Keto Diet Step 2: Learning About the Diet

So with Soren having passed the blood test, I bought the Ketogenic Diet book and started reading up.

The main question on my mind was, "Why does the diet work?"

Simple answer: They don't know.

The longer answer is that fasting has been used since biblical times. I guess Jesus didn't actually heal the boy with epilepsy, he just didn't feed him. "No loaves and fishes for you!"

But seriously folks, fasting has been used for a LONG time. Many years later, the doctors at Johns Hopkins worked on doing it in a controlled fashion. One of the key parts of that is going into ketosis. Now, when you're in ketosis (which is what happens on the Atkins diet), your body THINKS you're fasting and starts feeding on your fat. But on the Atkins diet you're eating WAY less fat, thus you burn your stored fat and lose weight. On the Keto Diet, you're eating a VERY HIGH amount of fat. And for some reason, in some people, this can help control seizures.

Early on, there was only one version of the Ketogenic Diet. But now there are variations. There's a modified Atkins Keto Diet and a Low-glycemic-index Keto Diet. These versions are WAY less restrictive than the real Keto Diet. However, the problem is that if you don't get seizure control using either of these versions, it doesn't mean that you wouldn't get control on the real Keto Diet. However, if you don't succeed on the real Keto Diet, than no other versions of it will work.

So we could have inched into the whole Keto Diet experience, doing either the Atkins or Low-glycemic-index versions. But that seemed silly. So instead, we're jumping right into the deep end and doing the full-on Keto Diet.

Next up, more on actually performing the diet.

Amy