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What Is Ketosis? Our Nutritionist Explains All | Myprotein
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Jan 30, 2025
What is ketosis? Our expert nutritionist explains all. There’s a lot of information out there about ketosis— especially when it comes using a keto diet as a way to lose weight. Is it really effective? Is it safe? How does it work? Nutritional consultant and PhD Researcher, Richie Kirwan, is here to cut through the noise and provide you with science-approved, evidence-based facts. Watch this video to get to grips with the basics of ketosis and find out whether going keto would be a good fit for your own goals. Got any questions or other topics you'd like to see Richie cover next? Let us know in the comments below! See more from Richie here: https://bit.ly/36N2zh8 https://bit.ly/38SySOn ** Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MyproteinUK At Myprotein it’s our mission to #FuelYourAmbition and push you forwards on your #ForeverFit journey.
View Video Transcript
0:00
how's it going guys my name is richie
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kerwin and i'm a nutritionist and
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nutrition researcher
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and today we're going to be talking all
0:06
about ketosis
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what is it how do you do it what can it
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do and what
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does it do
0:16
[Music]
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so provided you haven't been living
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under a rock or a loaf of bread for the
0:20
past
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20 years there's a good chance that
0:23
you've heard about a keto diet
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or at least you've heard about the many
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different types of
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keto products keto guides keto recipe
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books
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keto books themselves it's kind of a big
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deal
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but just like anything in nutrition
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there is a
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huge amount of misinformation about keto
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diets out there
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so hopefully in today's video we're
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going to dispel any of those myths that
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you might have heard
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first off what does a keto diet even
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mean well keto is short for
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ketogenic and a ketogenic diet is a
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diet that causes your body to generate
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or make ketones you see one of the main
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fuels of our body
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is glucose a carbohydrate and a healthy
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person is able to maintain
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their blood glucose levels really really
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well
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because that helps our body to supply
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all of our systems all of our muscles
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our brain our organs
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with glucose the fuel that they need if
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our glucose levels drop
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too low our body can just get more
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glucose
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from our muscles where we store glycogen
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or
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it can also make glucose from
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non-carbohydrate sources
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so it can actually use amino acids or
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fats
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to make glucose and that's called
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gluconeogenesis
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problem with gluconeogenesis is it takes
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a lot of energy to make that glucose
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but if you don't eat carbohydrates your
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body is missing one of its
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major fuel sources so your body tries to
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make
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an alternative fuel and that alternative
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fuel
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is ketones when your blood ketone levels
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get high enough
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then somebody is officially in ketosis
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hence the name ketogenic diet now at
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this point it's really important to say
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that ketosis
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and keto acidosis are not the same thing
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you see ketoacidosis is a very very
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serious condition
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that can happen to some people who have
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type 1 diabetes
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and it happens when their blood sugar
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gets too high they start to produce a
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lot of ketones their blood starts to
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become acidic
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they can pass out and they can even die
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but that is
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definitely not the same thing as ketosis
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they are very very different
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and ketosis is perfectly safe
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ketoacidosis is not so how does somebody
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get into ketosis
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well one of the easiest ways to do it is
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to reduce the amount of carbs that you
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eat
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and a lot of guides recommend that you
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eat fewer than
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20 to 50 grams of carbohydrates
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so where do you get carbohydrates well
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think of all the foods that you
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love pasta rice potatoes
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crisps cake sweets
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chocolate if it's absolutely delicious
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there's a really really good chance
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that it contains carbohydrates just to
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give you a little bit of context
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one single medium banana can contain as
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many as 27 grams of carbs so that means
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just eating
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two bananas is enough to put somebody
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out of ketosis so if you can't eat carbs
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what can you eat on a ketogenic diet
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well
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funnily enough there is actually a wide
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variety of foods that you can eat
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and enjoy on a ketogenic diet foods like
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meat
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eggs fish some high-fat dairy products
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like cheese
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are virtually free of carbohydrates and
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make up the majority
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of many ketogenic diets but on top of
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that you can also eat a huge amount of
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low carbohydrate fruit and vegetables
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low sugar fruit like berries and then
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non-starchy vegetables or salad
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vegetables
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things like spinach broccoli cauliflower
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a lot of other salad vegetables are
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quite low in carbs and you can eat those
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along with things like nuts on a
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ketogenic diet
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in moderation think of it like this if
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you normally grab a burger and chips for
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lunch
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to make it keto you need to remove the
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bun from the burger
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and then you need to replace the chips
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with a salad
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that doesn't sound as appetizing but it
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is quite a healthy meal she's got some
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meat
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and some vegetables so why would
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somebody even want to do a keto diet
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well the for the majority of people they
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do it
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for fat loss the thing is when somebody
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makes ketones you make them from fatty
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acids
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from fats in your body so that leads a
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lot of people
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to automatically assume that if somebody
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is on a ketogenic diet or somebody is in
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ketosis
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they are burning a lot of body fat
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that's not
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always necessarily the case another
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reason people tend to use ketogenic
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diets is because of rapid weight loss
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and that's because at the start of a
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ketogenic diet
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people tend to lose a lot of body weight
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quickly the only thing is most of that
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body weight
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at least initially is not body fat it's
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actually
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body water think of it like this
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in our muscles we can store some
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carbohydrates we can actually store up
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to 500 grams
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of carbohydrates in the form of glycogen
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and each gram
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of carbohydrates can hold on to up to
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four grams
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of water so if you've got 500 grams of
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carbohydrates in your muscles
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that means you're also holding on to
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almost two kilograms of water in your
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body so if you
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reduce the amount of carbohydrates that
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you're eating you may reduce some of the
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carbohydrate in your muscles and then
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you lose
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a lot of water from your muscles too
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that also means
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that your muscle can look less full
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on a ketogenic diet just because you
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don't have
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as much carbohydrates you don't have as
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much water filling the muscles and
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sometimes
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if you take a dexa body composition
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assessment
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it can say that you've actually lost
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muscle on a ketogenic diet so that's
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something
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worth thinking about now you absolutely
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can lose
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body fat on a ketogenic diet but
