FLORIDA — This is the time of year to indulge in holiday treats, but come January many of us will be back to dieting again. The Keto Diet is one of the latest plans getting rave reviews from those trying it.
“The weight started dropping off,” said Ginny Culp, who lost nearly 15 pounds on the Keto Diet.
Culp recently had to lose weight for acid reflux surgery. She had tried several other plans with no success, but to her surprise, the high fat, moderate protein, low carb Keto Diet started working almost immediately.
“Eat all the butter you can, all the meat you can, bacon, bacon, bacon! Eggs, eggs, eggs! Cheese, cheese, cheese!” she said, laughing.
After being on the Keto Diet for about three weeks, Culp likes the results.
“I feel wonderful!" she explained. "I have more energy. I sleep well.”
People on the Keto Diet often report feeling mentally sharper, having more energy and fewer cravings; but there are also side effects that some experience when first beginning the diet.
The symptoms are often called the “low carb flu.” They include headaches, lethargy, brain fog, and even bad breath, but those tend to subside after a week or a few weeks.
“I could have been cranky or my breath could have been bad,” Culp said, laughing, “but no one told me, so I guess I was OK.”
How if works
Culp’s doctor for her acid reflux operation, Advanced GI Surgeon Dr. Sharona Ross, says the diet defies conventional wisdom by tricking your body into what’s called a ketogenic state — burning fat instead of sugar for fuel.
“The whole principle is getting your body to starvation mode," Ross explained. "That then forces it to go into the fat storage rather than the sugar, in order to fuel the body. Your body becomes a fat burning machine. The thought is even when you sleep, you burn fat.”
The key is to cut out almost all carbohydrates, which the body converts to sugar. That means virtually no pasta, rice, crackers, and bread, even too much fruit, is off limits, because it has so many carbs. You’re supposed to have no more than 20 grams of carbs a day to lose weight, which is just about 5 percent of the average diet.
It’s not easy to stick to those strict rules, and if you cheat, you can easily throw your body out of ketosis.
“If you eat a little bit more carbohydrates than you’re supposed to, you start to burn those sugars, rather than fat,” Ross said.
Culp says she visits Keto dieter blogs and even Pinterest to find recipes. She eats lots of sausage links wrapped in bacon, avocados, cheese, full fat butter, and pork rinds.
“Pork rinds, which I never thought I’d eat in a million years, but they’re delicious, particularly with dip. You can eat all the cheese you want.”
Health Effects
One of the biggest surprises for most people is that cholesterol levels actually decrease for many on the Keto Diet, despite eating all that fat.
“There’s no real explanation as to why it works other than the body starts to consume fat as the fuel, rather than sugar. So, if you keep burning the fat in your body, it doesn’t stay in your vessels and cause arthrosclerosis and all of that,” Ross explained.
Culp’s cholesterol level went from 173 to 128 in less than a month.
“I thought my arteries would explode, but they didn’t. I couldn’t believe it,” Culp said.
While short term studies of six months or less do show health benefits for the Keto Diet, the long-term safety is still being examined.
“We don’t have numbers for people who really stick to that diet for years, and that’s why I can’t recommend it for years,” Ross said.
No one size fits all diet
There is no one-size-fits-all diet. A lot depends on you and what you naturally crave.
“If you’re a person who loves carbs, loves sugar, like me — I can’t live without the pasta and the rice and the bread — then, the Keto Diet would not be ideal,” Ross said.
On the other hand, for Culp, adjusting to Keto was not a problem.
“Is it for everyone? No. But it works!” she said.
Luckily, there are many other diet plans to try. More traditional diets like the Mediterranean Diet and the Dash Diet also get excellent reviews.