I went to school for Physical Therapy which involves anatomy, physiology, exercise physiology.  I have known about carbohydrates, fats, and proteins and the common ways that the body uses them.  All of my education surrounded the body’s use of the Standard American Diet.  I did not learn about ketones.  I did learn about gluconeogenesis (more on that later).  It turns out that there is also a backup system for creating energy for our bodies.

It all makes sense when you start to think about it.  Human beings did not always have grocery stores in walking distances from our houses.  We didn’t even really start farming until well into our development into a species.  If you remember, we were hunter/gatherers first.

Things were not very easy for the paleolithic man.  Meals were not guaranteed and certainly not consistent.  If you are a fan of survival shows like “Alone”, you see contestants really struggle to find food.  They forage for food and are sometimes lucky enough to catch a fish. They really begin to get thin.  That is because our bodies protect them from starvation by beginning to use their body fat as fuel.

What is this backup system?

The liver is a miraculous organ.  It is literally tied to every metabolic process in the body.  It literally keeps everything operational and also acts as a filter for wastes.  It transforms glucose into glycogen and fatty acids and stores it when there is enough glucose in the blood stream for all the cells.  It also breaks down glycogen and fatty acids and turns it back into glucose when the body needs food. 

Glycogen gets stored in the liver for use when needed.  Guess where the fatty acids get stored? Yup! In your fat cells!! That is, until your liver requires them again.  Fatty acids are more difficult to break down than glycogen is, so the liver will always use the storage of glycogen first before attacking the Fatty acids and breaking them down.  Proteins get broken down last and they are the last to be used because of the difficulty of breaking them down.  Proteins are needed for all of the building blocks of every structure and organ in your body so the body does not want to use that until it has to. 

Once the Caveman or the “Alone” survivalist uses up all the glucose in the blood stream, the liver breaks down all the glycogen to provide more glucose for the cells.  If there is still no food and the body continues to fast, the liver then needs to start breaking down the fatty acids into ketones using that Gluconeogenesis I was talking about above. 

This is the backup system that I was talking about.  Previously, it was thought that this is the process of starvation.  In fact, you will have all kinds of naysayers tell you that is what is happening in your body.  It is, however, a system that can be switched on for those of us who could live on an island for a month before our body runs out of fatty acids!!

So… the theory of The Ketogenic Diet is that when you significantly decrease the carbohydrates in your diet, you automatically decrease the available glucose for the cells and kick-start the process of getting rid of all the stored glycogen.  In a matter of days, the liver then starts the process of breaking down fatty acids to begin using those ketones as an alternate fuel source.

So… it’s just that easy?

Well, sort of.  There are some things to understand about the Ketogenic (Keto for short) diet.

1.      You have to be consistent

When you start the process of ketosis, you have to stay consistent with it until your body becomes used to producing ketones readily.  This is referred to as Metabolic Flexibility and can happen at different times for everyone.  It may take you 2 months, but take me 6 months.  There is also no notable way to determine if you are metabolically flexible so that you know it is ok to deviate from the Ketogenic Diet.  You are best to continue to eat low carb to avoid the rebound weight gain.   

2.      You may have a reaction referred to as the “keto flu”

There are several reasons that people have this reaction.  Some people react worse than others.  I can honestly say that I did not ever have a reaction like this.  It can be related to an electrolyte imbalance, it can be dehydration, and if you are a full-on Carb burning machine, it could be a type of withdrawal.  Symptoms can include fatigue, headache, nausea, vomiting, weakness, and muscle soreness.  It can last a few days to a week, but there are ways to avoid it all together.  More on that later…   

3.      You may have changes in your bowel movements

Some people report constipation, but some report diarrhea.  There is a thing called a “whoosh” syndrome which is related to the breakdown of fatty acids.  When the fat cells store the fatty acids, there is also water stored in the cell with them.  The water acts as a filler for the cell or a place holder for more fatty acids should you need them.  When the fatty acids are depleted from the cell, the water is released also and excess fluid that is not being processed by the kidneys goes into your bowels to be excreted, thus the lovely side-effect of diarrhea.  Again, this is only a temporary issue for most people that clears up once your body adjusts to regulating the extra fluid

4.      You may get Keto breath   

Some people also report bad breath with the keto diet.  This can be related to a release of ammonia, or increased ketones in the blood stream.  It can be related to dehydration.  Again, temporary until the body adapts to the changes in metabolism.

