Veganism is trending these days, and while most people don’t choose a vegan lifestyle for its cool factor, that popularity has made it easier to opt for a solely plant-based diet.

Whether you’ve decided to switch to a vegan diet to help prevent the exploitation of animals, to improve your health, to promote a green planet, or all of the above, you’ll find many resources and products to smooth the way.

Tips for Starting a Vegan Diet

Here are some strategies to start you down a vegan path.

• Build on What You Know

  You likely already have some vegan meals in your repertoire, along with vegetarian meals that can be “veganized.” Think bean-based chili, pasta and veggies, lentil stew, and stir fry. Start with those so you don’t need to come up with something new for every meal.

• Try Jackfruit

  With a texture similar to meat, this fruit can replace pork, beef, and chicken in recipes and has 3 grams of protein per serving.

• Ease Into It

  • Start with One Meal

    Committing to one plant-based meal per day is a great start. You might try breakfast—hot or cold cereal with fruit, nuts, and nondairy milk will fuel your morning. For a weekend brunch, make an egg-substitute veggie omelet, “bacon” made from tempeh or soy, and plant-based yogurt on the side.

  • Think in Proportion

    Ease into vegan living by gradually upping the amount of plant-based foods on your plate and decreasing the amount of meat, eggs, and dairy.

• Do Your Homework

  Read about veganism, join online forums, talk with longtime vegans and newbies (new-vees?), and watch documentaries on living the plant-based life.

• Read Labels

  Find local shops and restaurants that offer vegan products and entrées. When you shop for groceries, examine the ingredients. Not all vegan products are labeled “vegan,” and some items you think will pass the test don’t—some pasta has egg in it, for instance, and some cornbread mixes contain animal fat.

• Make a Supplement Plan

  Vegans need to be sure to get enough of the following nutrients

  • vitamin B12
  • vitamin D
  • omega 3s
  • iodine
  • iron
  • calcium
  • zinc

  You can address each of these separately through diet, supplementation, exposure to sun, etc., but while you’re still feeling your way into a new way of eating, consider researching multivitamin-mineral supplements designed for vegans.

• Be Steadfast

  Finally, don’t be daunted! You can go as fast or slow as you want in arriving at “full veganhood.”

Naomi Campbell. Robert De Niro. Pharrell Williams. And the star-studded list of celery juice fans goes on.

Long touted by Anthony William, a self-styled “medical medium,” the celery juice diet is one of the latest nutrition fads to trend in Hollywood and on social media.

What is The Celery Juice Plan?

Using celery juice as part of a detox or weight-loss diet starts with making 2 cups of celery juice to drink first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. William recommends waiting 15 minutes before having breakfast.

The Benefits of Celery Juice

Celery is a nutritious vegetable, and removing the fiber through juicing enhances its other components. Mostly water, celery juice is hydrating, low in sugar, and rich in vitamins C and K and other nutrients whose antioxidant properties fight free radicals in the body.

Celery, according to some studies, “may help reduce inflammation and boost cardiovascular health,” says Kristin Kirkpatrick, MS, RD, a licensed dietitian and consultant to the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute.

The Cons of Celery Juice

While juicing celery concentrates its mix of nutrients, the removal of fiber presents a problem: Fiber, says Kirkpatrick, “is what makes you feel full . . . and contributes to good gut health.”

Celery juice contains a high amount of the sugar alcohol mannitol, which attracts water to the digestive tract. So, “many people report experiencing digestive side effects like diarrhea after drinking celery juice,” says Rachael Link, MS, RD. While these effects are likely to subside, Link notes that people who already have bowel conditions may suffer more pronounced symptoms.

After the day begins with 16 ounces of celery juice, you’re on your own regarding the diet you follow the rest of the day; “specifics aren’t mentioned,” says Canadian dietitian Katey Davidson, MScFN, RD. “Research also associates juice cleanses with disordered eating and a negative relationship with food,” she adds.

Summary

If you’ve been impressed by stories of dramatic weight loss from the celery juice diet, find out if the success is attributable to other factors, such as exercising and removing processed foods from the diet. And if you want to try celery juice, Davidson says, “be sure to drink it as part of a healthy diet.”

Egg fads of decades past include the steak-and-egg diet popularized by bodybuilder Vince Gironda in the 1950s and the egg-and-wine diet that appeared in the 1962 book Sex and the Single Girl by Helen Gurley Brown.

