How Does The Keto Diet Burn Fat?

So you have heard of the Keto Diet and how Lebron James went on it for 67 days in 2014 to stellar results including his 3rd NBA Championship. Or you saw Tim Tebow on Dr. Oz talking about it. But how does Keto work?

How does the Keto Diet burn fat? When you restrict the amount of carbohydrates you consume, the body will tap it’s reserves of stored fat, creating molecules called ketones. These are used as fuel for the cells. When the body is doing this, it is called Ketosis. There is nothing dangerous about ketosis.

While researching how the Keto Diet burns fat I found there are some things to watch out for when in ketosis. As well as how to maximize the burning fat. But just how low carb are we talking about…

Keto Expanded-

When you restrict the amount of carbohydrates you consume, your body switches to small fuel molecules called ketones. These ketones are an alternative fuel source for the body. They are used when blood sugar (glucose) is in short supply.

By limiting your carb intake, and only moderate amounts of protein, your body will produce ketones. Carbs are quickly broken down into blood sugar, and used by the body. Excess protein can also be converted to blood sugar.

Ketones are produced in the liver from fat. The ketones then provide the energy needed throughout the body. The brain especially loves ketones. It consumes lots of energy. It can not run directly on fat, but needs glucose or ketones.

The cells within your body start to adapt to burning the ketones as full and will be burning fat 24-7. With low insulin levels, from the lack of carbs, fat burning will increase dramatically. Your body’s fat stores will be used to provide the energy you need.

When the liver is producing enough ketones to measure significant levels in the blood, usually over 0.5 mM, it is said to be in ketosis.

This is why keto is so effective, when done correctly, at losing weight. You will also experience a decrease in hunger, and less swings in energy. This may help you stay alert and focused.

Maximizing fat burning-

So there are two ways to enter a state of ketosis. One is to eat a ketogenic diet. The other is to do a period of fasting.

When you do either of these for a prolonged period of time the body’s limited reserves of glucose starts to run out. Your body switches where the energy is coming from, to run almost completely on fat. Without the carbs, your insulin levels become very low, and the fat burning increases dramatically. This is easy access to your fat stores, and starts to burn them off. This is why the Keto Diet is great for losing excess weight. Studies are helping to prove that the Keto Diet results in more weight loss, and faster.

Fastest way to Ketosis-

The fastest way to help the body enter ketosis is by fasting and exercise. Fasting means not eating anything for a prolonged period of time.

Many people doing the Keto Diet practice Intermittent Fasting. They will have an eating window. They will eat during a specified time, say from 12:00 pm to 6:00 pm. This is a 6 hour window. Others will go for a 4 hour eating window from say 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Or some eat one meal a day.

By far the easiest way to start is by pushing breakfast back an hour for a week. Take stock and see how you are feeling. If you are good push back breakfast another hour. And so on till you are at the eating window you want.

The health benefits of intermittent fasting are incredible:

It can cause neurogenesis, the formation of new nerve cells by increasing brain-derived neurotrophic factor. This helps with the survival of existing neurons and the growth of new neurons.
Hippocampus improvement. This helps you locate yourself in time and space. Involve in Long and Short term memory. Think the body’s GPS system.
Protects against amyloid plaque formation
Autophagy increases. This is like the mini garbage disposal of the cell. Helps the toxins of the cells come out of the body.
Correcting of insulin resistance with increase of insulin responsiveness.
Decrease in blood pressure and cholesterol
Reversing depression

Exercise while Intermittent Fasting-

Exercise is a great way to help the weight come off. You end up helping to burn the excess glycogen in the body. But be sure you are ready. The big mistake is adding to many of these things to fast. Two meals a day right off the bat and exercising on top of it. Pushing to hard will cause a crash and burn. Look at how you feel when you start to exercise.

Some good indicators for this are:

Are your legs tired or heavy?
Do you feel tired?
Feeling like you have a reserve.

If 1 or 2 take it slower. Give yourself some more time to adjust.

The timing of exercise is best in the eating window or just after is best to prevent a major drop in blood sugars (hypoglycemic symptoms) and severe hunger.

The type of exercise: Don’t start with high intensity training or cardio. Build up to that. Start with low intensity and work up from there. After the last meal of the day is perfect. Plus you will burn a little more fat working out after the last meal of the day. It’s not significant.

What is the Keto Diet-

So simply, the Keto Diet is a high-fat, extremely low-carbohydrate diet with an acceptable amount of protein added in.

The Keto Diet was first developed in the 1920’s to treat drug-resistant epilepsy in children. In fact it is still used in that capacity today.

The Keto Diet is also being studied as a potential treatment for a range of neurological disorders and diseases. It’s not just your latest celebrity fad weight-loss trend!

How low-carb are we talking-

Let’s break this down into percentages. For fat 75%, Protein 20%, and Carbohydrates 5%.

For you and me that is between 30 and 50 grams of carbs a day. What does 50 grams of carbs look like? In oatmeal that would be 1 ¾ cups. For slices of bread that would be 2 slices of whole-wheat. And brown rice would be a cup. But don’t eat those.

3 Things You Must Know About Fat-

Here are three things people rarely know, to the level they need to, relating to the fat cell.

Hormones control the storing of fat (Insulin) and burning of fat (Lipase).
An enzyme, Lipase, is required to release and burn fat. Lipase comes from the greek words which mean, “Lippo” or fat, and “Ase” which means an enzyme. Lipase acts as a dissolver of fat. Lipase is triggered by a hormone. It is triggered by the decreasing of Insulin. So in other words, Insulin decreases the Lipase, and when Lipase is triggered you burn fat. Lipase is a pancreatic enzyme and it catalyzes the breakdown of fats to fatty acids and glycerol or other alcohols in the body.
How to lower your Insulin level. Don’t eat carbohydrates. Low-fat proteins trigger insulin. So the more lean a protein is the more low-fat the protein is. So the more you are going to spike insulin. Consuming fat does not trigger insulin. Wow!

The “authorities”, i.e. The American Heart Association, The American Diabetes Association, and The American Society of Obesity, they recommend… Low Fat, High Carb! Do you see the problem? You are spiking insulin levels. Signaling to the body to store fat. It’s not your fault you could not lose weight. Don’t blame your little willpower, or your laziness. You have been given the wrong information.

So don’t eat those snacks between meals to keep the blood sugar up, to keep from overeating, as recommended by the mainstream. That’s a bad idea. Everytime you each you are going to trigger the release of insulin. Also those protein shakes, protein bars between meals or grazing at night on fruit, nuts, your raising your insulin.

You want to do the least frequent meals possible. Also no more healthy grains. The body sees it as sugar. It will turn into sugar very fast. So if it is whole grain or refined grain, it still breaks down into sugar. On the glycemic index, it is actually higher than actual table sugar.

So there are three things to help you with your Keto Diet. It’s not a diet but a long-term lifestyle. So use these two strategies: Healthy Keto and Intermittent Fasting.

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