Keto: the new clean eating

Except way better


If you’re reading this article expecting to find some miracle diet that will make you instantly thinner, more beautiful and posted up on Jordan Belfort’s yacht- you should probably google something more along the lines of “reality check.”

Two years ago my mother and I decided to begin bodybuilding, and naturally, we began a regimen of clean eating. But the progress felt slow, I often felt lethargic, and I couldn’t ever quite shake the carb cravings I was having- after counting and calculating my macronutrients each and every day for six months, I was gaining some serious muscle but I wasn’t really losing any fat. Frustrated, the two of us turned to the internet and stumbled across some small clips about keto.

Black iced coffee and heavy pouring cream.

So what exactly is Keto eating?

Ketogenic eating, or eating keto, is a type of dietary regimen that consists of high amounts of fats, medium amounts of proteins, and low amounts of carbs on the daily. Whereas when eating ‘clean’ your macronutrients can range anywhere from 30-70% protein, leaving the rest of the equation for fats and carbs.

Ketogenic eating strives to hold 75% of each day’s macronutrient intake as fats. If this sounds insane to you, I’m going to wager it’s because you have been misinformed about “fat,” but we’ll get to that later. That means that in a typical day, when you count and record all the food that you eat, you will see that cheeses and meats and vegetables outweigh starches ten to one.

Think eggs for breakfast, loaded salads for lunch, and meats and vegetables for dinner.

A FULLy loaded and delicious kept salad for dinner in Edinburgh.

What does it do?

When you eat keto you eat anywhere between under 20-50 grams of carbohyrdates a day – this is not a lot. And that’s the point. After the first few days of eating this seriously reduced rate of carbs, your body will begin to feel sluggish, dehydrated, and achy. This is what is commonly referred to as “the keto flu,” and takes anywhere from three to seven days to pass.

But the real question is what is happening? When your body registers a dip in carbohydrates of such a degree that it passes a threshold (different for every person’s unique body), the brain begins to emit a hormone known as a ketone in the place of the hormone insulin.

As your body processes this transfer you feel like crap, but when the switch has been made your body surges with a revitalization of energy that you may have never felt so strongly before.

The ketones produced by your brain have now instructed your body to burn fat stores and fat cells as its first form of fuel and then to move on to sugars; in other forms of eating, including clean eating, your body uses insulin to burn off its carbohydrates first and then moves on to stored fat if needed afterwards, but in ketogenic eating your body burns those reserves of fat first and foremost (think protruding belly, love handles, etc.).

Danish medley of roast beef, pickles, mustard, shredded horseradish, and pickled onions- eating keto on vacation!

How It Helps

In a study done by Bodybuilding.com, it was found that people who worked out and ate a keto diet lost more fat per pound than any other diet.

Though all subjects were losing the same amount of weight per week (two pounds), it was only the keto dieters who were losing pure fat; these other subjects were losing the same amount of weight but half those two pounds each week were from their muscle!

Additionally, keto dieting has been shown to be insanely helpful in the combatting of type I and type II diabetes by lowering blood sugar levels, blood pressure levels, and cholesterol levels. While many of us have been lead to believe that eating “high fat” foods is the worst thing you can do for your body that simply isn’t the truth. As with anything you eat, you should watch what and how much you consume, but fat in the body is not nearly as detrimental as its neighbor sugar.

Sugar is the culprit of the vast majority of the health risks we see arising today and is found in higher doses of “low fat” foods- the next time you buy “reduced fat cottage cheese” you should be aware that when food processing takes out fat, they add in sugar (just check the carbs on the nutrition label!).

Greek salad with gyro meat, lots of veggies, and LOTS of feta. Totally keto.

Why should you do it?

Maybe the strangeness of this diet was easier for my mother and I to understand since my brother, a type I diabetic for the past sixteen years, explained to us that this was how people with diabetes stayed healthy and alive before the advent of medical insulin, but when we began to try keto the success was immediate.

There was the loss of water weight held in the body by carbohydrates, their was the “keto flu,” their was the new surge of energy as we stepped up our training even further (hello HIIT cardio), and then there was the definitive, noticeable loss of fat as my muscles appeared more and more clearly.

Nowadays when I explain keto eating to people they seem fascinated and a little bit afraid, but I can also see that it’s starting to make sense to more and more people as we come to understand the truths about sugar, about fats, and about how the human metabolism works.

If you’re looking for something to shake up your routine or feel like you can really jive with keto eating (uhm can you say more cheese please) then do your research. Though the internet has a small (but growing contingency) of keto diehards, they are the most informed and most generous people you will meet- every time we have reached out to them with questions or concerns, someone has answered us and over the internet.

One of of many homemade keto desserts- (slightly burnt) chocolate chip cookies!

So start doing your research, think about your goals, and realize that the word “diet” shouldn’t refer to a flash of extreme eating to achieve some implausible goal, but a way of living and lifestyle that makes you happier and healthier. Oh, and in this case none of that persuaded you, it tastes better too.