What is the Ketogenic Diet? Charlotte Watts explains what the Ketogenic Diet is, what it involves, how energy is created, the benefits, and some recommended foods. Charlotte is an award-winning nutritionist, author, and yoga teacher.
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Brighton, United Kingdom
Transcript
Hello, Welcome to this session on what is the ketogenic diet. Now this might be something you've heard about, Read about in terms of it being kind of like the latest fad or trend in eating but this is actually something that was developed in 1921 by researchers who used it predominantly then to help people with epilepsy and it's still used to this day effectively for epilepsy and other conditions that affect the brain like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's but the actual mechanism of how it works to support these isn't fully known. We kind of we do understand how the brain uses this different fuel source which I will explain but exactly how this affects brain chemistry still remains a mystery. So the ketogenic diet refers here to something called ketones and ketones are what we can burn as the byproducts of metabolizing fats so we can't directly use fats for fuel but we can use what are called ketone bodies and we can use these in the place of using glucose so the breakdown products of carbohydrates or sugars and the sugar fuel that we use usually if we're just eating a diet that's mainly carbohydrates we would break that down into glucose and that would usually be our main fuel supply in what might be called a kind of normal average diet and so what I refer to there is one that would include lots of carbohydrate sources from the plant kingdom so I want to be a bit clear from the beginning that all carbohydrates are part of plant matter from the plant kingdom the only carbohydrate that's found in the animal kingdom animal sources of food is lactose in milk but what we do or what happens in the ketone ketogenic diet is those are reduced so whereas a normal diet if you like might be anywhere between very high carbohydrates high starches like potatoes grains in bread and pasta and other grain products and sweet foods anything that's sweet fruit any sugary drinks that drinks that are either the less healthy are you they're sugary or what might be deemed healthy ie fruit juices all of those are much higher in carbohydrates and a usual diet unless you're trying to be ketogenic will generally tend to be higher in those now some people kind of will who are practicing something like a hunter gatherer diet or a paleolithic diet might wander into what's called ketosis almost kind of by accident and ketosis is where we burn those ketone bodies those products of eating higher levels of fats over burning of carbohydrates as fuel so we shift when we go into a ketogenic diet we replace those higher levels of carbohydrates with higher levels of fats and we shift into ketogenic diet where we burn ketone bodies as fuel rather than glucose as fuel now what this does which has been particularly why this diet has had popularity why it's increased in usage is that that tends to flip us over into burning our natural stored fat as fuel so whereas carbohydrates raise insulin so the hormone insulin that we produce from the pancreas that we need to move glucose out of the bloodstream and into cells to use as energy insulin tends to make us lay down fat as storage and when we go into ketosis we can actually use fat for fuel we shunt move fat into mitochondria power stations in each and every cells up to thousands in each and every cell and we burn fat off so it's not just the fact that we're eating as fuel but it can also mean stored fat as well and we have a tendency to be more metabolically efficient ie we use our own fat stores more efficiently and the brain can use ketones as fuel source as well so it can use up to 70% of ketones and when it doesn't get the requisite amount of carbohydrates in the diet as it can with anything it can it can produce glucose in the liver and it can produce it from glycogen the liver is capable of transforming any substance to another so any of our macronutrients fats carbohydrates proteins can be broken down in that took into their constituent parts and built up into other forms of those to be used for different things throughout the body so these are processes that are constantly happening so if you have less carbohydrates it does not mean that you don't have less available we can make them as we need and this has been part of research and discussion around the ketogenic diet that it can help brain regulation of neurotransmitters and of energy so we don't have the highs and lows that are associated with highs and lows of blood sugar when we're predominantly using glucose as our fuel substrate and actually the work that's been done around Parkinson's Alzheimer's is believed not fully understood but believed to be part of regulating things like dopamine our mood and motivation neurotransmitter in the brain what we can find when you start a ketogenic diet is that you can have feel like you have lower levels of those at the beginning it took taking a while to even kind of a week to regulate to acclimatize to this change but we need to be drinking plenty of water having higher levels of salt potassium and magnesium either through supplementation or foods like almonds nuts and green leafy vegetables to put those in so then to be clear what it is that we do what we can eat on a ketogenic diet I mentioned before that it's about the fat content raising up fat content which can be about 70% plus from fat and lowering carbohydrates so that can be as low as 10% of our energy not volume energy from carbohydrates so the difference here between many diets that might be from so I mentioned the hunter-gatherer and the paleo diet is that the protein tends to be lower so it's moderate amount of protein sitting in the middle about 15 to 25 percent from protein so where