What Is The Ketogenic Diet | The Basics

If you’ve been a follower of diet fads, you’ve probably heard of the Ketogenic diet.

The Ketogenic Diet (commonly referred to as Keto) is one of the newer mainstream diets to cause waves, but it isn’t actually a new diet. 

It was first developed as a form of dietary therapy for patients with epilepsy. It was popular during the 1920s and throughout the 1930s but keto fell out of practice when more effective anticonvulsant medications came out. 

However, some forms of epilepsy are resistant to medications. Keto is used in addition to anticonvulsant medicines in these cases. It’s a form of dietary therapy still used today. 

Because they found that the keto diet could also make the patient lose considerable weight, it rose and fell as a diet regimen during the next few decades.

What is the Ketogenic Diet & How Does It Work

Simply put, the keto diet is a very low-carb, high-fat diet. 

It became so popular that it has even branched into different types, including:

  • Standard: The classic keto. The typical ratio is 5% carbohydrates, 20% protein, and 75% fat.
  • Cyclical: Instead of doing keto every day, dieters have days where they eat carbohydrate-rich foods. An example would be doing keto for 5 days and then 2 days where carbohydrates is allowed.
  • Targeted: This type of keto involves a workout regimen, and carbohydrates is normally allowed, but controlled.
  • High Protein: A modified classic keto where the ratio is tweaked to include a bit more protein. The typical ratio is 5% carbohydrates, 35% protein, and 60% fat.

Most casual dieters go with the standard or high protein versions of keto. The cyclical and targeted versions are more advanced, and are usually used by athletes and bodybuilders. Read More….