What does keto mean?
Here’s some terms you might hear when it comes to keto:
- Keto is short for a ketogenic diet. The diet involves lots of processes, but very generally speaking, if you keep your carbohydrate intake under 20 grams per day, your body will get into ketosis
- Ketosis is a metabolic state that your body goes into when it doesn’t have enough glucose to fuel it
- Ketones are what your liver produces when you are in a ketogenic state (ketosis), they are also the preferred fuel for many of our cells
- Ketoacidosis is not ketosis. It happens when people with diabetes have high ketones and high blood sugar at the same time
Normally, your body uses carbohydrates (carbs) as fuel for energy, but we can teach your body to use ketones and body fat as fuel instead.
How to get into ketosis:
- Eat low carbs to get you into ketosis (this can take anywhere between 1 day and a few weeks)
- Then wait for your body to slowly switch over from using carbs as it’s fuel source to using ketones instead. This can take weeks or months, depending on your health
- Once your body has learned to use ketones and fat as it’s fuel source, we can then teach it how to use your stored body fat for fuel instead.
Now notice that I said “slowly” a few times? This will not be a fast weight loss diet! Your body has been running on one system for years, it’s going to take weeks or months to change over to a new system. The good news is, this new fuel system will serve you for the rest of your life.
“That’s not keto”!
Like religion, some people think that their way of doing keto is the only way. Ketosis isn’t a strict list of eat this, don’t eat that. Everyone has different carb thresholds, some people can eat dairy and fruit, some people can’t…some people suit high fat or high protein..some people don’t. It’s a very personalised diet, it will be different for everybody. There is no one size fits all!
If you’d like to find out if keto is right for you, you can book a free 15 min chat with me.
Liza.