Many people say that they want to eat healthier, exercise more, and lose weight. Doctors have told some people that what they are putting into their body could have a negative long-range effect, but change is difficult. New healthy eating habits are hard to form. This is especially true if the healthy food is less than enjoyable like eating plain celery or spinach. An alternative to eating a “healthy” yet bland diet to improve your health is the ketogenic diet, also known as the keto diet. The keto diet allows you to eat pretty good tasting food, but it’s designed to improve many aspects of your health!
This is not just another fad diet, but a healthy diet that has been around for a long time and helped many people live a healthier lifestyle. The main difference with this diet and other typical diets is the number of carbs you eat. Eating fewer carbs allows your body to enter a “fat burning mode” called ketosis. No other diet is specifically designed to change your body over to this metabolic state.
Read on to find out why ketosis is so great, and why the ketogenic diet is not just another fad diet.
The Ketogenic Diet Has Proven Results
On any diet, if you eat less and exercise more, you can lose weight. The problem is whether you will keep the weight off and more importantly, what type of weight you are losing. Fast weight loss created by many of the fad diets on the market often causes a loss of muscle tissue along with fat loss.
But on the ketogenic diet, studies have shown that the type of weight loss by overweight or obese people who monitor their ketones is a high amount of fat loss – sometimes as high as 97% of the weight lost!
Weight loss on the ketogenic diet has been proven in several scientific studies of overweight people. Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but the effects of the cabbage soup diet have never been studied in real scientific studies.
The Ketogenic Diet Has Been In Existence For A Long Time
The ketogenic diet became popular in the 1920’s when it was used to treat epilepsy in children. It was further popularized in 1993 when Charlie Abrahams, the 11-month-old son of the movie director and writer, James Abrahams, developed epilepsy. Charlie was experiencing multiple seizures a day and taking numerous medications to try and control them. James Abrahams and his wife started their son on a keto diet to help control the seizures, and it worked. Charlie became seizure-free within a month and no longer required the use of medication.
Some people may have already experienced ketosis without being aware of it. The popular Atkin’s diet, which many people are familiar with, was designed to start your body off in ketosis. However, at the time Dr Atkins started the diet, he thought the ketogenic diet seemed to extreme to be widely accepted.
More Benefits Than Just Weight Loss
A fad is something that a lot of people are wildly excited about, but that excitement is short lived. The popularity of the fad is usually without any form of justification, other than it is something that just caught many people’s attention.
If losing weight or the fact that some famous person was on the keto diet were the only reasons why people tried it, then it might be considered a fad. However, since its beginnings in the 1920’s, the keto diet has produced measured results and benefits in many types of health conditions. In addition to epilepsy as we previously discussed, improvements have been seen in patients with Autism, Cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease, and other medical conditions. Some people have also seen increased focus and an increase in daily energy with the ketogenic diet.
Keto Food is Delicious!
The fear of eating “diet” food that has little taste goes away quickly once people try keto meals. They soon realize that their food tastes really good! After all, what is there not to like about meals cooked with a lot of cheese, butter, and flavorings?
After you have been eating keto for a few weeks, your cravings for sugar will be broken. Once this happens, you will see that the old cravings are gone, and you no longer are bothered by not eating your old high carb foods. If you cheat and try those foods again, you’ll realize the pleasure you used to get from carbs is not as strong anymore. You now eat for nutrition, not just for your taste buds.
Conclusion
We’ve given you four reasons why a ketogenic diet is not a typical fad diet. It’s been around for ages and is only picking up steam in the weight loss world. And remember, while you can lose weight eating keto meals, it is not just for weight loss. Many health benefits of ketosis have been studied and proven – fad diets don’t get this kind of recognition in the scientific community. Try it out and let us know what you think!
