Is Keto Diet Making you Gain Weight ?

The keto diet has been the latest trend of this new generation. People who want to reduce weight and maintain their body health generally get attracted to a fully fledged keto diet meal plan. The keto diet focuses on high fat and low carbohydrate meals. It has been seen to accelerate the weight loss procedure because it restricts the carbohydrate intake.

Human metabolism tends to break the carbohydrates into glucose which is used for energy purposes. If there isn’t enough carbohydrate in the body, the body tends to go into a stage of ketosis. In ketosis, the body starts burning the fat for energy instead of glucose. The fat burning procedure makes it popular to lose weight.

However, in many cases it has also been observed that people did not reduce their weight and instead noticed weight gain. The major problem could be that you have not reached the stage of ketosis.

The ketogenic diet plan requires a lot of precision and if you haven’t been diligently following your meal plan, it can unintentionally increase your weight. There are also many tips and tricks, do’s and don’ts which people follow to look after their health.

It has been noticed that a person typically loses 50 grams per day with keto diet. But if you are not then it is alright, you can always rectify your mistakes. You must look forward to where you have been going wrong and rectify it as soon as possible.

In this article, I will be talking about the mistakes which people commit or the unavoidable reasons during ketogenic diet plan.

Weight gain is in your genes

It can be a shocking phenomenon but it is true. It has been studied that people who are obese might pass on the obesity to their later generations as well. Every body type is different and has a unique way of metabolism. Your genetics might not be supporting the way your body behaves to the keto diet plan.

There is one more factor; you should never start a keto diet before researching and talking to the concerned person. A nutritionist or dietician can help you determine the right body type and which diet might suit you the best.

Many times, nutritionists also recommend you to get your APO-E gene tested. The APO-E gene can help you to study about how your body metabolizes fat. There could be other possible genetic problems which can explain the unwanted weight gain during ketogenic diet. For people like these changes in eating plans and shifting to a low carb diet do not help much.

Just diet and no exercise

Exercise is a very important building block if you want to remain healthy. If you are relying on just keto diet, it won’t gain you much result. Exercises induce the body’s metabolism to burn calories. Even if you are not into a ketogenic diet, exercise will still help you to stay healthy.

Exercise is a super activity which can help you to fight with diseases as well as your mental health. So, it becomes quite important to incorporate physical exercise when you are trying to reduce weight with a ketogenic diet.

The keto diet plan focuses on high fat and low carbohydrate meals. If you are intaking fat and not giving your body proper scheduled exercise then it can naturally start accumulating in your body.

Daily exercising burns the calories which not only reduces your weight but also helps in building the muscles. It boosts your energy and also increases the amount of calories you burn.

Exercising also shifts your unhealthy body weight to the healthy weight.

Just sitting back and having a keto diet plan won’t help you to reduce weight, it is necessary to work on your calories and physical activities. Diets and physical exercises go hand in hand.

Not cutting on your carbohydrates

Carbohydrate is a very tricky source of energy. There are several types of food which have hidden carbohydrate sources. Even when you cook a certain dish, you ignore to count on certain ingredients which might have hidden carbohydrates.

Consumption of too much carbohydrate will breakdown in your body which forms glucose and in return increases your weight. It takes your body out of ketosis or doesn’t let you get into it.

Reaching the state of ketosis requires you to burn the fat instead of glucose for energy sources. For that, it is important to reduce the carbohydrate consumption in your body, drastically.

High carbohydrate diets not only affect your weight but also harms your health. Keto diet runs on a low carb diet and high fat content.

As the ketogenic diet plan suggests, the carbohydrate level must be just 5% of your total calories. Some nutritionists also suggest you to gradually reduce the consumption of carbohydrates. It lets your body have a habit of keto diet plan gradually.

Cheat days also must be healthy

No keto diet works like magic on your body. One must take care of all the measures and that is the route to good health. Avoiding cheat days as much as possible is the key. Having too many carbohydrates only for a day can make your body go out of ketosis which threatens weight loss and many other factors.

We are human and it is our tendency to party and have a cheat day but we can surely substitute the unhealthy choices with healthy ones. Homemade food can provide you with alternatives. You can choose healthy ingredients and have a little increase in carbohydrates.

To have proper weight control management, keep a note that keto diet will be a long term procedure. Dont expect short term results.