Vogue jumped onboard in the seventies, and wine and eggs garnered popularity. But that’s history, and this is a new century. The egg is traveling solo now as the star of a hard-boiled egg diet.

Nutritional Benefits of Eggs

• Good Source of Protein

  With a high protein content (6 grams) and only 78 calories, a hard-boiled egg is nutritious.

• Metabolic Booster

  Because of their protein, eggs require extra calories to digest. This can boost your metabolism, one key to weight loss.

• Make You Feel Full

  Eggs make you feel full longer. Compare hunger pangs at 10 a.m. if you’ve had just a slice of toast for breakfast, with how you feel if you’ve had eggs.

The Basic Hard-Boiled Egg Diet

While there are many variations, the egg diet consists of having eggs with certain fruit for breakfast and eggs or another lean protein with low-starch veggies for lunch and dinner, according to Erin Palinski-Wade, RD, a dietitian and certified diabetes care and education specialist.

Restrictions on the Egg Diet

“Grains, dairy, and fats are all off limits,” she says.

According to nutritionist Keri Gans, MS, RD, specific no-nos of the hard-boiled egg diet include:

• processed foods
• high-carb vegetables
  • potatoes
  • corn
  • beans
• sweet fruits
  • bananas
  • dried fruits
  • pineapple
• sweetened drinks (even fruit juice!)

Is an Egg Diet Healthy?

While it can help you lose weight, it’s not a long-term solution for maintaining a healthy nutritional profile and keeping weight off.

Like most fad diets, this one is unbalanced, according to Greg Hamilton at the University of Florida.

Lack of Fiber

"While eggs are “high in protein and low in calories,” he says, “they contain virtually no fiber, so your body loses out on that digestive aid.”

Dietary Restrictions

A boiled-egg diet may jump-start weight loss, but the restrictions that “make it difficult to follow long term also make it challenging to meet your nutritional needs,” says Rachael Link, MS.

There’s a risk of nutritional deficiencies from the elimination of entire food groups, and lost weight may come back.

Consult a Professional

Check with your healthcare provider and a dietitian. They can help you decide whether this diet is the right one to start you on your way to meeting your weight-loss goals.

Carbohydrates in Your Diet

Breaking the Carb Craving Cycle

Taste for Life: If you have developed a carb-eating cycle during COVID due to working from home and needing “comfort” from food, how do you break this cycle of eating?

Jonny Bowden: Start in the morning, because that’s when the craving cycle starts. Go for a higher-protein, higher-fat breakfast (eggs and avocado, for example). If you need to add some carbs, make them slow-burning carbs like oatmeal (not the instant kind).

Keep it simple and follow one basic rule: Eat real food, food your great-great-grandmother would have known what to do with. Food that would spoil if left outside for 48 hours.

If you eat real food—complete with whatever fat comes with it—you’ll be on the way to re-building a healthy metabolism.

You won’t have to eat “every two hours” if your body “knows” how to run on fat. You only have to eat every few hours if you have a “sugar-burning metabolism.” A sugar-burning metabolism is the result of eating too much sugar, starch, and processed carbohydrates.

If you want a fat-burning metabolism, guess what you’ve got to eat? Fat! You have to train your body to run on this (far superior) source of fuel. But it will be worth it!

Is Keto for Everyone?

TFL: Should everyone try to follow a keto diet?

JB: No. Not because the keto diet isn’t great, but because there’s no diet in the world that everyone should be following 100 percent of the time, unless you call the “Only Eat Real Food Diet” a diet!

Keto diets are terrific for certain people who can live on them most of the time and thrive, for others who use them cyclically, and for still others who use them as interventions for specific conditions, including diabetes and obesity.

But they’re not without challenges, and they’re not ideal for everyone!

Healthy Fats and Oils

Getting Healthy Fats in Your Diet

TFL: If you would like some of the benefits of eating healthy fat without having to adopt a particular diet, what is the best way to modify what/how you eat so you can still reap the benefits of healthy fats?

JB: That’s a great question. I commend you for asking it because it brings up one of my favorite things, something I call “flirting with ketosis.” As your question implies, you don’t have to be fanatic about adopting any particular diet to get all the benefits of healthy fat.

Look at the overlap between “diets” like Paleo, Whole30, Keto, Atkins, Bulletproof, even Carnivore. What do they have in common? Low sugar, high fat! The rest are details.

