If we believe that our current selves are only a version of who we are, then proponents of various diets, gyms, and even drugs will tell us that a better version is just around the corner. That to look and feel amazing at that event or in that outfit isn’t all that hard to attain.
While I am by no means an expert in health and nutrition, I have been on my fair share of diets, and what I’ve learned from these grueling fads which promise of attaining society’s notions of what is beautiful, is that not all diets work the same way for everyone. Our bodies are beautiful, functioning beings, and while wanting them to look a certain way is a choice that each one of us can make, the key to changing our diets is finding something that doesn’t make us feel deprived and miserable.
Cue the ketogenic diet. This diet is actually the epitome of restriction. It requires reducing carbohydrate intake down to about 50 grams – an arduous task for those of us who live on rice, bread, biryani aloo, and just about anything that distracts the mind from the hardships life has to offer.
Essentially it is a high-fat, and extremely low-carb diet, designed to trick our bodies to stop using the stored glucose (the carbohydrate the body normally uses for energy), and use our fat stores instead.
While the allure of weight loss is appealing, proponents of the ketogenic diet promise something even more gripping: A cognitive benefit.
Most people who have been on the diet say that after a couple of weeks, they feel clear-headed, full of energy, and are able to focus on their activities better. This was what enticed me towards this diet, for I'm someone who loses focus by midday. And thus my research began.
Invented sometime around the 1920s, it was used to treat seizures in children with epilepsy.
Eating next to no carbs and a whole lot of fat, will have us enter into the metabolic state of ketosis. By cutting off sugar, the body thinks it’s starving, and it uses the fat that is stored in the body to use as energy.
Our brains can’t directly use fat for energy, so the fat goes into the liver and gets turned into ketones. Then our brains use ketones as fuel, instead of glucose. For our everyday bodily functions, our bodies are tapping into our fat storage to use as fuel.
The theory is that it’s how our neurons interact with each other as a result of the ketones being used for energy, instead of glucose, which might have a hand in curing seizures.
The question is: How can this diet affect people without epilepsy?
Unfortunately, save anecdotal evidence, there haven’t been many human studies done to see the effects of the diet. However, in experiments with rodents, those who were given a high-fat, low-carb diet performed better in memory tests than those who were put on regular diets.
While whether I had better memory than my fellow rodents is still up for debate, but personally, I can attest that my brain on ketones felt better.
The first few weeks were grueling: I was fatigued, cranky, living off of eggs and chicken and handful of nuts, and convinced that all the problems in the world will go away if I just stuffed my face with French fries.
But I held on to my conviction and almost two weeks in, I began to notice a change in my energy levels. I started to feel better, and I did lose a bit of weight, but the boost in concentration was the real prize.
Now, the ketones business may sound believable, but if there’s anything I’ve learned about weight loss, in the ketogenic diet, it may just derive from the lack of options -- since there isn’t a variety of food that we can eat, we just end up eating less. After all, weight loss is fundamentally just a deficit in our caloric intake.
Luba Khalili is an Editorial Assistant at the Dhaka Tribune
