With the keto diet gaining popularity at a staggering rate, let’s take a deep dive into the diet and its growing list of benefits.
What is keto?
The keto diet is a diet low in carbs, high in fats and known for offering a range of health benefits, as a result of shifting the body's metabolism away from carbs and towards fat and ketones.
Keto involves decreasing the amount of carbs you consume and replacing them with fat, putting your body into what’s known as ketosis. When the body enters this state, it becomes more efficient in burning fat for energy. As it enters ketosis, fats in the liver turn into ketones, helping to supply energy for the brain.
Types of keto
Strict, lazy, dirty and standard; there are many different types of keto diets, all differing slightly in their meanings and benefits, but ultimately all putting your body into that all important state of ketosis. Here are 4 of the most common types of keto diet…
Standard keto diet - This is the most popular type of diet, typically very low in carbs, the percentage split is often 70% fat, 30% protein and 10% carbs.
Cyclical keto diet - The cyclical diet is 5 days on (ketogenic days) and 2 days off (high carb days), and involves higher carb refeeds.
Targeted keto diet - Typically adopted by those who partake in regular forms of intense exercise, targeted keto allows you to incorporate more carbs around your workout routine.
High protein keto diet - High Protein Keto Diet shares similarities to the standard diet, however, allows you to include more protein. The ratio often sits around 60% fat, 35% protein and 5% carbs.
These 4 diet types can be further broken down into strict, lazy and dirty keto diets.
Strict - The strict keto diet is the traditional, committed approach, often taken up by those venturing into the world of keto for the first time - finding out what diet style works best for them. This form of dieting requires a lot of careful macronutrient tracking to ensure you’re getting the right breakdown of carbs, fats and proteins to put your body into a state of ketosis.
Lazy - Often adopted by experienced keto dieters, this focuses on the main themes of the keto diet, but without the strict macronutrient tracking. Following this approach means that you can consume foods with a higher carb content, as long as you still stick within the goals of around 20-30g of carbs per day.
Dirty - The dirty keto diet is another form of the diet that allows you to eat foods that may not be deemed as ‘healthy’ in the typical keto diet, so long as you stick within your strict macronutrient breakdown of around 70% fat, 25% protein and 5% carbs.
The Benefits
There are many health benefits of the keto diet and it’s known for helping out with long term health conditions. However, one of the main reasons more and more people are adopting the diet is it’s track record for helping with weight loss.
Studies have shown that those who reduce their carb intake can lose weight faster than those on a low-fat diet. This is because low-carb diets get rid of excess water from the body, and as a result, insulin levels are lowered, helping with weight loss.
By reducing the amount of carbs in your diet, you’ll also cut out sugar as well as refined carbohydrates, which can result in a steadier supply of energy. Additionally, the increase in fat will keep you feeling fuller for longer, so you’re less likely to be picking throughout the day - which is many people’s downfall when it comes to unsustainable diets.
What foods can I eat on a keto diet?
Keto has come a long way in the past few years and as our understanding of the diet has grown, so has the list of foods we can eat!
Keto safe foods include fish, seafood, meat, non-starchy vegetables like peppers, broccoli, avocados, berries, nuts and seeds, eggs, high-fat dairy products, oils, high cocoa chocolate and of course, our keto friendly snacks. The perfect size for chucking into a bag and enjoying whenever, wherever, we’re the keto snack your diet has been missing!
With 3 insanely delicious flavours to pick from - try today and start your keto journey with us by your side!
