OVERVIEW OF THE KETO ZONE DIET
SALLY CAME TO MY OFFICE not long ago, desperate for answers. She explained how she had gained more than a hundred pounds in two years, hired a personal trainer for a year, and then gained twenty-five more pounds. She also suffered from polycystic ovaries and had fibroids.
“What am I doing wrong?” she pleaded. “I work out an hour a day, five days a week, I’ve followed my trainer’s low-fat diet, and all I’m doing is gaining more weight!”
I commended her for her amazing tenacity to exercise that much every day, to get a personal trainer, and to work that hard. “However,” I explained, trying to let her down gently, “it is not working for you because it cannot work for you.”
“What?” she immediately demanded. “Then what is the answer?”
I explained that her basis for health and nutrition was all wrong. She was eating low-carb, but not low enough, which was causing her metabolism to slow down. Her fats were too low and her protein intake was too high, which only added to more sugar production and more weight gain. To top it off, her workouts were burning glycogen (stored sugar) only, not fat, and once the stored sugar was depleted, she was hungrier for it. She complained of always being hungry.
She not only had the wrong game plan, she was playing the wrong game entirely. Based on what she was doing with her degree of carb sensitivity, it was almost impossible for her to lose weight.
IT’S A FACT
Ketosis is the natural, safe condition where your body is burning fat rather than sugar as its primary fuel source.
Now, impossible is not a word that people on a diet like to hear. Talk about a real killjoy! But the good news is that once she had the right game plan and started building on the right foundation, mixed with her incredible work ethic, the fat would burn right off. Hope came flooding back.
I explained the science behind the Keto Zone diet and how women with polycystic ovaries are especially carb sensitive and insulin resistant. Her eyes lit up as she came to understand the how-to-burn-fat paradox.
Taking immediate action, she gladly dove into the Keto Zone diet. We lowered her carbs to 20 grams per day, increased her healthy fat intake considerably, lowered her protein a bit, and added a few supplements that she was missing.
She immediately started losing weight.
At that point, with the fat melting away, she was angry with her personal trainer. “Why didn’t he tell me?” she asked. She was frustrated that she had spent a year with nothing to show for it. I told her that it was not the trainer’s fault. Trainers do their best to help people lose weight, but if they follow the same low-fat diet as the rest of society, the increased physical exercise is not necessarily going to work for weight loss.
As it turned out, Sally was her own before and after picture. The personal trainer contacted me and asked for more information. Now he puts all his clients on the Keto Zone diet.
THE BASICS OF THE KETO ZONE DIET
As we have discussed, the primary goal of the Keto Zone diet is to reduce your daily carbohydrate intake to below your body’s carbohydrate threshold for weight gain. This in turn causes your body to burn excess fats rather than sugars as its fuel source.
The sugar your body usually burns is glucose, which is produced from the carbs (breads, sugar, pasta, potatoes, juices, sodas, fruits, and sugary beverages) you eat or drink. Any extra glucose is either stored in your liver or muscles as glycogen or converted to fat.
By lowering your carb intake, your insulin levels also drop and your metabolism eventually shifts into fat-burning mode. Eating foods that are healthy and speed up the fat-burning process (in the form of a high amount of healthy fats and a moderate amount of healthy protein) helps you control your appetite and reach your goal weight.
Those are the basic elements of the Keto Zone diet.
When your body is in this fat-burning mode, you are technically in the state of ketosis. Often misunderstood, the word ketosis is admittedly very scary sounding, which is one of the reasons why ketogenic diets as a whole have received such negative press. Scary! Bad! Dangerous! Unsafe! Deadly!
In truth, ketosis is the natural, safe condition where your body is burning fat rather than sugar as its primary fuel source.
You actually come close to ketosis when you sleep. If you eat dinner around 6 p.m. and drink only water before eating breakfast at 6 a.m., your body is very close to the ketosis state after twelve hours of fasting. Fasting longer than twelve hours does the same thing, even more so.
