Understanding the ketogenic diet

The Ketogenic Diet is the dream diet of 2017: eat all the fat you want and lose weight.

The Ketogenic Diet allows you to enjoy that extra strip of bacon. You can go to town on all the high fat foods and still lose weight. How? Eliminate carbs.

"You will eliminate all carbs - that's the key. What's left is eating a moderate to high amount of fat-derived foods and protein-derived foods. A lot of eggs, meat, cheese, oils, and such," said America's Healthy Heart Doctor Joel Kahn.

When your body is looking for energy from carbs and you're not eating those carbs, your body goes into ketosis, which turns your fat stores into energy. The compounds that are created are called ketones.

"Eliminate processed junk foods. Get rid of added sugar, processed meats. It's a great way to get on the path to losing 100 puonds," Dr. Kahn said.

Cutting out cookies and soda is always a good idea, but there's a downside. First, it's really hard to eliminate pasta, bread, many fruits, and starchy vegetables. Second, eating a high fat diet long term, might be questionable. 
 
"The concern in the medical community is doing this day after day, eating high protein eliminating carbs. There is scienc that this might not be safe long term," Dr. Kahn said.

Instead, Dr. Kahn recommends a plant-based version of the keto diet and try it for just five days a month. 

There are a lot of vegan ketogenic diets if you look on line. Here's one resource - but you can also search online by looking for vegetarian ketogenic diet.