Ditching Your Current Diet for the Ketogenic Diet

We all want to look our best, but sometimes no matter how many face masks and scrubs we use, our skin just doesn’t want to cooperate. Likewise, it can be tricky to shed those last few pounds before a big event or disastrous to try and tone up before summer weather hits. While it’s certainly crucial to exercise and tone your body, a step that many overlook is how important it is to monitor what you put into your body.

In order to see changes in your shape and improvements in your skin, hair, and nails, it’s critical to change your diet. Swapping to a healthier way of eating will boost your weight loss journey and show you surprising cosmetic results. The keto diet is ideal for weight loss, and it can lead to a cosmetic improvement due to high fat levels in the diet that can fuel your appearance. Allow us to break down the basics if you’re unfamiliar with what a keto meal plan looks like.

Keto Diet 101

First let’s break down the basics of a keto diet. Reduced to its most simple aspects, a keto diet is an extremely low-carb meal plan that is structured to burn fat in the most efficient way. Many people turn to a keto diet for weight loss or to increase their health. Due to the rapid fat burning of a keto diet, it is an ideal meal plan for people looking to slim down.

When you consume a very small amount of carbs and your blood sugar is lowered, your body is able to produce an alternative fuel source known as “ketones.” The liver will produce ketones from fat sources in the body, and the ketones will be used to fuel bodily performance. By keeping your body in a constant state of ketosis, your body will alter its fuel supply to run almost entirely on fat. This means that your body will steadily burn fat, allowing your fat stores to be accessed easier in order to be burned off.

Keto Diet Breakdown

A keto diet can be made simple by following the keto food pyramid. The keto food pyramid consists of consuming 75 percent of your daily calories from fats, 20 percent from protein, and the remaining 5 percent from carbs. This kind of high-fat, low-carb diet is essential for providing satiation, since fat is what keeps you full. Not only does a keto diet rapidly burn fat, but it doesn’t leave you hungry like other diets and weight loss meal plans.

The fat sources that make up the majority of a keto diet must be high-quality. Such sources include avocado, butter, coconut oil, olive oil, and ghee. Consuming high quantities of healthy fats is essential to keep your body in ketosis. Additionally, one-quarter of your diet should come from lean protein sources. It’s important to consume enough protein, but not excessive amounts, because this could interfere with ketosis. Meat, fish, and eggs are all great sources of keto diet protein. Especially advantageous are protein sources that are loaded with omega-3s, which include salmon, eggs, and other superfoods. To round out the top tier of a keto diet, you should also consume a healthy amount of low-carb veggies.

The second tier of a keto diet, consisting of foods that are approved but not staple items, consists of full-fat dairy items, berries, fermented foods, and natural sweeteners. While berries are approved in moderation, most fruit sources should be avoided on a keto diet due to high natural sugar levels. Additionally, beer, soda, juice, pasta, bread, rice, potatoes, candies, and sugars should be avoided on a keto diet. While some diets allow for “cheat meals” or even “cheat days,” cheating on a keto diet will result in leaving the state of ketosis that is necessary for constantly burning fat. Therefore, it’s essential to stick to the diet at all times.

Benefits of Keto Diet

While this diet is ideal for weight loss and slimming down, there are also more benefits of a keto diet. Constantly burning fat supplies the body with a steady energy supply, which can aid in improving focus and helping you be more alert. Additionally, people who are in a constant state of ketosis tend to feel hungry less often. This reduces snack cravings that can lead to yo-yo weight gain, which is a major reason why other diets tend to fail long term.