What You Need to Know about the Ketogenic Diet

Often, when people hear me say that I'm on a lowcarb or ketogenic maintenance diet, their reaction is "WHAT?!!!" with eyes wide open, eyebrows raised and mouth hanging open. This reaction doesn't surprise me to say the least. I really do understand with them because I used to think the same way. I thought the ketogenic diet was meant strictly for people who wanted to lose weight, not for skinny people like me - infact, by most Nigerian standards I am too thin. Anyway, further study got rid of my ignorance and now I know it is a healthy way of living and your health goals determine which of the diet plans you should follow.

What is a Ketogenic Diet?

I'm sure that by now you've heard a lot of people saying so many things about the ketogenic diet but not everyone clearly explaining it. A ketogenic diet is one in which one restricts lots of carbohydrates from your diet to as low as 5% (20g per day) and increases the fat contents to 70% while maintaining the protein content  at 25%. It is also popularly known as lowcarb diet or LCHF - "low carb high fat"

In Nigeria, almost 99% of the population (with exclusion of the recent keto-converts) are on high carbohydrates diet (almost 300-400g per day) even when you say you don't eat much. How do I know this? Simple - what foods do Nigerians eat? Answer - rice,beans, plantain (ripe and unripe), corn, oats, swallow (eba, akpu, (from cassava) wheat, amala (from plantain or yam), akara or moimoi (from beans), pap (from corn or millet) with soyabean, ugba (a legume), potatoes (irish and sweet), abacha (from cassava), bread and many junk foods like meatpie e.t.c (from wheat flour), noodles, pasta (spaghetti and macaroni), lots of high carb fruits like apple, pear, orange, watermelon, pineapple, soursop, udara - (african star apple), banana, grapes cherries e.t.c. 

Each of these foods mention contain a minimum of 12g of carbs in 100g and some as high as 80g carb per 100g. Did you know that one banana weighs 100g or more and the amount of carbs in 100g of banana is 20g. So, in contrast to the ketogenic diet plate of 5-70-25, a typical Nigerian food plate contains 50-60% carbs, 20-25% protein and 20-25% fat

How does the Ketogenic Diet Work?

Carbohydrates are broken down to form glucose which is the primary and easiest form of energy for the body to use. The food we eat contain all classes of foods - Macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins and fats) & micronutrients  (vitamins, minerals and water). Foods eaten are broken down to glucose, amino acids and fatty acids and glycerol from carbohydrates, proteins and fats respectively. When these end products get absorbed into the blood stream, the brain informs the pancreas to produce insulin which tells the liver to stop breaking down stored up fats and glycogen, start using up the newly ingested food and store the excess for the future.

In a ketogenic diet, because the carbohydrate intake is so low, the production of insulin is bypassed, so the body is forced into breaking down fats to ketones for energy and converting glycogen and fats to glucose via a process called gluconeogenesis. So, you end up burning the fat and losing weight and remaining fit.

When your are on a ketogenic diet, there are certain side effects that you may experience and they include:

• Hunger and Headaches: The sudden withdrawal of high carbs leads to hypoglycemia and headache is a symptom of hypoglycemia. When this happens drink water and rest.
• Flu - this develop in the first few days, you get tired and weak, headaches, dizziness and it can literally make you stop the process.
• Frequent urination: this happens because lots of water is usually released during the conversion of glycogen to glucose when you stop taking high carbohydrate meals. So you start losing fluid, along with the fluid been lost, lots of minerals like sodium, potassium and magnesium are also lost. Make sure you drink lots of water and increase salt intake.
• Constipation: because of the lost of minerals especially, magnesium, this can happen and its very common. Just drink lots of water, eat green leafy vegetables

There are many more rare complication that people say they have experienced, so, before you begin the ketogenic diet, make sure to visit your doctor and find out.