Dietary measures are an essential part of any weight loss program. And it doesn’t always involve reducing caloric intake or feeling deprived. There are several diet plans and options that can help one lose body weight without severely restricting food intake. The good thing about these diets is that they are suitable for practicing and adapting to life.
When it comes to healthy weight loss diets, there is no doubt that the ketogenic (keto) diet is amongst the most popular diets. There are many reasons why this diet has gained so much popularity. First and most importantly, it works and helps lose body weight quite quickly. Not only that, it has many other health benefits like helping one manage blood sugar levels for diabetic health, improving brain health, and more.
One of the reasons people are so interested in the keto diet is that it is relatively easy to understand. Unfortunately, however, it is not easy to practice. But then, there are many tools that can make practicing the keto diet simpler, and one such way is the use of keto-friendly meal replacement shakes.
Basics of the Keto Diet
There is a reason why the keto diet is so popular. It is pretty simple to explain and understand. Theoretically, to start a keto diet, all one needs to do is cut down consumption of carbs significantly and instead consume more fats.
Thus, in the keto diet, one eats proteins, which is about 30% of the total calorie intake. The rest are mostly fats. Carbs intake must be reduced below 10% or even 5%.
However, in practice, this creates a significant challenge. A substantial part of the standard American diet is made of carbs. Some foods that mostly contain carbs are grains, rice, bread, pasta, most baked foods, potatoes, many fruits, sugars, and more.
Thus, switching to a keto diet means giving up many foods. However, among them, the most challenging is to give up the consumption of so many grains. It means eating bread or pasta sparingly. However, wheat flour is used in baking so frequently that one must learn new ways to cook.
Though easy to understand, the keto diet is relatively challenging to practice. However, people who practice the keto diet love it due to its health benefits. It seems that many modern metabolic disorders have a lot to do with the high consumption of carbs.
How Does a High-Fat Diet like the Keto Diet Work for Weight Loss?
It is a logical question. How could a diet high in fats help burn more fats and lose body weight? Eating more fats seems counterproductive. Nonetheless, the keto diet works. So, how does it work?
To understand how the keto diet works, one needs to understand a few basic concepts of human physiology. First, the human body gets most of its calories from carbs/glucose and fats. Carbs are the cheapest energy source, and they also provide energy almost instantly.
However, when carbs or glucose are unavailable, the body has an alternate energy source. It starts using fat that has been stored in the body. It converts this fat in the body to ketones, and different body cells can use these ketone bodies as an energy source.
Generally, a person has carbs stored for a few hours. Thus, the body uses ketone bodies for its energy needs during prolonged fasting and extensive physical exertion, which results in the depletion of carb stores.
The logic behind the keto diet is to use fats or ketone bodies as a primary source of energy and not a secondary. This has many health effects. Once the body gets used to using ketone bodies for its energy needs, it starts burning body fats quite efficiently. This use of fats for energy needs ultimately results in weight loss due to the extensive burning of fats.
As one can guess, to induce a keto state or force the body to start using fats or ketone bodies, one should significantly limit carbs intake. It is because the human body prefers using carbs for energy needs over fats.
Another way in which the keto diet works is due to its impact on the appetite. It seems that ketosis has many effects on the brain, and one such effect is appetite suppression. Thus, the keto diet may help normalize appetite and promote weight loss.
Since using fats for energy needs instead of carbs is a normal physiological process, it means that the keto diet is relatively safe.
Are Keto Diets Effective for Weight Loss?
It is good to ask if there is any evidence that the keto diet works. There is no use in switching to any diet form if it does not serve any purpose. In short, the answer is yes, the keto diet works and is quite good for managing various health conditions like balancing blood sugar and boosting brain health.
The idea of using a high-fat diet to manage various ailments is not new. It appears that researchers noticed the benefits of the keto diet way back in the 1920s when they studied its role in controlling epilepsy. There are many articles from the 1920s and 1930s confirming the benefits of the keto diet in epilepsy.
Thus, the idea of the keto diet is not new, though there has been a sudden increase in interest in the diet form in recent years. This interest is due to an upsurge in metabolic disorders that are challenging to manage with medications.
There are dozens of high-quality studies showing that the keto diet works. Thus, one of the systemic reviews, a study analyzing the data from 13 clinical trials, found that keto diet may work even better than a low-fat diet. Interestingly, the study also found that the keto diet achieves its peak effect in about 5-months.
Similarly, yet another systemic review confirmed the appetite modulating effect of ketosis. It found that those who practice the keto diet feel less hungry and report greater satiety. This reduced desire to eat is one of the reasons for weight loss with the keto diet.
Can Meal Replacement Shakes be Used to Achieve and Maintain Ketosis?
Yes, but not every kind of meal replacement shakes. Many meal replacement shakes are high in carbs, as they are cheap and readily available. However, meal replacement shakes high in carbs cannot help and would be counterproductive. Most meal replacement shakes are also lacking the healthy fats, or require you to add a separate product as the source of healthy fat. And other shakes are just protein shakes improperly marketed as a ‘meal replacement’.
Therefore, those on a keto diet should specifically choose meal replacement shakes that are designed for those on a keto diet. For example, meal replacement shakes from HLTHCODE are perfect for the induction of ketosis. These meal replacement shakes are rich in high-quality fats and proteins, low in carbs, and rich in dietary fiber and various vitamins and minerals. Better yet, they do not include any artificial sweeteners like sucralose, or sugar alcohols which are commonly found in keto and low carb products.
Such kind of meal replacement shakes may even help prevent specific side effects of the keto diet and minimize the risk of any nutritional deficiencies.
Wrap Up
The Keto diet is a time-tested and effective way of weight loss. It also has many other health benefits, like it can help prevent or even reverse diabetes and is also excellent for brain health. However, getting started with the keto diet might be challenging. Thus, keto-friendly meal replacement shakes could be a simple way of readily getting started with the keto diet.