You do not have to follow any specific dietary orthodoxy to get the benefit of eating from what I call “The Jonny Bowden Four Food Groups”: food you could have hunted for, fished, gathered from the ground, or plucked from a tree.

Healthy fats such as extra-virgin olive oil, grass-fed butter, ghee, Malaysian palm oil, coconut oil, the fat in grass-fed dairy, which has now been shown to have health properties … all these are natural healthy fats, some of them are vegetarian friendly (like coconut and Malaysian palm), some of them are from animals, but all of them are healthy, noninflammatory sources of calories. Many of them also have specific health properties, such as the tocotrienols in Malaysian red palm oil or the polyphenols in extra-virgin olive oil.

Again, remember you don’t need to follow any specific dietary regimen to get the benefits of adding more of these fats in your diet! Just substitute them for the sugars and empty carbs now taking up space on your plate!

The Benefits of Saturated Fats

TFL: What are some of the health studies that indicate there’s a benefit in some saturated fats?

JB: Let’s start with the studies that clearly demonstrate there’s no harm in saturated fats.

A decade ago, a large meta-analysis came out in the highly regarded peer-reviewed Journal of Clinical Nutrition that absolved saturated fat of any causal role in heart disease.

In 2014, another study (in the Annals of Internal Medicine) said the same thing.

And recently, a wonderful study out of Malaysia looked at dietary eating patterns in cultures where the vast majority of fat comes from Malaysian palm oil, which has a high concentration of saturated fat, about 50 percent. The study found that the amount of fat people ate had almost no effect on their cardiovascular risk, but the amount of carbohydrates did!

Speaking of Malaysian red palm oil, which is a perfect example of a plant-based saturated fat, its healthy components are visible to the naked eye! It’s red because it’s loaded with carotenoids!

And let’s not forget its tocotrienol content. Tocotrienols—a component of vitamin E—have been shown to attenuate brain damage after a stroke, and palm oil is a major source of tocotrienols.

Healthy Cooking Oils

TFL: Which oils should be used for cooking?

JB: One of the things to remember with oils is that there’s almost always a tradeoff between two variables: How refined is the oil? And how hot can you heat it?

Unfortunately, the less refined oils—which are nutritionally richer—are also much more vulnerable to high heat. The higher up you go on the “refining” scale, the higher the heat the oil can tolerate.

Knowing the proper range of heat to apply to an oil is very important.

For higher heat, I love avocado oil, macadamia nut oil, and Malaysian palm oil. Slightly refined coconut oil stands up to heat pretty well also! I like grass-fed butter and ghee, and, once in a while, a cold-pressed sesame oil, which is rich in nutrients called lignans.

I love extra-virgin olive oil, which—contrary to popular opinion—you can use for sautéing, though I still prefer to use it as a dressing or drizzle. Slightly refined olive oil—i.e. virgin as opposed to extra-virgin—will tolerate higher heat.

In general, I’m not a fan of commercial cooking oils. They are very high in pro-inflammatory omega-6s, and have been processed and refined within an inch of their lives. Worst offenders: corn, sunflower, safflower, and soybean. Remember also that almost all soybean and canola oils are GMO.

Oils like flax, fish and chia are terrific, but in general shouldn’t be used for cooking. 

While most people associate eating with pleasure, for some, the relationship with food is more complicated. Many struggle with food-related allergies and/or sensitivities that cause inflammation and can lead to poor health.

Health-related issues such as autoimmune illnesses, irritable bowel and digestive problems, chronic fatigue, migraines, depression/anxiety, brain fog, asthma, joint pain, and skin flare-ups can be triggered or worsened by food choices. But how do you know which foods are bad for you and which are okay to eat?

Elimination Dieting

Elimination diets offer an option for people caught in a cycle of inflammation and who struggle with one or more health issues. They offer a noninvasive way to gather information about your body so you can avoid the foods that irritate your system.

“Elimination diets, which remove all possible culprits like dairy, gluten, soy, sugar, and others from a patient’s diet for several weeks before reintroducing foods one at a time, are a common first step” in treatment, says gastroenterologist Gerard Mullin, MD, of Johns Hopkins Hospital. But, he adds, it’s not necessary to start “too big” and eliminate everything at once. Sometimes just one or two foods are the problem.

Choose a Method That Fits You

As with all health regimens, the protocol needs to work for the person. The success of an elimination plan depends on a person’s lifestyle, history, and willingness to stick to the diet.

