How Does The Keto Diet Work? Reversing Insulin Resistance To Weight Loss

how does the keto diet work as the keto diet is getting more popular it's having

more people have great results it's popping up in media in various places

but the most common reaction is people looking confused they shrug their

shoulders and they say this seems really weird it seems to help people but we

better hold off so today we're going to talk about how it actually works so that

you understand why and you can do it the right way coming right up am dr. Ekberg

I'm a holistic doctor and a former Olympian in Decathlon and if you'd like

to truly master health by understanding how the body really works make sure that

you subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you don't miss anything so

in a nutshell the keto diet or the ketogenic diet is when you get your body

into ketosis how do you do that you reduce carbohydrates so that your body

starts burning fat and a byproduct of burning fat are ketones which is a great

supplemental fuel for your brain so when carbs are scarce your brain can run up

to 75% ketones and that's how the body has adapted to survive in times of

starvation and when the body gets better at burning fat then obviously you burn

some fat off the body and you lose weight that's why it works but let's

talk about some of the more intricate mechanisms that people are confused

about so the body has three sources of fuel three primary sources it can also

burn alcohol and glycerol and ketones but the primary fuel are carbohydrates

fat and protein carbohydrates they are sort of quick they absorb quickly they

burn quickly and they go away quickly we have a very limited ability to store

carbohydrate fat is our long-term fuel it is like you put log on the fire and

it earns and keeps you warm for a very very

long time and protein is for muscles muscles perform work they're necessary

for our survival in terms of moving around and producing work so we don't

want to touch the protein unless we have to we don't want to burn the protein in

the muscles but if we have excess protein in the diet we can also use that

for energy so the body can store fuel in different forms it can store a tiny

little bit of carbohydrates as glycogen about a day's worth it can store almost

unlimited amounts of fat and it can store protein in the form of muscles but

like we said you don't want to touch that unless all other options are

exhausted fat is the body's preferred and most efficient storage form of fuels

so excess carbohydrates are going to trigger a strong insulin response and

insulin is going to take the carbohydrates out of the bloodstream and

into the cell and whatever we can't use in this moment which isn't very much is

going to be stored as fat fat is also going to be stored as fat and protein if

excess is also going to be stored as fat so everything that is truly excess get

stored as fat but the tendency to store these depends on how much insulin they

trigger the more insulin we have the more the tendency is to put the fuel

into the cell and since carbohydrates trigger the most insulin then they have

the highest tendency to store fat to store excess fuel and fat has the lowest

tendency to store fat so what that means is when we eat fat we use it and we get

full for a long time and we don't tend to store very much because there's still

some body fat that we can use for fuel protein has a low to medium tendency to

be stored the excess can be store if we eat a lot of it then we say

it's a medium tendency to store it because protein in excess also triggers

insulin low to moderate amounts of protein does not trigger any insulin so

that's the basics that we need to understand about how the body uses fuel

for energy how it stores it and how insulin plays into that now this system

is setup for survival and humans have been around for a long long long long

time and other animals on the planet have been around even longer and for all

of that existence there have been periods of feast and famine we've had

periods where there was more food and we've had periods where there was less

food and the body is set up to store the excess so that when we have a famine

when we have less food we can use the excess we can retrieve the stored foods

and survive when there is none available we have this cycle this ever ongoing

cycle of regular variation where we store we use we store we use feast

famine feast famine and as far as I know there is no animal on the planet that

has ever had an exception to that that they've had periods where they could eat

a little more and they've had periods where they had to burn some of the fuel

off the body where they get a little skinnier and this has never ever changed

to my knowledge until modern times primarily after the Industrial

Revolution after 1850 but especially after World War two went pretty much

every country today don't have much famine so we have a totally new

situation we've had something now today that we've never had before and the body

is perfectly set up for surviving feast and famine it knows how to deal with not

having a whole lot of food and then have periods with more food it knows how to

deal with that change but it has no idea how to deal with a constant feast it's

never encountered that it doesn't know how and then what makes it worse is that

we've changed the type of food not only is food fairly abundant but it has gone

from whole food from a hunter-gatherer scavenger feed off the earth to

agricultural and processed foods where we've gone from low-carb two high-carb

from somewhere maybe around 10 to 20 percent carbs all the way up to 50 60 70

percent carbs and the majority of those carbs are processed they refined they

have even stronger influences on insulin and they have less nutrition so we've

changed the rules and because of this and because we never have a famine

because we eat more carbohydrates because we need more processed foods the

amount of insulin responses are astronomical compared to what we've had

in the past and not only are they high but they never let down because it's

always a feast so what happens now is when insulin is always abundant we get

insulin resistance and how common is that well the official numbers are that

somewhere around a third of the population or so is insulin resistant

