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What is a Ketogenic Diet? What is Ketosis?

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This course has the purpose of making you understand all the basics of keto, how to start, what to eat, free keto meal plans and much more. I will list all the chapters that this course will cover.

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Let’s start with a short overview of my health journey before and after I discovered the ketogenic diet.

Hello, there! For those who don’t know me, I am Ioana and welcome to my blog! 

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Like many other people, I had excellent results with the ketogenic diet. I was obsessed with food. Counting every single piece of food, every single day. Hating my self for every indulgent meal I sometimes allowed my self to have. Food was all I was thinking about all day long. I’ve struggled for years with low self-confidence, body issues, and disordered eating behavior.

I was feeling tired all the time, stressed because I couldn’t focus on school/work tasks. I had constant headaches. By that time (I was in high-school) I was following a calorie chart diet and on the highest calorie day. I got to eat 500 kcal and then day by day less and less called the ABC diet (found it on Tumblr – please, tell me if you know what I am talking about). Being on such a restrictive protocol, the vicious circle of starving, binging, starving trapped me. Little did I know the damage I was doing to my metabolism and health.

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When I first heard about low-carb, high-fat diets, back in 2013, I just couldn’t believe that eating fat can make you slim and curb your cravings for good. In the beginning, it looked easy to eat as much meat and fats as I wanted and not gain a single pound.

But, there were many things I was not taking into consideration.
After many years of research and self-learning, I’ve developed a plan that helped me feel in control over the food I eat and not let it control me anymore. I started to embrace my journey, to love my body & life, to make friends, go out and actually eat food in front of other people, exercise for health not as a punishment

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I failed and learned. When I finally found what works best for me I felt released, I felt FREE. Free from thinking all the time about food or what I’m going to eat next. FREE from being scared I’ll gain weight instead of losing.

The ketogenic diet turned into a lifesaver for me, and I can’t find enough words to tell you that going keto will make your body & mind so healthy, that losing pounds will be like the perfect award for your accomplishment.

I am a personal health & nutrition coach since 2015. I love encouraging people to transform their body & mind through a nutrient dense whole foods diet.

PS: If you are interested in personalized guidance and support, please check out my Accelerated Keto Program!

Now, that you’ve heard a little about me let’s dig into the Ketogenic Diet Secrets.

What’s a Ketogenic Diet?

keto diet macros diagaram

Ketogenic diets have been used since the 1920s to very efficiently control seizures in refractory childhood epilepsy.

In this version of the ketogenic diet, you should aim for 60- 80% of your daily intake to come from fat, 20-35% from protein and the rest of 0-5% from carbohydrates.

Typically on a regular, higher carbohydrate diet, the body will use glucose as the primary form of energy. By cutting down the intake of carbs, the body gets into a state known as ketosis.

Studies now show that there’s no reason to fear natural fats and long-term ketosis. It significantly reduces the body weight and body mass index of the patients decreases the level of triglycerides, LDL cholesterol, and blood glucose, and increases the level of HDL cholesterol.

Make fats your friend. On a low-carb diet, you minimize your intake of sugar and starches. You can eat other delicious foods until you are satisfied – and still lose weight.

The basics of keto in a nutshell

  • Eat tiny amounts of carbs (5%).
  • Eat a moderate amount of protein (20%).
  • Eat lots of healthy fats (75%).
  • Focus on staying under 20 g carbs per day.
  • Be aware of the added sugar in the foods that might seem ok to eat on keto.

What is Ketosis?

Ketone bodies -

Ketosis is a metabolic state that occurs when you consume a very low-carb, moderate protein, high-fat diet that causes your body to switch from using glucose as its primary source of fuel to running on ketones.

Ketosis is also an excellent way to lose body fat. In other words, burning fat generates ketones at the same time. When you are keto-adapted, you generate energy from both your body fat and dietary fat.

What are ketones?

Ketones themselves are produced when the body burns fat, and they’re primarily used as an alternative fuel source when glucose isn’t available. Ketones are merely a by-product of burning fat for fuel.

Ketones are actually the preferred fuel source for the muscles, heart, liver, and brain. These vital organs do not handle carbohydrates very well; in fact, they become damaged when we consume too many carbs. The body and the brain are being able to run 70% more efficiently on ketones fuel than on glucose.

The human body is very adaptable. It can work perfectly on a variety of different fuels, but on a high carb diet, the main source of energy is glucose. If glucose is available, the body will use it first, since it’s the quickest to metabolize.

We are all sugar (glucose) burners!

All forms of carbohydrates like fruits, vegetables, grains, sugars are broken down into glucose and stored in our body as glycogen.


Eating a low-fat diet that is very high in carbohydrate will increase blood insulin levels.

Insulin is a hormone made by the pancreas that allows your body to use sugar (glucose) from carbohydrates in the food that you eat for energy or to store glucose for future use.

Insulin helps to keep your blood sugar level from getting too high (hyperglycemia) or too low (hypoglycemia). Insulin is the hormone that drives fat into storage and stimulates hunger.

Going on a ketogenic diet keeps the insulin levels constant and low. The fat stores will be burned because you won’t feel hungry every time and have crazy cravings for unhealthy foods.

How Long Does It Take To Get Into Ketosis?

Reaching ketosis may take anywhere from 3 days to 2 weeks depending on how long you’ve been fueling your body on sugar, your activity level or body type. There are different methods to tell you if you are in ketosis some are more reliable than others. This will be covered in detail in Chapter 12.

Sugar is labeled as “healthy”

The major problem with foods that have had the fat removed from them is that they are tasteless.

For this reason, the food companies added sugar instead. Sugar is not a fat, it’s a carbohydrate. Therefore, a product can be labeled “low-fat” even if it is highly processed and loaded with huge quantities of sugar.

More than 80% of the supermarket foods have added sugar. Here’s a list (click here) with all the different names of sugar that companies came up with to make their product labeled as “healthy” and a few tricks on how to read labels for hidden sugars.

If you have any questions at this point, don’t hesitate to ask them in the comment section below or on our Facebook Group!

Make keto simple and easy by checking out my 4 weeks keto Accelerated Keto Program. Get meal plans, shopping lists, free life coaching and much more!

Ioana

Ioana is a food and travel lover. Her greatest passion is developing mouthwatering recipes that are comforting, easy to make, and budget friendly! She firmly believes that cooking should be fun! About me...

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About me

Hello! My name is Ioana Borcea, and I'm here to provide you with mouthwatering recipes. This blog is all about sharing my favorite tested easy to make, delicious low-carb & keto, nutrient-dense recipes.

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