Elimination diets may increase the stress of already living with a chronic medical condition. The organization and tracking required can lead to burnout and feelings of hopelessness. Some people with chronic health conditions already struggle with nutritional deficiencies and maintaining healthy weight. Elimination diets can focus on “discovery” at the expense of much-needed nutrition and calories.

When too many food items are eliminated at once, follow-through is difficult. Elimination can imply “going without,” and it can be hard to comply when many of your go-to foods are taken off the table, so to speak.

Even when you faithfully follow an elimination diet, it might still be unclear which foods are causing problems and how they are related to your symptoms. In that case, you may want to work under the guidance of a healthcare practitioner.

If you’d rather ease into an elimination diet, other options exist.

Mindful Eating

Mindful eating is a good place to start. Sometimes the pleasure and taste of food seems worth the heartburn, headache, and sluggishness. However, mindful eating requires paying attention to foods you crave, foods you have an aversion to, and foods that make you feel tired, bloated, and sick. Being mindful of these patterns and knowing your history is a first step toward making choices that enhance health and well-being.

Johns Hopkins Medicine identifies the most common food allergens as:

• Milk
• Eggs
• Wheat
• Soy
• Tree nuts
• Fish
• Shellfish
• Peanuts

Also, some foods, such as gluten and artificial sweeteners and additives, are known to cause inflammation in the body.

Start by reviewing how much of your diet consists of these foods. Eliminating one of these items at a time may be enough for you to start feeling better. But, depending on your medical history, you may need to eliminate all of the common allergens before your symptoms begin to subside.

Holistic Alternatives

If any version of an elimination diet doesn’t suit your needs, there are other options to address food allergies and sensitivities. Blood tests for food allergies in addition to a holistic approach called Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Technique (NAET) can answer questions while offering a noninvasive treatment to eliminate allergies to food, for instance.

Keep in mind that it’s important to be aware of your health history and to create an integrative plan that works for you.

The latest in high-profile low-carb eating, the keto or ketogenic diet has been endorsed by celebrities and touted as a treatment for Type 2 diabetes. But beyond the hype, what’s the diet all about?

What is Ketosis?

“Keto” is short for ketosis, a metabolic process that occurs naturally in the body. It works like this: If you don’t consume enough glucose to create energy, your body burns stored fats instead, a process that creates ketones, built-up acids that it can use for fuel.

The keto diet deliberately brings on ketosis in an effort to burn those stored fats instead of carbohydrates—hence the diet’s serious restriction of carbs. People on a keto diet generally get just 10 percent of their calories from carbs, no more than 20 percent from protein, and the rest from fat.

History Behind the Keto Diet

The keto diet may be newly popular, but it’s not a recent phenomenon. Carbohydrate restriction has been used since the 1920s as a treatment for epilepsy, and until insulin was discovered a century ago, people with diabetes avoided carbs.

Keto as a weight-loss plan harkens back to the Atkins, South Beach, and Paleo diets, all of which give a thumbs-down to carbs and thumbs up to fats.

The Science Behind Keto

While the weight-loss benefits of the keto diet have been widely touted, researchers are still weighing its risks and benefits. Authors of a recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine wrote that “The ketogenic diet has recently received much attention for its promise of treating obesity and Type 2 diabetes. However, the enthusiasm for its potential benefits exceeds the current evidence supporting its use for these conditions.”

Others note that foods off-limits in keto eating, including beans, whole grains, fruits, and starchy veggies, are important to a well-rounded diet, and that the saturated fats that are keto-approved can contribute to heart disease.

On the plus side, proponents point to studies indicating that people on low-carb diets burn more calories and lose more weight than those on lower--fat diets. The American Diabetes Association has noted that reducing carb intake is the most proven method of controlling blood sugar. Several dozen studies of the diet’s effect on the brain, heart, and metabolism are currently under way, so stay tuned!

A Keto Caveat

The diet has side effects that include headache, nausea, muscle cramps, dizziness, and more. Over the long run, the diet can cause kidney stones and deficiencies in vitamins and minerals.

For people with unchecked diabetes, it can bring on ketoacidosis, a condition caused by high levels of ketones in the body. So if you’re planning to embark on the keto diet for more than a quick weight-loss boost, be sure to check in with a healthcare practitioner.

