1. What Is the Ketogenic Diet?

Keto diet has a very special principal of effectively changing your body. If you have ever tried plain Western diet, you must know that your body uses glucose as fuel, and it gets it from carbs. But ketogenic diet uses a totally different resource of energy. 

The resource of energy is so easy and shocking at the same time! Fat. To be more particular, ketone bodies, which are the essence which body creates while using fat as fuel instead of glucose. This diet is based on high consumption of fat, it's very low in carbohydrates, and has a moderate amount of protein, as too much protein will be converted into carbs.

This diet is really high on fat as 75% of the total daily calories are supposed to be fat, 20% gained from protein and only 5% from carbs. To calculate how many grams you need you go online to all kind of calculators and figure out how much you need to eat according to your energy expenses. Usually, most people who are following this diet are not going to take any more that 50 grams of carbohydrates.

2. How Do I Know When I'm In Ketosis?

When you start following the diet, just in a couple of days your body will start to be in ketosis, which by simple words, it will start to get read of fat instead of glucose. You are actually able to test your ketone levels either by urine strips or by a blood-prick meter, they both can be purchased on Amazon. For your full understanding of the process it will take 3-5 weeks for your body to fully get used to the process of ketosis, though Bede names the period of three days for ketosis to start.

Generally people monitor their ketone levels only when they are starting this diet. In the time being they are getting accustomed of this very different feeling than before. If you eat something not on the list you will feel the difference immediately. You will be feeling sort of hangover after taking too much carbohydrates, you will also feel exhausted cause you have cheated. You even might experience a hyperinsulinemic response to the carbohydrate influx. 

3. What Does a Day on a Keto Meal Plan Look Like?

The convinient thing avbout this diet is that there is no need to have strict limitation on amount of calories. But you only need to monitor that you eat only maximum of 5% of carbs and 75% are fat. You will need to use an app like Lose it! in order to be able to monitor your food consumption. One more option is you trying keto diet plan for beginners.

You will be surprised at how various food options are while you are following this diet. Though choose some go-to options from dedicated followers and they often include black coffee for breakfast; a taco bowl made up of beef, some sour cream, coconut oil, cheese, salsa, olives, and a bell pepper for lunch; steak with onions, mushrooms, and spinach sautéed in butter and coconut oil for dinner. There is a wide choice of low-carb keto drinks that will keep you in ketosis, let alone vegetarian keto recipes and even vegan-friendly ones.

4. What Are the Benefits of the Keto Diet?

The first change you will notice is reduction of water in the body, as carbs are what attract and keep water. The weight reduction will be continues due to less hunger as you will be consuming whole foods and saturated fats, instead of junk food snacks which are not approved by the keto diet.

5. Are There Any Health Concerns I Need to Know?

Be aware that you can easily catch so called keto flu, which is basically intensive loss of water which will cause immense dehydration. You will notice bad headaches, serious loss of consentration and exhaustion. In order not experience such a side effect you need to load up on electrolytes taking chicken broth, beef broth, Pedialyte or electrolyte pills.

At first you are most likely to be very hungry following the diet plan. High levels of hunger can last for the first two-three weeks of the diet, and sure thing feeling hungry and tired while your organism is adjusting will make your workouts extremely tough and complicated. If that happens, you need to give yourself time to adapt, and not to push too hard in order for your body to become ready.

You must not forget this diet can't be followed for long time. You need to pay special attention to that fact. Staying long-term on this diet might harm your kidneys. It's considered by scientists that high levels of ketones can lead to dehydration and urine that's high in calcium, low in citrate, and with a low pH, and all that can lead to kidney stones.

Last but not the least the diet's fat-heavy aspect can lead to negative health consequences in the case of loading up on too many trans and saturated fats.

6. Should I Do It?

This diet suits you if you are ready to fully commit, as you will need time for preparing your meals. You won't be able just to wake up one day and decide: Let's get started today! First of all you need to learn all the basics about this diet. And if you don't see results immediately, that doesn't mean it isn't working. Just give your body some time to find the alternate fuel source and adapt.