You heard that right, this is an ancient practice to cure some of the deadly diseases, well it not that exclusive to explain those facts here, but yes I will share some.
HISTORY
The role of fasting in the treatment of disease has been known to mankind for thousands of years and was studied in detail by ancient Greek physicians and ancient Indian physicians.
Epilepsy is an ancient brain phenomenon, known to medicine thousands of years ago. To manage it, our Neolithic ancestors drilled holes in one another’s skulls, perhaps trying to let the bad stuff out—a practice is known as trepanation.
Around 400 BCE, the ancient Greek doctor Hippocrates observed a man who had seizures for five days.
On the sixth day, he noted, as the patient “abstained from everything, both gruel, and drink, there were no further seizures.”
About 1,400 years later, in 1000 CE, the famous Persian physician Avicenna—who coined the term “epilepsy”, from the ancient Greek verb epilambanein (to seize or attack, as the neurological condition caused seizures), speculated that “overfeeding” might be a risk factor for epilepsy.
By 1911, a pair of Parisian doctors were trying fasting as a treatment for children with epilepsy, and in the United States, physical culturist Bernarr McFadden was claiming that fasting for three days to three weeks could cure anything.
Despite not having the tools and insight of modern neuroscience, these and other people who explored fasting and dietary prescriptions for neurological disorders were on to something.
We now know that there may be a dietary connection—not just between epilepsy and what we eat (or don’t), but also with many other brain disorders.
Unfortunately, fasting isn’t fun. We evolved with a pretty strong aversion to starvation, and our brains and GI tracts have lots of ways to make sure we eat enough.
Intro
The ketogenic diet is not new but it has been popping up more and more frequently in the last few years to the point where it is starting to become the new trendy diet. But is it just a trend or is it a diet that could potentially be beneficial and healthy for a lot of people?
What is Keto?…. Bro? Ketbro?
The following scene happened last year where I met one of my friends after a gap of 2 months & he looked comparatively thinner, he was almost my height 6’3” and weight around 110kg.
Being a fitness professional I was curious and asked “what happened”
He replied with a smile on his face “ KETO bro”
I was like “ YOU TOO Brutus”.
well… he was showering with praises about the benefits of the ketogenic diet because he lost 10 kg with keto it seems.
This year I met him again and he looked double the size he was before.
I asked him “what happened”
He said “KETO Sucks bro” I got fever and it interrupted my appetite but now am happy being myself again. And… that’s how it all went.
The above story is not unique but a common phenomenon which we all see among our circle.
people who take drastic decisions to change their appearance ends up crashing hard even though they had minor success in the beginning.
The issue here is the way we all approach to something new, especially fitness and nutrition regime in an unplanned manner.
Please listen it’s not easy to replace your existing habit with a new pattern of lifestyle you never had tried before if you don’t know how to practice it the way it is supposed to be.
Origin
For a while, the Ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting are on the top trends of fitness and nutrition.
Little they know these are some of the survival lifestyle chosen by our ancestors to beat the climate change.
When winter comes our ancestors had got none or fewer fruits & vegetables and the only option they got was to hunt animals and store their meat for the entire winter season .
In a year this lasted around 3-4 months and they will get back to their old lifestyle of consuming vegetables and fruits plus meat.
So the way they lived was in a year time they follow kinda KETO (where they have got only meat and less quantity of other foods) in 3 months kinda Fasting for 3-4 months ( mostly they fasted with one meal a day because the food was very limited at that time ).
And the rest of the year with a flexible approach, maybe only meat or only vegetables & fruits, maybe both.
This is how we all evolved to be. we are supposed to cycle our pattern of nutrition at least 3 times a year.
The reason the modern world is so much engulfed in illness and serious chronic medical conditions is because of the food we eat and the lifestyle we chose.
We human beings are not evolved to get stuck in one particular kinda lifestyle, like what we see today – where most of us have the same kinda food for the whole year and it continues for the rest of our lives.
Rarely we get a chance to fast or change the pattern of our nutrition according to our activity.
And if don’t do this, we eventually end up in screwing our gut health (also known as the second brain ) and eventually ends up some weird diseases.
NOTICE
If you’re a “regular person” who just wants to be healthy and fit:
Enjoy reading about ketosis if you like. Try it, if you’re curious. But you can be perfectly fit, lean, and healthy without it.
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. (Except this article, of course.) Remember that the plural of “personal anecdote” is not “scientific data”. Be a critical reader and consumer.
