Keto Diet: What is a Ketogenic Diet?

 

What is a Ketogenic Diet?

is a diet that focuses on obtaining calories from foods rich in protein and fats, and reducing the intake of foods rich in easily digestible carbohydrates, such as sugar, soda, pastries, and white bread, as the ketogenic diet helps To lose weight quickly, and it depends on introducing the body to the ketogenic state, where the body reaches this state when a person eats less than fifty grams of carbohydrates per day, which leads to the depletion of the body's energy resulting from burning blood sugar quickly, which pushes the body to break down protein and fat to obtain.

Foods that are allowed to eat

Some types of foods are allowed when following the ketogenic diet, including the following:

• Meats: red meat, chicken, and turkey.
• Fish: salmon and tuna.
• Cheeses: Any unprocessed cheeses, such as mozzarella and goat cheese. 
• Nuts and seeds: flax seeds, Almonds, chia seeds, and pumpkin seeds. 
• Healthy oils: olive oil, avocado oil, and many more.
• Low-carb vegetables: most green vegetables, the most important of which are tomatoes, onions, and peppers.
• Condiments: Salt and pepper and various herbs and spices can be added to the food.
• Eggs, butter, and cream are allowed during the ketogenic diet.

 

Foods that are prohibited in the ketogenic diet

Some types of foods are prohibited when following the ketogenic diet, including the following:

• Sugars: soda, fruit juice, juices, cakes, and sweets.
• Grains or starches: wheat, rice, and pasta.
• Fruit: All fruits except strawberries.
• Beans or legumes: peas, lentils, and chickpeas.
• Root tubers: potatoes, sweet potatoes, and carrots.

Benefits of the ketogenic diet

There are many benefits of the ketogenic diet, including the following: 

Weight loss: the ketogenic diet helps reduce weight; Because the body needs to burn more energy when converting fats into energy, as when converting carbohydrates into energy, it needs to burn less energy, in addition to being able to feel full for a long time, given its dependence on eating protein-rich foods.

Reducing acne: Some pimples appear due to eating sugars and foods rich in carbohydrates in abundance, so following a low-carbohydrate diet helps reduce some cases of acne.

Reducing the risk of cancer: Decreasing the danger of disease: Some examinations have shown that the ketogenic diet is a proper correlative therapy for chemotherapy and radiation in individuals with cancer. This system causes more oxidative stress in cancer cells than the stress that occurs in normal cells, and the ketogenic diet reduces blood sugar, which leads to less problems with insulin changes associated with some types of cancer.

Improving heart health: The ketogenic diet helps reduce harmful cholesterol in the blood and increases the level of beneficial cholesterol, which leads to better heart health.

Reducing epileptic seizures: The presence of fats and protein in the body changes how the body utilizes energy, as the gathering of ketones expansions in the blood, it enters the body into ketosis, which leads to a reduction in the severity of epileptic seizures in affected people.

 

The disadvantages and risks of the ketogenic diet

There are some drawbacks and health risks when following the ketogenic diet in the long term and these risks include:

• the formation of kidney stones and high levels of acidity in the blood. Severe weight loss, and the occurrence of constipation.
• Feeling tired, low blood sugar