Keto in a Nutshell

Okay. I am going to put my best effort as a high school teacher to break this down for you and explain like you are my student....which if you are learning from this, I guess you are!

Want to lose weight? Tried lots of different diets over the years, losing some weight and then gaining it again? Ate less and exercised, only to put it all back? Maybe it is time to reset that beautiful machine that is your body!

The ketogenic diet is a lifestyle or change in eating habits more so than a diet in the idea something quick to do and then get off of.

It is the change in the metabolic way your body burns energy. It switches your body to burn fats for fuel instead of carbohydrates. This process is called Ketosis. Don't get ketosis confused with Ketoacidosis (this is bad, normally associated with type 1 Diabetes) they are different!

When the body is in ketosis, fat is broken down into ketones (a type of molecule). The three ketones or ketone bodies are as follows:

When your body is starved of carbohydrates, especially simple sugars, you don't produce extra insulin. This is good. Insulin is what causes us to get fat!

Insulin takes sugar out of the blood, carries it to the liver for breakdown. If it is not used there, it will then be carried to the muscles (Glycogenesis- to create-glycogen). The muscles will either use it, or if they are full, send it to your fat cells. The sugar gets stored in the fat cell (Lipogenesis - to create-lipids [fats]), the cell fills up, if no more room is available, a new fat cell is created (Hyperplasia).

When in ketosis, your body burns this stored energy as a source of fuel, by breaking down the fat cell contents into ketones. As long as you don't eat carbs, the liver will continuously use your fat stores until they are depleted. Though these cells never go away, they do empty and shrink.

You can definitely stay in ketosis by staying under 20 net grams of carbs a day. So people try with more and succeed, while others must stay around 20.

The ketogenic diet has a long history, this is not that history.

Macros

In general you need to follow your macros (macronutients) for keto to work. The general consensus for the three macros is:

Now, what YOUR actual grams of each are is based on YOU! Everyone is different. Use this Keto calculator to figure yours out! Click the Calculator!