What to Eat on a Keto Diet

What’s on the menu in the keto diet? You won’t be eating grains, candy, or soft drinks, and you’ll need to cut back on potatoes, yams, fruits, and legumes. Approved foods include:

• seafood
  • fish
  • shrimp
  • crabs
• non-starchy vegetables
  • kale
  • broccoli
  • cauliflower
  • spinach
  • Brussels sprouts
  • zucchini
  • avocados
• healthy dairy
  • cheese
  • plain Greek yogurt
  • cottage cheese
  • butter
  • cream
• fresh meat and poultry
• eggs
• dark chocolate (70% or more)

The keto diet’s ability to achieve rapid weight loss makes it popular. It can help with digestion, too, but some people find it worsens digestive issues. Let’s explore why, and see if anything can be done to prevent it.

Keto Basics

The diet’s whole-food meals of roughly 75 percent of calories from fats, 20 percent from protein, and 5 percent from carbohydrates mainly rely on fuel from steadier-burning fats versus the rollercoaster ride from sugar. That’s good news for weight loss.

Restricting carbs forces the body to use ketones for energy. The liver makes these chemical compounds as it breaks down fat with the help of bile, sending any excess bile to the gallbladder for storage.

“Lowering carbs in general also reduces the fermentable ones that bad gut bacteria feast on. This can reduce and prevent gas and bloating,” says Michael Smith, ND, BHSC, of Planet Naturopath, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

“Keto can be a great diet for some. But to make the most of it, your fat digestion has to be optimal,” explains Ann Louise Gittleman, PhD, CNS, New York Times bestselling author of Radical Metabolism. “If you have congested bile from blocked ducts, too little bile, fatty liver disease or other digestive issues, or your gallbladder has been surgically removed, then you can’t digest all the fats the keto diet requires you to eat.”

What Can Go Wrong on a Keto Diet

The keto diet can fail when its carb restrictions make you overdo it on fatty meats and dairy products, and you don’t eat enough healthy proteins, green leafy veggies, and other nutrient-rich plants.

“Too much animal fat and too little fiber cause diarrhea,” Dr. Smith says. This is also true with too much MCT [medium-chain triglycerides] oil, which is found in coconut oil. On the flip side, too much cheese and too little water cause constipation.

Following the diet causes an initial loss of water weight.  “But the flushing causes toxins to concentrate, giving you the ‘keto flu,’ with symptoms from digestive upset and skin rashes to headaches and body aches,”  says Dr. Gittleman. Good thing it lasts only a few days.

How to Succeed on a Keto Diet

Drink plenty of water. Since you’ll urinate more, you’ll lose electrolytes, so increase those with bone broth.

Keep only keto-diet ingredients in your home, plan all meals, study restaurant menus before you go out, don’t go to parties hungry, and track everything you eat. And forget cheat days. Not everyone can obey such a strict diet, but millions wouldn’t try unless they felt it was worth the potentially positive results. If you’re one of them, see your healthcare practitioner before starting.

Sugar Cane is a Plant, But is Sugar Actually Vegan?

Sugar is probably one of the most controversial products on the market. It is known to be addictive, have a heavy hand in the US’s obesity epidemic, and be ever present as an additive in many processed foods. Then there’s sugar’s dark past as a product of slave labor and forced migration on Caribbean plantations.

Today, sugar also presents ethical questions for vegans and vegetarians who aim to make change for animals in the food industry. Part of sugar production is the refining process in which sugar is filtered in order to whiten it, and the industry-preferred filter for this process is bone char.

What Is Bone Char?

Bone char is exactly what it sounds like: Charred bones.

The bones come from cows and are sun-dried, then incinerated for 12 hours at temperatures over 1,200 degrees. This burning process leaves behind a granular substance that is free of viruses, bacteria, or proteins. Only large, weight-bearing bones, such as the pelvis, are durable enough to undergo the incineration process.

Why is Bone Char Used to Refine Sugar?

Bone char has been used in the sugar-refining process for hundreds of years to produce the “pure” white crystals that consumers so avidly sought. It has become industry standard because of its efficiency.

The bone char filter is a coarse filter, one of the first that raw sugar material is passed through. Particles that are unlike the char stick to the granules, including colorants such as amino acids, phenols, and ash. Bone char is less effective at removing inorganic ions, so sugar is often passed through a charcoal or ion exchange system after the bone char filter.

Brown sugar, despite its darker color, is still refined with bone char. Brown sugar is made by adding molasses to refined sugar.

Confectioner’s sugar is refined sugar mixed with cornstarch and also undergoes the same refining through a bone char filter.

