Most of the diets today offer a new twist on the basic low-calorie diet. They offer ways to make being hungry less painful, giving you specific amounts of certain foods, drinks or supplements, while instructing you how to avoid others. Ketogenic diets, on the other hand, offer an approach to dieting based on a different theory altogether.
Theory
The ketogenic diet stands out because it relies principally on removing almost all carbohydrates from your diet. The reason is that your body normally prefers to use carbohydrates for energy: either carbohydrates stored as glycogen in the body, or through the easily digested carbohydrates in your food. By removing carbohydrates from your diet, your glycogen supplies quickly run out and your body will start to burn fat as its next best energy source.
Significance
The state when you have no carbohydrates in the body and are burning fat instead is known as ketosis. During this state, your feelings of hunger tend to be blunted, making it easier to limit the amount of calories you take in. Since you are limiting carbohydrates in your diet, the calories you do take in will be mainly composed of protein and fat.
Protein
Protein would seem to be the healthiest way to get energy while in ketosis, since the other option is fat. However, you will still need to get a sufficient amount of calories, otherwise your body will go into starvation mode and begin to burn muscle tissue as it lowers your metabolism and attempts to conserve body fat. Protein is relatively low in calories, so relying on protein alone can cause low energy levels. A 175-pound man requires roughly 2,500 calories a day. He would need to eat 625 grams of protein to get that many calories, which would be an enormous amount of meat and simply too much for the body to handle.
Warning
The recommended amount of protein varies depending on the source, but the Institute of Medicine recommends around 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. The Harvard School of Public Health recommends that a healthy diet should be made up of about 25 percent protein: any more can cause damage to the kidneys. Consequently, the shortfall must be made up in fat, which is much higher in calories. Although this may seem unhealthy, your body will burn the fat before it is stored in your body, as long as you eat fewer calories than you burn.
Considerations
You will still need to watch the amount of calories you eat on a ketogenic diet. According to the Weight-Control Information Network, the balance between what you take in and what you burn is the immutable rule of weight loss, weight gain or weight maintenance. While ketogenic diets are suitable for weight loss, they can also help if you are looking to build or maintain muscle while still burning fat and becoming leaner. Though it is hard to get sufficient calories on this diet, a targeted ketogenic meal plan in which you ingest carbohydrates immediately before a workout to fuel your muscles and give your body the calories it requires can help your body sculpting goals.
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