When entering into any major lifestyle change, the best way to be successful is to take the time to investigate the facts and arm yourself with all the information you need to carry out your goals.
This is especially true when it comes to low-carb diets.
The arguments, myths, misconceptions, and false ideas that surround nutritional ketosis can easily overshadow the science if you don't know how to separate biological truth from personal opinion and marketing.
To help with that sifting process, this beginner's guide to nutritional ketosis explains the basic principles. It reveals how restricting carbohydrates increases your chances for fat loss and tells you exactly what you need to know to get started on the road to a new and better you.
Restricting Calories Ignores Metabolic Defects
Standard weight-loss solutions focus on portion control. They ask you to reduce your fat intake, conserve calories, and up your activity.
If you are free from metabolic problems, these solutions can work well. I'm not against low-calorie diets. It's just that reducing calories isn't the only way to ditch the pounds.
If you have:
- metabolic syndrome
- insulin resistance
- pre-diabetes
- diabetes
- cholesterol issues
- a fatty liver
- or other inherited defects
Reducing fat and calories doesn't address the metabolic defects associated with elevated insulin and blood glucose levels, which is what low-carb diets are designed to do. Nor does it address the nagging hunger that is usually responsible for dieters throwing in the towel.
How a Glucose Metabolism Works
Dr. Michael R. Eades, the author of the Protein Power Life Plan, in a blog post entitled “Metabolism and Ketosis,” explained that the body fights for homeostatis.
It loves balance and will do whatever it has to do to keep your blood glucose within a tight margin of safety.
When blood glucose dips below that safe margin or rises above it after you eat, hormonal responses attempt to correct the imbalance as soon as possible.
One of these corrective hormones is insulin.
The presence of insulin encourages the body to pull the glucose in your bloodstream into your body's cells faster – where it can be used for fuel or stored for later use.
When blood glucose falls too low, other hormones, such as cortisol and adrenaline, are secreted to coax the body to use it's glycogen stores to correct the problem.
The body can use four types of fuel. Which type it uses depends on the body's immediate needs.
What Low-Carb Dieters Need to Know
When glucose is available, the body uses that first.The only exception to this is alcohol.
For that reason, many people believe that the body prefers glucose over other sources of fuel.
But that isn't correct.
According to Lyle McDonald, the author of The Ketogenic Diet, glucose is easier on the body because it doesn't have to be broken down and converted into something else before it can be used.
Although parts of the brain, red blood cells, and some kidney cells lack the mitochondria needed to burn non-glucose sources of fuel, McDonald reassures his readers that throughout a 24 hour period, the body switches between using:
- glucose,
- essential fatty acids,
- protein,
- and ketones
Glucose comes from carbohydrates.
This is why low-carb diets ask you to cut back on the amount of carbs that you eat. Since most people eat a large amount of carbs, glucose is often the major source of fuel, but other things can be used when glucose is scarce.
Of concern to low-carb dieters is what happens when you supply the body with more glucose (or carbohydrates) than it needs. When that happens, the excess glucose is shipped to the liver, so it can be converted into glycogen – the storage form of carbohydrates.
Note that glucose isn't automatically turned into body fat. It's converted into glycogen, and stored in the liver and/or muscles, so it can be reconverted back into glucose quickly.
Between your liver and muscles, glycogen stores hold about 300 to 400 grams of carbohydrates, depending on how much lean tissue you have.
Excess glucose isn't converted into triglycerides and stored as body fat unless your glycogen stores are full.
For that reason, many do not perceive a high-carb diet to be a problem.
Carbs are used first, then fat is used later on.
This is true if you keep your daily calorie intake within your maintenance level of calories. The body will use a portion of the protein you eat for calories if there is a lack of glycogen.
Problem arises when you eat more grains, starches, and sugars than your glycogen stores can hold. When you consistently go over your storage capacity, the result is overweight and obesity.
But because of the way that the body stores fat and burns carbs first, the problem of obesity is due to the way the body stores dietary fats, and not the carbs.
Carb deprivation is about triggering and maintaining the state of ketosis.
Elevated Insulin Prevents Body Fat Mobilization
When your metabolism is defective, the pancreas has problems secreting enough insulin or your body cells don't recognize the insulin the pancreas makes.
Both types of defects result in elevated blood glucose levels, which can cause a variety of complications and neurological problems.
The presence of insulin signals the liver that glucose is available, but glucose isn't the only substance that is pulled into body cells when insulin is around. All fats in your bloodstream and the incoming fatty acids in the food you eat are immediately stored upon intake.
Under normal metabolic conditions, this is not a problem because insulin levels fall as soon as glucose is taken care of, and fat is pulled out of storage, as needed.
But when the body doesn't respond to insulin correctly or cannot make enough to handle the amount of glucose currently in the bloodstream, both glucose and insulin can stay elevated for hours.
A Ketogenic Diet Focuses on Metabolic Defects
The focus of a low-carb diet is on reducing basal insulin levels and stabilizing blood glucose rather than zeroing in on the number of daily calories you eat.
This doesn't mean that calories don't count.
It simply means that initially, whether you're doing Atkins, Keto, Protein Power, the South Beach Diet, or any other low-carb approach to weight loss, the goal is to correct your metabolic issues first.
Once your hormonal situation has improved, and your hunger and appetite are under control, you can focus on cutting back on your food portions.
With easy body-fat availability, due to the state of ketosis, your metabolism switches from predominantly burning glucose to predominantly burning fatty acids.
This fatty-acid metabolism drastically lowers the amount of triglycerides in your bloodstream and raises your level of HDL cholesterol to a healthy ratio.
