Banting: What's Up With The Keto Diet?

My last blog post on food & drink labels attracted the following series of questions - "Nick, what's your take on banting? On keto dieting?". As per my custom, I declined to provide an immediate answer because I felt that a blog post may serve a larger audience with similar unanswered questions. So, here we are. Banting has grown in popularity in recent years due to its inherent ability to strip away dramatic amounts of weight off individuals. William Banting is the pioneer of keto dieting and his initial success with it is the reason why so many others have adopted it. I won’t give you a history lesson but you can at least appreciate the origins and understand why it’s referred to as Banting. Keto is short for ketogenic which a way to describe a diet that produces a high level of ketone bodies in the blood. Keto dieting na Banting ni same.

Keto dieting/Banting - What is it?
It's a high fat, moderate protein and low carbohydrate way of eating.

How can you do it?
Start by eliminating carbohydrates or limiting their intake to 50g or less per day. To give you some perspective, 50g of carbs is roughly 2 medium sized bananas 🍌 🍌 PER DAY. Chapwa for carbohydrate intake for the day. The rest of your food should come from mostly fats and moderate protein. Keto diets outline what you can and can’t eat, follow what it says and you’re golden. I’ll break it down into specific foods to eat and specific foods to avoid as per the diet guidelines. After which, the how part gets addressed and you can implement it.

What you can eat & drink:

• Meats – to be eaten with the fats and skin (beef, chicken, duck, game meat, offals, lamb, turkey and pork)
• Eggs 🥚 🍳
• Various fish🐠 🐟 🎣
• Seeds (chia, flax, pumpkin, sesame, sunflower)
• Full fat dairy products (milk, cheese, butter, greek yohgurt)
• Fats (animal fat, avocados, avocado oil, coconut oil, olive oil, cream, lard, mayonnaise)
• Green leafy vegetables🥬🥦 (asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, cucumber, green beans, artichokes, lettuce, marrows, mushrooms, olives, onions and peppers, pumpkin, spinach, tomatoes)
• Nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, macademias, pecans, pinenuts, walnuts)
• Occasional alcohol to be considered is dry wines, champagne, brandy, tequila, vodka & whiskey. It’s essentially alcohol with lower carbohydrate content and mixers are a non-starter. Take it straight & neat like the boss that you are. Interested in low calorie liquor? Read more on this here.
• You can drink water, black tea, green tea, cow milk (in moderation .i.e 1 cup a day), almond milk. All without sugar.

Lastly, buy organic and grass fed where possible for your food items.

What you can’t eat & drink:

• No nshima😐 and starches such as rice, pasta, potatoes etc
• No fruit (or very, very little in the form of berries) and no dried fruit
• No sugar and sweet things such as biscuits, cakes, energy drinks, juices, pastries, sweets, syrup etc.
• No grains of any kind (breakfast cereals, corn, muesli, oats, quinoa, rice, wheat)
• No ‘lite’ alcohol i.e. castle lite, no beer of any kind, no ciders and no cocktails
• No energy drinks, no fizzy drinks, no fruit juices
• No trans fats (canola oil, flaxseed oil, margarine, sunflower oil, soybean oil, grapeseed oil)

What can you expect from a keto diet?
In the beginning uza vutika as the adaptation process is miserable and carbohydrate withdrawal can be brutal. If you can endure this process then this is what it comes with:

• Weight loss (rapidly at first, and sustained over time if you stay on it)
• Mental clarity and reduced brain fog
• Increased overall energy levels

It takes about 10 days for the body to be 'keto adapted'. This means that your body has transitioned from burning carbohydrates for energy to burning fat for energy. You’re in a constant state of ketosis as long as you keep your carbohydrates intake low. How do you know that you’re in a state of ketosis? Look out for the following: bad breath😷 (it’s a trade off so you’ll be a skinny dragon with fire breath🗣🔥 I encourage you to stay masked up at all times & embrace sugar free gum as a remedy😌) , weight loss, insomnia (this temporary and should only be experienced for a few weeks as your body adjusts), appetite suppression, and mental focus. These are some indicators that you’re doing the right thing with your keto diet. People with very aggressive weight loss targets tend to pair keto diets with Intermittent Fasting.

Who should start a keto diet?
Anyone without a medical condition that has aggressive weight loss targets and is capable of sustaining themselves on a keto diet.


I personally view Banting as an effective tool to combat obesity but not necessarily a diet that inspires optimal health due to the fact that keto is a very restrictive way of eating. The plus side is you’ll drop weight quickly and limit your intake of processed foods and junk.


***These nutrition blogs seem to be connecting with my readers. If you've gotten this far in this blog and have some nutrition questions you want answered feel free reach out privately or publicly in the comments and I'll happily share what I know about the subject with you & others via a blog post. Alternatively, one-on-one works just fine for me. However you want to do it😁