It is easy to make ketogenic diet mistakes that can derail your progress and cause you to give up. At the beginning, you must ignore daily calorie intake all together while you gradually adjust to a higher, low-calorie, high-fiber way of eating. Only then, should calorie intake is a careful, calculated calculation. Remember that the ketogenic diet tends to blunt hunger signals through its consistent suppression of the hormone ghrelin.
Consuming too few calories can often be confused with being underweight, especially among women. The common misconception is that cutting calories is a cure-all for weight loss, when it is simply not true. As a matter of fact, a healthy, reasonable weight loss plan must include sensible food choices and a comprehensive exercise program. That is why ketogenic diet mistakes like starving or drinking water with no food is so dangerous.
Consuming too few calories is one of the most commonly made ketogenic diet mistakes. Unfortunately, some people find it easier to skip meals than they would prefer. They will choose a calorie-reduction regime that is “friendly” on the surface, but deprive themselves of necessary nutrients because they do not feel hungry. This strategy can lead to unpleasant health consequences, including organ damage, loss of muscle tissue, dehydration, and possibly kidney failure. In most cases, these are cases of mistaken weight loss, not starvation.
Poor Sleep is another of the three ketogenic diet mistakes that can cause trouble. Again, the goal of a healthy diet is to maintain healthy levels of glucose in the blood stream. Those who skip their sleep could experience hypoglycemia, which affects the ability of the brain to sense glucose and generates hunger sensations. As a result, a person who is not getting enough sleep can easily develop poor eating habits, which lead to even more problems.
A third common error in ketogenic diet mistakes is consuming foods that are difficult to digest. These include fatty and sugary foods, refined sugars, and carbohydrates that have had excessive amounts of processing. These types of carbohydrates have an extremely low glycemic index (the rate at which they raise blood sugar). Therefore, it is impossible to tell if a food is too high in simple sugars or poorly digested fat when choosing what foods to eat on a ketogenic diet.
The fourth of the top ketogenic diet mistakes is eating foods that contain hydrogenated oils. Although many people claim to be reducing their consumption of trans fats, the truth is that they are simply replacing saturated fats with hydrogenated oils. These types of fats are considered “bad fats”, and your body does not metabolize them properly. Therefore, they cause a surge in your insulin levels, which leads to unwanted weight gain.
The fifth most common ketogenic diet mistakes is overeating. Our bodies need a certain amount of food to perform at a basic level, and we do not want to under-eat. However, if you are trying to lose weight, you have to make sure that you are consuming enough calories to fuel your daily activities. While the amount of calories that you take in may vary from day to day, your goal should be to keep your total caloric intake consistent. When you consume more calories than you burn during the day, your weight increases.
Finally, you must ensure that you are drinking enough water. This is the key to keeping your body hydrated, and it is one of the most common, ketogenic diet mistakes that people make. If you do not take in the proper amount of fluids, you will find that your energy levels are lowered, and you will likely not be able to continue eating enough fat.