To do that, carbohydrates in the diet must be restricted.
How drastically depends on your degree of insulin sensitivity, as well as the low-carb program you choose to follow. Most individuals find that to enter the state of nutritional ketosis and gain control of their appetite, they must limit themselves to 20 to 60 total carbs per day.
This allows you to go into the state of nutritional ketosis without a lot of work.
How You Go Into Ketosis
The reduction of available glucose from carbohydrate restriction causes the liver to use its glycogen supplies to keep your blood sugar level steady.
For every molecule of glycogen stored, the body also stores 3 to 4 molecules of water, so while your body is using its glycogen stores, you'll also shed that stored water.
If you keep your carbs to 20 or less, glycogen depletion takes about a day or two.
After glycogen depletes to about half full, the body begins to use old protein structures for calories. Protein oxidation lasts only a few days, though. After which, the body turns to fatty acids for fuel.
Rarely does the body turn protein into glucose because it can use protein structures and non-essential amino acids, such as glutamine, for fuel.
When the conversion to glucose is necessary, that conversion is known as gluconeogenesis, and is used to supply tissues and body cells that have to have glucose for fuel.
These cells are found in the:
- brain
- red blood cells
- bone marrow
- and kidneys
You won't lose weight as fast as you do during the first 2 to 4 weeks.
How are Ketones Used by the Body?
Ketones can be used for fuel by the muscles, heart, and portions of the brain – cells that have mitochondria.
In fact, Dr. Eades states that ketone bodies are the heart's preferred fuel source. These ketones help the heart work more efficiently.
Other body tissues can use fatty acids.
Only a few cells, such as the brain, actually require glucose. This essential glucose can be made from lactic acid, pyruvate, glycerol attached to triglycerides, and sometimes, proteins.
Lyle McDonald stresses that gluconeogenesis does not come from muscle unless you don't eat enough protein, although muscle is the way the body stores unused proteins.
However, eating too much protein can interfere with the body going into ketosis because the liver can use that protein for energy rather than making the metabolic switch from burning glucose to burning fat.
This seems to occur when insulin drops too low.
Nutritional Ketosis is not Ketoacidosis
One of the major arguments against going low carb is that elevated ketones in the bloodstream are dangerous. This argument comes from a misunderstanding about Ketoacidosis and what causes it.
Ketoacidosis occurs when your blood glucose is too high and your insulin level is too low. This happens to Type 1 diabetics who are unable to make enough insulin to correct the elevated glucose.
Since Type 1 diabetics can't produce their own insulin, or very little, high levels of glucose accompanied by the dehydration that occurs as the body attempts to rid itself of excess sugars, can cause a serious, life-threatening situation because the body becomes too acidic.
Diabetic Ketoacidosis doesn't happen with nutritional ketosis because the body's backup system simply secretes insulin whenever your ketone level goes too high.
For most dieters, this occurs around 5 to 7 mmol/L, or less.
With insulin elevated, your body-fat stores will temporarily lock down until the body uses the excess ketones and they fall to a more manageable level.
For the average low-carb dieter, the level of ketones in the blood on low carb is 1 to 3 mmol/L. This is considered the sweet spot for nutritional ketosis.
In comparison, for Diabetic Ketoacidosis, the ketone level can reach a whopping 25 mmol/L, or even higher.
This never occurs with nutritional ketosis.
Adapting to the State of Nutritional Ketosis
There are 3 types of ketones produced by the body:
- acetoacetate
- beta-hydroxybutyrate
- acetate
When you use urine-testing strips, like Ketostix, these are the ketones you're measuring. A positive test means the body is beginning to switch to a fat-burning metabolism.
After you've been low carbing for a few weeks, the body begins to convert those acetoacetate ketones into beta-hydroxybutyrate, the ketone the brain uses.
Your muscles and other body tissues switch to using fatty acids to save the available ketones for the brain, kidneys, red blood cells, and heart.
In addition, the kidneys begin to down-regulate the amount of ketones it disposes of. The longer you stay in ketosis, the fewer ketone bodies the kidneys will dump.
For most folks, the metabolic advantage associated with spilled ketones at the beginning of a low carb diet completely stops. For others, the process continues but is less noticeable.
How quickly this happens depends on whether the body is new to nutritional ketosis or whether you have used the pathway several times before.
The more often the body goes into nutritional ketosis, the better it gets at using ketones for fuel.
In fact, in Dr. Atkins book, Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution, published in 2002, he cautions dieters to not abuse the Atkins Induction Plan. For those who consistently move back and forth between dieting and a standard American diet:
“It will probably backfire in more ways than one. It's likely that your metabolism will adapt at a certain point – in a sense, develop a tolerance.”
People who have a history of yo-yo dieting, including low carb yo-yo dieting, find that Induction doesn't work as well as it did before. However, this loss of metabolic advantage doesn't mean the diet won't work.
It simply means the body has adapted to ketosis.
Are You Abusing Atkins Induction?
Final Thoughts
Ketosis is powerful.
Your hunger will go down. Your energy will go up. Your mood will improve or stabilize. And you'll lose the weight.
But none of this will happen overnight.
Healing takes time. And focus. And commitment.
You gotta be in this for the long haul.
Yes, you might have to tweak what the low-carb experts tell you to do. You might have to cut back on portions if you don't know what an average portion looks like.
But in the beginning of this major lifestyle change, you need to gather up all of the faith you can, so you can trust in the process.
Trust those who have walked this way before.
Additional Articles You Might be Interested In:
How to Get Into Ketosis in 24 HoursHow to Get Into Ketosis in Less Than 3 Days
How to Go Low Carb (Simple 5-Step Guide)
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