How to easily get rid of Digestion Related problems in Keto Diet?
Like most people, you may experience digestion related issues after starting the Keto diet.
The main reason behind these issues is the fact that different digestive enzymes are needed to digest different foods.
Your body generally produces digestive enzymes suitable to digest high carb food. As you switch to Keto diet, the default set of enzymes is not suitable to digest your new food and your body can’t produce new sets of enzymes right away.
As a result, the foods you eat are not digested properly and you suffer from digested related issues.
I’ll describe the remedies to these issues but first, let’s start with the introduction to terminologies that you need to understand.
What are Enzymes?
Our bodies can not directly absorb the nutrients from the food we eat.
To absorb the macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats & proteins) from our food, these complex macronutrients must be broken into simpler forms. This is done by the chemicals known as enzymes.
Most enzymes are a kind of protein that acts as a catalyst to break down the macronutrients.
These digestive enzymes are found in the digestive tract of our body including saliva, linings of the stomach, small intestine, large intestine, and pancreas.
There are three main types of digestive enzymes:
- Proteases: Break down protein into small peptides and amino acids
- Lipases: Break down fat into three fatty acids plus a glycerol molecule
- Amylases: Break down carbs like starch into simple sugars
Digestive enzymes in High-carb diet vs Keto diet
When you were on the high-carb diet, the main digestive enzymes produced were Amylases which break down carbs into simpler sugars followed by other enzymes.
However, in Keto diet, you need lipases enzymes that break fats.
But, your body cannot start producing more lipases as soon as you switch to the Keto diet. It needs a long time to adapt to your new diet and produce the required enzymes.
As a result, various digestion-related symptoms appear.
How to get rid of Digestion Related Issues?
The most effective way of getting rid of digestion-related issues is to take external digestive enzymes.
You can do either eat foods that contain high amount of digestive enzymes or take extracted enzymes directly.
Getting Digestive enzymes from Foods
This is the natural way of getting digestive enzymes. All you need to do is eat foods that contain the required enzymes.
Below are the seven foods that you can eat to get digestive enzymes required on the keto diet. (source: healthline.com)
Food | Containing Enzymes | Functions | |
1 | Pineapple | Bromelain (Proteases) | – Breaks down protein into simpler amino acids that can be easily absorbed. – Improves overall digestion |
2 | Avocados | Lipase | Breaks fats into fatty acids. |
3 | Kefir | Lipases Proteases lactose | -Help in the digestion of lactose. -Helps in digestion of fats. |
4 | Raw Sauerkraut | Various | -Eases digestive symptoms like bloating, gas constipation, diarrhea and stomach pain. |
5 | Kimchi | Lipases Proteases Amylases | -Helps to digest proteins, fats, and carbs. -Reduces Blood cholesterol. |
6 | Ginger | Zinibain (Proteases) | -Helps to digest Protein -Helps the food to move faster through the stomach. -Increases production of enzymes inside the body. |
7 | Papaya | Papain (Proteases) | -Breaks down protein into amino acids. -Ease constipation & Bloating. |
Easiest and cheapest way of getting digestive enzymes
Getting digestive enzymes from food is a good idea as it is the natural method but it has two main drawbacks:
- Pineapple, Papaya, kefir, etc. which contain a high amount of digestive enzymes, also contain high carbs which contradict the main purpose of Keto diet. So, these foods should be eaten as less as possible.
- You cannot get required enzymes from a single food as lipases are not a single enzyme but a group of similar enzymes. So, you need to eat a variety of food to get the required enzymes. This will cost a lot.
To overcome these drawbacks, instead of eating all these foods, you can take only the required nutrients and digestive enzymes extracted from the foods.
This way, it will be a lot easier as you can take a spoonful of powder, mix with any drink and get the benefit of eating more than 26 types of fruits and vegetables minus the carbs at comparatively very low cost.
Which Product to get?
Although there are many brands with various promises (you can try any of those if you trust them), the only product I could find that is designed especially for Keto diet is Keto Greens Powder with MCTs from Perfect KETO.
The main reason why I prefer this product is:
- It contains nutrients and enzymes from 26 different fruits and vegetables, one of the highest in the market.
- It contains added MCTs which are beneficial during the Keto diet.
- Contains minimum carbs.
It costs $46.99 on the official site but you can get 15% off by using my coupon code KRNET15.
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