What The Keto Diet Actually Does To Your Body _ The Human Body
Keto diet
Transcript
00:00Step aside, Atkins. There's a new fad diet in town.
00:05The ketogenic diet, or keto for short.
00:08Celebrities like Halle Berry, Kourtney Kardashian, and Vanessa Hudgens all swear by it.
00:15And if losing weight is your goal, keto works.
00:18It's proven to help you shed pounds fast.
00:21But there's more to this diet than meets the eye.
00:26Keto basically replaces carbs with fat.
00:30A typical keto diet looks like this.
00:3270% fat, 25% protein, and 5% carbohydrates.
00:38It's a drastic change from the diet that the USDA recommends for most Americans,
00:42which is less than 30% fat, 20-35% protein, and at least 50% carbs.
00:50And it's a significant change for your body's metabolism, too.
00:54Usually, when you eat carbs, like a starchy potato,
00:57enzymes in your mouth, stomach, and small intestines
01:00break them down into a form of sugar energy called glucose,
01:03which your brain and body use for fuel.
01:06So when you first skip out on carbs,
01:08the first couple days you might experience some strong sugar cravings.
01:12That's because your body is switching gears,
01:14from burning carbohydrates to the only energy it has left, fat.
01:19Once you're burning fat regularly, you'll see those pounds start to melt away.
01:23Depending on your weight, you might lose up to 3.5 pounds within that first week.
01:29As you burn more fat, levels of insulin, the fat-storing hormone,
01:33will drop significantly.
01:35This triggers your kidneys to release large amounts of sodium into the blood,
01:39which can actually lead to a common side effect known as the keto flu.
01:43Many keto dieters report symptoms like nausea, headaches,
01:47dizziness, muscle cramps, and low energy levels.
01:50But most of these symptoms will only occur within the first couple weeks of starting the diet.
01:55After the first month, the scales will look better.
01:58But some of that lost weight isn't actually fat.
02:01It's just water.
02:03Because some of the carbs you metabolized include glycogen,
02:06which retains water and therefore helps keep you hydrated,
02:09as a result, you're likely to pee more often,
02:12which will lower your sodium levels even more,
02:14leading to dehydration, constipation or diarrhea, and bad breath.
02:20Once you're a couple months in, you might hit the notorious keto plateau.
02:24It's a common term in the keto community.
02:26It refers to when people find it progressively harder to continue to lose more weight.
02:31One study, for example, found that overweight people
02:34lost an average of 15 pounds in the first month,
02:37another 11 pounds over the next two months.
02:40But after that, they saw no change in body weight, despite sticking to the keto diet.
02:45At this point, many people will just quit keto.
02:48That's why researchers often find it so hard to study the long-term effects of the diet.
02:52But as it turns out, there's one group that typically sticks to keto for a really long time.
02:58It's unclear why, but keto has proven to reduce the symptoms of epilepsy.
03:03And studies show that epileptic children
03:05who stay on a very restricted keto diet for several years
03:09can suffer from kidney stones, high cholesterol, and bone fractures.
03:14But a typical keto diet won't be nearly as strict.
03:18And if you want to try keto, you should talk to your doctor first.
03:22In the meantime, go ahead and get that bread.
03:25And remember, the best diet is a balanced one
03:28of fat, protein, and yes, even carbs.