After college, Matt Gross’ weight began creeping up.
He tried cutting calories.
He tried being a vegetarian.
But he didn’t start dropping the pounds until a friend who had lost a lot of weight suggested he try a ketogenic diet.
Gross switched to the high-fat, ultra-low-carb diet and lost 70 pounds in seven months. And he’s kept at it for five years.
Though online searches about ketogenic diets started spiking last year, the diet was created in the 1920s as a way to treat epilepsy.
When you’re on a keto diet and you’re in what’s called ketosis, a metabolic process forces the body to burn stored fat because there’s not enough glucose for energy.
Fans of the keto diet say they have more energy and better focus. The diet, however, is restrictive and can be difficult to maintain. A group of local nutrition experts say the diet is safe, but they were split over whether they would recommend it for everyone.
Burning fat
How does the diet work? Our bodies break down carbohydrates when we eat. Those carbs are turned into glucose that fuels our cells, giving us energy.
If you severely cut back on the carbs, your body will start burning fat for energy.
“During the process of breaking down fat, the body takes the fat and converts it into what’s called ketones,” says Sean Ward, clinical dietitian at UMPC Pinnacle Lancaster. “These ketones can be used as an alternative energy source for our body. They’re kind of the backup plan.”
When your body has a high level of ketones in the blood, that’s ketosis.
In ketosis, “your brain is using the ketones and supposedly it gives you a sense of euphoria. It satisfies you. It satiates you,” says Dr. Minnie Taw, medical director of WellSpan Medical Weight Management. “It really suppresses your appetite and makes your blood sugar more stable without releasing much more insulin.”
Matt Gross makes a salad with romaine lettuce, cucumbers, cauliflower and topped with chicken. It's low-carb and high-fat, so it fits his ketogenic diet.
Eating keto
Staying in that state of ketosis means eating very little carbs, usually less than 50 grams a day. That’s three slices of bread or two medium apples. That usually translates to cutting out things like starchy vegetables, fruit, grains, sugar and alcohol.
“Ordinarily, carbohydrates should make up 50 to 65 percent of calories throughout the day for a normal, healthy individual,” Ward says. “In a ketogenic diet, they focus more on about 5 percent of calories.”
Gross describes it as a very, very low- carb and high-fat diet with moderate amounts of protein.
“No bread, no pasta, no sugar, no cake, no rice. At that point, most people have checked out and say, ‘No, I don’t want to do that,’ ” says Gross, 34, who lives in Lancaster.
He tried the diet in late 2012 to lose weight. Gross was 250 pounds when he started the diet and lost the 70 pounds in seven months. He says he stuck with the diet because of the weight loss and other benefits.
“I used to get bad headaches, I would have issues with bad skin. I would suffer from a mild case of depression here and there,” he says. “Since going on keto, you have a whole slew of benefits other than weight loss. I have better skin. I have a super-attentive brain. Previously, I would have brain fog or I couldn’t concentrate. I’m hyper-focused on things I do.”
So what does he eat?
Typically, Gross skips breakfast and then has a large salad topped with a chicken breast or thigh and high-fat dressing. For a snack, he might have nuts (macadamia, pecans and walnuts) or beef jerky. Dinner is a meat (meatballs or chicken thighs) and a vegetable like broccoli or green beans, both cooked in coconut aminos or butter. To make sure he gets enough potassium, Gross adds spinach to his salads.
Dietician Jacqui Zimmerman, who works at Penn Medicine’s Suburban Outpatient Pavilion, shared a sample keto meal plan.
Breakfast could be smoked salmon with sliced avocado and a side of greens sauteed in coconut oil.
Lunch could be a salad topped with a cooked beef burger and blue cheese dressing.
A snack could be olives and a deviled egg.
Dinner could be skin-on chicken thighs with a creamy mushroom sauce and green beans sauteed in olive oil and topped with almonds.
Dessert could be a chia seed pudding, unsweetened and made with coconut milk or a full-fat plain yogurt.
Wellspan’s Taw, who has done a few rounds on the keto diet, builds meals around quality protein with a nonstarchy vegetable, plus a little cheese and avocado or coconut oil. Recipes are adaptable. She might make fajitas without the tortilla or make pancakes with almond flour.
A difficult start
The first three weeks eating this way were difficult for Gross. Cutting out carbs made him feel like he had the flu, with headache and nausea.
But he stuck with it. The cravings stopped, and Gross had a burst of energy and saw quick weight loss, some of which was water weight.
Since then, he’s stayed on the diet. There are some exceptions. When he and his wife, Jen Tran, travel, he’ll try local food. When they attend a special event, he’ll have the homemade lasagna or cookies.
It’s strict, and it can be difficult, especially in social situations centered on food or beer. But Gross keeps going back for weight control and those extra benefits, including better sleep.
The keto diet isn’t for everyone, but it works for him.
“It’s been life-changing,” Gross says.
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