How Can I Avoid Sugar Processed with Bone Char?

There are a few ways to make sure your sugar isn’t processed with bone char, if that is something important to you. First, know that only sugar made from sugarcane is processed with bone char. Sugar from beets or coconuts are never processed with bone char; just watch out for sugar that is a mixture of beet and cane sugar.

You can also play it safe by purchasing USDA Certified Organic sugar. Bone char is not on the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances and therefore is banned from the production of organic sugar.

Finally, you can always opt out of sugar and choose other vegan sweeteners like agave nectar, maple syrup, molasses, stevia, and other plant-based sources of sweetness!

Bone Char Free Sugar Companies

If you don’t want sugar made with animal products, look for these sugar brands that do not use bone char filters to make their sugar, and so can be trusted to provide vegan sugar.

• In the Raw
• Big Tree Farms
• Billington’s
• Bob’s Red Mill
• Florida Crystals
• Imperial Sugar
• Michigan Sugar company
• Now Foods
• Rapunzel
• The Raw Cane
• Redpath
• Simple Truth
• Simply Balanced
• SuperValu
• Trader Joe’s
• Western Sugar Cooperative
• Wholesome!
• Woodstock Farms
• Zulka

A vegan diet offers a multitude of health benefits: improved immune function and cardiovascular health and reduced risks for Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, certain cancers, and obesity. But how does a vegan diet impact athletic performance?

Studies have found that athletes with restricted food choices are more likely to exhibit insufficient intakes of macronutrients and micronutrients. But other research has shown that vegan endurance runners report the healthiest food choices.

Nutrients for Vegan Athletes

Despite the increased risk of nutritional deficiencies, a well-planned vegan diet can provide adequate nutrition for athletes, as evidenced by the success of vegan tennis champion Venus Williams and ultra-marathoner Scott Jurek.

Essentially, a vegan diet can be great for athletes of all types. As long as you’re careful to eat lots of varied protein sources and mounds of vegetables, and to take nutritional supplements where necessary, a vegan diet can carry you far and help you feel great. Be aware of how you’re fueling your body and make sure your vegan diet is well planned!

Here are nutrients to be conscientious about when crafting your well-planned vegan diet.

• Macronutrients

  The three macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats, and proteins) are well known to most athletes, as is the importance of constructing a diet that appropriately balances the three.

  Typically, nutritionists recommend that 45 to 65 percent of an athlete’s caloric intake consists of carbs, 20 to 35 percent of fats, and 10 to 35 percent of protein, regardless of their dietetic choices. Achieving the recommended amounts of protein, however, can be difficult for vegans, and there is much more to consider than quantity alone.

  The quality and variety of plant-based protein sources is vital for vegan athletes because plant proteins are often incomplete, meaning they do not provide all nine of the essential amino acids. The most common vegan protein sources usually lack lysine, methionine, isoleucine, threonine, or tryptophan.

  Lysine can be found in beans and legumes, isoleucine in soybeans and lentils, and the rest can be obtained from chickpeas and various seeds and tree nuts.

  Variety is key, but complete vegan proteins do exist. Quinoa, hemp seeds, chia seeds, pumpkin seeds, buckwheat, and spirulina all contain the nine essential amino acids and serve as excellent protein sources.

• Omega 3s

  Fat is another macronutrient that can prove difficult for vegans, who typically consume less total and saturated fats and more omega-6 fatty acids than their omnivorous counterparts.

  Again, quality must be considered alongside quantity, particularly in the case of omega-3 fatty acids, of which there are three main types: alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).

  Omega 3s are integral for cardiovascular health and might also increase the production of nitric oxide, an important signaling molecule in the body that relaxes blood vessels and increases blood flow.

  Vegans typically consume less of these essential fats because they do not eat fish or shellfish, but oils from microalgae provide DHA, and some also include EPA.

  ALA can be obtained from several plant sources, including flaxseeds, chia seeds, and walnuts.

• Vitamin B

  Supplemental vitamin B12 is typically made from animal products.

  Because this vitamin is integral for nervous system function, deficiencies can lead to morphological changes in blood cells, anemia, and, in long-term cases, neurological damage.

  Vegan sources of B12 can be difficult to come by. Nutritional yeast offers a supply, but the most reliable sources are supplements and breakfast cereals, plant milks, energy bars, and other foods that have been fortified with the vitamin.

