Did you know that the ketogenic diet was invented in the 1920s?
With a recent surge in popularity, more people are hopping on board at the keto diet train in hopes to lose weight, improve their overall health, and even to use as a treatment for specific medical conditions. The ketogenic diet is a low-carb, high-fat diet that offers a unique selection of health benefits for the people that follow this diet.
If you’re interested in learning more about the keto diet history, we’ve created a complete guide to help you better understand how exactly this diet got started. Plus, you’ll learn about how the ketogenic diet can help you get your back on track. Keep reading to learn more!
What Is the Ketogenic Diet?
The ketogenic diet, also commonly referred to as the keto diet, is a diet that consists of a low-carb, high-fat diet that offers a unique selection of health benefits.
While many people refer to as a ketogenic diet as a trend diet, many studies have shown that a ketogenic lifestyle can help to improve the health of the people who are suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, diabetes, obesity, and cancer.
For you to follow the ketogenic diet, you must drastically reduce your carbohydrate intake, while replacing the caloric intake with fat. By replacing your carbohydrate intake and replacing it with fat, you’ll encourage your liver to turn fat into ketones. Ketones are the energy source that your body will begin to use in replacement for the glucose that it once received from carbohydrates.
By limiting your intake of carbohydrates, your body will think that it’s starving. As an end result, this will force your body to start producing ketones, which it will use as a second source of energy to replace the glucose that your body was getting from carbohydrates.
The Origin of Keto
Back in the 1920’s, doctors invented the ketogenic diet as a tool to control seizures with people who are suffering from epilepsy. When the ketogenic diet was first invented, doctors focused on the health-boosting benefits of healthy fasting, combined with reducing their carbohydrate intake and increasing their fat consumption.
By combining intermittent fasting with a ketogenic diet, a person’s body focuses on burning ketones for energy instead of depending on glucose. A clinical study found that children who suffered from seizures there was a reduction in the number of seizure episodes that children suffered from were produced by 40% after following a ketogenic diet.
Fasting and Ketones
Intermittent fasting is also commonly paired with a ketogenic diet. Fasting involves not eating anything for a specific period of time. Some types of fast involved tripping over breakfast, where other more restrictive types of bass can involved not eating any meals for several days.
By restricting your food intake, your body will begin to produce ketones from fat storage is in your body. This happens because your body runs out of glucose from the carbohydrates that you eat to use for energy. Once your body has run out of liquor stores, it relies on ketones that it gets from stored fat to use for energy.
From the early times in 500 BC, our ancestors realize the health benefits that fasting has to bring. Many ancient Greek doctors used fasting to treat diseases. Even Hippocrates recorded that fasting was an effective treatment for epilepsy.
Why Was the Ketogenic Diet Introduced for Weight Loss?
The ketogenic diet was originally introduced to help people suffering from epilepsy to manage their symptoms better. However, the ketogenic diet is becoming increasingly popular because of its weight loss benefits. By following along with a traditional ketogenic diet, many people experience drastic weight loss, as they burn through the stored fats in their body.
The traditional ketogenic diet focuses on a daily caloric intake consisting of 80% fat, 15% protein, and less than 5% of carbohydrates. This means that people following the traditional ketogenic diet cut out eating the majority of fruit, bread, soda, sugar, chips, and other snacks. Instead, their diet consists of non-starchy vegetables, fish, eggs, oils, nuts, meat, and seeds.
Weight loss isn’t the only help posting property that many people experienced while following a ketogenic diet. Some of the other health-boosting benefits that they experience are:
- Appetite reduction
- Fat loss in the abdominal cavity
- Improved cholesterol
- Improved insulin levels
- Lowered blood sugar
- Lowered blood pressure
- Improve cognitive ability
- Restful sleep
Even if you’re just looking to follow the ketogenic diet to drop a few pounds, this diet has many health-boosting effects. Are you looking to start following the ketogenic diet? Click here to get keto meal delivery to your home.
Understanding the Ketogenic Diet History
By having a solid understanding of the ketogenic diet history, you’ll be able to understand better how this amazing diet can help to transform your health. Contrary to popular belief, the keto diet isn’t a trendy diet, it’s been around for decades.
Besides weight loss, the keto diet is a useful tool to use to treat the symptoms of Epilepsy, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and other medical conditions. The research behind all of the health benefits of the ketogenic diet is still being discovered, but this diet continues to prove itself to be a powerful health-boosting diet.
Are you interested in learning more about how the ketogenic diet and how it can help you get your health back on track? Check out our blog for more information today.