- In a new essay for her website Poosh, Kourtney Kardashian revealed she is going back on the keto diet to help jump-start healthy eating habits.
- “In my experience, I’ve found the best method to train my body to curb sugar cravings, burn fat, and kick-start weight loss is by sticking to a keto diet,” she wrote.
- Dietitians weigh in on whether approaching the keto diet this way can be effective.
Kourtney Kardashian is known for her strict eating habits and she just revealed that she’s back on the keto diet for a surprising reason.
Kardashian, who went on the keto diet for two months in 2017, wrote an essay for her website Poosh, where she explained that she decided to try keto again to help jump-start healthy eating habits.
“My body never looked better than when I did the keto diet two and half years ago, when I did it for two months,” she wrote. “In my experience, I’ve found the best method to train my body to curb sugar cravings, burn fat, and kick-start weight loss is by sticking to a keto diet.”
Kardashian said she’s been “treating myself lately” and “really want to get back on track, so I’ve committed myself to keto for the next month.” The reality star says she plans to eat “minimal carbs and no grains, beans, or legumes.” She’s also centering her meals around fresh vegetables and lean proteins. “I eat three meals a day with no snacking in between if possible,” she said.
What is the keto diet, again?
Quick refresher: The ketogenic diet is an eating plan that focuses on minimizing your carb intake and increasing your fat intake. The goal is to get your body into a state called ketosis where it burns fat as a form of energy.
Everyone’s body is a little different, but it generally means having 60 to 75 percent of your calories from fat, 15 to 30 percent of your calories from protein, and five to 10 percent of your calories from carbs.
What do experts think about approaching keto this way?
Nutritionists are mixed on this approach. “I like the idea of taking a specified amount of time to drastically change your diet and reset the way you think about food,” says Scott Keatley, RD, of Keatley Medical Nutrition Therapy. “This is a great time to take emotion out of food and, when you’re on the keto diet, you’ll be doing so much math you have to take emotion out of the equation.”
People are “creatures of habit,” Keatley explains, and breaking bad habits for a set period of time can help replace old, bad habits with healthier ones. “The goal should not be to live in ketosis forever but to get to a healthy balanced diet that allows us to love food while maintaining a healthy weight,” he says.
But Beth Warren, RDN, founder of Beth Warren Nutrition and author of Secrets of a Kosher Girl, thinks this is an “extreme” way to try to get yourself to eat healthier. “There are a lot of aspects you can take on in and of themselves to help set your path of healthier living,” she says. “Keto is an immense undertaking that isn’t necessary if this is the only goal.”
If you want to reset your eating habits and don’t feel like keto is right for you, Keatley recommends thinking about why you’ve been overindulging and asking yourself if doing an extreme diet like keto is “feeding” your bad habits. “It is much easier to scale back on those indulgences and replace some of it with very low energy foods like fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins,” he says.
Warren also recommends focusing on plant-based eating. “That’s not being extreme and saying, ‘I can’t have this or that,’ but what it does is focus you on eating more whole, less processed foods and fruits and veggies, which already help curb cravings, keep you fuller and satisfied longer, and can help shed a couple extra pounds,” she says.
Of course, if you want to try keto to reset your eating habits, you definitely can, and it has worked for many people. But it is also important to remember you can achieve the same end goal without going on such a restrictive diet—to each their own!
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