But after you eat breakfast or break your fast, your body usually does not return to ketosis again all day. That is because your body is busy digesting the food you have eaten and breaking down carbs and starches into sugar. If what you ate is the normal low-fat, high-carb diet, burning sugar is all that your body can do for the rest of the day.
IT’S A FACT
In the Keto Zone, your body is reprogrammed to burn fat. The first fat to go is usually belly fat.
Imagine instead if your body was burning fat all day long! Even better, imagine feeling full and satisfied, sharp and alert, with boundless energy and no food cravings for the entire day!
That is what typically happens to your body when you are in the Keto Zone.
KETO ZONE: WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT
Food is the focus, so it is only normal to wonder exactly what the expectations and limits are for the Keto Zone diet. From the perspective of carbs, fats, and protein, here is an approximate framework of what you will eat while in the Keto Zone:
Carbs: 10 to 15 percent of daily caloric intake from healthy carbs, such as salad veggies, nonstarchy vegetables, spices, and herbs.
Fats: 70 percent of daily caloric intake from healthy fats including omega-3 fats (fish oil), healthy monounsaturated fats, healthy saturated fats, and minimal healthy polyunsaturated fats.
Proteins: 10 to 15 percent of daily caloric intake from healthy protein, such as whole pastured eggs, wild low-mercury fish, and grass-fed meats, aiming for around 1 gram of protein per 1 kilogram of weight.24
When the daily recommended allowance for carbohydrates intake is reduced from 45 to 65 percent of total calories to 15 percent (some need a bit less than that), your body naturally begins to burn fat rather than sugar. Adding in moderate amounts of protein and high amounts of good fats, your body reaches its peak metabolic fat-burning zone.
What 10–15 percent of healthy carbs or proteins and 70 percent of healthy fats translate into as far as portions and meals and menus and real food, will be made plain in the pages to follow.
When you fuel your body with 10 to 15 percent healthy carbs, 70 percent healthy fats, and 10 to 15 percent healthy proteins, you are going to be in the peak metabolic fat-burning zone! It usually takes people one to three days to reach the Keto Zone (maybe seven to fourteen days for pre-diabetics and type 2 diabetics), but if it takes you longer than three days, rest assured you will get there. When in the Keto Zone, you can expect:
• Dangerous belly fat to usually burn off first
• Reduced appetite
• A loss of 4 to 5 pounds of fluid weight in the first week, then usually 1 to 2 pounds of fat per week after that (some lose 1 pound per day)
• After a month or more in the Keto Zone, many people are satisfied with only two meals a day, morning and early evening (usually after a month or more)
• Usually no hunger pangs
• Usually incredible energy, mental clarity, and focus
• No calorie counting required
WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR BODY IN THE KETO ZONE
As you already know, once you have reached the Keto Zone, your body is burning fat rather than sugars. This is the ketosis process hard at work, brought on by the fact that you have lowered your carb intake considerably, down to around 20 grams per day to begin with, raising it up later after achieving your ideal weight.
When you are in ketosis, your body naturally produces acids in the blood called ketones, which are flushed out in the urine. These trace amounts of ketones are a sign that your body is breaking down fat.
For decades it has been known that eating a no-carb or low-carb diet (between 0 and 60 grams of carbs per day) with a moderate protein intake (around 1 gram of protein per 1 kilogram of weight) will produce ketones. That is a sign your body is in ketosis, which again is a natural and safe process. When you are burning fat rather than sugar because of your low-carb intake, your ketones usually measure at the very low 0.5 to 1 millimolar (mM) range. Blood pH levels are normal.
Start talking about ketosis and ketones and people usually say, “Wait a minute! I read about ketoacidosis, and it’s dangerous.”
They are right—ketoacidosis is dangerous, but it is also not the same as ketosis. Ketoacidosis is potentially fatal and is the result of very high blood ketone levels, which can occur in people with type 1 diabetes or rarely in type 2 diabetes who have destroyed most of their insulin-producing cells in the pancreas and require insulin. Unless you have type 1 diabetes or have advanced type 2 diabetes, you do not need to worry about ketoacidosis because it is impossible for your body to go there.
