

That delicate balancing act of the three macronutrients-fat, protein, and carbs-can make the keto diet tough to maintain. Ketogenic diet plans urge followers to consume 60 to 80 percent of their daily calories from fat.Īnd that leaves about 20 percent of your daily calories coming from protein and just 10 percent from carbohydrates. You can credit the strictness of the keto diet to fat (the nutrient, not the kind found in a beer belly).


That's because the ketogenic diet is restrictive-even by most diet standards. Yet there's a certain sense of at what cost? that pervades through the diet. By doing this, proponents of the diet argue that you'll lose weight, lean down, and maybe even reveal at least a two-pack.

The ketogenic diet itself is complex, but the goal is relatively straightforward: to push your body into a state called ketosis, where it's burning fat, instead of carbohydrates, for fuel. It concludes that if you’re an athlete going keto, you should time it right and avoid starting the diet 4–6 weeks before an event.At this point in your life as human being on planet Earth, you've probably heard a lot of people raving about the high-fat, low-carb ketogenic diet. However, the study also found the athletes said their energy dropped for the first 7–10 days, and then their performance suffered for 4–6 weeks. One study in the journal Metabolism concluded that after 12 weeks of keto adaptation, endurance athletes lost more weight and body fat compared to a high-carb group without impacting their performance. “Some research has had mixed results when it comes to endurance and strength on the keto diet, so it’s hard to know for sure if your workout will be impaired or improved on keto,” says Abbey Sharp, a registered dietitian and author of “ The Mindful Glow Cookbook.” “My experience tells me most people thrive exercising with some quality energy from carbs, so, until your body is a pro at running on fats, it will likely be a tricky transition,” she says. Remember how we said your body loves to run on carbs? Keto may have a negative effect on your gym sessions if your muscles don’t get the fuel they need.
