Are Nuts a Good Food When on a Keto Diet?

If you're currently on the keto diet or thinking about transitioning over to it, the change in your diet can be quite significant from a more traditional western diet. The keto diet has become very popular in the last 5-10 years, and has been found to have many health benefits. This is often prescribed to people with epilepsy, but also used by athletes for increased physical performance, as well as for ‘normal' people, primarily for health and body composition reasons. Keto is a great choice for anyone wanting to lose body fat and lead a healthier lifestyle. The keto diet takes a very low-carb approach to your diet, and focuses on high-fat, medium-protein breakdown to your macronutrient breakdown. Eating foods high in protein and fat, but very low to no carbs, makes the body start to change where it gets its energy from. The body uses carbs as its primary energy source when eating a traditional diet, but when moving to a low-carb keto diet, the body starts using fats as its main energy source. This process can take a week and is the most challenging part of transitioning to a keto diet. The body takes a few days to understand that no more carbs are coming into the system and to move into ketosis, but once this transition happens, you'll start to feel back to normal and most likely far better than before. When making a move to a ketogenic diet, you'll have to start changing your habitual food choices. Most people choose a meal consisting of main carbs in the form of bread, pasta, or rice, a moderate amount of protein, and then some vegetables. When you remove the carbs, some people struggle to know how to replace this part of their meal. The trick is to move towards a plate made up mainly of meat and vegetables. These two food groups contain almost all of the nutrients that were on your plate before, but now you're eating 2-3 times as much, which will make you feel significantly better. When it comes to snacks, most people often choose something carb-heavy like a pastry or a slice of toast. Having easy-to-eat and easy-to-prepare snacks around at all times is one of the keys to staying in ketosis. Nuts and nut butter are some of the best snacks that are both low in carbs and high in fats and protein. Check out this link for some great options for buying nuts: boxed.com/product/4361/planters-cashews-halves-pieces-46-oz. When you're looking for nuts to snack on, make sure to stay away from any products that have been treated with sugar. This includes nuts that are labeled ‘honey-roasted' or ‘sweet chili.' Make sure you read the labels and not how many carbs are in the product you're looking at and what the ingredients are. If you choose an untreated nut, they are a great source of nutrition and calories. As with anything, though, make sure to track your intake as it can be easy to go overboard with nuts and go over your maintenance calories. Doing this too much will counteract the benefits of any diet, so be mindful of getting your daily calories from a wide variety of foods.