And if you would like to get better or achieve a healthy lifestyle with a proper good looking physique, get over to my coaching section of this website and book your one-on-one call with me.
so that I can help you with a habitual based approach in your lifestyle where you can incorporate fitness and nutrition with ease and thus you can achieve your goals at the earliest as possible
Highly Restrictive
Here’s what you can eat on a
ketogenic diet:
A ketogenic diet is the most restrictive and limited of all four of these styles of eating…
A small amount of protein, such as:
meat
poultry
fish
seafood
eggs
A large amount of high-fat
foods, such as:
avocado
coconut and coconut milk or oil
olive oil and any other oil
nuts and nut butter
bacon
egg yolks
butter
cheese
A very small amount of very-
low-carbohydrate vegetables,
such as:
leafy greens
brassicas: broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cabbage
asparagus
cucumber
celery
tomatoes
peppers
mushrooms
zucchini
Here’s what you can’t eat on a
ketogenic diet:
Most dairy (except high-fat items like butter and certain cheeses)
Fruit
Grains
Beans and legumes
Starchy vegetables (such as sweet potatoes)
Slightly-sweet vegetables such as winter squash, beets, or carrots
Most processed foods (with the notable exception of pork rinds)
So, let’s recap:
Ketogenic menus:
Vary in the proportion of protein but are generally low.
Stay as close to no-carb as possible.
Are very high in fat.
Are very limited in food choices.
So why go to all this effort?
Well, for particular groups of people, ketosis may indeed be helpful.
(For other people, of course, it may not be helpful… and it may be actively harmful. We’ll talk more about that in a moment.)
To understand why this is true, let’s look at how ketosis actually works.
Overview
First, let’s go over a brief overview of what the ketogenic diet really is.
The human body can burn two different fuel sources for energy: glucose (which comes from carbohydrates and protein) and ketones (which come from fat).
Whenever carbs and protein are available to be broken down into glucose, that is what the body uses for fuel.
But when carbs are severely restricted and protein is moderated, the body switches to breaking down fat into ketones and using that as fuel.
The body can derive ketones from two sources: dietary fat and stored body fat.
When your body switches to burning ketones for fuel, this is called being in a state of ketosis.
In short, if you are consuming carbs, the body will burn the carbs for fuel.
If you restrict carbs, the body will burn the ketones from the fat that you eat.
If you restrict carbs AND are eating in a caloric deficit, the body will start to break down its own stored body fat to use as fuel.
This is why the ketogenic diet is so attractive—because it is the most direct way to burn body fat without exercise, making it a very effective weight-loss tool if applied correctly.
Will ketosis help me?
You know about the KetoBRO right? Now you listen to KetoSIS…
AM KIDDING… let us get serious here. Well… There is a term called ketosis.
Ketosis is a normal metabolic process. When the body does not have enough glucose for energy, it burns stored fats instead; this results in a build-up of acids called ketones within the body.
This aims to try and burn unwanted fat by forcing the body to rely on fat for energy, rather than carbohydrates.
Ketogenesis and ketosis are
easy to study.
All you have to do is starve people, or feed them a high-fat/low-carb diet, and wait. Then you see if it changes whatever you’re interested in fixing.
Since we’ve known about fasting and ketosis for quite a long time, and it’s relatively easy to research, there are probably good reasons why it’s not yet considered a miracle cure.
How do we get into ketosis?
PLAN A: Ketogenesis
We can make our own ketone bodies naturally, through the process of ketogenesis.
Our ancestors kicked off ketogenesis the good old fashioned way: by starving.
About 72 hours into starvation, ketogenesis is happening and you’re in ketosis. Congratulations!
Ketosis is essentially an effect of fasting.
This means that many of the health effects of fasting may be due to ketosis itself, rather than something like energy restriction.
PLAN B: ketogenic diet
By cutting off the body’s carbohydrate (aka glucose) supply, but providing energy and nutrients in the form of fat (plus a little protein), we can get the same effects as straight-up starvation: ketosis.
PLAN C: Supplement with
ketones
This has a lot of cool possibilities.
If ketone supplementation can give us the health benefits of ketosis without us having to fast/starve or follow a very restrictive diet, that could be a win-win.
Unfortunately, we still don’t have conclusive human studies on this that would give us clear direction.
Check back in 10 years.
Wrap it Up
Listen, at the end of the day, there’s good and bad to going keto.
Ketones are neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory which is why it’s used in the treatment of Alzheimer’s and Multiple Sclerosis.
It keeps people fuller longer while recomping their physique.
It’s a fantastic tool for realizing what inflammation other foods were causing your body and frees you from thinking you need carbs to thrive.
But it’s not for everyone. Some people, it just doesn’t fit into their lives sustainably.
Others feel super flat in the gym cause they don’t have the water glycogen storage they usually get.
For women, in particular, I’ve worked with and spoken to a fair amount that it just wrecked them.
Women have a different hormonal profile.
They need to be cycling carbs into their nutrition (maybe try cycling keto if this is the case).
But my suggestion for both genders to get expert advice about holistic health nutrition rather than just reading some article and following tips and tricks by yourselves.
In the end, it’s up to you to be more in tune with your body, and experiment to see what nutrition styles work for you.
After all, my mission here with this article is to help you to understand the pros and cons. So take a wise decision.
