Why Keto Diet and Intermittent Fasting are Best for Weight Loss

In this article, we’re going to talk about three main reasons why a Ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting are the most effective ways to lose weight. In case you haven’t heard about them before. Let’s talk about what they are and how it helps to lose weight in the long term.

1. What is a Ketogenic diet?

It’s basically a low carb high-fat diet that will put your body into a metabolic state called ketosis. With the absence of carb that gets used as energy in the form of glucose, fat will replace that and will be used as energy in a state of ketone bodies and when your body uses ketone body as the main energy source that state is called ketosis. This is nothing new in the metabolism of our body. When we fast for long enough our body naturally becomes ketosis once the stored glycogen in the liver and the muscles are used up.

The ketogenic diet has such a low carb intake so it will force your body into ketosis by controlling the diet. In terms of weight loss, the more important difference between the carb and the fat metabolism is actually an insulin response. Carb has way higher insulin response than fat and we all know that insulin is a fat-storage hormone. Insulin tells the fat cells to store fat and it tells fat cells not to be broken down. More insulin in your body means more chances that you’re going to be fat. Does this mean we are completely free from calories in calories out and all we have to control is just insulin? Unfortunately, the answer is no. Even with the ketogenic diet if you consume for example 6000 calories a day you will not be able to lose weight you will, in fact, gain weight.

However, if the overall calories in the diet are the same low carb diet is way more effective than a low-fat diet in terms of the weight loss because of the insulin response. Between 2003 and 2018, there were 62 randomized control studies that compare the low-fat diet with the low-carb diet in terms of weight loss and 31 of these studies have statistically significant findings that the low-carb diet is actually way more effective than the low-fat diet.

2. What is intermittent fasting?

Intermittent fasting is not about what you eat, it’s all about when you eat and how often you eat. You’re only eating during certain hours of the day. So for the rest of the hours, you’re basically fasting. And because you’re only eating for the shorter periods of the time your body will lower the insulin level during the time that you’re not eating. This of course will lead to positive overall effects on your weight loss due to the lower insulin level.

Three main reasons why ketogenic diet and combining with intermittent fasting are great for long-term weight loss:

1. Lower insulin level:

As explained by the definition of the ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting, both have an impact on the lower insulin level therefore this will lead to your weight loss.

2. A Ketogenic diet is delicious!

With a conventional low-fat diet, because we have to reduce the overall fat intake we can’t eat those fatty meats that are delicious and meats without fat sucks. We don’t really have many options other than eating chicken breast or turkey breast or those lean meats that really taste like paper. And even with the low-fat diet, it’s not like you can eat an infinite amount of carbs you still have to reduce your carb intake because you have to be in a caloric deficit. This means we can’t eat donuts, cakes, anything with the processed carbs that we are addicted to. We just have to avoid them.

3. You don’t have to stay hungry all the time:

With the intermittent fasting, you can at least have that one really satisfying meal in a day and you can still lose weight. As mentioned before, a ketogenic diet is not completely free from calories in calories out. You don’t necessarily have to count the calories if you’re sticking to one meal a day. And that’s because there’s just a limit to how much you can eat in that one meal unless you’re like a food fighter who can eat like 10,000 calories in one meal.

Human beings are always driven by hope; our motivation is so hoping dependent. In this long journey of weight loss, the right mental approach is just so important especially when we’re talking about fighting food addictions. This is an addiction we need to fight it and if you don’t have hope during the day you will not be able to fight these temptations.

Challenges:

With the intervened fasting it’s called fasting, so there will be a time that you’re going to be so hungry but you don’t have to be staying hungry all the time. You have this hope that you will get to the next day in one meal you’re going to be super satisfied and that hope is what will drive you to fight hunger. Although it might sound more difficult to follow one meal a day for the first time, this is a better mental strategy to lose weight in the long term.

Final thoughts:

So I suggest you start with maybe eight hours without eating it the first time and then slowly reduce that to six hours four hours until you get to this one meal a day. And when you’re able to make this one meal a day, your lifestyle with the ketogenic meals I guarantee you will be able to lose weight and that losing weight is not going to be short-term but you will be able to maintain it for a long time. Sustainability is the most important thing when it comes to a diet. This is something that you can put into your lifestyle.