More Keto info

If you have ever tried a ketogenic or low-carb diet, one of the first things you may have noticed is that your body weight dropped a few pounds quite rapidly. Although this can be great motivation for someone to continue their efforts, the weight you lose in the first few days of your low-carb diet is typically not pure fat.
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Muscle cells and your liver store carbohydrates in the form of glycogen. If you drastically reduce your carbohydrate intake, muscle and liver glycogen stores decrease [1]. The decrease in glycogen stores in itself accounts for some weight loss, but not much. The body on average can only store 400g of glycogen in muscles and 100g in the liver [2].
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What’s more interesting is the effects glycogen depletion has on total body water stores. For every gram of glycogen you lose, you lose about 3g of water weight [3]. If you do the math, you see it is possible to lose a few pounds of pure water weight when your glycogen levels decrease substantially because of your lower carb intake.
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So, it’s likely that some people perceive a short-term weight loss benefit in the form of water loss when they follow a ketogenic diet. But when it comes to pure fat loss over several months of dieting, a ketogenic diet is not more effective than a high-carb diet for fat loss if calorie and protein intake is matched [4-6].
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Lastly, it’s worth to note that glycogen depletion is not a good thing for most athletes. Muscle glycogen is the main fuel source during high-intensity exercise [7]. So if you practice a high-intensity sport (like resistance training) and want to maximize your performance, it’s not advised to completely restrict your carb intake.
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References:
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1615908
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2636990/
3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25911631
4. https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12970-017-0174-y
5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28765272
6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5568065/
7. https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1550-2783-7-7