketosis, according to the same article.
Ketosis is an extremely complex process, but it is essentially the process where the body turns fat into ketones, which is where keto gets its namesake, according to a June 16, 2023 StatPearls research article.
The idea that these benefits outweigh the downsides of the ketogenic diet may be true for some, but there are several diets that aren’t as hard to get into that accomplish the same results.
For example, the mediterranean diet is both an extremely popular diet and a diet that many medical and nutrition professionals recommend, according to an American Heart Association article.
What’s great about the Mediterranean diet and many other diets is that it doesn’t involve these side effects because it doesn’t require you to create energy from an unconventional source.
With all that said and a long list of downsides, there are still some positive elements of the ketogenic diet.
Some benefits of ketosis include aiding weight loss, helping glycemic control in type 2 diabetics, and seizure management of epileptic people, according to a May 14, UC Davis Health article.
The diet was originally developed by Doctor Russel Wilder in 1921 as a method of treating epilepsy by tricking the brain into thinking it was fasting, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
These benefits are all great, but staying in ketosis for too long can increase your chance of developing nutrient deficiencies.
This is because you aren’t consuming a lot of carbohydrate sources that contain vitamins and minerals, you’re mostly getting those nutrients from fats and protein.
Some research in mice suggests there may be long term effects of ketosis, specifically aging cells of the heart and kidneys, according to a May 17, 2024 UT Health San Antonio article.
Part of the reason why I don’t think following keto is a good idea is because of a phenomenon called “keto flu.”
It occurs when someone starts a ketogenic diet and their body starts to go into ketosis but side effects occur, including nausea, irritability, constipation and brain fog, according to a Oct. 18, 2018 Harvard Health article.
When people start a diet, the last thing you want is obstacles in the way because it increases the likelihood of giving up.
The idea of a diet that has an incredibly high fat content is also somewhat problematic because fat is the most calorie-dense macronutrient.
If a person is trying to lose weight on keto, they’re going to be eating a lot of fats, which makes it hard to be in a calorie deficit which is necessary for weight loss.
To give an example, olive oil is a great source of fats, and a food that people on keto will use a lot of.
The fat content in olive oil is very dense, for one gram of olive oil there is one gram of fat, or nine calories, according to eatthismuch.com.
It’s easy to overeat calories and not lose weight, which is why it’s not easy to follow keto. As a result, a lot of people end up giving up on it.
The solution to this is not eating more protein.
By eating more protein, you are introducing glucose back into your body because the body has a way of turning amino acids into glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis, according to the same June 16, 2023 StatPearls research article.
If the ketogenic diet works for you, by no means should you change anything.
If you feel good and are reaching your goals, there’s not much of a reason to fix what you’re doing.
Keto is a diet that can certainly be followed in the short-term if your desire is simply to drop a few pounds, but it’s not different from any other diet.
There seems to be an idea with fad diets that there is a “special” component of said diet that makes you lose weight or reach your goal.
What it really boils down to is whether you’re able to follow it long term and if it helps reach your goals.
Don’t be afraid to try the ketogenic diet, but if it doesn’t work, there’s no reason to be discouraged because it probably just wasn’t for you.
