Losing Weight in Ketosis (eBook)

A Beginners' Guide

Marco K. R. Jarka (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
96 Seiten
Books on Demand (Verlag)
978-3-7557-7489-1 (ISBN)

Infos

When it comes to reducing body fat, a ketogenic diet that is combined with a negative energy balance can be particularly effective, in addition to offering numerous health benefits. With the so-called ketogenic reduction diet, fat burning can be activated in such a way that a diet-related energy deficit can be compensated directly via the body's own stored fat reserves. This way, it's possible to avoid hunger and reduced performance. This makes sticking to the ketogenic reduction diet easier than other diets. No matter how much weight should be lost, either with or without sport, and regardless of age and gender, the ketogenic reduction diet ensures that everyone becomes the perfect fat burner.

Marco K. R. Jarka is a nutrition trainer, sports and fitness merchant and a food engineer. As an author, Marco K. R. Jarka would like to make his many years of experience with the ketogenic diet, its application in the area of weight reduction and the most important nutritional-physiological principles of this form of nutrition accessible to interested new users.

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Energy supply with carbohydrate deficiency

When carbohydrates are mentioned in the following, what is meant are carbohydrates that are utilizable by the human organism, such as sugar and starch. Dietary fiber does not interfere with the ketosis metabolism.

All body cells require energy continuously, even in the event of a “deficient” carbohydrate supply. Most body tissues can biochemically break down fatty acids in their mitochondria. This is done via so-called β-oxidation. An example of such tissue are skeletal muscles, which are characterized by a high energy demand. By contrast, other tissues, such as the brain’s nerve cells or the red blood cells are not able to do this. For this reason, the body must always maintain its blood sugar level at a minimum concentration. This is the only way to supply glucose-dependent body tissue with energy.[3] The body’s blood sugar regulation is primarily carried out by the two hormones, insulin and glucagon. They are secreted in the pancreas, whereby insulin stimulates blood sugar-lowering, and glucagon stimulates blood sugar-increasing processes.[3] The hormone required at the time is secreted in dependency on the blood sugar concentration. Insulin and glucagon have opposing effects on numerous metabolic sub-processes.[3]

In healthy “normal eaters”, the strongest and most frequent blood glucose fluctuations are triggered by meals containing carbohydrates (sugar and starch). These lead to more or less strong blood sugar increases and are followed by a corresponding insulin release and rapid blood sugar reduction. Here, brief overcompensations are possible, especially following the consumption of rapidly available carbohydrates.[3] If glycogen stores are still full and the carbohydrate intake from food is too low, the blood sugar level can be maintained for a short time by mobilizing liver glycogen. The process of gluconeogenesis (new glucose formation), during which glucose is produced from other organic substance groups - especially glucogenic amino acids - then also starts relatively quickly. Depending on the nutritional situation, the amino acids that are used are taken from food or from body protein. Here, e.g., during the initial starvation stage, these amino acids come primarily from breaking down proteins of the skeletal muscles.[1] If too few carbohydrates are supplied throughout, and the blood sugar level is maintained “from below” via glucagon and gluconeogenesis, the insulin level will also remain at a low physiological level. The increased glucagon/insulin ratio stimulates lipolysis, i.e., the breakdown of triglycerides in the body fat tissue, as well as so-called ketogenesis (ketone body synthesis) in the liver, and the enzymes that become necessary for these metabolic adjustments are increasingly expressed.[1][3] While the biosynthesis of new enzymes accompanying the metabolic change takes place relatively quickly, the carbohydrate metabolism inhibition is rather sluggish. This can be explained by the half-lives of the carbohydrate metabolism’s enzymes, which vary from hours to days.[3] Thus, depending on the respective initial situation, a significant adaptation can be expected within a few days.

In the course of ketogenesis, acetoacetate and β-hydroxybutyrate ketone bodies are produced from fatty acids. They can be used as an energy source by almost all body tissues, including the brain’s nerve cells.[1][3] Thanks to their water solubility, the blood can transport ketone bodies more easily than fatty acids, which becomes more important with increasing lipolysis. With a high utilization of ketone bodies, the glucose requirement is greatly reduced and the gluconeogenesis from protein precursors is thus slowed down to a minimum. This way, the body protects itself from increased protein and especially muscle breakdown, especially during the starvation metabolism.[1][4] While, during ketosis, the brain utilizes significantly lower amounts of glucose for energy after some time[1][4], erythrocytes remain permanently dependent on glucose and a minimum blood sugar concentration, owing to the lack of mitochondria. When following a prolonged ketogenic diet, the blood sugar concentration settles somewhat below the fasting blood sugar level of a healthy “normal eater”.

