Benefits of Keto Diet For Seniors

As a senior, it's essential to be mindful of your diet - after all, your body is more sensitive to what you eat now than when you were younger. Thankfully, there are many dieticians and fitness professionals who have created special diets to help seniors stay in optimum health. A popular diet plan amongst seniors is the keto diet, which has been proven to be beneficial for health and wellbeing.

Originally used to prevent seizures, fitness specialists are now claiming that the keto diet is one of the best ways for anyone to lead a healthy life.

What Is a Keto Diet?

The keto/ketogenic diet is an exciting way to eat, as it allows you to enjoy a variety of low-carbohydrate meals. To put that into perspective, compare it to the average Western diet, which typically contains 225 to 325g of carbohydrates daily. However, on a keto diet, your daily carb intake should be limited to just 10% of your daily calorie intake, which is around 50g. As a result, you will have to exclude many carb-rich foods such as pasta, whole grains, and rice from your diet.

Benefits of a Keto Diet for Seniors?

Are you feeling daunted by the strictness of this diet? You might be asking yourself if it's all worth it. But here are some convincing reasons to give it a go:

It Helps in Weight Loss

Are you looking to get started on a keto diet? One of the most critical pieces of the puzzle is understanding that you need to make sure your meals contain 60 - 80% fat. You might be asking, why? After all, isn't fat bad for you? Not necessarily! We're talking about the difference between trans fats, which are bad for you, and poly- and monounsaturated fats, which are actually beneficial to your health. Sources of these "good" fats include full-fat dairy products, cheese, and butter. Incorporating these fats into your diet will help you feel full faster, which helps you maintain the optimal fat-to-carbohydrate ratio that is key for weight loss.

Helps Prevent Inflammation

Suffering from long-term pain can be extremely debilitating and often, inflammation is one of the major culprits. It could be the result of a range of conditions, from arthritis to serious bodily injury, and is caused by cytokines, a substance released by the body. However, a keto diet can reduce the production of cytokines, effectively combatting inflammation and protecting the body from further pain.

Helps to Improve Bone Health

As we age, it's common to feel pain in our bones. This could be a sign of osteoporosis, a condition that weakens our bones. While toxins in our diet can play a role in reduced calcium absorption, the keto diet helps reduce those toxins, thus improving calcium absorption and helping to avoid osteoporosis.

If you’re a senior looking to boost your health, a keto diet is a great place to start! While it might require saying goodbye to certain beloved treats, the health benefits you’ll get from this strict diet make it more than worth it.