Ketogenic diet is essentially a high fat, high protein, and low carb diet. It replaces carbohydrates with healthy fats that can function as an energy source. Keto diet is one of the most successful diets in the world at the moment because it is simple yet effective. Although you are regulated to primarily eating fats and protein, keto diet has a lot of food choices to choose from, so you definitely won’t grow bored.
What you need to know about keto and fats
Keto is not a difficult diet plan, but it does have some things you can and can’t do. To properly handle keto, it is important that you understand what makes good fats and bad fats. Keto requires you to only eat good, healthy fats, and ignore bad fats.
Good Fats
- Saturated Fats – red meat, ghee, butter, lard, coconut oil, cream, eggs, or palm oil.
- Monounsaturated Fats – extra virgin olive oil, avocado, avocado oil, macadamia nut oil
- Natural Trans Fats – meat from grass fed animals and dairy products
- Natural Polyunsaturated Fats – fish, fish oil, chia seeds, flaxseed
Bad Fats
- Processed Polyunsaturated Fats – Avoid vegetable and seed oils, like, canola, soybean sesame, corn, grapeseed, sunflower, and peanut oil
- Processed Trans Fats – Avoid processed foods, fast foods, commercially baked goods, and margarine.
As you can see, it is not too difficult to eat healthy fats while avoiding unhealthy fats. As a general rule of thumb, just make sure to avoid processed foods and try to eat only whole natural foods. Also make sure to avoid cooking with vegetable oils because they contain processed polyunsaturated fats. Your body will benefit from eating all these healthy fats, just remember that fats can be good when consumed properly.