Evolution: Why you can be a fat burner

Biological evolution refers to the development and change of a group of living beings’ characteristics over time. Selection is one of the ways in which more favorable characteristics become more prevalent. The more adaptable the species, the greater the chance of survival, especially under changing environmental conditions.

Homo sapiens, or the modern-day human, was and is extremely adaptable in numerous respects. The earliest species of the genus Homo date back to the early Pleistocene period, between 2.4 and 1.9 million years ago. They originated in East Africa, from where individual species disseminated as far as Europe or Asia.[5] Today, Homo sapiens is the only surviving species of the genus Homo. It is assumed that it originated about 195,000 to 100,000 years ago in South and East Africa.[5] From there, about 50,000 to 70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens first spread to Europe and Asia and later on from East Asia to Australia and probably to Alaska and America, via the Bering Strait. It is estimated that humans reached North America only about 13,000 years ago.[5]

The Pleistocene period is a stage in earth’s history that began with a global cooling period about 2.6 million years ago and lasted until about 11,700 years ago.[5] It was characterized by sometimes extreme climatic conditions and climate fluctuations and was accompanied by a relatively rapid evolution within the genus Homo.[5] Due to a temporary decline in vegetation and a resulting lack of food, in addition to other influencing factors, a large number of land creatures became extinct during this time. The late Pleistocene period finally concluded with the last cold period, which lasted about 100,000 years, and transitioned into the present-day warm Holocene period, thanks to global warming. With the onset of the Holocene period, harsh and changing climatic conditions of the Pleistocene period subsided.[5]

During the Pleistocene period, humans were hunter-gatherers[5][6] and probably fed on collected insects, birds' eggs, berries, nuts, and other plants, as well as wild prey in varying sizes and carrion. It was only with the improved climatic conditions at the beginning of the Holocene period, and the accompanying increase in population, that they became sedentary in many areas and began animal husbandry and practicing agriculture.[5][6] It is to be assumed that, until about 12,000 years ago, humans’ food availability and that of their extinct ancestors was mainly sparse. In the absence of hunting successes, the energy intake from eating collected plants, insects and carrion will usually have been significantly lower than the energy demand. Only when larger amounts of food were found or a larger animal was killed, more than enough food became available for brief periods. These food availability fluctuations were dependent on the group’s collective hunting and gathering success as well as on changes in fauna and flora. During this time, early humans learnt to communicate and plan, in addition to making tools and controlling fire within their group. Fire, for instance, allowed them to digest food more easily, offering greater general flexibility in food choices.[7] In addition, thanks to the improved digestibility, they were able to make greater use of the larger quantities of food that was available for a short time, for example after a successful hunt, and to store the excess energy in the body relatively quickly.

When considering recurring or prolonged food shortages as a selection factor, early humans profited especially from animal organisms’ ability to accumulate energy reserves in their own bodies in the form of fatty tissue, which was already established during evolutionary history, many millions of years before their time. Of course, a selection benefit, thanks too good fat storage, only arises in combination with the ability to make the accumulated energy reserves readily available again when needed, in order to sufficiently maintain all important organism functions. The characteristic of storing energy as fatty tissue was already more pronounced in early humans than in other primates. This may have been due to the increasing energy demand arising from the larger, more energy-hungry, brain in relation to the total body mass. What is more, high physical and mental performance was also crucial for survival in times of food shortage. Here, for instance, hunting success became increasingly important in the presence of food shortages. Muscles and the brain needed enough energy to ensure peak performance.

The repeated achievement and temporary maintenance of a ketogenic metabolic state, brought on by a persistently low intake of food and carbohydrates, can be considered highly likely. In this state of ketosis, the human brain was able to utilize the ketone bodies produced in the organism perfectly.[8][9][10] By contrast, most other body tissues, e.g., the muscles, were able to cover their energy needs with both fatty acids and ketone bodies. Both energy sources were available in sufficient quantities when the body's fat reserves were mainly mobilized. Thus, humans could easily bridge weeks to months with...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 28.2.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Essen / Trinken
• ISBN-10: 3-7557-7489-5 / 3755774895
• ISBN-13: 978-3-7557-7489-1 / 9783755774891