What is Keto?

  • The Ketogenic Diet, aka the Keto Diet, is a Very Low Carb, high Fat diet that includes a moderate amount of Protein.
  • ‘Keto’ gets its name from the fuel source your body makes when sugars are in short supply. In this state the liver will convert Fat into Ketones to use as fuel.

Is This Some New Fad Diet?

  • The “Keto Diet” is not a fad diet, or some new trendy thing to do, rather it is as old as mankind itself. This is how humans have been eating for hundreds of thousands of years and the human diet has only changed to the current way of thinking in more recent modern times.
  • Our whole lives we have been told that we should eat a carbohydrate rich diet, just look at the current “Food Pyramid”, however this has been proven to be detrimental to our health as a species. Eating this way is not healthy and often lead to things like: Obesity, Metabolic Syndrome, Diabetes, Gastrointestinal Issues, many Auto Immune diseases and several other terrible health issues.
  • In more simple terms, the introduction of refined sugars and grains to our diet is slowly killing us!

How Does Keto Work?

  • In the absence of carbohydrates the body will switch from carbohydrate metabolism to lipid metabolism. In simple terms this means the body will switch from burning sugars as its primary fuel source to burning fats. This state is known as Nutritional Ketosis.
  • In Nutritional Ketosis the body is using Ketones as its primary fuels source, a far more efficient fuel source than glucose. Ketones are a byproduct produced as the body burns fats.
  • The body is set up to burn fats. The average slender person stores about 50,000 calories of fat on their body, whereas they only store about 2,000 calories of glycogen(stored sugars) enough to last 1 or 2 days. That being said you can see why accessing these fat stores can be beneficial. It can keep you alive in the time of famine. These days with the modern high carb diet people rarely access these fat stores as an energy source and often are adding to it.

So What Are The Benefits?

  • Weight Loss: This one is at the top of most peoples’ list. The Keto Diet produces the most weight loss of any diet plan. It gets rid of the belly fat caused by insulin resistance, these go hand in hand.***
  • Reverse Type II Diabetes: As you lower your carbohydrate intake your blood sugar and insulin levels stabilize. A study shows that diabetes medications were discontinued or reduced in most participants following a ketogenic diet for 16 weeks.***
  • Improves Mood: As your hormones and glucose level normalize, you won’t experience mood swings. You won’t get Hangry.  Enjoy improved mental clarity and some may even experience mild euphoria!*** It has also shown improvements in those stuggling with depression and bi-polar disorders.***
  • Helps Curb Hunger: Since you are running on ketones,  you won’t have the hunger cravings that occur when your blood sugars fluctuate. Your body just reaches into its fat to keep you satisfied.
  • Improves Memory Health: Many diseases like: Alzheimer’s***, Parkinson’s***, Epilepsy***, MS*** and other Cognitive Disorders*** can be managed, improved or even prevented.

How To Get Started?

  • Before we dive right in, there are a few bases we need to cover about food science. A good majority of how Keto works revolves around how different foods effect different hormones in the body, but we will keep it simple for now.
  • Insulin is the Fat storage hormone, in simple terms, if Insulin is present your body is primed to store Sugar as Fat.
  • You CAN NOT burn stored Fat in the presence of Insulin.
  • Take away what causes Insulin production, Carbohydrates(Sugar), and we can Turn On Fat Burning! Simple right?

Got It, Now What?

To get into Nutritional Ketosis, the goal of the Keto Diet, you will need to greatly reduce the intake of Carbs and increase the Fat intake. The ideal ratio is to get 75% of your calories from Fats, only 5% of your calories from Carbohydrates and 20% of your calories from Protein. The calories from each of these sources vary.

Calorie Breakdown:

  • 1g Fat = 9 Calories
  • 1g Carb = 4 Calories
  • 1g Protein = 4 Calories

What Should My Carb Intake Be?

To get started you will want to get your daily Net Carb intake down to 20g-50g which should account for 5% of your total calories for the day. Net Carb intake is the Total Carbohydrate amount in a food minus the Dietary Fiber. The Total Net Carbs required to get into Ketosis will vary person to person, but a good starting point is to shoot for 50g of Net Carbs PER DAY.  While there are Essential Fats and Proteins the body needs to thrive and survive, there are NO Essential Carbohydrates. That’s right, You Don’t Need Them At All!

What Should My Protein Intake Be?

You only need a Moderate amount of Protein, but be careful, it is easy to over do it. The standard for this is between 0.3g – 0.7g of Protein per pound of body weight. Meaning if you weigh 200lbs, your Protein intake for the day would be in the range of 60g – 140g. A good starting point is 0.5g per pound of body weight. It also makes the math pretty easy to reference. That same 200lb person would be shooting for no more than 100g of Protein per day.
(TIP: Eating too much protein can cause Gluconeogenesis. This is where the liver can convert protein into carbohydrates. This can kick you out of Ketosis as it effectively increases your daily carb count.)

What Should My Fat Intake Be?

This should fill the rest of your daily intake. For example, if your intake was 50g of Net Carbs @ 200 Calories, 100g of Protein @ 400 Calories, your Fat Intake would be about 167g of Fat @ 1500 Calories, using the 2,000 calorie a day number. Please note we Are Not Counting Calories, rather the Percentages of Calories From Each Group. So this profile would be 75% Fat, 5% Net Carbs, and 20% Protein.

Making Keto Easy:

Apex Keto has taken the guesswork out of the Keto Diet. All over the site you will find the Apex Keto Score as seen here. This is a pre-calculated profile for each food or recipe showing the percentage of calories from Fat, Net Carbs and Protein. Making it easy to see at a quick glance.

Apex Keto SCore:

  • Fat 75% 75%
  • Net Carbs 5% 5%
  • Protein 20% 20%

Taking Easy To The Next Level:

While the Apex Keto Score is a quick reference guide, we have gone to great lengths to do all the hard work for you. We have sifted through all the spam, facts, science and data for you. Apex Keto brings the most accurate science, recipes, facts and nutrition data to the table! All of this in an Easy to Read, Easy to Understand and Easy to Use format.

Remember, This Is Not A “Diet”, But A Sustainable Lifestyle!