The 7 Benefits of the Keto Diet for Athletes

keto diet for athletes

Benefits the Keto Diet for Athletes

It can often feel these days like we are being endlessly bombarded with new diets and fad exercise routines. With the never-ending barrage of advice on how to best achieve peak performance, it’s often hard for an athlete to know where to begin.

Benefits the keto diet has

The ketogenic diet is potentially one of the best options for athletes.

If you haven’t heard of the benefits of keto yet, here are the keto plan diet tips you need to know.

1. Weight Loss

Whenever we take up a new exercise routine, we are often hoping to shed excess weight. Of course, if you are building a lot of muscle, you might end up with more weight than when you started, but you will hopefully be aware of this beforehand.

7 Benefits the Keto Diet Has on AthletesThe keto diet will very efficiently burn away any excess body fat you have. In one calorie-controlled study, participants lost an average of five pounds. Half of this was body fat, the other half was lean muscle.

2. Strength

Handgrip strength has been found to improve noticeably in those who undertake a ketogenic diet. Over a 6-week period, participants in one study saw a 2.5% increase in their hand-grip strength.

This is not statistically significant, however individual participants noted some large gains, and there are anecdotal reports of worthwhile gains.

3. Endurance Capacity

A ketogenic diet provides a moderate boost to endurance capacity. This will make very little difference to most people, but it could be game-changing for professional cyclists.

If you are a competitive cyclist, a ketogenic diet could give you the edge over your opponents.

4. Peak Power

Similar to endurance, peak power does raise under a ketogenic diet, but not in a way that will be appreciable to most people. Again, if you are in a sport where every fractional advantage makes a large impact, this could swing it for you.

5. Blood Lipid Changes

One particular study has shown that both total, and LDL specifically, cholesterol levels decreased by 4.7% and 10.7% respectively in the participants.

However, this same study noted that there were no changes in blood levels of triglycerides or HDL cholesterol.

6. Glucose & Insulin

As you might expect, blood sugar levels drop, by around 3%, when the body enters a ketogenic state. Meanwhile, the fasting component of the ketogenic diet causes a precipitous drop, roughly 22%, in insulin levels.

This is an impressive reduction, especially considering that these studies were conducted with healthy participants. The ketogenic diet is sometimes referred to as being a metabolic hammer that can smash insulin levels into the ground.

7. Boosting Effects

As well as optimizing your diet for ketosis, there are a variety of supplements that you can take in order to help things along.

You can find reviews and a whole bunch of useful information about ketogenic supplements, do your research.

Wrap-Up

The ketogenic diet can offer athletes a number of benefits.

Usually, fasting is one of the last things that an athlete should be doing. However, in the interest of kickstarting a ketogenic state, it is worth the disadvantages.

As with any diet that involves severe calorie restriction, you should consult with a doctor before embarking on your ketogenic diet regimen.

The 7 Benefits of the Keto Diet for Athletes