Can You Do a Plant Based Keto Diet?
Posted by Wen Dan Jiang on
Can You Do a Plant Based Keto Diet?
Can you do a plant based keto diet? Yes, a plant-based keto diet exists with all its properties that are healthy for the body. This was a general assumption that meat products can only collect high fat and low carbs, so keto diet can only be practiced on non-veg resources. Recent studies have proved that the people on a keto diet can use not only meat products but also products derived from plants. This plant-based keto diet is commonly called a Ketotarian diet. So, the Ketotarian diet lets you devour ketosis and nutrients from the food taken from the plants.
A Ketotarian diet
As discussed above, a keto diet contains not only food coming from animal sources but also plant-based food. However, the essentials of keto diet demand high fats plus low carbs, which can mainly be found in meat products, butter, poultry, cheese, etc. Twenty-first-century scientists are working to help and ease the life of the people living on this planet. Distinctive studies in this field have devised a plant-based keto diet that seemed out of the question in the past few years. A plant-based diet is integrated into the components of the keto diet to get the better results of a Ketotarian diet.
How Ketotarian Diet Came Into Being
There was a certain problem faced by the people following the keto diet. So, the following are the reasons that doctors started working on the Ketotarian diet. Consuming a large amount of high fat can destroy the microbiome.
- Digesting meat becomes problematic for some people that eventually causes inflammation, fatigue, and weight gain.
- By setting aside fruits and vegetables, a keto diet can be emotionally tiring.
Approaches to Ketotarian Diet
There are following approaches that lead to setting your life on a proper ketotarian diet.
Vegan |
Vegetarian |
Pescatarian |
Ovo Vegetarian |
Flexitarian |
Lacto Vegetarian |
This most cramped approach is vegan that includes fatty ingredients for example.
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This option includes.
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Pescatarian food encompasses the sea food.
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In Ovo vegetarian keto diet you can not take dairy products but can consume eggs.
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As the name suggests, you need to be a little flexible in consuming vegetative food along with some allowance of meat products.
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In this type of vegetarian diet a person is allowed to take dairy products excluding eggs.
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- Vegan approach is purely plant-based, and anything from animals is not allowed. You must follow strictly even you can not take honey as bees are also animals, so all products taken from animals are not allowed.
- Vegetarian approach to plant-based keto diet only includes plant-based food, and meat products are not taken. However, dairy products like eggs can be consumed.
- By adding seafood in the vegetarian approach, you will be doing a pescatarian keto diet. This includes all items of a vegetarian diet with the addition of dairy products and seafood.
- In Lacto vegetarian keto diet, you will be consuming a normal vegetarian diet with the addition of dairy products but exclusion of eggs.
- Flexitarian keto diet allows a person to take all vegetarian food with a small quantity of meat products.
- Ovo vegetarian is the opposite of the Lacto vegetarian diet plan. In this, you can consume regular vegetarian food, no dairy, but egg consumption is allowed.
Plant-Based Keto
We have explored different approaches; with the help of this plant-based keto diet seems incredibly easy now. As every approach has a different set of foods so it would be pertinent to know what method should be adopted and what approach would be better for you? For this, we need to set the main targets before the selection of any approach discussed above. These targets could be
- More vegetables than Meat
- Try for effective ketosis
For the achievement of these two main goals, we need to do the following
- Sustainability and Flexibility
Plant based keto diet plan is not an easy diet pattern to follow. It will cut down all meat products, eggs, fish, and other dairy items. Moreover, if you combine the ketogenic diet plan by having only vegetarian food, then you need to stop consuming even morsels and beans. It means you already cut down maximum eating options and left with low carbs, vegetables, olives, and olive oil. So, it would be exceedingly difficult to continue with this plan. It will be best to be flexible in the diet plan, so better to go with a flexitarian plant-based keto diet. This will increase your eating options, and you can also take proteins.
- Maintain Ketosis Process
Consumption of too many carbohydrates will slow the process of ketosis in the body. It means you need to cut down the consumption of carbohydrates so that your body can consume other materials instead of carbohydrates and adopt the process of ketosis by the production of ketones from fats, and the process of ketosis can be done. Generally, a normal person needs 50 to 60 grams of carbohydrates so that the body can perform ketosis. Having that much carbohydrates will restrict you from consuming many vegetarian foods like pulses and beans.
