Is The Ketogenic Diet Or The Paleo Diet Better?

Is the ketogenic diet or the paleo diet better for you? Read on to find out what the verdict is.

Let's Go Back in Time

The paleo diet was first proposed by a gastroenterologist named Walter L. Voegtlin in his 1975 book called The Stone Age Diet. It is a diet that our ancestors thrived on back in the days.

The paleo diet is made up of fresh and wholesome foods that are nutritious, without additives and preservatives. The diet includes meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, roots vegetables, and healthy fats.

A Paleo Diet Excludes The Following

Processed Foods
Dairy Products
Grains
Sugar
Legumes
Processed Oils
Alcohol

It promotes a healthier diet by eating foods that might have been available in the Paleolithic era. During that era, people generally ate foods that they could hunt or gather. People during that time hunt for meat, fish or gather vegetables, nuts, seeds, fruits, etc.

The Paleo diet improves the metabolism of your body as well as body composition. You will feel lighter and most likely start to lose weight with this diet because it reduces your appetite.

The Benefits Of A Paleo Diet:

– You get more anti-inflammatory nutrients since you're eating more plant foods
– A higher metabolism means you'll burn more fats
– Stabilizes blood sugar
– You get more iron if you are eating more meat
– You will experience more satiety due to more protein intake
– You adsorb nutrients better since you're eating wholesome foods

Daily Paleo Calories Should Be As Close To This As Possible:

– 20% to 35% should come from protein like seafood, lean meat, nuts, and seeds
– 20% to 40% should come from carbohydrates like fruits and non-starchy veggies

– 30% to 45% should come from unsaturated fats, include a moderate amount of polyunsaturated fats and a high amount of monounsaturated fats

– There should be no dairy, salt or sugar, and almost no grains

One of the problems with a paleo diet is you could be deficient in vitamin D and calcium, and run a risk of taking in too many toxins from high fish consumption.

Low-Carb Keto Diet

If you are on a ketogenic diet, basically you are trying to lower your carb intake as much as possible. At the same time, you increase your fat intake and taking in adequate amounts of protein.

You goal is to burn fats stored in your body. When you're on a extreme low-carb diet your body will reach a metabolic state call ketosis. With ketosis your body burns stored fats as energy source instead of glucose (comes from carbohydrates).

If your diet is high in glucose (from carb) your body will use that first because it is easier for your body to metabolize glucose. But glucose will weigh your body down and if there is excess it will turn into fat in your body.

If you are on a keto diet you are lowering the amount of glucose in your body to the bare minimum. Thus training your body to rely on fats, it's what the body burns for fuel during ketosis.

Ketones are a type of fatty acids, which are a direct result of the liver breaking down fats (this process is ketosis). It happens when your body doesn't have enough glucose to supply the body with fuel.

Ketones are alternative source of energy for most major organs, especially the brain. When glucose is not readily available, the brain uses ketones as a major source of energy.

Benefits of a keto diet:

• Reduces body fat while maintaining muscle mass
• Lowers blood LDL ( the “bad” cholesterol), blood pressure
• Higher levels of HDL (the “good” cholesterol)
• Lower level of triglycerides in bloodstream
• May protect brain function
• Lower blood sugar and insulin levels
• May lower blood pressure

You may experience a few harmless side effects when you just started with the keto diet. This is often refer to as the “keto flu” due to its flu-like symptoms. The symptoms may include lethargic feeling, mild nausea, disgestive discomfort, and sleep issues.

How The Keto Diet Breaks Down Fat

What's the difference between keto and paleo?

Paleo diet is not just a low-carb diet program. It also focuses on eating foods high protein and good fats, fruits, vegetables, seeds, and nuts. It's low in carbohydrates, but doesn't avoid carb to the extreme, limit dairy, sugar, legumes, grains and highly processed foods.

Keto diet is extremely low in carbohydrates, it limits all starches and sugars, including fruit except berries. You will get most of your carbs from non-starchy vegetables when you're on a keto diet.

Paleo diet which is also called the stone age diet may be high in fat in the historical time. But today's ever-evolving paleo diet is altered base on the needs of people at present time.

On the other hand, Keto diet is high in fats, preferably healthy fats. The primary source of fuel comes from fat as the diet is extremely low in carbohydrates. The metabolic process of burning fat is called ketosis.

Paleo diet limits dairy foods consumption, whereas keto diet allows dairy foods as it's a great way to add fat to the diet.

Discover The Difference Between Keto And Paleo Diet

So Is the ketogenic diet or the paleo diet better?

Is the ketogenic diet or the paleo diet better? Let's us summarize a little here. The Paleo diet emphasized higher fat and protein consumption, and lower carbohydrate consumption. Example meat, fish, nut, fruits and non-starchy vegetables. Just like what our ancestors hunt and ate more than 10,000 years ago.

The Keto Diet emphasizes on cutting down carbohydrates cosumption to a extreme low level. Without carb your body has no glucose to burn so your body uses fat as its primary energy source putting your body into the state called ketosis.

There is no definite answer to which is better. It all depends on which diet is more suitable for you and which you can adhere to in order to reach your goal.

Which Diet Is More Restrictive?

The Paleo diet limits: all legumes, dairy, grains, potatoes, processed foods, refined vegetable oils, refined sugar and salt.

What's allowed: meat, seafood, vegetables, fruits, eggs, nuts, seeds, herbs, and healthy oils.

The Keto diet: 20-30 grams (10% of diet) of carbohydrates per day to maintain ketosis. So most carb foods are not allowed in this diet and very limited amount of foods that have natural sugar are permitted. For example, a banana has 27 grams of carb.

What's allowed: meat, seafood, eggs, non-starchy veggies, fats and oils, nuts and seeds, and some dairy products.

So each diet has its restriction, Keto diet may be a little more restrictive as the amount of carb allowed daily is very low. For some people it's very challenging to keep carb intake so low, but it does help you to lose weight fast.

Conclusion

The Keto diet is a little more restrictive than the Paleo diet but it can help with quick weight loss if you follow the diet's protocol.

Consistency is key for trying to achieve weight loss, so you have to give your body time to adjust to a change of diet and stay on it for a period of time.

However, do check with your doctor or a nutritionist before starting just to be sure that you are on the right track to achieve your goal to become stronger and leaner 🙂

How To Be On The Keto Diet The Healthy Way