Written by Ben Sonnenburg
The diet I have chosen to discuss is the ketogenic diet. I picked this one due to its popularity right now.
The ketogenic diet first originated in the early 1920s by modern physicians as a treatment for epilepsy in the 1920s. It was widely used for the next two decades, but fell out of use until recently. The main protocol that is recommended for the diet is that a person should consume 60-80% fat, 10-30% protein, and no more than 5-10% of carbs per day.
The carbs are the one that is the most stressed in the diet. Though there is a high stress on a large intake of fats and proteins. A person also has to eat within an 8-hour window throughout the day. Continually, a person has to mainly just drink water and no beverages that have additives or calories.
The diet proclaims that it can help you be more fit and active, drop weight quickly, burn an immense amount of calories, reduce hunger, manage epilepsy, and improve blood pressure quickly. One researcher affirms that and says it was
“efficient in reducing body weight, waist circumference, and fat mass while preserving FFM and BCM in subjects with overweight or obesity (Rose et. al, 2022)”.
However, it does impact sports performance efficiently.
The bodies main pathway for making energy quickly is through carbohydrate intake because it is the easiest for the body to break down. Therefore, because there is such a massive reduction in carbs, an athlete won’t have the readily available energy to perform the demands placed on the body.
Fortunately, there is also no products associated with the keto diet except for the typical healthier foods that a person should be consuming. It should actually help a person save more money because eating out with this diet is extremely difficult.
However, if items are marketed as “keto friendly” they would probably have a higher price tag on them.
The diet has also been promoted by celebrities. Terry Crews is known to be extremely fit and talks regularly about how much he loves this diet.
Personally, I would not recommend this diet to an athlete because they won’t have the energy necessary to perform the tasks being demanded by their body. Also, it would be extremely difficult to get better as an athlete without carbs and being restricted to eat within a specific window.
Reference:
Di Rosa, C., Lattanzi, G., Spiezia, C., Imperia, E., Piccirilli, S., Beato, I., Gaspa, G., Micheli, V., De Joannon, F., Vallecorsa, N., Ciccozzi, M., Defeudis, G., Manfrini, S., & Khazrai, Y. M. (2022). Mediterranean Diet versus Very Low-Calorie Ketogenic Diet: Effects of Reaching 5% Body Weight Loss on Body Composition in Subjects with Overweight and with Obesity-A Cohort Study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(20). doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192013040.