Why isn’t your keto diet working? You have reduced the carbs in your meals by eliminating bread, cereals and sugar and you have started reading nutrition information panels to seek out foods with low carbs, but nothing is changing. Why not?
The ketogenic diet, originally called the starvation diet, was invented to help children with drug resistant epilepsy to reduce or eliminate their frequent epileptic fits. It was based on a 3:1 or 4:1 formula in which for every gram of protein or carbohydrate in the diet there had to be 3 or 4 grams of fat. This very high-fat diet had benefits for the brain and after 5 years on this diet, most children’s brains had healed and they could switch to normal food. But this diet was NOT a weight loss diet.
To tune the ketogenic diet for weight loss requires a different approach. When your body is accustomed to using glucose for energy, should there be any sign of your body’s (small) glucose tank becoming empty, the brain stimulates you to eat by making you feel hungry. This reaction means that it is really hard to eat less and it usually means you stop trying. You give up your calorie restricted diet.
The way to defeat this ‘hunger’ reaction is to retrain your body to easily use fat for energy. This is just a normal process for the body and you are re-training it to change its habits. This can take a little time and is achieved by eliminating the glucose, forcing the body to use fat instead. When you were born your body had a preference for fat and you changed this over time by eating more and more carbohydrate foods, without realizing it.
The keto diet can do this, and by progressively cutting out the carbohydrates, you will retrain your body to use fat. How will you know you have been successful? You will no longer be hungry.
If your body is adapted to happily using fat for energy, then the energy tank never gets empty because ‘everyone’ has stored fat. But here is the very important fact that often gets overlooked, your body uses the fat in your meals first, before using any of your stored fat. This means that if you eat too much, your body never gets to switch over to using up your body fat and you will never lose weight. Just because you have reduced carbs is not enough.
Another pitfall is that there is more energy in fat. 9 calories per gram of fat vs 4 calories per gram for carbs and protein. If you are eating to the same level of ‘fullness’ that you did when you were primarily using glucose for energy, you are likely to be overeating.
So the message here is that calories matter. Your body has a daily energy need, and to lose weight you must eat less than that daily amount of energy. If you do this on a ketogenic diet, then your body will make up the difference from stored fat without you feeling hungry. If you are eating too much then even if you are eating low-carb / keto you probably won’t lose weight.
Are you eating a lot of nuts? These are very calorie dense and have lots of omega-6 fat which encourages bears and squirrels to put on weight for the winter. They might just be doing the same for you.
Finally, if you are using lots of sugar substitutes then you might find that losing weight is difficult as these substitutes, just like glucose, can spike insulin which is the gatekeeper to your fat cells. If you have excess insulin, the stored fat in your fat cells remains locked away.
There is a simple trick that can make this much easier. Eat more protein and eat it earlier in the meal. Protein has an ability to make you feel full and this means that you eventually stop eating as you feel satiated. Fat can also do this but protein is better and it has huge benefits for health and body maintenance. Try for at least 30 grams of protein in each meal.
Get free nutrition guidance at www.takebackyrhealth.com. Seek professional medical advice before dietary changes, particularly if on medication. George Elder, Diet Research Reviewer, Diploma in Nutrition. The best thing you can do for your health is eat better.
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