Ketogenic Lifesytle - My simple definition.
What is a Keto or ketogenic lifestyle.
Am I on a diet? NO. I live a ketogenic lifestyle, but surely that’s a diet. Absolutely not, in modern terms a diet is perceived as a restrictive eating plan whereby someone reduces the amounts or types of foods. As soon as you mention the word diet to some people, alarm bells start ringing inside their heads, the visualise counting calories, only eating salads, plates with clock markings indicating what foods go where etc.
The word dieting scares people off dieting because dieting is hard, that is a fact. When you complete a diet, your friends will say well done, or that’s amazing, because they know how hard diets are. When people ask me if I am on a diet, I say no, I just changed how I eat.
So how does keto work? Some websites will refer to ketosis as “The bodies natural reaction to a lack of carbohydrates ‘a starvation mode’”. Personally, I hate the term ‘starvation mode’ because it conjures images of you being starved when in ketosis, sitting in the corner of the staff canteen looking longingly into the vending machine, twitching with pain and murderous desires to get a Mars bar. I can assure you if you do ketosis correctly, you wont feel hunger, in fact sometimes the desire to eat is so diminished, you will have to remind yourself to eat!
Let’s imagine your body is a hybrid car, using electric and petrol. Your bodies primary choice of fuel is carbohydrates (lets call this electric) your body loves carbs, and when there are carbs about, your body will always use them for fuelling your engine. We actually crave carbs so intently it changes your daily routines, “I need a donut, or I really need to have some chips”. However, let’s say all the carbs magically disappear, your body needs a back up plan, same as if your car runs out of electric, it switches over to the alternative fuel source (petrol) let’s call this fat, and your car runs perfectly normally on either fuel. Your body does exactly the same thing, if there are no carbs about it will switch to burning fat for energy. This is ketosis, your body has switched to an alternative energy source.
Your body has a master plan for any period where carbs are not available, it stores fat, fat is the bodies reserve fuel tank. Most of us have a large fuel tank stored for use in an emergency. If you don’t believe me then get hold of your belly and give it a wiggle, that’s your petrol tank, ready for use!
So how do we get our body to switch and burn that fat, we restrict carbs, it really is that simple.
Many keto websites and help-guides use the terms ‘carb dependant’ and ‘fat adapted’. Carb dependant is burning carbohydrates as your primary source of fuel, and fat adapted is where you burn fat as an energy source. So, lets address the hunger issue mentioned above. When you are carb dependant, and getting low on carbs, your brain triggers hunger, it is telling you to get more carbs into your body. It is a very powerful thing hunger, it makes you eat breakfast when you get up, then every six hours or so you get hungry again and eat more carbs.
I have been in ketosis for 5 months now, I have never once woken up hungry, never once thought I must eat breakfast. Why? My body is quite happy burning some belly fat off for its energy source, it does not need to trigger a hunger response since it knows I have a huge fuel reserve, if fact I have been filling my reserve tank for years.
Ketosis does amazing things to your body, curbs hunger, more energy, less tired etc. Why have I gone down this route of very basically explaining ketosis?
Because to be in a ketogenic state and for it to be very effective, you need to understand what you are doing to your body, it not just reading a list of dos and don’ts and what you can and can’t eat. It is about understanding the process. Understanding why your body does things a certain way.
Primarily this is why I refer to my methods as a lifestyle not a diet. Vegetarians and vegans are not dieting, they made a lifestyle choice. They alter their life to become a vegan and live that way, you will see in this blog that I will constantly refer to the work of James Clear in Atomic Habits (see blog post Atomic Habits). It is about creating an identity and becoming the person you want to be, constant repetition of a habit becomes an identity, you become your identity.
It’s a shame there is not a term for someone who follows a ketogenic lifestyle, like vegetarian or pescatarian, I think it would strengthen the culture and stop people thinking of keto as a diet. Maybe we should just invent one and see if it sticks? The next time your invited to a cousins wedding and the invite asks you for any special dietary requirements, put Ketarian and see what you get served.
Fact checked article on keto hunger :-
https://ketogenic.com/no-appetite-on-keto-heres-why-you-arent-hungry/