The Ketogenic Diet and Exercise

Aside from being recommended for epilepsy and other illnesses, there are also bodybuilders, athletes and fitness enthusiasts who follow the Ketogenic Diet. Although this isn’t our main focus here, it’s worth briefly discussing why this is the case.

After all, even if you’re not an athlete or bodybuilder, you probably have some of the same goals, whether you want to lose weight, get stronger or have more energy.

Several decades ago, it was common for athletes to eat carbs for energy. As knowledge about nutrition evolved, however, this was shown to be a bad idea.

At most, eating foods high in sugar or carbs will give you some fast energy. So if you’re about to run a short sprint or perform a single deadlift, a candy bar might give you a jolt of energy.

Yet athletes and muscle builders are really looking for long term gains, and eating too many carbs ends up working against these goals. As we have seen, carbohydrates  promote higher insulin levels, which means fat is stored rather than released as energy.

In other words, eating carbs (speaking mainly about the “bad” carbs here) not only tends to make you put on weight, it deprives your body of the kind of energy you want when you’re very active.

Ketosis is the process where ketones are released into the body. This causes the fat in your body to be released as energy. In other words, it gives you fuel.

Another way to put this is that your metabolism increases. This is good for both losing weight and performing better at any type of activity (mental as well as physical!).

These benefits are great for building muscle, losing fat and having more stamina. However, this isn’t only true for athletes and bodybuilders. Even if you only want to shed a few pounds, or simply enjoy better health and more energy, a Ketogenic Diet is the ideal solution.
Previous
Next Post »