
Do Calories Matter On a Ketogenic Diet?
The idea of the ketogenic diet is one that is fairly commonly associated with the idea of low carbs but it isn't often discussed as a diet where you need to track calories. While many other diets often have an idea where a participant will have to track calories based on a daily value, the ketogenic diet is more about what you are eating and sticking to an extremely strict diet vs the idea of how much you are eating.
Over the long term, many people that get into a state of ketosis often report the idea of experiencing less in the way of cravings and an appetite that shrinks over time. Getting into ketosis can have some fantastic health benefits to your energy levels as well.
One of the things that attracts many people to the idea of the ketogenic diet is that you can typically eat as much as you want based off of the specialty recipes and outlines foods in the diet. It often means that you end up filling up on vegetables and proteins and you can remain satiated for a lot longer even though you are technically consuming less calories.
Part of the reason for this is because most of the foods that you are eating on these diets are unprocessed and they won't contain many of the excess calories that you might find in frozen dishes, junk food and high carb options.
Sticking to a restrictive diet actually restricts calories on its own. A person would typically have to eat an extensive amount of protein or vegetables that are outlined on the safe list for the ketogenic diet before they would start going over some of their calorie values for the day.
Some People Introduce Calorie Counting As A Tool So They Can Achieve Their Ideal Levels:
Calorie counting on the ketogenic diet doesn't have to be quite as meticulous or obsessive as it would be on other types of diets. In situations where you might typically use calorie counting to track all of the calories that you would go through in a day may help you to only outline regular serving sizes for your meals. Tracking your intake for a few weeks and working on the serving sizes that you need to feel your best can be a helpful tool in the ketogenic diet.
It will often take time for you to balance your ketones and this can usually require rigorous dieting and sticking to somewhat similar meal plans over time. This is where tracking your calories can grow so important. You can find at the serving sizes that can give you the ideal amount of energy without affecting the ketones that are present in your body.
The Reason Calories Are Poorly Derived For Dieting:
It's important to remember that calorie tracking is a tool only. Relying on calorie tracking throughout your entire diet can grow quite tiresome. It can be very difficult to capture the total caloric value of every single serving that you put on your plate without a scale and without some form of consistency. It's also quite easy to miss meals and small snacks that you might have throughout the day which can throw off your ketone values.
The other argument that calories are poorly derived as a value for dieting comes with the idea of calories in and calories out. Tracking the total number of activity that you do in a day that can impact fat burning and the ketone value in your bloodstream grows extremely difficult. As almost every activity that you partake in his burning calories, unless you are keeping it up to the second journal in your day you will always be basically estimating the idea of calories in versus calories out. Activity trackers can be a little bit helpful when it comes to measuring the calories that you burned throughout the day but working on the total number of calories that you are consuming versus the total amount of activity that you are completing is never an easy task for dieting.
There are many diets that were founded on the idea of tracking calories in versus calories out but ultimately it's all about how you feel and the results that you are getting over time through ketosis. Counting calories is only going to work as a small asset in the ketogenic diet, and mostly when you are just getting started.
Understanding Your goals When Starting The Diet:
Not everyone takes on the ketogenic diet to lose weight either. There are many people to try out this diet because they are experiencing trouble with a medical condition like diabetes. In these situations it's important that an individual regulate their caloric intake and take eat based off of their doctor's recommendations. The ketogenic diet has been shown to be extremely helpful for athletes and for individuals that are suffering from certain medical conditions. If you're trying to actually gain weight and mitigate the symptoms of a specific disease with the ketogenic diet it could be a better idea to do away with calorie tracking altogether and just follow the set meal plan in the diet for your condition and for what you need to feel great.
Keto Calculator
A calculator can also serve as an excellent tool of reference for determining the total amount of calories and serving sizes that you should be focusing on when you start the diet. Setting targets for daily calories and what you might have to eat to reach a state of ketosis will eventually help you to reach your ideal state for weight loss. Rather than having to go with trial and error over time you can actually have access to a fairly proven system to jumpstart your diet and get into a state for optimal weight loss.
If you are rigorously tracking calories while on the ketogenic diet, you may want to consider some of these top points and reassess your diet for the future.