The Ketogenic Diet: A Detailed Guide for Beginners on the Ketogenic Diet

What is the ketogenic diet and what is it?

The ketogenic diet or keto diet is a diet very low in carbohydrates and high in fats, which helps you to turn your body into a fat burning machine. (Reference)
It is a type of low carbohydrate diet, where you only consume 2% to 5% of carbohydrates of all the calories of the day, it is high in fats and is very similar to the Atkins diet.

What is the ketogenic diet?

It consists of drastically reducing the amount of carbohydrates in your diet and replacing them with fat. This takes your body to a metabolic state called ketosis.

This diet by changing your metabolism turns your body into a fat burning machine. This diet causes your liver to convert fat into ketones, these are an excellent source of energy for your brain. (Reference)

The ketogenic diet lowers the levels of sugar and insulin in the blood, this has enormous benefits for your health, as it is the prevention of diabetes and other metabolic diseases. (Reference) (Reference)

The ketogenic diet or keto diet could help treat refractory epilepsy in children, decrease the risk of Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, metabolic diseases, some types of cancer such as astrocytoma. (Reference) (Reference) (Reference) (Reference) (Reference)

Now let's see what are the allowed and forbidden foods in the ketogenic diet.

What are the foods that contain carbohydrates and should you avoid in the ketogenic diet?

These are the foods that contain carbohydrates and are prohibited in the ketogenic diet:

Foods with sugar: Soda, fruit juice, milkshakes, cakes, snow, etc.

Grains or Starches: Products based on wheat, rice, pasta, cereals, etc.

Fruit: All fruits, except berries or berries such as strawberries.

Beans or legumes: Peas, beans, chickpeas and lentils, etc.

Vegetables and Tubers: Potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, turnips, etc.

Diet or low fat products: These are highly processed and often rich in carbohydrates.

Some condiments or sauce: These often contain sugar and unhealthy fat (Barbebue sauce, ketchup, dressings, etc).

Unhealthy fats: Limit your consumption of processed vegetable oils, etc.

Alcohol: Due to the high content of carbohydrates, many alcoholic beverages harm your state of ketosis, if you want to know more about what types of alcohol you could drink on this diet, click here.

Sugar-free Diet Foods: These are often rich in sugar alcohols, which can affect your ketone levels. These foods are highly processed.

What can be eaten in the Ketogenic diet?

Foods that you can eat in the ketosis diet:

Meat: Red meat, meat, ham, sausage, bacon, chicken and turkey.

Fish: like salmon, trout, tuna, and tilapia.

Eggs: Eat whole eggs that contain omega-3.

Butter and Cream: Preferably come from animals fed on grass.

Cheese: Raw cheese (cheddar, goat, cream, blue cheese or mozzarella).

Nuts and seeds: Almonds, nuts, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, etc.

Healthy Oils: Mainly try to consume extra virgin olive oils, coconut oil and avocado oil.

Avocado: Whole avocados or freshly made guacamole.

Low Vegetables in Carbohydrates: The majority of green vegetables, tomatoes, onions, peppers.

Condiments: You can use salt, pepper, herbs and spices. It is best to base your diet on these foods.

If you want to know the 16 best foods to enter ketosis, read our guide.

List of vegetables allowed in the ketogenic diet
The following are the vegetables allowed in ketogenic diet lower in carbohydrates and the amount of grams of carbohydrates net, in half a cup of each of them:

• Raw spinach: 0.1 gr
• Raw Chinese cabbage: 0.2 gr
• Romaine lettuce: 0.2 gr
• Steamed cauliflower: 0.9 gr
• Raw cauliflower: 1.4 gr
• Raw cabbage: 1.1 gr
• Broccoli: 2.0 gr
• Berza: 2.0 gr
• Steamed kale: 2.1 gr
• Steamed green beans: 2.9 gr

Appetizers that you can eat in the ketogenic diet

The following are snacks to eat on a ketogenic diet, what to eat without carbohydrates?

Fish or Meat

Cheese.

A fist of nuts or seeds

Cheese with olives

1-2 boiled eggs

Dark chocolate (90% or more of pure cocoa).

A milk low in carbohydrates such as almond milk, cocoa powder and almond butter.

Yogurt mixed with almond butter and cocoa powder.

Strawberries and cream

Celery with guacamole and salsa

See also:

Complete list of foods of the ketogenic diet  

  

Example of 7-day menu of ketogenic diet to lose weight
To start the ketosis diet use this weekly menu:

Monday

Eggs, tomato and bacon.

Food: Chicken salad with olive oil and feta cheese.

Dinner: Salmon with butter and asparagus

Tuesday

Breakfast: Omelette with tomato, basil and goat cheese

Food: Almond milk, peanut butter and chocolote protein

Dinner: Vegetables with ground meat, cheese and tomato

Wednesday

Breakfast: Almond milk, Protein and peanut butter

Food: Roast beef salads with avocado and olive oil

Dinner: Ribs with broccoli and tomato salad.

Thursday

Breakfast: Avocado Omelette with peppers and onion

Food: Chicken with cream cheese and pesto.

Dinner: Salmon salad with avocado and tomato

Friday

Breakfast: Yogurt without sugar, mixed with strawberries and peanut butter and sweetened with splenda.

Food: Chicken with broccoli cream served with mushrooms

Dinner: Meat with egg, bacon and cheese (as if it were a hamburger)

Saturday

Breakfast: ham and cheese Omelette with spinach

Food: Almonds with ham and cheese as a side dish

Dinner: Fish made with butter

Sunday

Breakfast: Fried egg with bacon and mushrooms

Food: Hamburger meat with cheese, salsa and guacamole.

Dinner: Meat with broccoli Try to eat vegetables between each meal, and vary the vegetables you eat, since each vegetable gives different nutrients to your body. (Broccoli, spinach, pumpkin, zucchini, laughing cabbage, cucumber, etc)

If you want another example of a ketogenic diet menu, read this guide.

To make your diet keto menu calculate how many calories you should eat per day according to your weight, height and goals, and also how many calories of carbohydrates you should eat use our calculator for the ketogenic diet to calculate that data.

Recipes of the ketogenic diet 

In this blog we have several delicious and easy recipes for you to take a ketogenic diet, click here to go to the section of ketogenic recipes on the site, we have many delicious recipes such as ketogenic red enchiladas and ketogenic bread.

If you want delicious dessert recipes for the ketogenic diet do not forget to read our guide of 12 delicious ketogenic desserts.

How does the ketogenic diet work?

By reducing carbohydrates to less than 5% of the total calories you consume, your body changes the way it gets its energy, instead of metabolizing glucose metabolizes fat, and when it uses more energy uses your body's fat reserves as a source energy, which causes the rapid loss of weight in the ketogenic diet or ketogenic diet.