IT’S A FACT
Rest assured, when limiting carbohydrate intake to 20 grams per day, the vast majority of people will go into the Keto Zone and their bodies will begin burning fat rather than sugar.
In nutritional ketosis, which is what we are talking about with the Keto Zone diet, you are in a healthy metabolic state where your blood sugar levels are normal and your ketones are low. In this state of nutritional ketosis, you are burning fat and controlling your hunger and appetite. Bring it on!
The small amount of ketones in your urine simply shows that fat breakdown has been activated. That is all.
To further clarify, in a ketoacidosis state, blood pH levels are very low, blood sugar levels are extremely high, and people with type 1 diabetes and late-stage type 2 diabetes cannot produce insulin to counter the high blood sugars. Ketone levels are usually 15 to 25 millimolars, which is extremely high and thus incredibly dangerous. In nutritional ketosis, ketone levels are usually 0.5 to 5 millimolars, but more commonly 0.5 to 3 millimolars.
Clearly, ketosis and ketoacidosis are completely different. To many, however, they sound so similar that they are falsely assumed to be the same thing.
One more detail about your body in the Keto Zone that will interest you is the fact that spikes in insulin, which your body produces to lower your blood sugar, stop all production of ketones. Stop it completely! Eating sugary foods, starches, and carbs will usually spike sugar and insulin levels, but sodas, juices, sweetened coffees, sweet tea, smoothies, and many other beverages high in sugar will usually spike insulin levels more than eating sugary foods.
If your body cannot produce ketones, it is not burning fat, and if it is not burning fat, then you usually are not losing weight. That is another reason why lowering your insulin levels is absolutely essential in keeping your body in a peak fat-burning state.
Now, if you happen to have type 1 diabetes, I would recommend the anti-inflammatory foods outlined in my book Let Food Be Your Medicine. However, with your usual careful blood sugar management, using the Keto Zone diet is a healthy and viable option for you as well as long as you follow up with your physician regularly and adjust your insulin doses under your physician’s guidance.
If you have advanced type 2 diabetes, ease into the Keto Zone diet. It will take longer to reach the desired Keto Zone, but you will eventually get there. I have seen this to be incredibly helpful for people with type 2 diabetes. Be careful, but the benefits, such as lowering your insulin dosages, are amazing. Monitor your blood sugar levels daily, and follow up with your physician regularly.
WAYS TO STAY IN THE KETO ZONE
Produced as a result of your body burning fats, ketones are the perfect measuring guide, like a car’s dipstick if you will, to help keep you in the zone. In time and with practice, you will know when you are in the zone, but measuring your ketones is the fastest and easiest way to know you are right on track.
It usually takes a few days for your body to get into the Keto Zone, and with the small amounts of ketones in your urine, the initial and easiest way to measure is with a urine test strip. These ketone strips, such as Ketostix, are inexpensive and readily available at a local pharmacy or health food store. (You can even cut the strips in half to save a few dollars.) See appendix A for a source.
To see if you are in ketosis, pass the ketone strip through your urine stream, then wait fifteen seconds and compare the stick to the color chart on the side of the bottle.
IT’S A FACT
Your liver produces three different types of ketones: beta-hydroxybutyrate, acetoacetate, and acetone. On a low-carb diet, these ketones increase in number.
Remember, it may take a few days to two weeks (for some people) for the small amount of ketones to register, but when ketones do register, then you know you are without question in ketosis, the fat-burning Keto Zone. You will be able to see, as you check two or three times a day, how your body is performing. Trust me, it is a very motivating feeling when you know your body is hard at work burning off unwanted fat.
After a month of burning fat in the Keto Zone, your body will be more adapted or used to being in ketosis. At that point, the ketones you have been measuring in your urine will eventually fade away.
What happened? How will you measure ketones?
What took place is that your body is adjusting even further into fat-burning mode. In the first month or so, your body produced a specific ketone, acetoacetate. That is the type of ketone the urine strips measure. As your body adjusts to your new fat-burning reality, it produces mainly two other ketones instead—acetone and beta-hydroxybutyrate.
