How To Follow A Vegan Ketogenic Diet
How To Follow A Vegan Ketogenic Diet
Two major health trends are the vegan or plant based diet movement and the ketogenic diet. While these plans don’t naturally endorse each other…it is possible to get the benefits of what both nutrition practices offer.
Most vegan diets rely upon a high amount of carbohydrates as the major source of calories so these individuals would not produce ketones. In this article, we going to break down how to follow a vegan ketogenic diet to improve health and performance.
The ketogenic diet is beginning to get a lot of media attention for its tremendous health benefits. We think it is important to help empower people on how to properly implement a ketogenic diet into their lifestyle if they so desire.
Vegan/Plant-Based Diet
A vegan diet is one devoid of all animal products. This means no animal meat and no byproducts of animals (milk, eggs, cheese etc.).
This style of diet that has recently gained a ton of press due to the film What The Health as well as many other media publications following a similar narrative.
One thing they did not mention in the film was the benefit of carbohydrate restriction, they instead insisted that as long as you are not eating meat, you can essentially eat as much sugar as you want with no health consequences. We obviously do not agree with this idea.
The science actually shows that a low-carb, high-fat diet has the potential to lower risk of heart disease, lower inflammation, and improve blood sugar regulation more effectively than a low-fat, high-carb diet .
Benefits of Plant-Based Diets
Compared to the Standard American Diet, plant-based diets have been shown to offer some level of benefit in reducing the risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. There has also been a correlation between plant-based diets and decreased risk of cancer which may be attributable to higher amounts of antioxidants and protein restriction .
Many people may notice that they lose weight and sometimes observe an improvement in gut health, but this can vary depending on an individual’s current health status. This is likely due to the removal of highly processed foods and an increase in dietary fiber intake.
For many people, there are certain risks of following a plant-based diet if it is not carefully planned, they include:
Protein Deficiency
Low B12
Increased Intake of Dietary Carbohydrates – Blood Sugar Imbalances
High Consumption of Phytic Acids and Lectins – Causing Gut Inflammation
Negligible Intake of Omega-3 Fatty Acids
…and some people notice that they just don’t feel healthy when they eliminate all animal-based products from the diet.
Ketogenic Diet
A ketogenic diet is a very low-carbohydrate meal plan that derives the majority of its calories from healthy fat sources. In fact, at least 60-70% of your total calories will be coming from fat sources while often less than 5% will be coming from carbs. The goal with this is to drop blood sugar and insulin low enough that the body resorts to burning fat as energy instead.
When this happens, your liver begins to convert fatty acids into molecules called ketones. Ketones are a very efficient fuel source that produce more stable energy, and have tons of health benefits for the brain and body.
While originally designed as a medical therapy for pediatric seizures in the 1900’s, it has reemerged as a powerful brain boosting and healing strategy. We personally recommend a ketogenic or low-carb, high-fat diet to the majority of our clients who are looking to optimize their health and quality of life.
Traditionally, a ketogenic diet is relatively high in animal-based foods. Obviously, a vegan ketogenic diet would not be.
Benefits Of A Ketogenic Diet
The ketogenic diet is starting to get recognition for incredible healing benefits it provides. One of the most significant aspects , is its potential cancer-fighting effects). Additionally, as someone who relies on there own wellbeing in order to serve others, we take advantage of a ketogenic diet daily to maximize our mental acuity and boost our overall performance.
Other Benefits of a Ketogenic Diet Include:
Improved Blood Sugar Regulation
Lowered Inflammation
Supporting Ideal Weight
Reduced Oxidative Stress
Improved Mitochondrial Health
Improvement In Multiple Neurological Disorders
Metabolically speaking, ketones are much more efficiently converted into energy compared to sugar. As a result, less oxidative stress occurs and therefore less inflammation. On top of this, there is a stimulation of mitochondrial biogenesis (growth of new mitochondria).
Essentially, the energy production factories in your cells gain better fuel and your body significantly upregulates how many of those factories there are. This means more energy for your body to perform normal functions. It is this combined effect of reduced inflammation and increased energy production that is responsible for most of the benefits of ketosis.
Is A Vegan Ketogenic Diet Possible?
In short, yes, a vegan ketogenic diet is possible. It can be quite limiting, but nonetheless it can be done. The proportion of high-fat plant-based foods is quite low compared to a more traditional paleo eating style. This is because plants tend to store starch or sugar as energy whereas animals tend to store more fat.
