Member-only story
What You Need to Know About the Keto Diet | The Doctor Weighs In
By: Jennifer Landis
The keto diet is a low carb, high fat, moderate protein diet that forces the body to burn fats for energy creating ketosis. It’s effective for weight loss.
The keto, or ketogenic, diet is growing in popularity. It focuses on eating almost no carbs. Instead, you replace your daily calories with fat and protein to encourage your body to enter a state called ketosis, where it starts to burn fat for energy.
While this sounds like the ideal weight loss plan, it can be challenging to understand or even to know where to start. What do you need to know about the keto diet before you decide to try it out?
1. It’s not something you can do casually
The keto diet requires a change in your mindset. The entire basis of keto is that you maintain perpetually low carb levels so that your body has no choice but to burn fat for energy. This, in turn, can help you lose weight as your body turns to your internal fat stores to keep you moving. It’s called a diet, but it’s more of a lifestyle change.
Your body converts carbohydrates into glycogen which is stored in your muscles. This is why athletes will eat a ton of carbs before running a marathon or playing a football game. The…
