What happens when you eat carbohydrates in excess?

• Your blood glucose stays elevated longer. This glucose combines with proteins and causes inflammation. This causes triglycerides to increase, which increases your risk of heart disease.
• Starches and sugar get stored as fat! With a high blood sugar comes an increase of Insulin levels. What does this do? This stops lipase (your fat burning enzyme) from being produced and what does that mean? You won't be burning fat during all those workouts! elevated Insulin levels are also very toxic to your body. This causes a plethora of health issues all stemming around inflammation including cellular damage, cancer, arterial plaque build up, nerve damage (just to name a few).
• When this continues and you become what's referred to as "Insulin Resistant". A "crust" has basically formed over your muscle, fat, and liver cells which causes them to not be able to take up glucose. This causes you pancreas to just keep making more insulin to enter your cells. This also makes it hard for all those amino acids needed for muscle maintenance and growth to enter your muscles. This signals your body to start using your muscles to make sugar! Sounds like a vicious cycle right? Well it is.... You feel tired after you eat, just keep craving more carbs. To top it off, also directly effects your liver, thyroid, and hormone levels. Enter non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (associated with type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease and hyperlipidemia), thyroid disorders, and conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome.
• Did you know that up to 70% of infertility issues in women is linked to PCOS (Polycystic ovary syndrome). What causes this? Elevated Insulin!
• Consuming excess sugar can also impair brain function and cause a build up of plaque in the brain!

On the path to healing, as your body becomes a "fat burner", you are taking the largest culprit of insulin stimulation out of your diet. This decreases inflammation and increases fat burning! Ketones produced now burn much more efficiently than sugar. You will trigger the anti-inflammatory process and begin increases your mitochondrial function and production. These mitochondria are the powerhouses of your cells. They are responsible for your energy production through the Krebs cycle (going back to that biology class!). What are some conditions that result from some level of mitochondrial dysfunction? muscle weakness, vision issues, learning disabilities, heart, liver, or kidney disease, GI problems, neurological problems (including dementia), Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, chronic fatigue syndrome, diabetes, and autism! Ketone bodies in the brain can also prevent loss of neurons, preserve neuron function, and protect brain cells against multiple types of injury!

Some common myths about the Ketogenic Lifestyle

• This is a high protein diet:
• You need to focus on meeting your moderate protein goals. Quality sources of protein and amino acids are essential to your body.
• I can eat all the fat I want:
• You need some quality fat in your diet from saturated fats such as coconut oil, butter, ghee, and MCT oil. We need to remember that we need to limit any and all trans fats and high omega 6 oils like vegetable oils, soybean oils, canola oils etc to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress.
• Fat intake should be directly related to the amount of stored body fat you are trying to lose and how active you are.
• I will be in ketosis in 2-3 days:
• Keto adaption can take up to 2-8 weeks to fully adapt depending how inflamed your body is and if you are paying attention properly to what you eat. It takes time for every cell to change. You must be consistent during this time. This is where coaches can be invaluable. This adaption period is also where most of the claims of side effects come from. You may experience fatigue, headaches, muscle weakness, diarrhea and bloating, or impaired mood. You may also see a temporary increase in cholesterol and other blood markers. These temporary symptoms can be eased with proper supplementation including a good quality electrolyte supplement like LMNT.
• The brain needs sugar to function:
• This may be true when you are in sugar-burning mode, but once you are on a well-formulated, keto-adapted diet, you are running on ketones. The remaining glucose needed by certain cells is easily supplied by a process called gluconeogenesis. You will begin to see better memory, focus, and mood.
• IT IS DANGEROUS:
• Cholesterol has no correlation to coronary artery disease (CAD). The cause of CAD is INFLAMMATION! Please note that an accurate cholesterol reading happens after 6 months. It is normal to see an increase in the beginning with fat loss.
• Ketoacidosis is another condition cited as a risk. Understanding how this actually occurs shows that it is not a concern for almost anyone doing a well-formulated ketogenic diet.
• It will destroy your hormones:
• Most of these studies occurred during the adaption time.
• This lifestyle will help detoxify your body from bad estrogens from products like plastics (BPA), soy, flaxseeds etc., which helps the body return to a more natural hormone balance. This does not just apply to women. Men also suffer the consequences of ingesting estrogenic products, which leads to unbalanced hormones!
• It's not for Athletes:
• Once fully adapted, fat becomes your body's fuel source. You are able to use both body fat and dietary fat equally. Glucose storage is limited to the muscle and liver which is equivalent to about 2,000 calories. Even lean athletes will have about 20,000 calories stored in their fat cells. This provides a much larger fuel tank!

Do you want to know more about how to make a successful transformation into living the ketogenic lifestyle correctly? (Learn the difference between "dirty" keto and true keto lifestyles and why the later it the pathway to healing)

Have you "tried keto" before but it just didn't make sense and it "didn't stick"?

Do you want a healthy sustainable lifestyle?

Contact me for your free consult to see what may work best for you!