At the same time, some of the best plant-based sources of protein also tend to be high in starch. This would include things like beans. So, when looking for plant-based foods that help provide, enough fat, adequate protein, while also being low in carbs; the list of available foods narrows quickly. With some planning and a little creativity however, going on a vegan ketogenic plan can be achieved.
Vegan Keto Breakdown
Fats
In general, some of the staple fat sources on a vegan ketogenic diet would be coconut, avocados, olives, and higher fat nuts like macadamias or walnuts.
Additionally, the products that are made out of these high-fat foods can be great too. For example, coconut oil, coconut flakes, or full-fat coconut milk are great. Same with avocado oil or olive oil. Finally, nut butters can be a great option. The key for many people will be getting creative with these things to create variety.
The general rule to follow is that a food contains at least 70% healthy fats and very few net carbs. Healthy fats would be mostly saturated fats with smaller amounts of poly- and mono-unsaturated fats. Net carbs can be calculated by subtracting the fiber content from the total carbs in a given food.
For Example:
The average avocado contains somewhere around 17 grams of total carbohydrates where 13 grams of that is fiber (per 1 cup serving). So, by subtracting 13 from 17, we get 4 grams of net carbs. Most people will want to shoot for 40 or less net carbs per day while following a ketogenic diet in order to maintain a fat-burning metabolic state.
Proteins
Protein is one of the fundamental building blocks of life, and it IS very important that you have an adequate protein intake in order to be healthy. It’s also one of the biggest struggles people have on vegan keto due to the removal of carb rich foods such as most beans and legumes from the diet.
Don’t worry, here’s the good news…
There are actually plenty of ways to get healthy vegetable protein into your body on vegan keto. See below list for the best sources of vegan protein that provide a large amount of protein for low net carbs.
Hemp Seeds (hulled) | 10g | 0g | 3 tbsp
Nutritional Yeast | 8g | 1g | 2 tbsp
Tofu (firm): 9g | 1.9g | 3ox/85g
Tempeh: 19g | 4g | 3.5oz/100g
Seiten: 20g | 4g | 3oz/85g
Soybeans (mature, yellow organic): 14g | 3.5g | 1/2 cup
Soybeans (edamame, green): 11g | 6g | 1/2 cup
Peas: 5g | 9g | 2/3 cup
Soybeans (dry roasted): 17g | 10.5g | 1/2 cup
Spinach (frozen): 4g | 1g | 1 cup
Almonds | 6g | 2.5g | 1/4 cup
Sunflower Seeds | 7.3g | 4g | 1/4 cup
Pumpkin Seeds | 8.8g | 2.3g | 1/4 cup
Peanut Butter | 6g | 4g | 2 tbsp
Lupins (lupini beans) | 26g | 11.4g | 1 cup
Other great places to sneak in some protein are veggies: greens, broccoli and mushrooms all have a decent amount of protein and are low in carbohydrates.
Protein Requirements
Protein consumption is important to monitor on a ketogenic diet. Consuming too little protein, which is not uncommon on a vegan diet, will facilitate the breakdown of muscle tissues and other consequences of amino acid deficiencies. At the same time, too much protein can be counterproductive to getting into ketosis as your body will tend to convert excess amino acids into glucose.
The rule to follow is generally about 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight. So, for a 70kg person you would require 70g protein per day
This is going to be adequate for an individual who is fairly inactive. For someone who is looking to put on muscle and is very active, this number can be increased to between 100-120 grams of protein on training days, which would be about 1.3-1.6 grams of protein per kg.
For those dealing with cancer, staying around 0.5 g/Kg can be therapeutic for reducing mTOR expression. To put that into perspective, a 68kg person would only consume 34 g/protein daily. mTOR is a biological pathway in the body which plays an important role in regulating cell growth and proliferation that may also have an influence over cancer growth .
If you are simply having problems with staying full, then increasing fat intake will be the place to focus.
Therapeutic Considerations
If you are planning on using the ketogenic diet as a healing strategy, certain factors should be considered. For example, those that are struggling with autoimmunity or cancer often have sensitive and inflamed digestive systems.
In these cases, using an easily digestible protein powder can be very helpful. IAlso, if consuming nuts it will be important to soak and sprout them in order to improve digestibility and reduce the burden of digestion.
Adapted from source https://drjockers.com/follow-vegan-ketogenic-diet/
