What is a Ketogenic Diet?

The goal of a low carb, high fat diet (also known as ketogenic diet) is to lose wieght or improve health through switching the body's metabolism to burn fat instead of sugar or glucose.

When you consume carbohydrates your pancreas secretes insulin.  Insulin causes fat absorption into your muscle and fat cells for "storage" and also prevents fat from being released from those cells to be used as energy.  Eating fat and protein does NOT raise your insulin level like carbs do.  Therefore, if you want to burn fat you need to avoid releasing insulin into your body and you can do that by staying away from carbs.

So simple.

Obviously, there's a whole lot more science involved in the process than that, but that's the extremely boiled-down explanation!

If you're satisfied with that logic and are willing to take my word for it, great! (Disclaimer: I am only relating to you my own research and experience on this topic. What you choose to do with it, is up to you!)

But you'll likely want more information. I'm not going to completely re-write an in-depth, scientifically accurate explanation when there are actual experts out there who already have...

For the mildly more curious -
This fellow explains what a ketogenic diet is, why it works, gives pointers for implementing it, and even tells you what to expect. Click Here to read it. I found it very much in line with all the other research I've been doing on the subject.

And if you are still more curious yet, I'd recommend reading Gary Taubes' book "Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It."


While calorie counting and restriction is not necessary for following this diet plan, tracking the calories and nutrients that you consume is probably a good idea, especially at the beginning.  It will vary for each individual on the exact proportion of nutrients required for ketosis and optimized fat burning, but the general recommendations I’ve seen are:

Carbs:             5-10%
Protein:         20-25%
Fat:                 70-75%

If you track your calories and which nutrients they are coming from, along with your progress, then you can look back and determine what proportions worked best for you and make adjustments as needed.