Importance of Endogenous Ketogenic for Weight Loss
Ketogenic was originally used to treat diabetes and epilepsy. It has become very popular in recent years and is used by many people to lose weight. The purpose of losing weight is to burn off excess body fat. What is needed is to achieve endogenous ketogenic rather than exogenous ketogenic.
Exogenous Ketogenic vs Endogenous Ketogenic
Exogenous sources are mainly to obtain a large amount of fat from the outside of the body, such as ketosis at the beginning, intake of a large amount of fat (coconut oil, MCT oil, etc.), or taking exogenous supplements to increase the ketone body in the body to help the body enter the body as soon as possible Ketogenic state.
The reason for entering a ketogenic state is that excess sugar can lead to insulin resistance, and promote the growth of certain chronic diseases and even cancer cells. After entering the state of ketosis, ketone bodies are beneficial to lower blood sugar, burn fat, and can also supply energy to the brain, making us more focused, and more energetic, and reducing the risk of more diseases.
Glucose may not be high during exogenous ketogenic, but ketone levels in the blood are high. However, if you deliberately pursue a large amount of fat and high blood ketones, it is easy to consume too many calories, and the level of triglycerides in the body may increase. Exogenous ketogenic can help us get into ketones quickly, but if we consume more fat than our body consumes, we may also gain weight.
What is Endogenous Ketogenic?
Endogenous ketogenic is the use of body fat to produce ketone bodies. When we are not consuming food, glucose stored in the blood, liver, and muscles (glycogen) is used up by the body to healthy levels, blood sugar drops, and hypoglycemia occurs.
Once the glucose is used up, the body uses stored body fat as fuel, and your liver converts body fat into ketones, which are used by the brain, heart, and other vital organs. This process is called “endogenous ketogenic” (ketone bodies originate in the body).
Why Go Into the Endogenous Ketogenic State?
In a lower energy state, the body burns excess body fat. The blood is no longer congested, and the kidneys will purify your blood and remove waste products stored in fat, and toxins in the body will flow out of fat storage. There is also increased autophagy in the body, which starts eating old and pre-cancerous cells, your insulin levels also drop, and your fat stores become very insulin sensitive. You may feel younger, lighter, and clearer thinking! And effectively slow down the aging process!
Therefore, if you want to lose weight on a ketogenic diet, it is very important to enter the endogenous ketogenic state. Keto should not be a high-calorie diet, not just eating more fat if you want to lose weight, it should be a low-calorie diet.
Professor Roy Taylor of Newcastle University in the United Kingdom found in a study that reducing fat on vital organs such as the pancreas could reverse diabetes, and coined the term “personal fat threshold”. If this threshold is reached, fat tissue doesn’t readily absorb excess energy from the food we eat, it sends them elsewhere in our body.
Once you exceed your fat threshold, you become “insulin resistant” (you need more and more insulin to store energy in your fat cells). Excess energy spills over into your bloodstream in the form of high glucose, high free fatty acids, and high ketone bodies. (a lot of fat, the cause of high ketone bodies)
At the same time, it also reaches other more sensitive places in the body, such as the liver, pancreas, heart, eyes, kidneys, brain, and heart. In this case, traffic jams are prone to occur, energy and nutrients cannot reach the places where they are needed in the body, and your kidneys need to work overtime to remove unnecessary nutrients from the body. (High-calorie ketosis may damage the kidneys) The body will have no chance to cleanse, autophagy, and detoxify, and fat will also store, accumulate, and accumulate toxins. Then, the pancreas also works overtime, pumping out more and more insulin and adding body fat.
Therefore, if you want to lose weight successfully through a ketogenic diet, it is not about eating a lot of fat and producing ketone bodies. It is also necessary to limit fat intake and increase the nutrient/energy ratio in the diet to enter endogenous ketogenic and achieve real fat burning. It is recommended to add intermittent fasting, time-limited eating time, eat the healthiest ingredients, and eat a clean diet with less processed food based on ketosis.
What is the Optimal Blood Ketone Level?
However, many studies have found that it is difficult for most people to achieve and maintain the “optimal ketone body level” (ie 1.5-3.0mmol/L). Because, the purpose of many people starting the ketogenic diet is to lose weight, control diabetes, reduce insulin levels, and maintain insulin sensitivity and health in the long run. If you limit the amount of fat, blood ketones will not be as high. Some studies have found that adding too much fat will increase insulin levels and even go against lowering blood sugar.
However, as more and more people try the ketogenic diet to lose weight, many people’s blood ketone levels continue to drop after a few weeks or months as they enter endogenous ketogenic. People in endogenous ketogenic (where body fat is being burned) have low energy in the blood, and the body compensates by using excess stored fat and old protein in the liver, pancreas, brain, and other organs (aka autophagy). The result, of course, is that you burn body fat and lose weight successfully, but the ketone body is not high.
Fat and protein can increase satiety, and ketone bodies can reduce hunger, allowing you to eat less and lose weight naturally. A low-carb diet is an easier and more effective way to lose weight.
However, there is also a risk. Many people’s misunderstanding of ketosis makes them eat a lot of fat, and it is easy to eat too much and eat too many calories. This risk is very high. A high-calorie diet will cause the body to secrete extra insulin, raise blood sugar, and store excess energy as fat in the body.
In the short term, low-carb, high-fat foods slow down the insulin response, but in the long run, they can still trigger a long-term insulin response if the calories are excessive. If you don’t eat processed foods, focus on clean, high-satiety, high-density foods (fat and protein), which generally make you eat less involuntarily.
Therefore, friends who are on a ketogenic diet should not be too entangled with the level of ketone bodies but should focus on lowering blood sugar, eating high-nutrient-dense foods, and intermittent fasting.