but those are only the documented cases them pretty advanced cases if you look

at if you understand insulin and you understand that being overweight is

almost 100% synonymous with having insulin resistance then you understand

that according to the CDC 87 percent of the population is overweight

that means 87 percent of us at least have some degree of insulin resistance

that's how prevalent this is so then we take that and now we add sugar and gray

and we add the fact that we're eating first three and then we've increased

that to four five six meals a day because we're encouraged to eat small

meals and frequent snacks to top off the blood sugar so now what also happens is

we become carbohydrate dependent we keep putting in that fuel so often for so

long that it becomes the body has to get rid of that because high blood sugar is

dangerous and because we're putting in so often the body has to get rid of it

the body becomes dependent and it doesn't know really how to use any other

fuel in a in a proper way so now when we top off our carbohydrates every two

hours we are told to give our kids cereal for breakfast and a mid-morning

snack and a high carb lunch in the mid-afternoon snack and an after-school

snack and then a dinner and then an evening snack now this is what happens

to the blood sugar we get a blood sugar roller coaster we are topping it off

every couple of hours and with all of that carbohydrate and that frequent

feeding then there is no incentive for the body to burn fat why would it we

have to always ask ourselves why is the body doing this as the body stupid or is

it intelligent is that doing what it needs to absolutely so it has no

incentive to burn fat because there's all these carbohydrates all these

starches all these grains all the sugar all the cookies and waffles and crackers

coming in every couple of hours and that of course fuels the incident insulin

resistance so we become more and more insulin resistant and what happens then

with insulin resistance is that the trend the tendency for the body is to be

in a storage mode because there's always carbs coming in we got to get rid of the

carbs we got to put those carbs out of the bloodstream because they're

dangerous in the bloodstream and into the cell the cell gets enough the cell

doesn't want it increases become more and more

insulin resistance but what this means is that everything we put into the cell

because it's a one-way trip we can't retrieve it so not only are we carb

dependent but we don't even know how to access the fat if we wanted to because

it's like a revolving door that only goes one way so that's the problem this

is what we have done that's how we have changed the rules Nature has set up

rules and we change them three ways we change them first there was used to be

famine now there's no famine we used to eat pretty low carbohydrate now

carbohydrate is the dominant fuel source for us and we used to have a mix of

fuels to use and now we are carbohydrate dependent we don't know how to properly

use those other fuels so we've changed the rules and kido

is the reason keto is so popular and so effective is that it is the solution for

an insulin resistant world when almost everyone is insulin resistant then we

have to have a tool to undo that insulin resistance and the more insulin

resistance you are the stronger and more powerful the tool has to be for some

people it's enough just to reduce the carbohydrates but for a lot of people

that's not enough they have to reduce the carbohydrates dramatically they have

to get the carbs way way way low before the body realizes it has no other source

of fuel it has to start burning fat and it will eventually if forced strongly

enough so keto is the solution for insulin resistant world when we reduce

carbohydrates eventually the body will find other sources of fuel and what are

those sources will fat obviously when 87 percent of us are overweight that means

we have hundreds of thousands of calories per person stored on our bodies

in the four fat but we can't get to them with excess

insulin and with a constant flow of carbohydrates so when we reduce the

insulin now we get access to those stores we teach the body to become

fat-burning and as a result we also produce ketones whenever we burn fat we

produce ketones the more fat we burn the more fat adapted we become the more

dominant fat becomes as a fuel source the higher our ketones go and we can

verify those ketones so for a lot of people it's you don't have to get very

fancy if your hunger goes down and you lose weight and you can go longer

between meals without being hungry then you don't probably have to measure

ketones but if you think you're doing the right things and you're struggling a

little bit or maybe plateauing then you need to

measure ketones to verify that what you think is going on is actually going on

so doing keto getting in ketosis means that typically you're gonna eat some

around 75 percent of your calories from fat 20% or so from protein and about 5%

from carbohydrates that means you need to cut out sugar and grain and all

starchy food because if you eat any of those then you will send that number

higher than 5% it needs to be as low as 5% in order for the body to be forced to

start looking for that other fuel that it's forgotten how to use 20% protein is

meat fish chicken nuts etc 75% fat comes from avocado nuts and fats and oils so

it's not about eating more fat it's about eating less carbs and then you

just want to increase your fats so that you get full you don't try to eat more

fat if you're full you need to get satisfied otherwise you're confusing

your body and putting it in a state of deprivation

which is not sustainable so there are 10 steps and we'll go through those so you

understand these really really crystal clear so step one is to change your fuel

supply that means reduce your carbohydrates and you want to do that

gradually so your body has a chance to get adapted a lot of people try to go

cold turkey from 60% high processed grains and sugar straight down to 5% and

their bodies can have a shock and they feel terrible for some people they

prefer to do it that way they'd rather suffer a few days and be done with it

others you can do it slower and not have to go through that suffering number 2 as

