Many people falsely label themselves as emotional eaters and believe they succumb to eating unhealthy foods due to lack of willpower, but this isn’t always the case.
With traditional carbohydrate based diets, every time we consume carbs, they get broken down into glycogen and flood our blood with sugar.
Our pancreas notices this increase in sugar and responds by releasing insulin to flush it out of the blood and into our cells.
When insulin is present, it not only forces glycogen into cells, but it also forces fat into fat cells making us store fat as opposed to burning it as a fuel. You can eat a meal with no fat at all, but the result of the blood spike will force your body to store fat that is floating around your body.
Once the sugar is flushed out of the blood and into the cells, we experience a dive in energy and a message is sent to the brain to refill again by consuming more carbs.
This is the science behind food cravings. You know the feeling, you have a bowl of pasta for lunch and then by around 3 or 4 you start feeling sleepy and a chocolate bar seems like a good idea.
Sometimes you resist the temptation, however, sometimes you submit to these cravings and eat the chocolate.
You see, cravings are a real in built physiological response, invoked by the foods we eat and it takes real will power and determination to fight cravings which are deeply ingrained into our genetics to ensure our survival.
We can lose weight by using sheer determination, but it’s a constant struggle and breeds negative thoughts, guilt associated with the foods we eat and it affects our body image.
Traditional diets set us up to fail and the carbohydrate content actually encourages us to over eat and eat too often.
When we try to follow a diet and fail to eat to the plan or overeat, we quite often feel guilty, throw in the towel and revert to our old habits. So don’t beat yourself up and label yourself as someone who has no willpower.
If you have been eating a “traditional” carbohydrate based diet, you have been constantly fighting real physiological urges and that is why 95% of people who follow a carb based diet fail and put the weight back on within two years.
However when we restrict carbohydrate intake to less than 40g per day, after seven to ten days, our body is forced to start using fat as a fuel source as opposed to carbohydrates or glycogen.
When our body becomes fat adapted and is using fat as its primary fuel source, it starts to create what’s called ketones.
Ketones along with the fat you consume and your own fat reserves, will supply your body with a very stable and consistent level of energy whilst reducing hunger and cravings.
Your body literally starts to burn its own fat reserves making this the fasted way to lose fat over any other style of eating.
If you have ever struggled to lose body fat, found it hard to fend off food cravings, or lack energy to get you through the day, low carb ketogenic eating programs such as the Ketofast program is an ideal way of eating to help you achieve your health goals and effortlessly maintain them.
The Ketofast program simplifies the process of getting into ketosis by providing you with the blueprint and the tools you will need to kick-start your body into ketosis and get your body burning fat as its primary fuel source.
Once we get your body into ketosis and constantly burning fat, you will have more energy you could have ever imagined. Food cravings will completely stop and losing body fat will seem almost effortless.
Low carb ketogenic eating also helps slow the aging process, reduces inflammation, speeds recovery and generally makes you feel great.
One of the most significant but underrated benefits of ketogenic eating and the reason I believe it is so successful with many, is the fact that it eliminates cravings and reduces hunger so we can stick to this way of eating long enough to get results.
Also, the speed of fat loss is encouraging and the consistent wins help boost confidence making it easy to make progress and hold results.
Over the past million year or so, human beings have evolved to survive and thrive on foods high in fat, moderate protein and occasional fibrous carbohydrates such as leafy greens. Things that we could hunt or forage for. However after World War two, there was a desperate need for cheap, easy to grow food to feed the world.
Carbohydrates such as wheat and corn grew in abundance, was cheap to produce and had many applications. Food manufacturers started to heavily promote carbohydrates as a great source of energy.
The result has been an increase in diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases by over 50% since 1950.
As the consumption of carbohydrate increased, so too did the rate of obesity. In the 1980’s we were told that the reason for this startling increase of obesity was due to the consumption of fat and lack of exercise.
We saw a huge surge in the production of low fat foods where fat was removed and carbs, mainly sugar was increased. The fitness craze started with Jane Fonda releasing fitness programs you could do at home and health clubs started popping up everywhere.
Now despite people exercising more than they ever had, and consuming far less fat, obesity levels have continued to soar, in fact tripling in some countries in just the past 30 years.
However, we are still told that to maintain good health, we should eat mainly carbohydrates, moderate protein and low fat. It’s not working and 700,000 Americans die every year from heart disease alone, which could be prevented.
The definition of insanity, is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. And this is exactly what we have doing for the past 40 years.
Until we stop eating refined carbohydrates and stop vilifying the word FAT, we will continue to get the same result. I encourage you, try this different way of eating and give fat a chance. See and feel the results for yourself.
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Matt Straight – Nutritionist, Personal Trainer & Creator of KetoFast