those diets might wander into ketogenesis because sometimes you just tend to have fattier food sources this is where we very specifically keep protein to a moderate so it means then to get that level of fat and it's something that obviously people often do as a particular time period and find that if they do it for very long periods of time then having less plant matter can tend to lead to things like constipation or kidney stones with the metabolism of fats can tend to be higher in those susceptible or even raised cholesterol levels although those have shown to regulate out after a while because the plant matter tends to be much much lower to have that lower level of carbohydrate one thing you really want to avoid are vegetables that grow under the ground so root vegetables very very starchy and also grains very starchy as well so it tends to be getting out those 10% of energy output from carbohydrates from vegetables that grow above the ground so those tend to have less starch and more protein for structure in them and then the fats themselves have come from things like butter olive oil coconuts there's a pure fat forms and then where you have things that are much higher in fat but also have protein would be things like eggs meats and fish and point here is to not need to have kind of lean cuts of those and to not not shy away from low fat versions if you want lean leaner meats but neither to go for a terrible quality meats so a an animal that has had a good life has run around is free-range and potentially is grass-fed rather than grain fed so itself isn't laying down those that less healthy fat profile will have that you know high levels of those fats that we need eggs are really good source there in terms of getting protein but good levels of fat throughout things that kind of then sit in the middle dairy has protein in it as well so obviously dairy that's not butter but it's just the pure fat nuts are very useful as snacks because although yes they have some starchy carbs and they had do have very good protein and high fat levels so they're particularly good if you're if you feeling that you are kind of craving that carbohydrate energy fix and even that you are moving from a kind of sweet tooth to that different style much more savory style of living nuts can give us that hit that flick and coconut very useful as well I mentioned it quite often for balancing blood sugar anyway but it's that that's that inherent sweet taste it has whilst being high in fats some some starches there but the medium chain triglycerides are incredibly good for fat storage and raising metabolism anyway so the fewer carbs that we have the more effective this diet can be and it's important to also notice that we go into ketosis when we fast so we often we naturally fast throughout the night so we produce ketone bodies whilst we're sleeping that keep us metabolically active that keep the body going whilst we're asleep it's quite a useful thing to do to fast intermittently so some people like the five to diet but you could do that in a way that feels more natural if you like that it's it's when you feel that to be empathy to be without food when you're low as stress just sits right and feels better and we can also go without dinner if you're if you're having this level of satisfactory fats in the diet it's much more easy to regulate blood sugar not feel we have those highs and lows and then to go without a dinner which prompts us to have a very decent and satisfying breakfast and have that then that that daily ketosis happening and it's something that naturally our ancestors would have done through the winter when we would have had a lot less plant material available to us ground is very hard things are growing a lot less and we are as it would have turned to things like a lard and animal fats to keep them going and to create heat thermogenesis and for insulation so it's something that at this time of year for those of you who are listening to this podcast coming up to winter that can feel more natural can feel more satisfying and can give us a sense that we are eating with the seasons it depending on how it suits us we can go for longer times the question here from Jonathan Nally and for many particularly those with conditions like this is where the research is done really epilepsy Parkinson's Alzheimer's then as a longer term plan then the results have been shown to be very effective and safe so longer term actually often is about whether we can physically keep it up can be quite a difficult way of eating in terms of going out in terms of practicalities and in terms of just making sure that we have the full kidney health and support of the minerals that we need throughout it then we just need to be mindful that we are keeping an eye on how we feel and keep fully hydrated what I wanted to say as well is that within the first week of moving on to ketogenic diet then it's really important to be doing less exercising less well whilst we switch over to a different way of creating energy so this is not a time to be putting a strain on the system and to be creating more free radicals it's a time to kind of hunker down see this is a phase where we go into a little bit of hibernation and allow our body and brain energy to switch over to a different mode and that can be a times for us to kind of go inwards and to feel that we allow ourselves to go down into a mood of building back up again
4.7 (37)
Yvonne
May 19, 2026
Interesting, but since my cholesterol levels are all very high right now I think this is probably not the right Avenue for me to do at this time🙏
Elease
April 30, 2024
This was informative and motivating thank you!!
Rich
December 7, 2022
Thanks for the very informative overview of Ketosis
Katherine
May 24, 2020
Thank you for share. The information was very helpful.
Candace
May 23, 2020
An excellent overview of the ketogenic diet; helpful to anyone who may have questions, or who may he interested in trying it.
