Is Keto Safe for seniors?

I’m sure you’ve been hearing a great deal about the ketogenic diet and you’re wondering whether it will work for you.

My family has been experimenting with healthy food options since my father’s Parkinson’s diagnosis. And after a long journey of wondering is keto safe for seniors we’ve come to the realization that the ketogenic diet is what has worked best for us.

This diet has definitely stood the test of time for me as an adult in my late 30s and also for my parents who are in their late 70s. It has also reduced the symptoms of many of the conditions we’ve experienced down through the years.

In this brief article, I’ll go over five different benefits my family noticed after transitioning to the ketogenic diet.

The 5 Benefits of Going Keto.

Since we decided to go Keto there have been five different benefits my parents and I have noticed.

1. More Energy
2. Feeling Less Full
3. Reduced Acid Reflux
4. Relief from Neuropathy (tingling in feet and legs)
5. Weightloss and Weight maintenance

I, however, am not a doctor and so will not claim to be an expert on this topic. What I do know are the changes my family and I have noticed since we started eating this way. But a major factor in our decision to go keto was a book by Dr. Perlmutter. Please stick around to the end, where I’ll provide you a link to this book that helped us decide to transition to a Keto/Paleo lifestyle.

I will go through each of these benefits and explain the changes we noticed in more detail below.

1. Energy

One of the first things I noticed was more energy. My father makes sure to stay active on a daily basis. 15 years after his diagnosis, he’s able to work out on his bike, work out with a personal trainer, and he even takes an online boxing class.

To all my coffee lovers, one Keto tip that contributes to his energy is his morning keto coffee, which some people call Bulletproof Coffee.

He wakes up, makes his coffee, and adds MCT oil, a concentrated coconut oil. He also adds ghee, sea salt, monk fruit sweetener, and sometimes a little cinnamon.

Studies show the ketogenic diet helps to increase your energy, concentration, as well as your focus after a few weeks. So if you’re hoping to increase your energy levels the ketogenic diet may help you get there.

2. Feeling Less Full

Have you ever noticed feeling full after a big bowl of pasta? Pasta, which turns into sugar leaves a lot of people feeling bloated and full. This is a feeling I no longer have while eating Keto. I am pleased to say that I’m full after eating my keto meals, but I do not feel full. Eating Keto helps my eyes not be bigger than my stomach, something I’ve always struggled with.

There are many ways people choose to follow the Keto lifestyle. Our family prefers to have a large plate of vegetables, a small portion of protein, and a carb substitute. To give an example we’ll have a large bowl of salad, a small portion of wild-caught salmon, and cauliflower mash. Our healthy fat is a sliced avocado and the extra virgin olive oil on our salad. This is a normal dinner in our household that causes us to stay full without feeling full.

3. Reduces acid reflux symptoms

I’ve been experiencing issues with acid reflux going on 13 years now. I knew there were certain things that triggered it, like tomato sauce or raw garlic. But, it wasn’t until I ate a vegan Cheesesteak that I realized another reflux contributor was high carbs.

I’m used to having reflux flare-ups at night, but there was one occasion when I experienced extreme symptoms during the daytime. This was when I ate a vegan meat substitute called seitan on a cheesesteak.

If you’re unfamiliar, they make seitan with wheat gluten, a meat substitute found in vegan recipes. I’m also sure they made the bread with wheat and then I topped it off with ketchup and a bunch of fries on the side. That is what I ate for lunch and my body let me know almost immediately that that was a bad idea.

If you didn’t know all wheat contains gluten and gluten may not affect everyone the same but it definitely doesn’t agree with my body. After doing a lot of research, I decided wheat is an ingredient I will not keep in my household.

Since I removed carbs from my diet, I have way fewer run-ins with acid reflux. I don’t experience issues when I decide to treat myself to sugar or carbs. However, it’s hard treating yourself just one time. So if a few days have passed and I’m still eating sugar and carbs, I’ll experience my next reflux attack like clockwork.

The moral of the story is to listen to your body and my body tells me if I stick with a low carb, low sugar, gluten-free diet my acid reflux will stay under control. If you are interested in finding out how to reduce acid reflux symptoms without medication click here.

4. Relieve neuropathy symptoms – a tingling in your legs and feet.

Have you ever experienced neuropathy, tingling in your feet, which sometimes gets worse at night? Many of the women in my family suffer through this and what I realize is that it doesn’t happen at all when I remove sugar from my diet.

The problem is I love sugar so I am the expert on this topic. Sugar is extremely addictive which I’ve known for a while now, but there are times when I like to treat myself. If I treat myself once I’m completely fine. It takes around 3 or 4 days of me consistently eating sugar for the tingling to return.

When I stop my sugar intake and go back to using sugar substitutes the tingling almost immediately subsides. And by sugar substitutes, I mean monk fruit sweetener, erythritol, stevia, and sometimes coconut sugar.

I’m not saying this will work for everyone, but it has worked for me. So if you experience neuropathy you should definitely give this a try and see if it helps.

5. Losing and maintaining weight

One of the ways the keto diet became popular is from the stories of people who lost weight. My parents at one point were a little overweight but since we started implementing keto into our lives the weight has disappeared. The ketogenic diet has definitely contributed to their weight loss.

I’ve been able to maintain my weight. I try to stay active by walking my dog, but I cannot say that I work out all the time. However, I still do maintain my weight and that is something I know I wouldn’t be able to control if I consistently ate carbs.

In Conclusion

Those were my top 5 benefits of transitioning to the keto lifestyle. If you are reading this post you most likely want to make a change. My recommendation is to take note of how you feel in your current situation and start finding simple ways to make better choices. Starting a ketogenic diet may be the choice you need to make at some point.

I would like to leave you with two different resources, the first one is a video you can find on Youtube titled “Is Keto Safe for Seniors,” where Dr. Kenderbery will provide the experiences of seniors at his practice that transitioned to a keto diet.

My final resource is a book my family and I read years back before changing to the keto/paleo lifestyle called Grain Brain, by Dr. Perlmutter.

This book is a wealth of knowledge. It explains why a low-carb diet is a good option, but it also provides insight into what happens to people with high-carb intake. If you’re interested you can find this book HERE on Amazon.com. I hope this post gave you more insight on the keto lifestyle. Stay tuned for more recipes and information on my healthy eating journey.