With another New Year around the corner, resolution notes are coming out and several people are now deciding on how healthy a life they’re planning to lead in 2025!
In this age of social media, plenty of diet tips are in trend and two of the trendiest diets are: keto and paleo.
Their popularity stems from the weight loss success that people often see when they first go on those two diets, which experts say is because of their restrictive nature. As per Federica Amati, head nutritionist at the U.K.-based health science company, Zoe, known for its at-home blood sugar and gut health test kit, when you restrict your caloric intake in any way—in this case, specifically by limiting carbs—you are likely to see weight loss.
What is Keto Diet?
The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate dietary therapy that in conventional medicine is used mainly to treat hard-to-control (refractory) epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates.
Normally, carbohydrates in food are converted into glucose, which is then transported around the body and is important in fueling brain function. However, if only a little carbohydrate remains in the diet, the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies, the latter passing into the brain and replacing glucose as an energy source. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood (a state called ketosis) eventually lowers the frequency of epileptic seizures.
According to Amati, “Keto does have science to support its use in specific brain diseases like children with severe epilepsy and schizophrenia.”
The keto diet is named for the concept of ketosis, a metabolic state where the body burns fat for energy instead of glucose, or carbs. It can take anywhere from two days to over a week to reach ketosis.
Keto gained momentum as part of a low-carb weight loss trend, along with similar diets such as Atkins and Whole30. People on a keto diet will consume about 60% of their calories from fat, 30% from protein, and 10% from carbohydrates, according to the Cleveland Clinic. For someone eating 2,000 calories, that would be around 165 grams of fat, 40 grams of carbs, and 75 grams of protein.
Foods on the keto diet include:
Red meat, turkey, chicken, and fish
Eggs
Avocados, avocado oil, extra virgin olive oil, and coconut oil
Butter and cream
Nuts and seeds
Low-carb vegetables like broccoli, spinach, kale, tomatoes, lettuce, bell papers, zuccini, and cucumbers
Berries
High-fat dairy products like cheese (Cheddar, Parmesan, and goat cheese)
High-cocoa chocolate.
What is Paleo Diet?
The Paleolithic diet, Paleo diet, caveman diet, or Stone Age diet is a modern fad diet consisting of foods thought by its proponents to mirror those eaten by humans during the Paleolithic era. The diet avoids food processing and typically includes vegetables, fruits, nuts, roots, and meat and excludes dairy products, grains, sugar, legumes, processed oils, salt, alcohol, and coffee.
Historians can trace the ideas behind the diet to “primitive” diets advocated in the 19th century. In the 1970s, Walter L. Voegtlin popularized a meat-centric “Stone Age” diet; in the 21st century, the best-selling books of Loren Cordain popularized the Paleo diet.
Scientist Loren Cordain’s bestselling book published in 2001, popularized eating habits that mimic those from the Paleolithic Era, around 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago.
Cordain claims that contemporary changes in diet outpaced the human body’s ability to adapt—which he believes is a factor in the current pervasiveness of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
According to Cordain, the best approach is to return to what he believes our bodies were meant to eat as a means to stave off chronic metabolic illnesses.
Foods on the paleo diet include:
Fruits like apples, bananas, oranges, pears, avocados, strawberries, blueberries, and more
Low-starch vegetables like carrots and leafy greens
Nuts and seeds like almonds, macadamia nuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and more
Grass-fed meat
Fish
Eggs
Whole grains and gluten-free grains
Dairy products
Legumes, including beans, peas, lentils, tofu, and other soy foods
Peanuts, which are considered a legume rather than a nut
How do you pick?
The biggest difference between keto and paleo is the types of foods you can eat.
Keto is very strict in terms of your carbohydrate intake, whereas paleo doesn’t have a specific limit on carbohydrates, and offers more room for more carbohydrates in the form of fruits and veggies.
On the other hand, paleo does eliminate dairy such as milk, butter, and cheese, which are all staples of keto for their high fat and protein content.
On one hand, paleo is supposed to be rooted in diets from thousands of years ago—before the advent of processed foods—while keto isn’t as particular about eating processed foods.
A 2015 meta analysis of paleo diet studies observed that in the short-term—10 days to five weeks—participants experienced decreased waist circumference by an average of about one inch lost.
However, in the first six to 12 months of keto, researchers observed similar results of weight loss, but those effects seem to taper off after the 12-month mark.
However, keto and paleo are only helpful as interventions for specific health reasons.
For instance, keto has long been used to treat children with epilepsy and people with certain mental disorders such as schizophrenia
People can try keto or paleo for temporary weight-loss. However, it is nearly impossible to keep the weight off after stopping such a restrictive diet—or for anyone looking to shift their diet away from processed foods.
However, as Amati said, “They’re terrible for the environment and fairly unsustainable,” pointing to the environmental impacts of eating such heavily animal-based diets and the overall difficulty in adhering to these diets.
It’s not advisable to apply any strict diet regime in your life without weighing its pros and cons and consulting with your nutritionist/dietitian. Before you pick any of these diet regimes, speak to your healthcare provider(s) to have a better understanding and insight.