Understanding Ketosis and the Ketogenic Diet
In layman’s terms, the ketogenic diet involves dramatically reducing the amount of carbs you consume while replacing those calories with fat. This reduction in carbs puts your body in a metabolic state called ketosis.
Ketosis is a natural metabolic state where fat provides most of the fuel for the body. Fat is used as fuel when there is limited available glucose, which the body prefers to use for energy. In order to achieve ketosis, people need to consume less than 50 grams of carbs per day. In some cases, people need consume even fewer carbs than that throughout the day to reach ketosis.
To put this in perspective with some popular foods, a Grande Starbucks Latte has 19 carbs. One serving of Chex Mix has 21 carbs. Two slices of Sarah Lee’s 45-calorie wheat bread has 18 carbs. Hopefully, these examples give you an idea of the kinds of foods that are not consistent with the ketogenic diet. This diet requires limiting or even removing grains, candy, sugary drinks, legumes, potatoes, and fruit.
Ketosis has proven effective in weight loss efforts because the low-carb dieting style causes insulin levels to decrease, releasing fatty acids from body fat stores in large amounts. These fatty acids are oxidized by the liver and transformed into molecules that can be used as energy for the body.
How To Follow The Keto Diet
There are a couple of different versions of a ketogenic diet that can help you achieve ketosis.
Standard - This is typically comprised of 75% fat, 20% protein, and 5% carbs.
Cyclical - This diet includes refeed days where increased carbs are consumed. You might have five ketogenic days and two refeed days.
Targeted - This version includes an increase in carbs around workouts.
High-protein - This version includes more protein, typically about 60% fat, 35% protein, 5% carbs.
If you are familiar with looking at your macronutrient intake, this information may be easier to understand than if you have only looked at calories, previously.
Macros 101
Your body gets energy from three key macronutrients - fat, protein, and carbohydrates. Each gram of these macronutrients has a caloric value. One gram of fat is equivalent to 9 calories, while one gram of a carbohydrate or protein is equivalent to 4 calories each. The recommended 2,000 calorie standard ketogenic diet would include 1,500 calories from fat, or 167 grams, 400 calories from protein, or 100 grams of protein, and 100 calories from carbohydrates, or 25 grams.
Applying The Ketogenic Diet
Now obviously, this is a high fat dieting style. Let’s look at the nutritional breakdown of some of the most common high fat foods we tend to consume when dieting.
One Serving of Peanut Butter
16g of fat, 7g of protein, 8g of carbs.
9.5% daily calories.
9.5% daily fat.
7% daily protein.
32% daily carbs.
One medium avocado
21g of fat, 3g of protein, 12g of carbs.
11% daily calories.
12.5% daily fat.
3% daily protein.
48% daily carbs.
1 Container of Full-Fat Yogurt
11g of fat, 20g of protein, 9g of carbs.
11% of daily calories.
6.5% daily fat.
20% daily protein.
36% daily carbs.
What you will see with these common, high-fat foods is that, between the three, we’ve consumed only about 30% of our daily calories, a mere 28.5% of our daily fat, and gone over our daily allotted carbohydrates by 16%. Adhering to the ketogenic diet can be challenging. Especially in today’s society where the majority of our foods are processed with added sugars.
Enter Metagenics Ketogenic Shake
The ketogenic shake offers a convenient way to increase your fat and protein intake while maintaining the low-carb requirements of the keto diet. Packed with 14 grams of fat and 3 grams of medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) you can knock out 10% of your daily fat requirements while consuming only 5 grams of carbs. Because the ketogenic shake is also loaded with 20 grams of protein, it is the perfect meal replacement or post-workout recovery shake for you to enjoy without blowing your diet. You can also blend additional fat sources, like nut butters, chia seeds, or coconut to increase the percent of fat you are consuming, making sticking to your ketogenic diet easy AND delicious.
Try our ketogenic shake in chocolate or vanilla (or both!) today. Order your first Ketogenic Shake today!
