You may have heard why you should do keto, but have you ever heard why you shouldn’t do keto?
I am sure your fellow mom at the school Jill is on keto and raves about how much weight she has lost in 2 weeks.
Or maybe your co worker at the office has been talking to you about how she is eating bacon and butter for breakfast.
This article is going to lay out some of the potential adverse side effects from following a ketogenic diet.
Sit back and read if you have been mulling over in your head whether to cut out all of the carbs in your diet.
Why You Shouldn’t Do Keto
Now, Everyone Is Different
Before I get into presumably bashing keto, I want to start by saying it can have potential benefits in some circumstances.
For example, people who suffer from epilepsy may see benefits from following a ketogenic diet.
A few studies have shown time and time again that this can be an alternative nonpharmacologic treatment option.
On top of that, from my own anecdotal experience, whenever I onboard new online coaching clients to my program, those who have tried keto in the past tend to know what protein sources are.
They tend to know how much protein to eat and quality quality protein sources.
Therefore in this aspect it can be beneficial for teaching an individual what a higher protein diet may look like simply because you can really only choose from protein or fat.
I could dive into a few more, but point being, I am not disassociated with the fact that some people see benefits from and enjoy a ketogenetic type of diet.
Yet for the purpose of this article, and my anecdotal experience with people who have tried a ketogenetic diet in the past, I am now going to cover why you shouldn’t do keto.
3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do Keto
Micronutrient Deficiencies
When following a ketogenic diet, you essentially cut out an entire macronutrient group in carbohydrates by keeping them below 50g a day.
What happens when you cut out an entire food group like this you are cutting out a lot of individual foods.
The problem with this is these foods have important and crucial micronutrients inside of them.
When this happens you create micronutrient deficiencies inside your body, which can lead to adverse health effects down the road.
Not only this fact but also how they interact with other micronutrients in your body.
Some of the possible main micronutrients that you could end up becoming deficient in are
- Potassium
- Magnesium
- Calcium
- Iodine
- Sodium
To name a few.
Let’s take a closer at what a potassium deficiency may do to you for an example.
Potassium Deficiency
Being deficient in potassium can lead to things like Hypokalemia, chronic kidney disease, and end-stage renal disease.
For example when you cut out things like bananas or potatoes, these foods have a ton of potassium in them.
If you are now not able to eat these foods this will lead you to not intake any potassium thus leading to a potassium deficiency.
Now, that was just one scenario, of one micronutrient.
There are certainly ways to get these micronutrients in your diet still, but the average American can’t get them in with all of their foods available to them, let alone cutting one out.
Now, let’s move onto the next reason for why you shouldn’t do keto.
Workout Performance
Individuals who follow a ketogenic style diet often times suffer from vastly decreased workout performance.
Let’s look at this from a scientific and aesthetic perspective.
Science first.
As this peer reviewed scientific research study covers
“Carbohydrates are the preferred substrate for contracting skeletal muscles during high-intensity exercise and are also readily utilized during moderate intensity exercise”.
This means that if you are doing a strength training workout, or even heading to do some light to moderate cardio, carbohydrates are going to be your main source of fuel.
On a ketogenic diet when you drop carbs next to none, your body has no fuel for workouts.
You may suffer from feeling weak and tired, decreased endurance or stamina, and or light headed.
You may see a decrease in your strength as well as lean muscle mass.
If you are not able to keep up the intensity and performance on your workouts then you will not be providing a great enough stress on your body to build or retain the lean muscle mass you have.
This had adverse effects on a few things.
First would be your metabolism.
Since you cannot keep up your workout performance, you lose muscle mass. Due to you losing muscle mass, your metabolism slows down.
The more lean muscle mass you have on your body the higher your metabolism is. The less lean muscle mass you have on your body the slower your metabolism is.
In the long term you could not only be losing strength and muscle mass for an aesthetic appeal, but also you now have a declining metabolic health standpoint as well.
Yet, let’s talk about the aesthetic part now as well.
Aesthetic Impact Of Decreased Workout Performance
Whenever I take on a new coaching client who is looking to lose weight I always ask them if they care more about a number on the scale or how they look in the mirror.
Every single time they tell me they care more about how they look in the mirror.
This brings me to a very common point I bring up to people.
In order for you to lose body fat you have to be in a calorie deficit. This is normally primarily done through making nutritional changes.
Yet through these nutritional changes only cannot build muscle mass. The only way you are going to build lean muscle mass is through progressively overloading resistance training.