- Include Proteins
All kinds of meat are abundant resources of proteins, and as everybody knows that proteins are an integral part of the food. Meat is an integral part because along with proteins it also contains some amino acids which the human body can not produce and hence can only be taken from meat. The importance of amino acids for better health will force you to take meat. Furthermore, proteins are necessary for the body in many areas like they help the body to fight against diseases, better pumping of heart, muscle development, and energy required to carry out physical activities. When you start plant-based keto, it means that the number of proteins required would be difficult to consume, and hence you will have low amino acids too. To overcome this problem, it would be better to take eggs, dairy products having fat, and a fair amount of meat. You can do a lacto vegetarian or flexitarian approach of the plant-based keto diet.
Tips for adopting a Vegan-Keto Diet
To follow a healthy Keotarian diet only needs motivation and willingness. Some of the following are the chief tips to embrace while maintaining a plant-based keto diet.
Include More Fat in Diet Plan
All the neurons perform their message delivery function from the brain to all other parts of the body with the help of fat. It means fat is essential for the nervous system working. The human brain consists of almost 60 percent of fat, and this is yet another factor that is increasing the importance of fat for the human body. Furthermore, different organs of the body require fat to create a layer that can protect them. Fat is also required by the body to process and absorb many vitamins like Vitamin D, Vitamin A, Vitamin E, and Vitamin K.
The body also demands to have a good equilibrium between Omega 3 and Omega 6 and both of them are fatty acids. This balance should be 1:1, but mostly, people consume Omega 6 more than Omega 3. The reason behind this overconsumption is that Omega 6 can be found in most of the foods, but Omega 3 is a rare gem to find. This overconsumption can cause even cancer and heart problems.
Overcome Nutrition Deficiency
To overcome any nutrition deficiency, you need to count your daily intake of calories and maintain the minimum level required to be healthy. For this, formulate a diet plan with the combination of nuts, vegetarian proteins, and low carb vegetables. In this regard, you need to find out some recipes that are vegetarian, but they do not break the standards of the plant-based keto diet.
Take Ketones Separately
During the plant-based keto diet, it is more likely that ketones produced by the body will get low. For this, you need to take ketones separately. This intake of ketones separately instead of taking through food is called exogenous ketones. Plant-based keto diet sometime may increase your carbohydrates intake, and this will cause the creation of low ketones in the blood, and the process of ketosis will get affected. So, it is always better to take ketones separately while doing a plant-based keto diet.
Macro Tracking in Diet Plan
To carry out ketosis effectively, you need to have a balanced diet and a balanced intake of fat, carbohydrates, proteins, and other nutrition. It is said earlier that during the vegetarian keto diet, there are chances of taking more carbohydrates. For this, you need to track your macros on a daily basis. At the start of a plant-based keto diet, this would be difficult for you to track, but after a month or few weeks, you would have enough experience to track. If you fail to track your macros, then health would be at stake.
Final Note
Plant-based keto diet is not a difficult task to do. It only requires a solid commitment from you. It has some challenges to offer which may include low calories count, weight loss and weak metabolism. Furthermore, protein count may come low in your body and this will lead you to some serious problems. So, if you have planned to be on plant-based keto diet then make sure to include eggs, fair amount of fat, some seafood and ample amount of fat and proteins.
References
- https://www.shape.com/weight-loss/tips-plans/ketotarian-high-fat-plant-based-diet
- https://perfectketo.com/plant-based-keto/
- https://www.bulletproof.com/diet/keto/vegan-keto-diet/
- https://www.ruled.me/comprehensive-guide-vegan-ketogenic-diet/
- https://www.ketonutrition.org/blog/2018/4/24/a-plant-based-approach-to-keto
- https://rebbl.co/blog/plant-based-keto/
- https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto/vegetarian
- https://goop.com/wellness/health/the-plant-based-ketogenic-diet/
- https://www.shape.com/weight-loss/tips-plans/ketotarian-high-fat-plant-based-diet
- https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-keto-diet#:~:text=Vegans%20can%20reach%20ketosis%20by,excludes%20all%20animal%2Dbased%20foods.