you do that your body becomes fat adapted it learns how to use fat again

as another source of fuel as you start using more fat than whether it's from

the body or in the diet you lessen your carb dependence that means you get less

cravings and now because you eat less carbs you trigger less insulin you're

allowing the body a chance to reduce the insulin resistance number 5 as insulin

resistance goes down now you hit access to the body fat and this is the key this

is the magic that you get fat adapted you lose insulin resistance and when you

have access to your body fat now your body has an virtually unlimited fuel

supply the reason that you've been eating so much is that your body doesn't

know where the energy is you confused it with all that sugar and insulin and it

stashed away all the fat for future use but it couldn't get to it now that

you're starting to reduce insulin resistance all of that energy becomes

available and you have an unlimited source of fuel which means that you

don't get as hungry why would you have to eat if you have unlimited fuel on

your body the body doesn't care if you get the fuel from what you eat or from

the body and that's the beauty of getting fat adapted that's what most

people miss when they're shrugging their shoulders and they're saying well we

don't understand how this works and maybe it's about calories yes it's about

calories but you have all those calories on your body you just don't know how to

retrieve them until you become fat adapted as you have less hunger you will

eat fewer calories and this is obviously key but you can't start there this is

where all yo-yo diet programs fail because they try to reduce calories

without becoming fat adapted and without reducing insulin resistance if you

reduce calories without addressing those now you get hungry you feel deprived and

you lower your metabolic rate you feel terrible and you can't sustain it but

when you have access to body fat now you eat less because it feels like the

natural thing to do obviously now weight loss follows if not immediately it will

eventually when happens now also as you start reversing syndrome X you start

reversing metabolic syndrome so the high blood pressure and the high cholesterol

and the cardiovascular disease and a lot of the cholesterol values PCOS and man

boobs and a lot of these different things are starting to reverse without

you really trying because you're addressing the root cause which is

insulin and processed excessive carbs and number 10 is the key there is no

deprivation this is why this works and this is why it's sustainable unlike any

other deprivation diet you cannot deprive yourself for the rest of your

life you cannot deprive yourself for a period of time and expect

not to go back after doing it for a period of time the keto diet addresses

the root cause so it's sustainable because you find a

natural pattern of eating at this point most people find that three meals a day

is too much because you have all the food on your body you can take a meal

off your body you don't have to eat all three meals and as you do this you can

start finding imbalance and you start finding that one to two meals is plenty

for most people once you've lost all the weight then you can start eating twice a

day it doesn't really matter but this allows you to find the balance that's

right for you quickly getting back to these numbers the 75% fat 20% protein 5%

carb this is not something that you have to sustain you have to sustain the low

carb in order to reduce insulin resistance but as you start burning more

fat off your body you don't have to eat so much fat because you already have the

fat on your body on a 2,000 calorie diet 75% is 1,500 calories that's about 165

grams of fat you probably want to try to eat that in the beginning while your

body gets fat adapted but once it is fat adapted and your hunger reduces then you

keep the carbs low but you just eat as much fat as you need to get full so can

you do the keto diets for the rest of your life I think you can I think it

would be safe do most people have - I don't think so I think for a lot of

people with a strong genetic predisposition toward insulin resistance

and a very strong predisposition to gaining weight then keto might be the

best lifestyle keto and intermittent fasting might be the best lifestyle for

them to sustain but a lot of people who aren't so far over on the insulin

resistance spectrum they might find a balance that is outside of ketosis they

might get into ketosis once in a while or a lot of the time but

I don't think they need to be there all the time they can develop a balance

somewhere in the low carb area maybe 50 70 80 grams of carbohydrate today

personally I don't need to be in ketosis but I am in ketosis most of the time

because that's just the way I eat but also I don't worry about it if I feel

like I want to have some potato but that's based on my personal genetics

that's my personal body type it starts with learning and

understanding the mechanisms and then you try out what works for you and you

find the balance that provides the best function and the best health in your

case if you enjoyed this video I'm pretty sure you're gonna love this one

thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video