Keto Diet For Normal People

[Psychonaut]

Hey,

I have played around with only eating one meal at night and increasing fat in my smoothies the previous week. On sunday I started at strict Keto (~30g of carbs) Diet. Reason that I know it's working is on Monday my energy was so low it almost felt like I'm sick. Ketostix also showed a high amount of excess Ketone's that were discarded.

I have been reading a lot about the theory and metabolic changes that occur in the body after prolonged periods on Keto. From my understanding the diet has to be done at least 6 months or more for hormonal changes to complete and the cells to be able to efficiently use fat as fuel. Some athletes require a year to fully adapt and set a better time than on their carb diet.

From the blogs/articles I have read it's mostly athletes, diabetic, epileptic or overweight people that go on this diet. Not "normal" people just for the fun of it. 

Tbh I don't need to go on the diet. Im not overweight, diabetic or even remotely interested in any extreme sport performances. The major thing that has drawn me to the Keto diet is the claim of increased energy levels and especially increased focus through that Ketone they called BHB. I also like the idea of completely skipping lunch and only eating breakfast and lunch. 

I'm still trying to figure out what to eat though.

Previously I would make a delicious berry smoothie with a banana and cream for breakfast. Maybe have a sandwich, fruit for lunch or skip it all together. For supper have some Indian curry accompanied with some Indian flatbread (naan/chapati/dosa). I would never cook rice or noodles, maybe a pizza from time to time.

So to change to Keto I have found I can make keto version's of most of the indian flatbreads. I can continue making most of my curries and just change the bread. I have to cut the banana in the smoothie which is unfortunate as it has lots of potassium and is essential for a good taste. I also have to cut fruits which I used to love. I can leave berries in small quantities which I'm very grateful for. I have to seriously increase my protein intake which was very low (maybe 30g).

Atm I'm making some Keto style smoothie with eggs, oil, protein  powder for breakfast. Skipping lunch. So far I have tried an Omellete, punjabi mushroom curry with keto chapati and cauliflower pizza for supper. I'm at quite a calorific deficit as both meals only have about 600-700 kcal. Previously I have managed to get 140g of fat into a smoothie, but that was with fruit and a banana. 

To me it seems as if the Keto diet somehow favors eating of meat. All this mozzarella and fat somewhat smells and feels "meaty". I have also experienced cravings for meat when I was hungry. Quite funny as I'm vegetarian. 

It's seems like a huge effort as I will have to make every meal myself. I will have to explain myself and listen to the nutrition dogma from the 1980's which I'm not really looking forward to haha. But I'm trying to understand how the matabolism works and Im enjoying learning something about my body.

Is it worth it or should I just try and see for myself?

[Siim Land]

The keto diet can work great for "normal people".

The most common problems are micronutrient deficiencies and electrolyte imbalances. Those can easily b supplemented and thus fixed.

Doing it on a vegetarian ketogenic diet is also very easy and effective. Although keto is mostly animal based, you don't need to consume any meat on it. It's not the food that makes the diet ketogenic but the metabolic state of ketosis that does. I've written a book Vegetarian Keto on Amazon. Maybe you want to check it out.

[MarshaMoreno]

My mom uses the keto diet from a very long. It is really effective.

[Roxane]

High fat diets are dangerous in the long run, oils are increasing cancer and heart disease risks...

A whole food plant based diet will help take care of your brain 

Check out the video "Power Foods for the Brain | Neal Barnard | TEDxBismarck"

[Gmork]

Keto can be used as a tool but it is mainly a diet that help you use fat as a "superior"(tho there are some ppl that cant use keto because of genes and how they grown up etc) source of energy. Energy that is better for brain and heart among other stuff. Brain really like ketones and it prefers them in metabolic processes over other source of energy.

The "increased energy levels and especially increased focus" occur when your brain and body fully or at some level adapted to fully use fat in form of ketones, but if you had carb diet( aka normal diet) for the most part of your life or iven high "proceed sugar" diet that damage your body over long period of time and may cause lots of not nice health issue (unless you are fortunate to have good genes etc) you will surly struggle to change whole body( cell by cell) to a different source of energy. You are changing how you gene express them-self and how cell works, and unless you are super healthy that stuff surly will take time. I think 2 weeks for healthy teenager, or iven a year for 30 year old person.

If you want to feel how it is to be on a keto diet i think you can go and run for 2-4h or do high intense whole body exercise, like rowing machine. Of course dont eat any carbs before like 4-5 h, and you will know how it is to be on keto. Tho make sure you will drink some good electrolytes drink and take some salt.

To speed up process you can do stuff like intermittent fasting, high intense exercise, cold showers, sauna, yoga, breathing exercise, massages.

You will also need to take care of basic mandatory stuff like electrolytes. This is not a joke, its serious problem that needs to be taken into account daily! So called "keto flu" is nothing more that lack of salt/sodium, magnesium or potassium. Dont be afreid of salt  you will almost for sure need additional spoon of salt for the amount that kidney gone lose because of how they where dependent on insulin to keep sodium inside body. That is if you are not deficient in sodium.

It is best to do shakes that have all the electrolytes as well as micro and macro nutrients in them, and fat for vitamin that need it. I personaly use coconut oil, but you can use avocados for example. Here is great example of shake : watch?v=JLQ63y5aTpo&t=767s

Coconut oil in smoothies is amazing for all the callories you will need and for proteins i always go for eggs, avcados, and seeds and nuts i can digest.

Remember tho that all above can be much more hard if your guts are in bad health, or you are seriously deficient in nutrition, or have some non stop inflammations in any part of body like brain or gut. There is just so much stuff that can be wrong that i cant simply type it out... and its iven more of a problem for me that english is not my native Language

AND dont forget about salt, know this :

4 coffees = - 1 tbsp of salt from body

1h of exercise = -0,5 tbsp of salt from body