Starting your nutrition journey
Most diets have some signature naming. Low-fat diets, high-fat diets, meat only diets, vegeterian diets and so forth. However most of these definitions are from my perspective misleading since they make no reference to the nutrition we need nor the end-goal we want to reach.
And what is the end-goal? Health! And from a health perspective, we want to have all main health processes (digestion,absorption, utilization, elimination) working effectively. Hence, the definition I am proposing of any diet we will follow on ketontrack.com is
A healthy diet definition
A healthy diet will allow you to be metabolic flexible, get all the nutrients you need in an effortless way and bring the least burden possible on your body.
The above definition does not make any reference about any certain type of eating. So which diet should we use to start our a transformation journey. One that is supporting digestion and makes intermittent fasting easier.
- In order to become metabolically flexible you want to be able to use all fuel sources effectively. In this context, this means being able to use your own fat as fuel by breaking them down into ketones.
- To get all the essential nutrients you need (60 minerals, 16 Vitamins, 12 Amino Acids, 2 Fatty Acids) in a way you can absorb them effortlessly.
- Put the least burden on the body and start addressing areas such as enzymes utilization, insulin regulation, mitochondria energy production. Of-course these are all quite complicated topics and we will address them one-by-one in separate posts.
Which diet to start with
In my opinion the best fitting diet as a starting point is doing a ketogenic diet, which is adhering to the definition above is by
- Removing all sugar (Cakes, sweets etc.)
- Only black Coffee/Tea
- Removing grains such as pasta, rice, bread, cereal
- Increasing your salad intake to be the main portion of your meal.
- Eating only healthy fats (avocados, nuts, olive oil, olives, cocunut etc) and in moderation
- Eating fatty quality meat or fish in moderation ( not every day) and not over-cooked
- Reducing fruits (example half an Apple in salad or berries in your yoghurt)
- Legumes are allowed in moderation
This will get you started but follow this plan after you have started with intermittent fasting for a couple of weeks and you have been logging as already suggested all your meals. In this way you will become aware of the changes in your nutritional calories and will help you effortlessly enter the next steps of your health journey.
At his point, keto is a support mechanism for doing intermittent fasting, since fat intake increases satiety and will help you go from one meal till the next without effort. You will improve your digestion tremendously but is not the end of the journey.
Key Takeaways
- Keto as any diet needs to help you be metabolic flexible, get all the nutrients you need in an effortless way and bring the least burden possible on your body.
- Keto is about getting into ketosis not about eating high amounts of fat.
- If you just started doing intermmitent fasting as suggested getting some amount of sugar from fruits maybe help you with your sweet tooth.
- Put a tablespoon of raw honey in your salad dressing.
- Subscribe and get your free 2-week detailed plan and consultation sessions.
This is so true! Most diet plans neglect the ultimate goal, which is to be healthy. They are also overly prescriptive and hard to follow; the general guidelines that you have provided in this post are pretty straightforward and flexible enough to be practical.
I absolutely agree with Ioanna. I think that most of the times I was on a diet, I knew that my nutrition levels where very low and I felt like I was in a self punishing process! Not caring enough for my body because it was overweight!
But the truth is that you don’t have to punish yourself to get rid of the kilos. This comes alone when your body is healthy!
Thank you for the terrific post