Women in the locker room constantly keep asking me for diet tips, telling me what they do and what they heard they should do. They’re doing different diets, mostly fad diets. I believe that once you change your lifestyle and eating habits for the better and you start seeing results, you will never look back. However unfortunately many women seem to think that they can have a ‘quick fix’ to lose some weight by a crash diet and then go back to ‘normal’ which unfortunately causes all the weight and fat to come back, too.
In the following few days I will sum up some of the most popular diets, which could be a basis of how you change your eating habits.
The Ketogenic (keto) diet:
This diet is high in fats, low in carbs and moderate in protein. This diet causes the body’s metabolism to shift from glucose to fat utilisation. Ketones are produced by the liver. This diet can improve several health conditions, like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy and even cancer because healthy cells can use fats for energy, however cancer cells cannot so they starve to death. When you eat high carb foods your body produces glucose and insulin. Insulin is responsible to down regulate the glucose levels in the blood stream. Insulin is also responsible for storing fat in the body. If you produce too much insulin, you put on weight – simple.
There are different types of keto diets:
- standard keto diet: you eat 20-50 gr of net carbs / day This is the same as the induction phase of Atkins diet.
- Targeted keto diet: you eat carbs 30-60 mins before exercise. This is an old approach however you can give it a go because not everyone is the same and what works for one might not work for others and vice versa. But just for the records: you don’t need carbs before your workout.
- Targeted keto diet alternative with no extra carbs: the idea of this approach is that your body may not need extra carbs before exercise to perform well. Again, you need to try this approach to see how you feel on it.
- Cycling keto diet: what many bodybuilders use. You alternate keto dieting with high carb days – effectively you do carb loading. Use about 50 gr of carbs on the keto days and 300-600 gr on the high days – obviously depending on your needs and bodytypes. This is only for professional and high performing athletes, not for people wanting to lose a bit of weight.
The Atkins diet:
The idea is that when you cut back on carbs your body turns to your fat stores for fuel. The result is that you burn body fat and your body releases a by-product called ketones that your body will use for energy.
This diet starts off as a keto diet in the induction phase. You drastically reduce your carb intake down to 20 gr, you cut out pasta, bread, potato or any starchy carb and dairy, and you only eat certain vegetables (fibres). No alcohol, no caffeine, no nuts, seeds or legumes.
After this comes the ‘ongoing weight loss’ phase when you add back slowly more vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, berries and other fruits and eventually wholegrains.
Then comes the phase when you might be able to add more carbs and foods back into your diet depending on your body’s needs.
Because of the food limitations in this diet, especially at the beginning, you will need to supplement vitamins especially potassium, magnesium and calcium.
The paleo diet:
This diet is based on our ancestors’ diets. Back in the days humans were hunters/gatherers. Then became farmers. So instead of loading up on meat, vegetables and seasonable fruits, we eat bread, pasta and grains. Back in the days grains were not part of our diet. Grains are composed of carbs and turned into glucose to be used for energy. Any glucose that isn’t used for energy will turn to fat. Our modern diet is full with refined food, trans fat and sugar which leads to diseases like: obesity, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s etc. There is a big difference between the fat content and quality of our modern grain fed animals vs grass fed wild animals. Wild meat is remarkably lean, and has relatively low amounts of saturated fats, while supplying significant amount of beneficial Omega-3 fats.
The foods that are OK to eat on a paleo diet are:
- Grass fed lean meat, fowl (chicken, turkey, hen, duck, anything with wings), wild fish (not farmed fish), eggs, vegetables (not deep fried), oils (olive, coconut, avocado), fruits, nuts and seeds, tubers (sweet potato, yams)
If you stick to the foods you are allowed to eat on this diet you should not get fat because these foods are very nutrient densed foods so it’s almost impossible to overeat.
The foods that you need to avoid on a paleo diet are:
- Dairy, grains, processed food & sugar, legumes, starches, alcohol
The health benefits of paleo:
- more efficient workouts,
- stable blood sugar,
- burn off stored fat,
- reduce allergies,
- balanced energy throughout the day,
- anti-inflammatory,
- better skin and teeth,
- improved sleep patterns