5.      This is not a bacon and butter diet

Sorry to burst your bubble, but when that person at work or on YouTube told you that you could eat butter and bacon all day and lose weight, they weren’t exactly understanding the spirit of the Keto diet.  While bacon technically follows the requirements of the diet with high fat and protein, but low to no carbohydrates, it is not ideal because it has minimal vitamin and mineral content.

Well what is so good about it then?

So those are a few drawbacks of the Keto diet to be completely up front, but the benefits significantly outweigh (no pun intended) the drawbacks!!

Weight loss (fat loss specifically)

As we mentioned above, the liver is going to grab up that fat for the stored fuel that it is and break it down to feed your body!! The longer you eat low carb, the longer your body will be using that fat and the less “storage” you will have on your midsection

Lack of Hunger

When your body has a constant readily available source of food, it does not need to eat as often or as much.  You will find that your high fat and high protein foods are much more filling.  Also, when you are ingesting less sugar/glucose, you are having less of an insulin (sugar moving hormone) and ghrelin (hunger stimulating hormone) response in your body.  When you don’t need to eat, your body gets a rest from digesting.  This means it gets to spend some time cleaning up and recycling old cells and making itself more efficient.  You have maybe never had a day where you didn’t eat 3 square meals a day (or more).  Believe me, but when you start to realize you aren’t hungry as much as you used to be and you realize you aren’t a slave to food, it is a SERIOUS GAME CHANGER!!!!  It changes your relationship to food to as something that you enjoy or choose rather than something that you NEED.

Higher energy

Gone is the “afternoon slump” after lunch.  The energy from ketones and gluconeogenesis is a constant slow burn of energy rather than the carb rush and then quick burn of those carbs which then makes you hungry for more carbs.  It’s the difference between putting all the logs on the fire at one time and having a bonfire for 30 minutes and putting one log on the fire at a time and having a nice steady slow burn. 

Sharper mind

In the same way that the body has more energy from switching to ketones, your brain has improved focus and clarity from using ketones instead of glucose to power the hub of all bodily function.  Not only does the fuel source change the function, but the consistent availability of the ketones is also helpful for allowing the brain to focus on the task at hand.

Decreased Inflammation

Inflammation is not necessarily a bad thing.  It helps to fight infections and cause healing.  Anytime something becomes red and swollen, that is the inflammation rushing to the area to heal you.  The problem arises when inflammation becomes chronic.  It may actually be the cause of your brain fog, anxiety, pain, fatigue and/or gastrointestinal upset.  Ketosis, or the breaking up of fatty acids/body fat, gives off less inflammation causing free radicals.  The process of making ketones also has an anti-inflammatory effect by decreasing inflammatory hormones and increasing antioxidant and anti-inflammatory production inside the body.  All this without ever needing to take a pill!!!!  I noticed this in my joints.  After a month or so on my first Keto journey, I noticed one day that my soccer playing toe joints had stopped hurting.  I had gone to the orthopedic doctor about this in the past.  Also the joints in my hands and my neck were not hurting as they had from other injuries over the years.  It was remarkable!!

Regulation of hormone levels

I personally had this effect happen on me in a big way.  I have always had PCOS my whole life and metabolic syndrome.  I had to do some fertility treatments to assist us with getting pregnant for our first two children.  I never saw the correlation that fertility treatments started to work better when I did things to lower my glucose levels both times.  After starting keto for 2 months, I started to become regular with my cycles and before I even had a chance to start really paying attention, I had gotten pregnant.  A huge and wonderful surprise for us to say the least!!

I am not saying that Ketogenic lifestyle is the end all be all for every human, but there are a lot of us that are seeing effects on our bodies in one way or another from the constant carb consumption in the Standard American Diet (SAD).  Whether we are overweight, tired, hungry, hangry, or in pain, this diet may be able to help with this.  It is a matter of eating the right way with it.  Eating in a conscious way instead of the unconscious feeding that we do now.  Now that I am on the other side of pregnancy, and breastfeeding, I am starting my second Keto journey.  I have lost the baby weight and now need to return to my original goal of losing fat and restoring my previous level of health.  Please feel free to add your email below if you want to join me!!