As someone interested in the world of keto, you’ve likely heard (or read) about its incredible potential for weight loss, mental sharpness, and more! A well designed ketogenic diet is a virtually unmatched tool for managing your weight (and many chronic health conditions) as well as supporting your cognitive acuity and overall health aging regimen.

With the exploding popularity of a keto diet, you’ll undoubtedly find countless approaches and tips out there, focusing only on increasing fat consumption or avoiding carbohydrates at any cost. In my experience, these strategies miss the bigger picture of what keto should be - and what is possible with the keto diet.

The ketogenic diet is often regarded as a brutal regimen to follow; however, with practice, and an understanding of what the diet aims to achieve, it can be reduced to a manageable routine. The basic aim is to switch the body’s primary fuel source from carbohydrates (like bread and sugar) to fats. This is done by increasing the intake of fats and significantly reducing the intake of carbohydrates. The real difficulty is that the diet is so restrictive that all foods eaten must be weighed out to a tenth of a gram during meal preparation, and a participant may not eat anything which is not “prescribed” by the dietician. The level of carbohydrates allowed is shallow, so that even the small amount of sugar in most liquid or chewable medications will prevent the diet from working.

For example, a typical meal might include some meat with green vegetables cooked with a mayonnaise sauce or a lot of butter. Heavy cream may be included on the side for drinking. Another meal might consist of bacon and eggs with many butters or oil added and heavy cream to drink. A very high ratio of fats to carbohydrates must be maintained with a low total calorie intake for diet to be successful.