Ketogenic diets have been regarded as a time-tested treatment for epilepsy for many years. Research into the benefits of practicing this type of diet—essentially the practice of ketosis, which I will explain in more detail shortly and throughout this guide—actually holds its root primarily within the medical research field, investigating its ability to successfully treat epilepsy and diabetes. Although along the years the ketogenic diet has become popular and unpopular in flux, for its difficulty in maintaining the diet, ketosis has been proven effective for controlling epilepsy in children and adults. It doesn’t just stop there though. With many benefits, ketosis has found its way into being a mainstream therapy practiced by many types of people to improve health, whether for weight loss or for a serious diabetic condition.
What is the ketogenic diet in the simplest terms possible? A good way to conceptualize the ketogenic diet is thinking of it as training your body to use fats as energy (axiomatically “burning fat”), by reducing the amount of carbohydrates you eat. A ketogenic diet can be most generally characterized by being a non-pharmacologic diet that is high in fat, moderate in protein, and low in carbohydrates. When under ketosis, your body is “trained” to use fats as energy. If there is no dietary fat in your blood, your body will begin to start utilizing your body’s fat as energy. Once you understand the ketogenic at its most base level—ketosis—it’s pretty difficult to think it couldn’t work efficiently for losing weight, let alone all of it’s other accolades and benefits—like its use of treatment for epileptic seizures.
To better understand fully what a ketogenic diet consists of, let’s take a thorough look at what happens before, during, and after ketosis, breaking down concepts as clearly as possible. If one is to undertake such a diet, this is incredibly necessary for proper implementation and definitely determines success or failure with the diet.