The century-old low-carb, high-fat diet has made a huge comeback, only this time under the name “Keto Diet”. It raves about weight loss results like any other diet, but its appeal is how simple it seems by following a high-fat meal plan for a short period of time. This may seem to work at first for most people, and some may need it for medical reasons, however, it can prove to unbalance your overall health. This is not a solution for weight-loss, there are safer ways to get there. At Shred905, we believe in a healthy balanced lifestyle that includes nutrition and fitness routines. 

What is the Keto Diet?

The ketogenic diet is essentially putting your body in a state of Ketosis. This means your body is using fat for energy instead of carbohydrates (carbs). A regular diet contains about 55% carbohydrates, 30% fat, and 15% protein, whereas the Keto diet while keeping protein levels the same, you are instructed to have 80% of fat intake and only 5% of carbohydrates.

When there’s less intake of carbs, your body burns through it faster and will have to turn to fat cells, where ketones are a byproduct. Ketones are usually released during periods of low food intake, like fasting, starving, and prolonged high-intensity exercise. For this reason, it may show results of immediate weight loss, however, what people may forget is the fat cells will still exist, they just shrink in size. The body burns carbs first as its preferred fuel source because it cannot be stored in large quantities. Let’s explore that for a moment…

Why do we need Carbs anyways?

Carbohydrates from food are broken down into glucose, a sugar our body uses for energy, that moves to the small intestine and the liver and into the blood. This is our blood sugar. The body burns carbs immediately OR converts the glucose to glycogen to be stored in muscles and liver in between meals. When our blood sugar level drops, the liver releases glycogen to restore your levels, an important cycle that keeps the body moving! 

6 Effects the Keto Diet could have on your Health

The long-term effects of staying on the keto diet are still unclear, there have only been short-term studies released. What we do know is it can affect the following:

• When stopping Keto – people will experience blood sugar fluctuations, weight gain, have more energy, feel hungrier, and bloating
• The diet messes with hydration levels. The initial weight that is lost is water weight since, for every gram of glycogen depleted, 3 grams of water is lost (remember: no carbs!) this could lead to intense dehydration.
• Bad breath due to ketone bodies when someone is in a state of ketosis
• Can impact your blood’s pH level, if ketone levels are too high, your blood pH will drop and could cause a complication like that of untreated type 1 diabetes
• Heard of the Keto flu? In other words, you will experience flu-like symptoms along with brain fog, tiredness, memory loss, headaches, confusion, and could suffer depression and anxiety
• Very low blood sugar because there is nothing there to tell your pancreas to release insulin to send blood sugar to your cells. This imbalance of insulin levels is linked to type 2 diabetes, infertility, heart disease, etc.

3 Key ways to live a Healthy Fit Lifestyle While Losing Weight

1. Maintain a Balanced Diet 

As you’ve heard before, consume both your vegetables and fruits! Veggies are great for fibers and phytonutrients, but fruits are essential for vitamins and minerals. The keto diet restricts fruits which shouldn’t be the case in a normal healthy diet. Modifying your meal intake to help lose weight can be done safely by managing calories and insulin. The trick is to not overeat. To lose weight women should be eating around 1200 calories and men should be at around 1600, while a regular diet for active women should be around 1800 and men around 2200. Aim to have a balanced meal every 4 hours that include healthy fats, protein, and carbs.

2. Find a Workout that works for you – Try a Hybrid Fitness Class

Working out has so many benefits, including managing insulin levels. Losing weight without exercising should not be a goal and is definitely not a long-term solution. Living a healthy fit life includes a fitness routine.

At Shred905, all of our classes are ideal for weight loss. They will challenge any fitness enthusiast no matter what fitness journey you are on. All of our classes are hybrid fitness classes, meaning we feature and fuse among the best training methods for cardiovascular and healthy weight loss; spin, boxing, and octagon functional training. Look into classes like our high-intensity circuit Octa-Shred Bootcamp, our spin classes Shred Cycle, and also Small Group Training if you want to bring your motivation crew along. See a full list of our classes listed here.

3) Get in a Healthy Routine

Living a lifelong healthy fit lifestyle is achievable. That’s why a balanced diet is needed, along with a good fitness routine. We don’t believe in temporary diets or fitness programs. Keep at it and find the appropriate amount of time a week to work fitness into your busy life schedule. 

---

Develop a Healthy Fit Lifestyle with SHRED905

SHRED905 is an indoor boutique fitness studio featuring intense workouts based on the hybrid fitness training philosophy. Each class is designed to help you SHRED weight and tone your body through the use of multiple exercise tools and methods, found exclusively at our studio. Led by our professionally certified instructors, our SHRED workouts will improve your muscle tone, enhance cardiovascular endurance, lower stress levels, strengthen self-coordination, and fuel your confidence. Since we don’t believe in temporary fitness programs, we help you develop a lifelong healthy fit lifestyle.