Today I’m going to talk about something very dear to my heart; ketogenic diets. I’m a big ketogenic advocator. We’ve heard people try to bad mouth it over the years. We’ve heard people try to put it down, and saying it doesn’t work, and you lose muscle, and we all know that’s a bunch of crap. It’s been succesfully used on clients for years. Ketogenic diets evolved over the years just as I’ve evolved. When it started out, it was just fats. Later on it became specific types of fats.
The bottom line is that a lot of people don’t know what the word ketogenic means. Okay? There’s a lot of companies out there that are selling ketogenic products with ketones that are going to help put you in ketosis faster, which is a scam; just because there are ketones present in your body, that doesn’t mean your body is actually in ketosis. There’s also great meal delivery companies selling ketogenic meals out there. Which are terrific, because there’s no carbs in them, and they’re delicious, and they’ll deliver them to your house. Then there’s people out there that are giving seminars on ketogenic diets, and changing the variations of ketogenic diets, and they don’t even know what the word ketogenic means.
Ketogenic refers to the brain. The brain likes carbs as a fuel source. It’s addicted to sugar, in fact. If you’ve ever seen anyone, or if you yourself have ever eaten something sweet, you want more. You can’t have enough of it. The more you eat of sugar, the more you want, and the more disgusting you feel. It’s like a true drug. The brain loves sugar, and is addicted to it. When you take the sugar away from the brain, it doesn’t want it anymore. Why is that?
Here’s the advantage of getting the brain off sugar, number one. Aside from the health perspective, getting the brain off sugar serves a purpose. When you’re dieting and your body is on lower calories, and your brain is using carbs as a fuel source; sugar. Okay? Every time the brain goes into the blood stream to steal some sugar to use for fuel your blood sugar drops. And because you’re not eating a lot of food, you feel terrible. You get mood drops. You get irritable. You get hungry. You start fighting with people. You just don’t feel good.
The Reason Why People Fail
That is the number one reason why most people fail on diets. Because they do not feel good. People don’t want to feel terrible. They want to feel good. When they don’t feel good, what do they do? They eat to make themselves feel better. That’s why people cheat on their diets. If you could take away that component of dieting, where the brain is stealing sugar from the blood, and blood sugar levels are dropping, and you feel low blood sugar, and you feel terrible, there’s a much greater success rate in people succeeding on their physique goals.
What a ketogenic diet does is you take away the carbohydrates from the person consuming. They don’t consume any starchy carbohydrates. You keep total carbs for the day under 50 in most instances. Some people can get away with a little higher, but mostly it’s got to be under 50. What I tell people is no direct sources of carbs. You can get vegetable carbs, fibrous carbs. No direct sources of carbohydrates. Just protein and fat intake. When you do that for 72 hours, three days, the brain detoxes from sugar, and it decides: ‘’hey, there’s no fuel here for me to burn, I’ve got to burn something’’. It switches its metabolism into burning fats.
The kind of fats that the brain uses are called ketones, or ketone bodies. When the brain makes that switch after three days, which, by the way, coincidentally, is the same three days it takes to detox from opiate narcotics. So, the brain really is addicted to sugar. When the brain switches its metabolism from using sugar to using fats, you’re said to be in a state of ketosis. A ketogenic diet is a state where carbohydrates are restricted enough so that the brain will use fat or ketones as a fuel source. That’s all it means. It does not mean anything else.
Ready To Get In The Best Shape Of Your Life?
I’m offering free 45minute strategy sessions with me personally via Skype or the phone to discuss your current situation, desired situation and map out a plan to take you there.
You can schedule a breakthrough strategy call with me using the link below:
YES! Schedule My Breakthrough Strategy Session Now.
To your success!
Stefan Lamers
