What Are The Side Effects Of The Keto Diet? Recognize The Risks Of Eating Low Carbs

Illustrations beef grilled menu diet keto (Pexels / Matthias Zomer)

JAKARTA - The keto diet is known and lived to help you lose weight fast. Based on the recommended composition of the keto diet, including 80 percent fat, 15 percent protein, and 5 percent calories from carbohydrates.

If based on the Nutritional Adequacy Rate (RDA), the total carbohydrate for a woman aged 35 years is 1,360 calories. This means that when you are on the keto diet you can only consume 68 calories or 17 grams. Could this have a negative effect on your health?

Launching Women's Health, Tuesday, May 18, here are the negative effects of eating low carbohydrates or undergoing a keto diet for your health.

The body doesn't feel good

Reducing the amount of carbohydrates when undergoing a ketosis diet affects the bones or experiences a ketosis state. In a state of ketosis, the body burns fat for energy and triggers a number of symptoms that make the body feel uncomfortable.

Starting from frequent dizziness, fatigue, muscle pain, nausea to diarrhea. This transition follows the change, if you usually use carbohydrates as an energy source, then when the diet energy is obtained from fat. Kristen Mancinelli, MS, RDN, author of The Ketogenic Diet describes the effects of adaptation.

This adaptation process will last a week or two. Once your body's mechanisms are used to the new energy source, you will begin to get used to it and feel more comfortable.

Feelings tend to be moody

Carbohydrates can trigger the production of serotonin, a hormone that regulates mood, sleep and appetite. When on a keto diet, you may experience moody feelings.

The body's biological response encourages cheating

The negative effects on this point need to be watched out for. Due to reduced consumption of carbohydrates, the brain releases neuropeptide-Y (NPY). Its job is to send signals that our bodies need carbohydrates. But when you don't get enough carbohydrates, these chemicals build up.

The negative, when you accumulate increased appetite for food and you risk ruining your diet.

"It has nothing to do with not having enough 'intention', it has more to do with the body's biological response to deprivation," explains Laura Iu, RD, a registered dietitian and certified nutritional therapist in New York City.

Losing weight with the keto diet is not as easy as it seems

Becky Kerkenbush, RD, a clinical dietitian at Watertown Regional Medical Center, explains that the keto diet has seen success in losing weight after living it for 25 days. Your scale figure will drop by an average of 12 pounds, according to a study of 20,000 obese adults.

Illustration of scales and waist measurement (Pexels / Pixabay)

The decrease in this number is because carbohydrates hold more water than protein or fat. When you eat low carbohydrates, all the H2O will be released through urination. You may also look slimmer, but the diet should be a sustainable lifestyle.

Because if you stop the keto diet, you will gain weight more easily than trying to reduce it by pressing portions and choosing types of food.

Experiencing diarrhea

When we eat fatty foods, the liver releases bile into the digestive system to break it down. Following a high-fat diet like keto means the liver needs to excrete more bile.

Meanwhile bile is a natural laxative and too much can cause diarrhea, Iu explained.

Halitosis

These negative effects can actually be overcome, especially when you are interested in running the keto diet. According to research conducted in 2015, when the body goes through ketosis it produces ketones. This natural substance is a type of acetone, a chemical found in nail polish remover.

The body will produce it naturally and released through breathing. Breath usually smells different than usual, before undergoing a diet.