IS KETO DIET A STARVATION DIET?

This has been also bandied around a lot in recent times, with some trying to cast a negative light on the keto diet by dint of associating it with starvation.

To make things clear, the process of ketosis is triggered when our bodies sense we do not have sufficient glucose in the system.

It then turns to our fat stores to convert them into ketones through the liver in order to maintain continued energy supply for our cells and organs.

It does not mean that on the keto diet, you are actually starving yourself! I get a little worked up every time somebody says that.

How can a person taking in 1,800 to 2,000 calories on a daily basis, which is what you will get on the meal plan, be effectively
starving?

To be fair, ketosis came in really handy during the hunter-gatherer times of
our human history.

 This was a period where agriculture wasn’t that wide spread, and the food you ate depended on what you hunted or found.

This created a situation where there might be no food for days at a time, so when glucose found its way into the system, our bodies dispatched insulin to ferry it into our organs as well as hoard the unused glucose into fat cells for future
use.

During the lean times when there really was no food to be had, the body then entered the state of ketosis by utilizing the stored fats to supply energy.

During this state, our hunger hormones like ghrelin, get their production reduced, and the hormones which control satiety, like leptin, see their levels elevated.

All this is because our bodies are trying to make the best of things and allow us to be as comfortable as possible when it detects that food
sources are scarce.

Now, fast forward to modern times, when food is literally just one or two blocks, or maybe just a car’s drive away, and we probably won’t face food shortages like our Paleolithic ancestors.

Our bodies, though, still contain the
processes and mechanisms which enabled them to survive.

That is the key reason why, on the keto diet, we cut carbs and increase our daily fat intake.

When we do that, the state of ketosis is induced, and we get to enjoy all the metabolic benefits which the diet confers.

The fat that we eat also goes into replenishing the fat stores in the body, which is why I have to say again, you do not starve while on the ketogenic diet!

Once this point is made, some folks then zone in on the multimillion-dollar question.

If eating fats get stored as fat, why do we almost always lose weight when on the keto diet?