What’s All the Rage About the Keto Diet?

What is the Ketogenic Diet?

The Keto (key-toe) diet is a diet that many people have taken to but a lot haven’t heard of, understand, or even know how to pronounce (I was calling it the “kett-oh” diet for the longest).

A basic description of what one would eat is low amounts of carbohydrates, moderate amounts of protein, and high amounts of fat? High in fat? Sounds crazy, right?

Well, to elaborate: when eating, one’s body produces glucose and insulin. Glucose is a type of sugar one gets from the foods they eat which the body uses for energy. It is the simplest molecule for the body to convert so it’s generally preferred as an energy source. Insulin is a peptide hormone used to process the glucose in one’s bloodstream into fat, liver, and skeletal muscle cells as energy.

This process of converting food into energy works but there is one major flaw: since the body can’t hold that much glucose, any extra gets converted into fat. And since the body is used to running on glucose, whenever one runs out, the brain sends a signal for more, causing one to seek out a snack, adding to the vicious cycle of storing fat.

So the whole idea of the Keto diet is to put one’s body into a state of ketosis wherein the liver produces ketones which then become the main source of energy for the body. Its goal is to change how the body functions by making it run on fat rather than sugar.

So what can one eat on the Keto diet that’s high in fat but also healthy? Sounds near impossible, right? Wrong. There are lots of choices! Sure, one can’t have a lot of the best foods (pasta, cereal, fries), but once you get past the cravings, you’ll see the results.

Foods to eat on the Keto diet:

  • Avocados
  • Egg yolks
  • Fatty fish
  • Butter
  • Olive oil, coconut oil, macadamia oil, avocado oil, MCT oil
  • Cocoa butter and coconut butter
  • Shellfish
  • Poultry
  • Organ/Offal
  • Beef
  • Pork
  • Root vegetables (in moderation)
  • Berries (in moderation)
  • Citrus (in moderation)
  • Nightshades
  • Dairy
  • Low-carb nuts
  • Water
  • Broth
  • Hard alcohol (in moderation if you drink)
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