Outside food has a lot of unknown carbohydrates and unhealthy ingredients. The calories mentioned in their menu might not be correct as well. So it is better and advised that if you are following a ketogenic diet plan to prepare your home food. You can also try certain restaurants which might offer you ketogenic food.

Snacking too much

Snacks seem a good way to prevent hunger anytime but like a coin has two sides, eating too many snacks is also connected to many disadvantages. Eating plans must not include too many snacks might prevent your hunger for a long time but also disrupts your healthy diet.

It is also not pocket friendly for many. When we talk about the disadvantage of snacking it is usually concerned with having snacks more than once in the day.

It is wise to choose only low calorie options for snacking too much. High calorie ketogenic snacks include nuts, nuts-butter, and cheese and so on. They may cause your weight loss journey to have no effect at all.

Snacks also have a taste that makes you crave more of them. The more you crave the more you consume and the more harm it causes. Further snacking too much can cause health disadvantages like no effect on weight control, tooth decay, disturbed sugar levels etc.

It is better to have healthier options as snacks. If you are on a keto diet, there is a fixed diet plan which should not include any snacks.

Drinking too much of alcohol

Alcohols are rich in calories and you can actually increase its intake without having nutrients. But the point to remember is that not all alcohols are keto friendly, that is not all of them are allowed in your keto diet.

When you are on a keto diet you must know that sugar alcohols like Maltitol can cause harmful effects to your weight loss procedure. It has a low glycemic index but it does affect blood sugar levels.

Too much sugary drink may also lead to type 2 diabetes and will have various side effects.

Wine and beer are rich in carbohydrates and are thus avoided in most of the keto diets. However hard alcohols like gin and vodka are acceptable in keto diet as they contain lower levels of carbohydrates but are calorie dense.

That doesn’t mean that you can drink anytime and every time you want. There must be a limit to it. Drinking should not be a frequent habit as well.

Excessive protein diet

Our body goes through a process called gluconeogenesis which makes sure that our body doesn’t get into ketosis if there is intake of an excess amount of protein. Gluconeogenesis is a metabolic process which is known to transform the excess residue protein into glycogen. This makes our body dependent on glucose for energy sources and leads to weight gain.

It has been a common misconception that a high protein diet is a keto diet. Moderate amount of protein helps in weight reduction and energy source. Excess protein gets broken down to amino acids and converts into a sugar which increases weight.

In keto diet it is advised to take 20% of calories from the protein diet. You must stick to a diet plan and keep calculating the amount of protein you eat.

Excessive fat in diet

Fats contain the most calories than any other macronutrients. Too much of any kind of food can cause weight gain.

Keto diet plan consists of low carbohydrate and high fat foods. Fat gets converted into ketone bodies which let the body go into ketosis. But if there is residue in fat, then it gets accumulated in the body.

This accumulation may increase the weight.

Not enough nutrients

Not eating enough is a bad practice for ones on keto diet as well as for those not on keto diets. The body needs nutrition and fresh food in any circumstances. It does not matter if you are following a particular diet or not.

You must always be precautious to buy which does not have excessive calories and carbohydrates. For this purpose even snack bars and keto desserts are not fruitful as they increase the calorie intake.

This directly halts the weight loss procedure. Packaged food must be avoided if you want to reduce weight. It is necessary to include the right vegetables and the right amount.

Including non starchy vegetables like broccoli, mushrooms, pepper helps in keeping your nutrient level on point and does not increase your weight.

Have not achieved ketosis

It is difficult to really ketosis and is not a simple task as it looks and feels. To really achieve ketosis one must cut down on carbohydrates at a great cost.

You will feel like you are doing enough by following your keto diet but that’s not true. Adding proper nutrition along with cutting down on the harmful ones is equally necessary.

At times, we might be thinking that we are doing enough from our end but to reduce weight there must be proper nutrition values of anything we eat.

Carbohydrate calculators can help you achieve this. Home kits are available that can help you easily calculate your ketones in urine. Positive result shows the body is in ketosis.

Bottom Line 

These are certain factors which affect the way you enter into a ketosis. It is important to keep in mind that good health needs moderation. When every detail is in precise amounts, it helps you to reach a stage where you can reduce weight.

More than reducing your weight, it is important to have better health. Keto diet focuses on managing your extra macronutrients in a better direction.

But if your only motive is to reduce weight then you must keep these mistakes in mind to achieve your goal.

Happy Keto-Dieting!