The ketogenic diet, which many people use today for weight loss, was actually developed to treat people with epilepsy. Because of it, many have managed to reduce the manifestations of this "terrible" disease in their children, and some even completely forget about its existence.
But since progress is not standing still, a ketogenic diet is very rarely used for this purpose. But among fans of a fit, slender and inflated body, it has become very popular.
Finally, it helps to dehydrate the body, deal with extra pounds and at the same time maintain muscle mass, which not all children succeed in. In addition, the ketogenic diet works well with exercise, which further increases its effectiveness.
Basic principles of nutrition
The ketogenic diet for weight loss is based on three basic concepts - proteins, ketones and ketosis. Proteins - their high presence in food prevents the body from drying out muscles, but takes energy from fat stores, thus reducing body fat, which leads to weight loss.
Ketone is a substitute for carbohydrates, which are the energy of our body and are often kept in reserve. From a medical point of view, ketones are products of fat breakdown. If this process is artificially induced (i. e. by completely eliminating the use of carbohydrates), then harmful substances will begin to accumulate in the body, which is inherently dangerous.
Therefore, it is extremely important to understand that if you want to lose weight with a ketogenic diet, you must learn to artificially remove these substances from the body. And you can do this in several ways:
- drink plenty of fluids (toxins will simply be expelled from the body and excreted naturally);
- do sports (during training the body sweats and toxins are released together with sweat);
- 1-2 times a week to replenish glycogen stores, or eat carbohydrate foods.
Keep in mind that a ketogenic diet does not completely exclude carbohydrates from the diet, but reduces them to 30 grams per day. This amount is not enough to maintain glycogen stores in the normal range. To do this, it is necessary to organize, so to speak, recovery days. You need to eat as follows - 5 days only protein foods, 2 days carbohydrates.
Diet menu
The ketogenic diet menu consists, as you have already understood, of protein foods. It:
- fish;
- meat;
- eggs;
- cheese;
- cottage cheese;
- milk;
- kefir.
Vegetables are also allowed with the maintenance of this diet. But it should be borne in mind that they contain carbohydrates, so they should be ingested too much. You can use the following menu (you can change something, but according to the indications it should be approximately the same).
Breakfast
As a rule, most of us eat scrambled eggs in the morning. And since eggs are on the list of allowed foods, they can be used to make an omelet for breakfast. It is recommended to cook it with 2 eggs, without adding oil. You can eat the omelet in its pure form or add 1 tomato and chopped greens.
Well, let's count the carbs. Eggs contain approximately 0. 7 grams, tomatoes and herbs contain 5 grams each. In total, it turns out that such a breakfast contains only 11 grams of carbohydrates. Not bad.
Dinner
For lunch, you can cook any meat (100 grams) of your choice (except pork, because it is in no way a dietary product). Beef and veal should be preferred. Meat can be cooked, steamed or baked in the oven without oil. Stewed stewed vegetable stew (portion 100 grams) can serve as a side dish. You can also add a small piece of cheese (no more than 40 grams), one cucumber and a fresh green salad to lunch.
We calculate the amount of carbohydrates. Steamed vegetable stew contains about 7 grams, cucumber - 4 grams. There are no carbohydrates in meat and cheese. It is only 11 grams in total.
Dinner
For dinner, instead of meat, you can eat a piece of fish (about 200 grams), add a couple of lettuce, cucumber and tomato. You can also eat one boiled egg. Such a dinner is light and will relieve you of the feeling of heaviness in the stomach.
Let’s calculate the amount of carbs this evening. Fish - in it, as well as in meat, there are no carbohydrates, egg is about 0, 7 grams, tomato 5 grams, fresh cucumber 4 grams, and lettuce 1, 3 grams. It is a total of 12 grams.
And if you count the total carbs eaten, you get 34 grams. This is very little. If, while maintaining your diet, you fall asleep or notice that you start to get tired quickly, you will need to increase the amount of carbohydrates consumed by about 2 times (up to 60 grams).
Since this diet provokes the artificial production of ketones, which can negatively affect the health condition, it is necessary to consult a doctor in advance. Otherwise you risk worsening or new illnesses as a "bonus".