• Iron Supplements & Bioavailability

  Iron is found in every cell of the body and is needed to make hemoglobin, a key component of blood cells.

  Unsurprisingly, an iron deficiency can result in anemia, fatigue, weakness, and shortness of breath. Even in mild cases, insufficient iron supplies will reduce endurance capacity, increase energy expenditure, and impair adaptation to endurance exercise.

  The vegan athlete runs into trouble with iron, not because of a lack of sources, but because those sources contain the mineral in forms that are less bioavailable than those found in animal products. Iron from plant sources is typically of the non-heme variety, which is far less bioavailable than the heme iron in animal products.

  It’s vital for vegan athletes—especially women—to consume whole-food sources of iron such as legumes, grains, nuts, seeds, and green vegetables.

  Combining these foods with fruits is ideal, as vitamin C enhances the absorption of iron. Broccoli, potatoes, and chard contain both iron and vitamin C, making them efficient choices for vegan athletes.

  Supplementation has been shown to correct deficiencies in iron and is a common practice among female athletes of all dietary habits. Be aware that coffee, tea, and cocoa may inhibit the absorption of iron.

Not everyone can obey such a strict diet, but millions wouldn’t at least try unless they felt it was worth the effort and the potentially positive results.

Research suggests that the popular diet known for rapid weight loss also could benefit those with cancer, diabetes, epilepsy, and cardiovascular concerns. It can help with digestion, too, but some people find that the keto diet worsens their digestive issues. Let’s explore why, and see if anything can be done to prevent this from occurring.

Keto Basics

The diet’s whole-food meals of roughly 75 percent of calories from fats, 20 percent from protein, and 5 percent from carbohydrates rely on fuel mainly from steadier-burning fats versus the rollercoaster ride from sugar. That’s good news for weight loss. “Lowering carbs in general also reduces the fermentable ones that bad gut bacteria feast on. This can reduce and prevent gas and bloating,” says Michael Smith, ND, BHSC, of Planet Naturopath, in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

“Keto can be a great diet for some. But to make the most of it, your fat digestion has to be optimal,” explains Ann Louise Gittleman, PhD, CNS, New York Times bestselling author of Radical Metabolism.

What Can Go Wrong on Keto?

Problems Digesting Fats

Restricting carbs forces the body to use ketones for energy. The liver makes these chemical compounds as it breaks down fat with the help of bile, sending any excess bile to the gallbladder for storage.

“If you have congested bile from blocked ducts, too little bile, fatty liver disease, or other digestive issues, or your gallbladder has been surgically removed, then you can’t digest all the fats the keto diet requires you to eat,” continues Dr. Gittleman.

To support fat digestion, she recommends the lipotropic nutrients choline, inositol, and methionine, all of which help break down and speed up the removal of fat from the liver. She also recommends taking beetroot and bile salt supplements to make it easier to absorb and digest fats.

Nutritional Imbalances

The keto diet also can fail you when its carb restrictions make you overdo it on taste-treat alternatives. That’s when you spend most of your fat and protein allowance on bacon, hamburgers, cheese, and butter and don’t eat enough healthy proteins and fiber, green leafy vegetables, and other plants rich in nutrients.

“Too much animal fat and too little fiber cause diarrhea,” Dr. Smith says. This is also true with an excess of MCT [medium-chain triglycerides] oil, which is found in coconut oil and as a partially human-made oil by itself. “And too much cheese brings on constipation. Not enough water will do that, too, particularly in the early stages,” Dr. Smith continues.

The "Keto Flu"

“The first weight you lose on a ketogenic diet is water weight,” says Dr. Gittleman. “At first, you feel good and the weight loss is a morale-booster. But the flushing causes the toxins to concentrate, giving you the ‘keto flu,’ with symptoms from digestive upset and skin rashes to headaches and body aches.” Good thing it lasts only a few days.

How to Succeed on Keto

• Stay Hydrated

  Drink plenty of water while on the keto diet. But since you’ll urinate more, you’ll lose crucial electrolytes, so be sure to boost those with bone broth, which also supports healthy gut bacteria.

• Avoid Temptation

  Keep only keto-diet ingredients in your home, carefully plan all your meals, study restaurant menus before you go, inform loved ones, don’t go to parties too hungry, and keep track of everything you eat. And forget cheat days.

• Check with Your Healthcare Practitioner

  Your favorite movie star may rave about the keto diet, but like any health routine, you want to make sure it’s the right one for you.