If you want your body to look a certain way, and not be “skinny fat”, you are going to have to build lean muscle mass.
Yet if you are following a ketogenic diet and your workouts are sub par, you aren’t getting stronger, and you are always tired.
You will not achieve the necessary overload through your workouts for your muscles to grow stronger and more defined, which will lead you to not look the way you want to look.
Therefore if you want more than just a number on the scale, and you want to look a certain way, that may be one reason why you shouldn’t do keto.
Now let’s talk about the last, and in my opinion the most important reason why you shouldn’t do keto.
Over restrictive & Unsustainable
This is something I am very passionate about as a coach.
I truly don’t care what nutritional route you choose to go. If you decide to follow keto, awesome. If you do fasting, great.
Yet there is one question I want you to ask next time you think about your nutrition and “diet”.
“Is the way I am eating now going to be sustainable for the rest of my life?”
Remember this.
Whatever you do to get the results is what is going to be the same thing you have to do to sustain the results.
Therefore if you lost 40 lbs in 3 months doing keto, that is great…
But if you cannot keep eating that way for the rest of your life you are going to gain all of that weight right back.
I know you may be shaking your head “yes” right now to this because this is by far one of the most common things I see through coaching thousands of people.
My true issue with keto is how over restrictive and unsustainable it is for the vast majority of people.
You have to cut out your favorite foods because I mean who’s favorite food doesn’t include some kind of carbohydrate.
You can’t eat out or at social events because you have already had 43g of carbs for the day.
You have to make different dinners than what your family is eating.
Therefore you get into this over restrictive mindset of you “can’t” have this or “can’t” have that.
What does that lead to?
You guessed it, the cycle of restricting and binging.
You are “on track” for 1 or 2 weeks.
You are able to keep up that style of eating for a short period of time.
Then eventually when you crack, because again cutting out your favorite foods, or living an entirely different lifestyle than you or family is not sustainable, you binge.
You feel like you messed up. You feel like you did something wrong. You ate the “bad” food, so you say screw it and keep going.
This turns into you binging Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday.
You feel like crap, then Monday morning you say well let me get back on track.
Yet this cycle repeats itself over.. and over.. and over.
This is because what you are doing is simply not sustainable.
Therefore if you can’t keep doing it, you will not see results from it long term.
You will lose a bunch of weight in the short term and after you binge you will gain it all back.
This is the the common “yo yo dieting” you hear thrown around so much.
This is why it happens, due to this over restrictive and unsustainable ways of going about your diet.
Quite frankly I think it sucks.
Yet beyond it sucking, it just isn’t necessary.
You don’t have to cut out your favorite foods to lose weight and be healthy.
You don’t have to cut out carbs to lose weight and be healthy.
In fact I would say you keeping your favorite foods in your diet in moderation and you keeping carbs in your diet will lead to long term greater weight loss and health than the other way around.
The only thing you need to lose weight is to be in a calorie deficit.
This simply means you are eating less calories than your body is burning on a daily and weekly basis.
I could go into hours and hours of calorie deficit talk. Yet, I actually already have.
I did a quick podcast HERE going over exactly what a calorie deficit is.
As well as I uploaded a totally free video HERE to YouTube to find out how many calories you need to eat to lose weight.
This singular reason alone, aside from the nutrient deficiencies and subpar workout performance, is the main reason why you shouldn’t do keto.
3 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do Keto
If nothing else, I hoped this article got your brain thinking about what may be the best option for you moving forward.
I know I may get some flack for writing this article from people who do keto, and I am fine with that.
I simply want this article to at least make you think about that question I asked you earlier. The most important question when it comes to your nutrition…
“Is the way I am eating now going to be sustainable for the rest of my life?”
If you can say yes to that, then I am beyond happy for you and you will win.
If you say no, then I would strongly urge you to reconsider your choice.
I hope you enjoyed the article. Feel free to share it with someone who you think may benefit from it.
If you have any questions or comments for me, or any keto hate mail 😉 , feel free to shoot me an email at coacheric@ericrobertsfitness.com.
I respond to every single email, so if I can help in anyway shape or form, do not hesitate to reach out.
All love. Talk soon.
-E
References Below
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332098774_Nutritional_Deficiencies_of_Ketogenic_Diets vitamin , micronutrient deficiencies
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2905334/ micronutrient deficiencies
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6835497/ keto and exercise performance
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6361831/ keto and epilepsy
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3699540/ potassium deficiency
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4727532/ carbs as main source of fuel