The way to measure acetone and beta-hydroxybutyrate is with a ketone breath analyzer (to measure acetone) or a blood ketone monitor (to measure beta-hydroxybutyrate). These two other ketones will show up on the tests if you are still in the Keto Zone.
For best results, and until you feel you are consistently staying in the Keto Zone, the blood monitor or the breath analyzer is a good way to know precisely where you are. I recommend them, and both are available online. They are not as inexpensive as the strips, but either is very helpful. I prefer the Ketonix breath ketone analyzer (powered by a computer via its USB port).
As you watch the results of your efforts, you will know what it feels like to be solidly in the Keto Zone. If you are burning fat, not hungry, and sticking to your plan, then you are most likely right where you want to be—in the Keto Zone.
KETO ZONE: INCREDIBLY HEALTHY
The Keto Zone diet is the fastest and healthiest way to burn fat, especially belly fat, which is directly related to so many diseases. It also helps prevent, manage, and even cure countless sicknesses and diseases. As a reminder, ketogenic diets have been used to treat many conditions: infantile spasms, epilepsy, autism, brain tumors, Alzheimer’s disease, Lou Gehrig’s disease, depression, stroke, head trauma, Parkinson’s disease, migraines, sleep disorders, schizophrenia, anxiety, ADHD, irritability, polycystic ovarian disease, irritable bowel syndrome, gastroesophageal reflux, obesity, cardiovascular disease, acne, type 2 diabetes, tremors, respiratory failure, and virtually every neurological problem, but also cancer and conditions where tissues need to recover after a loss of oxygen.25
Truly, being in the Keto Zone is more than just a great way to lose weight. It is an incredibly healthy way to live. If you happen to have any of the conditions listed above, the Keto Zone diet may be the answer.
For many years I have put cancer patients on a ketogenic diet with amazing results. By removing the sugar and starchy foods that cancer feeds on, the cancer loses its main fuel source, and many patients improve. I’ve done that for years, and research supports it.26
Though our society is well trained to think low-fat everything, your heart, brain, and kidneys work better when the source of fuel is fat rather than the usual glucose (sugar). In fact, your heart and brain run at least 25 percent more efficiently on fat than blood sugar.27
IT’S A FACT
Cut your carb intake, and your blood sugar and insulin levels naturally decrease.
I have come to see that adding fat to our diet, such as olive oil, avocados, fish oil, almonds, pecans, macadamia nuts, and some healthy saturated fats such as medium-chain triglycerides (MCT) oil, grass-fed butter, and cocoa (dark chocolate), in my opinion actually reduces heart disease more than cholesterol-lowering statin drugs can. I recognize that is a pretty bold statement, but the results speak for themselves. So far more than seventy studies verify the fact that saturated fat is not the cause of heart disease.28
On the cellular level, the body produces the energy we need from the food we eat. If the source is sugar, the body produces insulin to lower the blood sugar levels, and excess sugar is stored either as glycogen or as fat. Due to our usual high-carb diet, much of the sugar is stored as fat, and until we enter the Keto Zone, the body will usually continue to burn sugar and store fat until we lower the carb level low enough to get the fat-burning engines going again.
If the source of energy is fat, rather than sugar, far greater energy is produced. In addition to fat being the best energy source, we also have more of it. That is because our bodies usually have more than 40,000 calories in fat stored away in our adipose tissue, but less than 2,000 calories in carbohydrates in storage.29
What that means is we usually don’t need to worry about running out of energy on the ketogenic program. We virtually have no end to the reserves. And that is precisely why many weight lifters and athletes have used ketogenic diets to their advantage for decades.
What is more, and thankfully so, the Keto Zone diet works long term. It is a diet and lifestyle you can enjoy for years and years to come (more about that later). To me, it means I will not only be lean and healthy now, but I will be around to play with my grandchildren and even their children.
My best advice to you is to get in the Keto Zone and stay there so you can enjoy life and live it to its fullest.