Keto & Low Carb Diets

The keto diet is a very low carb, high fat diet. Its basic principle is that when you drastically reduce your carbohydrate intake, you put your body into a state called “ketosis”.

Ketosis is a state in which your body uses fat for fuel instead of carbs.

So straight away you can see the attraction. When you hear it is using fat for fuel, it is easy to assume that it’s burning all your body fat away.

However, if you are not creating a calorie deficit, your body will not be losing body fat.

You may be burning your body fat as fuel whilst in ketosis, but the calories you are consuming, are still going to be stored as body fat, so it will just be essentially replacing what you are using.

So unless you are in an overall calorie deficit, it won’t have an effect on fat loss – just because you are “burning fat” as fuel.

One thing that can be misleading when following keto or any other low carb diet, is the initial weight loss you may experience.

It is common for people to lose 2/3kgs in their first week. Which as I mentioned, can create a lot of buy in to the plan and overall message.

The reason for this substantial drop in weight is because of water retention. Our bodies store something called glycogen within our muscles and our liver.

For every gram of glycogen we store, our body has to hold onto 3 grams of water along with it.

On average you will have around 500g of stored glycogen. Which means that you are holding up to 2kg of weight in the form of glycogen and water alone. (Not related to your body fat at all).

When you switch to a ketogenic or low carb diet, these glycogen stores become depleted. And when they are fully depleted, you will have lost 2kg, just from that water and glycogen.

So you can see how that drop on the scales initially can be very misleading.

In essence keto is no better for fat loss than any other way of creating a calorie deficit.

If you enjoy creating a calorie deficit by removing all carbohydrate from your diet then no problem, but for the majority of people living in the modern world, trying to remove foods such as pasta, bread, cereal, potatoes, from your diet for the rest of your life is unsustainable, and there is just no need to do so.