Your Brain Fueled by Ketones
The keto diet has become hugely popular over the last few years, and honestly with good reason. When most people think of keto, they think of weight loss. You've likely seen before and after pics of people who have had huge weight loss success using the ketogenic diet. While keto can be a great catalyst for weight loss, for many, this becomes a happy side effect to the many other benefits they weren't expecting. Today I want to focus on one of the huge benefits people often experience, and that is improved brain health, we'll look specifically at mood issues like depression and anxiety.
Let's take a little step back and make sure you understand what the ketogenic diet is. Keto is a high fat, moderate protein, and low carb diet. More than that, it actually switches your bodies fuel source. Did you know your body has more than one to choose from? Most of us are glucose/sugar burners, meaning our body gets its energy from glucose it creates from the food we eat which is typically a fairly high carb diet. Our body can actually create glucose from all three macronutrients; carbohydrates, protein, and fat. When we switch our body to a state of ketosis, we switch our fuel source to burning fat for fuel. This is actually our bodies preferred fuel source as it is a cleaner and longer burning fuel. The vehicle your body uses to transport fat as fuel is called a ketone body. This is a basic definition of what it means to be in ketosis.
Below are just a few of the reasons the ketogenic diet can be so powerful for those with mood issues:
STABILIZED BLOOD GLUCOSE LEVELS
Eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) means we're likely on a rollercoaster with our blood glucose levels. We start our morning out with something like oatmeal and orange juice which instantly spikes our blood glucose. This causes a surge of insulin which then quickly lowers our blood sugar, often too low, leading us to a feeling of being "hangry" and reaching for a sugary snack or beverage to keep going, and once again, causing that blood glucose spike. This up and down on the blood sugar rollercoaster in many ways mimics psychiatric symptoms. Our mood and energy goes up and down with our blood sugar levels, we feel a burst of energy with the highs, and the lows result in irritability, fatigue, or a short temper, we also lose our ability to concentrate and experience brain fog. When we reduce our intake of carbs, particularly in the morning, and start our day with healthy fat and protein, our blood glucose level stays nice and even, providing us with energy to go about our day, but not the false ups and downs fueled by a carb heavy diet.
A REDUCTION IN INFLAMMATION
Eating a diet high in carbs, sugar, and processed foods and oils leads to high levels of chronic inflammation in the brain. It triggers the release of inflammatory cytokines (proteins secreted by cells of the immune system) which in turn affects the function of the brain, causing a change in behavior, often experienced as depression. Eating a clean ketogenic diet removes pro-inflammatory foods from the diet like those listed above and increases the intake of foods that will actually reduce inflammation like fish, fish oils, flax, and chia seeds.
INCREASED ANTIOXIDANT DEFENSES
A diet high in sugar overwhelms our cells with too much glucose all at once. This leads to oxidative stress and an overflow of free radicals. If we create this overwhelm of free radicals; proteins, lipids, and DNA can all be damaged. Left unchecked for too long, this can also lead to damage to the blood-brain barrier which can manifest as brain fog, poor concentration and memory, anxiety and depression. Eating a low carb diet, such as keto, naturally reduces the risk of this oxidative damage, boosts your body’s natural antioxidant capacity and protects your neurons.
BALANCED HORMONES
Above I mentioned the blood sugar rollercoaster and why we want to get off it. Another reason is that every time we spike our blood sugar, this causes an increase in insulin whose job it is to lower our blood sugar back down, because of the spike, we then experience a crash. This crash is incredibly stressful for our body and triggers the release of the stress hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. If our adrenaline surges, which can happen four or five hours after a high-carb meal, it can cause us to feel panicky, anxious, shaky, sweaty, irritable, foggy, not to mention having an increase in cravings. Focusing on healthy fats and protein naturally lead to steady and balanced hormones.
STABILIZED NEUROTRANSMITTERS
Neurotransmitters are the brain chemicals that drive our mood. Eating a high sugar diet wreaks havoc with our neurotransmitter pathways. As you have just learned, diets high in processed carbs, leads to inflammation and oxidation, both of these will signal the brain to go into a state of emergency. It's like an alarm is going off in the brain and this alarm prevents tryptophan from doing its important work of creating serotonin and melatonin, it instead generates excess glutamate (glutamate is essentially the brain's gas pedal). As a result of this excess glutamate, serotonin, melatonin, and GABA activity go way day. Overtime, if the foot stays on that gas pedal it causes what is called "glutamate excitoxicity" which is extremely damaging to the brain. The ketogenic diet regulates our neurotransmitter levels and reduces glutamate toxicity, once again protecting our neurons.
INCREASED MITOCHONDRIAL ACTIVITY AND CREATION
Mitochondria are the energy-producing organelles inside our brain cells. Our brain is a highly metabolically active electrical organ and demands close to 20 percent of our body's energy supply. This is pretty amazing as it only makes up about 2 percent of our total body weight. If our mitochondria are not in great shape, providing our cells with a steady stream of high-quality energy, our brain function is low, leading to memory issues, brain fog, poor concentration, low energy, anxiety, and of course, depression. Eating a keto diet has been shown to improve the health, vitality, and production of our mitochondria.
So Now What Should You Do?
With psychiatric and brain disorders on the rise, it is more important than ever that we eat a diet that will support a healthy brain. It is estimated that 322 million people are now struggling with depression and it is currently the #1 cause for disability in the world. This might be common but we should not accept it as normal or inevitable. Teaching you how to eat a healthy ketogenic diet in a blog post is not realistic, but I can offer you a few simple tips on what you can do right now to improve your mood and brain health.
Start your morning by eating a breakfast of healthy fats and protein. Something like bacon and eggs is great. Carbs have the biggest effect on your blood glucose level, protein has a moderate impact, and fat has almost zero, so keeping carbs low in the morning will start you off on nice even footing, your mood will be steady, your mind clear, and you'll be ready to concentrate in that 9 am meeting.
Remove all highly processed oils/fats from your diet. This includes things like canola, soy, and vegetable oil as well as Crisco and margarine. Swap them out for healthy oils like coconut oil, grass-fed butter, lard, extra virgin olive oil, and avocado oil. You want your fats coming from healthy whole food sources, the less processing that happens before it makes it to your plate, the better!
Eat enough and the right kind of foods with every meal. The goal here is to limit the need to snack. When we get hungry in the middle of the day and reach for a snack, it's almost never a healthy one. Snacking not only causes our digestive system to work nonstop, but it spikes our blood sugar every time we do it, leading to cortisol and adrenaline surges. Be sure you are eating balanced meals with a focus on healthy fat, quality protein, and low glycemic veggies. You also want to make sure that you eat until you are fully satisfied so you aren't getting hungry between your meals. You should be able to easily go 3-5 hours between every meal without getting hungry. If you're not, add extra fat with your next meal, fat is highly satiating and nutrient dense and will keep you feeling fuller longer. Half an avocado is a great way to get some extra fat.
How To Do Keto Right!
Because keto isn’t your typical “diet”, but is actually a way of eating that switches your bodies fuel source, it can be stressful and hard to know how to do it right. There is a lot of conflicting information out there leading to even more confusion. If you’d like some guidance in doing it in a healthy and sustainable way, I’ve got two options for you. I work with clients one-on-one in doing just this. I also have a program called Keto Clear that can be done 3 different ways offering lots of options and loads of support to help you do keto right, in a sustainable and healthy way. Click below to set up a free Discovery call to learn about working one-on-one with me, or click on Keto Clear to learn about the 3 options for this 6 week program!