A ketogenic or keto diet is high in fat, low-carb and helps in burning fat effectively. In earlier times, this diet was followed by epileptic kids as it brought down the frequency of seizure episodes. Later it has been proved to help treat diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Since it helps with many chronic illnesses, you may have questions if keto diet works for hypothyroidism.
Hypothyroidism is the condition where thyroid gland doesn’t produce sufficient level of thyroid. The thyroid hormone has an influence over almost every body part. When less amount of thyroid is produced, there is a slowdown in the bodily processes.
Understanding what mainly causes hypothyroidism:
Hypothyroidism can be triggered by stress. Adrenals are small glands that produce stress hormones, one among which is cortisol. When a person experiences stress, his/her body short bursts of this stress hormone are released into the blood stream. Under prolonged stress drains the adrenals and leads to adrenal fatigue state. This causes:
- Brain fog
- Low energy
- Depressive mood
- Light-headedness
- Sweet and salt cravings
Correlation of adrenal fatigue with ketosis:
With keto diet glucose – the body’s main fuel of energy is deprived. This in turn causes the body to burn the fat stored in the place of the fuel. Rapid weight loss is a result of this fat-burning state. Due to the low carb intake, ketosis causes more strain to the adrenals due to the decreasing level of thyroid hormone.
Cortisol level gets increased which causes the thyroid function to decrease and adrenals have more work now. In case you already have adrenal fatigue due to stress, the state is triggered more by following ketosis. Until stress levels are addressed it is not advised to follow ketosis as it would hypothyroidism.
A balance between keto and hypothyroidism can be achieved by following Dr. Anna Cabaca’s optimized ketogenic diet for thyroid health. Her Keto-Green program aids weight loss for women with hypothyroidism.
Keto-Green diet:
In addition to inheriting many techniques of traditional keto diet, few additional elements are added and few things are done differently. The diet is now more keto-friendly due to these differences. Additionally, it focuses on handing the main barriers such as
- Keto-flu – One of the common side effects experienced in the first few weeks of starting the diet which includes brain fog, stomach pain, nausea, stomach pain and vomiting.
- Giving up on the diet during the initial days
- Avoiding the irritable state experienced while on this diet
With Keto-Green diet instead of kick starting the keto diet plan from day 1 of the diet, a healthy foundation is established first by following an alkaline diet. In the keto diet generally followed, inflammation occurs due to acidity by being strictly ketoic which negatively affects thyroid levels and losing weight becomes tricky. The Keto-Green aims on counter balancing this issue by alkaline producing diet. Top inflammatory causing foods like diary, sugar, processed foods and gluten are excluded.
This modified keto diet with few changes to the diet plate works well for women going through menopause and hypothyroidism. It is easier to follow since it is designed in a way to keep the common side effects of the strict keto diet at bay.