7 Important supplements to stay healthy during ketogenic diet
The Ketogenic diet is one of the fastest ways to lose weight, but being in ketosis and eating only fat and protein for so long has a bad effect on your health because your body becomes depleted of some important nutrients that come with high-carb foods.
In this case, taking a supplement that contains these nutrients is critical to stay healthy during your weight loss journey:
1-Magnesium
Magnesium is an important mineral for nerve and muscle function. It also boosts energy, regulates blood sugar levels, and supports your immune system.
On a ketogenic diet, it may be difficult to meet your magnesium needs, as many magnesium-rich foods like beans and fruits are also high in carbs.
This can cause a medical issue called magnesium deficiency.
Magnesium deficiency characterized by muscle cramps, fatigue, and possibly an abnormal heart rhythm which all symptoms commonly experienced by those transitioning to a ketogenic diet.
So, if you experience any of these symptoms, maybe it’s a good idea to add a magnesium supplement to your diet.
Supplementing with magnesium can help reduce these symptoms and also prevent them from ever happening.
Dosage: take 200–400 mg per day of the most absorbable forms of magnesium include magnesium glycinate, magnesium gluconate and magnesium citrate.
2-Vitamin D
Vitamin D is important for many bodily functions as it helps your body absorb calcium, magnesium, and other minerals that could be lacking on a ketogenic diet, especially in those who are lactose intolerant.
It’s also necessary for maintaining strength and muscle growth, bone density, healthy testosterone levels, and for supporting cardiovascular and immune system health.
Food sources that contains a decent amount of vitamin D are limited, you can get it naturally from direct exposure to the sun, but also you will be putting yourself at risk of developing skin cancer.
Therefore, vitamin D supplement is important for everyone’s health not only the people following ketogenic diets since 1/3 of Americans these days have a vitamin D deficiency.
Dosage: take 1000 to 1500 IU for every 25 pounds of body weight per day.
Also, be sure to eat some fat when you take it to facilitate its absorption (vitamin D is fat soluble), and take it in the morning because night dosage may mess with your sleep.
3-Omega-3
Omega-3 is an essential fatty acid that is required for normal well-being and function.
The three main omega-3 fatty acids are alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).
(EPA) and (DHA) have been found to reduce inflammation, lower heart disease risk and prevent mental decline.
Omega-3 supplements can be particularly beneficial for people on ketogenic diets, as they can help maintain a healthy omega-3 to omega-6 ratio when following a high-fat diet.
Actually, one study showed that people following a ketogenic diet who supplemented with omega-3 fatty acids from krill oil experienced greater decreases in triglycerides, insulin and inflammatory markers than those who did not.
Dosage: take between 1000-4000 mg per day of high quality omega-3 supplement that contains at least 500 mg of EPA and DHA per 1,000 mg serving.
4-Electorlytes
Electrolytes are sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. You need these minerals for pretty much everything from maintaining blood pressure to contracting your muscles.
We already talked about magnesium, so let’s talk about the other electrolytes:
Sodium
Sodium controls the amount of water in your body and supports muscle and nerve function. Not enough sodium leads to headaches, fatigue, muscle spasms, and confusion.
Dosage: take 4-5g per day.
Potassium
Together sodium and potassium regulate fluid balance. It also regulates the electrical activity of your heart and muscles. It is found mainly inside your cells (whereas sodium is found outside the cells) and is important for communication between nerves.
Low levels cause tiredness, muscle weakness, and constipation.
Dosage: take 5g per day.
Calcium
Your body uses calcium to maintain and grow bones and teeth. It’s also important for muscle and nerve functioning, cell communication, and normal blood clotting.
A sudden drop in calcium levels can lead to numbness, muscle spasms, and seizures. However, this is rare as your body is able to borrow calcium from bones.
Dosage: take 700-1000 mg per day.
In the first week of a keto diet, you will likely be losing lots of fluids through frequent urination and working out sweat. And with that fluid, you’ll lose electrolytes. In fact, electrolyte loss is the main reason why we get the infamous keto flu.
This is why supplementing your diet with electrolytes is important on keto, especially in the first week, it eases keto flu symptoms.
Also, the ketogenic diet is specifically designed to reduce insulin levels, which insulin increases the amount of sodium that you take up from your food. Meaning that it reduces the amount of sodium that you take up from your food.
All of these factors can combine to create electrolyte imbalances that cause muscle cramping, fatigue, poor athletic performance, insomnia, and many other issues.
Therefore, there’s a significant amount of research suggesting that people who follow a keto diet need more electrolyte or just an electrolyte supplement as the evidence supports their effectiveness, and they’re super cheap and easy to get.
5-MCT Oil
MCT oil is a popular supplement among keto dieters.
They are Medium-Chain Triglycerides, which are fats that very easy for your body to process and turn into ketone bodies. Basically, eating them is a way to supercharge your ketone bodies production to enter the state of ketosis quicker.
Studies on MCTs show that they’re a powerful weight loss tool. They reduce body fat by down-regulating genes that control fat storage as well as hormone receptors that influence fat metabolism.
When taken moderately, MCTs also reduce blood glucose and LDL cholesterol. They also improve insulin sensitivity.
Coconut oil is one of the richest natural sources of MCTs, with about 60% of its fatty acids being in the form of MCTs.
However, taking an MCT oil supplement provides an even more concentrated dose of MCTs and can be helpful for those following a ketogenic diet.
Dosage: start with a small dose (1 teaspoon or 5 ml) of MCT oil to see how your body reacts before increasing to the suggested dosage listed on the supplement bottle.
6-7 keto DHEA
The name will make you think it’s a keto diet in a pill But it’s just a hormone produced by your body naturally.
7-keto-DHEA is formed from dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) in the body. DHEA is a “parent hormone” produced by the adrenal gland.
It acts as a growth hormone and can help stimulate the production of other hormones that play a role in burning fat and increasing lean muscle mass, such as the thyroid hormone
The main benefit of taking 7 keto DHEA on a keto diet is to increase your metabolism and speed up the weight loss process, which will give you better results from the ketogenic diet.
There are also other benefits from taking 7 keto DHEA such as:
- Improve lean body mass and build muscle.
- Increase the activity of the thyroid gland.
- Boost the immune system, enhance memory.
- Slow aging.
- Treat depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Therefore, supplementing with 7 keto DHEA will make a huge difference not only in losing weight but also your overall health.
Dosage: 100 mg twice daily is the recommended dosage for weight loss.
7-Exogenous ketones
Exogenous ketones are ketone bodies in supplement form. They have the same molecular structure as the ketones that your body makes through a process called ketogenesis. You can find them in liquid, powder, and pill form.
Exogenous ketone supplements are commonly used to increase blood levels of ketone bodies which will help you reach ketosis quicker.
Aside from increasing ketone bodies, exogenous ketone supplements have been linked to other benefits like boosting athletic performance, speed muscle recovery and decrease appetite.
There are also some researches showing that they might provide the benefits of keto without the need to actually eat a ketogenic diet. But most of these studies are done on animals and there aren’t any human trials yet to support this claim.
Dosage: take 12g of BHB slat (exogenous ketones salt) per day.
This dose is enough to get most people to greater than 3.0mMol/dL of BHB in the blood, which is considered a deep nutritional ketosis.
Taking these supplements can help optimize your nutritional value and keep you in a healthy state during a keto diet, therefore they are worth a try.