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there's no major secret as to why the
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reason
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for losing weight on a ketogenic diet is
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drumroll please
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calorie deficit you see when people
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go on a ketogenic diet they
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automatically eliminate a huge amount of
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other
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foods from their diet especially
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convenience foods think of the burger
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and chips example i gave
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earlier if you are on a keto diet you
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can't have your chips
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you can't have your bread can't have
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pasta can of rice can't have sugar
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all of those things are gone from your
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diet that's called
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spontaneous calorie reduction and it
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works and it's one of the reasons why
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keto
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diets can be really effective for losing
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body fat
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but you probably want to know is there's
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some sort of special magic
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keto effect from just going on a keto
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diet and the answer is
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no but there is one advantage that a
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keto diet
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might have and that's appetite you see
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when somebody goes on a ketogenic diet
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when they're in ketosis
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it seems that ketones can actually help
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to reduce
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somebody's appetite why is that
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important well if you can control your
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appetite there's a good chance that
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you'd be better able to stick to a diet
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long term and if you can stick to a diet
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long term you can lose weight
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and that's where keto diets might have
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an advantage for some people now
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there are some people who think that
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keto diets offer a metabolic
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advantage uh where they think that it
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can actually speed up
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our metabolism and help us burn more
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calories
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but the only evidence that we have about
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any metabolic
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advantage seems to be for really really
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small amount so on practical terms
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you're not going to be burning
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a huge amount of extra body fat with a
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keto diet remember
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it all comes down to how many calories
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you eat another thing you might have
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heard about keto diet is that you need
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to eat fat
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to burn fat now to a certain extent
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that is kind of true if you eat more fat
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you're going to burn more fat
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but the thing is you're going to be
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burning the fat that you're eating
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not the body fat on your body so if you
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eat a lot of extra fat
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any extra calories that you consume as
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fat are going to get
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stored on your body you're not going to
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be burning your body fat at all
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so again calories matter even on a
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ketogenic diet
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what about ketone supplements otherwise
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known as exogenous
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ketones well these are really really
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popular right now and they're often
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marketed as a fat loss supplement people
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thinking that if you can
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artificially increase the ketones in
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your blood
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you're going to be burning more fat it's
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just not
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true and in fact some of the most recent
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research on some of the most
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expensive ketone supplements on the
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market has shown
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that even after a month of taking them
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in high doses
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they have absolutely no effect
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on body fat you do not lose weight with
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these supplements
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if you go to the gym and lift weights
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you'll also be really really glad to
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know
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that being in ketosis is probably not
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going to affect your performance now
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if you do some really really high
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intensity activity
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something like sprints there is a chance
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that it might affect
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how you work out but if you're a regular
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gym goer
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i would say no problem at all doing a
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ketogenic diet
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on the other hand if you're a
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competitive athlete and
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really really high performance is what
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you're after it might be worth thinking
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twice
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before going on a ketogenic diet another
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thing worth remembering is that when
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people start a ketogenic diet they often
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go through a period of a few days or
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even a few weeks
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where they feel really really tired and
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lethargic now that usually clears up
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but you need to stick with it for a
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while so you may feel crappy at first
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but uh if you plow through it you'll be
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okay another really important point to
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cover
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is whether a keto diet is healthy or not
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this is a really really complicated
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issue
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so if we look at a lot of studies that
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look at the health effects of ketogenic
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diets and if we look at meta-analyses
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and that's a combination of the results
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of a lot of studies
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combined together what we see is that
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ketogenic diets can help people to
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reduce their blood glucose which is good
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it can help them to reduce their
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triglycerides also good
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and increase their hdl or good
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cholesterol
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now the problem is that a lot of
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ketogenic diets also seem to
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raise ldl or bad cholesterol
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and that's a problem because if you have
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high ldl cholesterol levels for a long
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time
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it can help contribute to heart disease
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that is not good the reason that
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ketogenic diets seem to raise
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cholesterol
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is because many keto diets seem to be
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high in foods like
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fatty meats processed meats butter
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cheese all of these are high in
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saturated fats and saturated fat
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causes high cholesterol levels but there
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is some good news
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it seems that people who follow a
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healthier form of a ketogenic diet
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so that's a ketogenic diet that's high
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in unsaturated fats
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like olive oil and it's also high in
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non-starchy
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salad vegetables can actually
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reduce their ldl cholesterol so remember
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while calories matter for weight loss
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food
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quality really really matters for health
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so
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should you try keto well it's up to you
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give it a try and see how it goes for
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you
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that's the only way you will find out if
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it works if it's something that you
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enjoy and it's something you feel you
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can stick with
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amazing there are a lot of people who
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can get a lot of weight loss success on
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a ketogenic diet
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but if you're somebody who absolutely
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loves carbs
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maybe a keto diet isn't for you and
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that's okay
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you don't need keto for weight loss you
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can absolutely
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lose weight following any amount of
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different types of diets
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as long as you're able to stay in a
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calorie deficit for longer
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remember the trick is to find a diet
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that you enjoy
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doing and something that you can stick
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with long term
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so did that answer your questions about
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ketosis if you have any questions at all
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put them down here in the comments
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remember to like the video
12:15
subscribe to the my protein youtube
12:16
channel and stay tuned
12:18
for even more great evidence-based
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nutrition information see you later guys
12:28
[Music]
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