what the keto flu is
In: Biology
“Keto” is a type of fad diet where the person eats extremely low carbohydrate foods. The point being to reduce a persons overall carbohydrate intake down to only a few grams per day, literally the equivalent of just a few carrots. In place of carbs the person eats a diet high in protein and fats, for example meats, eggs, and leafy green vegetables.
The point is that the human body can get energy for a variety of nutrients but the modern Western diet focuses heavily on sugars and starches (forms of carbohydrates) and so the body *learns* how to process these in a sort of lazy way. It’ll always prioritize these nutrients in it’s chemistry, and usually this means storing excess nutrients (which the Western Diet has tons of) as body fat. Hence – why you need a diet.
So when a “lazy” body suddenly gets deprived of carbohydrates it needs to switch to a different set of chemistry so it can focus on burning fats and proteins for energy. This doesn’t happen overnight and some unfortunate side effects can arise while it adjusts.
The “Keto Flu” is the term for the side effects, it’s not all a single thing and it’s not caused by an infection (like a real flu) it’s more of like a “carbohydrate withdrawal” syndrome. The symptoms are generally body and head aches, confusion and problems concentrating, muscle weakness & exhaustion, and constipation.
From personal experience I can tell you a keto diet can be quite hard on a body especially if you have health issues already, it’s literally similar to something like withdrawal from an addictive drug and not something you can just *do* without some potential problems.
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