Supercharge Your Brain with the Ketogenic Diet

SUMMARY

• How to Supercharge Your Brain with the Ketogenic Diet

• What is the ketogenic diet?

• Learn which brain conditions respond best to the diet

• Best way to ease into the ketogenic diet

• Best supplements to support the ketogenic diet

• Dr. Chiu's KetoSHAKE Recipe

Don't forget to download your free KetoSHAKE recipe below!

To Your Total Health,

Dr. Titus Chiu

#1 Bestselling Author 

Concussion Expert

PS. Know anyone who could benefit from the ketogenic diet? Share this article with them so they can take their brains and their lives to the next level! 

FREE KETOSHAKE DOWNLOAD

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this video blog. Please note that this video, like all of Dr. Chiu's blog videos, features Dr. Chiu speaking extemporaneously–he is unscripted and unedited for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy!]

Hey guys, my name is Dr. Titus Chiu. I'm a Functional Neurologist and my mission is to teach you how to take charge of your brain health so you can live an extraordinary life. The topic of today's mini-talk is how to supercharge your brain with the ketogenic diet.

So one of the best ways that you could take charge of your brain health is by choosing the right foods, and the right amounts of foods to eat right for your brain type.

I know personally from my experiences of trauma and brain injury, how it is to not have a brain that works optimally. Many years ago I was in a really bad car accident that really threw me off course in my life. Through that whole process, I learned a lot about how to heal my own brain and take control of my own brain health.

And so one of the most important things that I did in that journey of healing and discovery was really getting clear as to the types of foods that my brain loved and were healing, versus the types of foods that were destroying my brain. Through my experimentation, one of the most powerful things that I did was try out the ketogenic diet.

You might be wondering, "What is the ketogenic diet?"

Great question!

Very simply put the ketogenic diet is a revolutionary way of approaching how to each eat food and our relationship with food. The ketogenic diet is wonderful because it really incorporates high levels of brain-nourishing nutrients such as healthy fats.

"In a nutshell, the ketogenic diet is all about ratios– you want to eat high levels of healthy fats, moderate levels of protein, and low levels of carbs"

The history of the ketogenic diet is pretty interesting because even before the advent of modern medicine, Hippocrates talked about using a very similar diet, the ketogenic diet in the treatment for patients with neurological conditions over two thousand years ago.

And even with conventional medicine, the ketogenic diet was being used in the 1920s to successfully treat pediatric seizures and epilepsy. Then there was a huge shift and movement towards the use of pharmaceuticals, and so the ketogenic diet, although it was really powerful and with little side effects, got bookshelved.

Well, thankfully, it's gotten a lot of resurgence in the news recently because it has been shown to be really effective in not only helping things such as pediatric seizures and epilepsy but also for concussion and Alzheimer's. Or even in my case, really, in addition to post-concussion syndrome, the ketogenic diet really helped me to supercharge my brain.

"Even if you're not struggling with post-concussion syndrome or mild cognitive impairment, the ketogenic diet could be a really powerful way for you to supercharge your brain– to give you more mental clarity, focus, and energy"

One of the key things that we need to understand about the ketogenic diet is that we want to do it in a gradual fashion, so if you're not used to eating high levels of healthy fats, then you want to ease into that process. So starting slowly, having a bit of coconut oil, like one or two teaspoons in the morning, or one or two teaspoons of olive oil, and then snacking on things like a handful of nuts and seeds throughout the day or having a quarter of an avocado, and sprinkle a little sea salt and a little lemon on it.

So those are ways to easily incorporate the ketogenic diet into your life without having to really go all out with it like I did. I actually did a strict ketogenic diet for close to three months, where I ate high levels of healthy fats, moderate amounts of protein, and really low carbs. I cut my carb intake down to 15 grams a day max.

And so, the great thing was I never felt better in my life– like typically after a long day I'd get home and be really exhausted and just want to eat dinner and go to bed. But when I experimented with the ketogenic diet I found myself just even at the end of the day, just being in a really good mood and having a lot of energy and focused and engaged.

Nowadays I actually don't stick with the ketogenic diet 100%, but it's something that I always revisit every three months or so just to kind of jumpstart my brain health again. I personally think that the ketogenic diet isn't best to stay on for an extended period of time unless you're using it therapeutically and do it under the guidance of a trained healthcare professional. So the way I approach it. I just cycle in and out of ketosis.

And ketosis is our brain's ability to use ketone bodies for fuel instead of sugar.

Most people think that we need to have glucose or sugar to run our brain cells, but we've actually found that ketone bodies- that are derived from fat actually are super fuel for the brain, and they give your brain sustained energy throughout the day. In doing so you can be more focused, have more consistent energy throughout the day.

And if you have a tendency to get hangry or irritable around mealtime, it can really help slow and you know stabilize your brain cells– in effect supercharging your brain.

So one simple thing you can do to ease into this process like I mentioned, is to just slowly increase your levels of healthy fats. For example, having a few tablespoons of coconut oil or olive oil in the morning or using more olive oil like drenching it on as a salad dressing or having a bit of avocado.

You might find that initially when you do that, you might feel burpee or you just might feel kind of icky, because if you're not used to eating a lot of healthy fats, your body's ability to produce enzymes to break that fat down is compromised.

So one thing you can do in addition to slowly easing into that process is to take some digestive enzymes, as well as bile salts as a supplement, because what those supplements can do is act as a support to help break down those fats, so then it's more easily digested as well as converted into ketones to be used for brain fuel.

I hope you enjoyed this quick little video on how to Supercharge Your Brain with the Ketogenic Diet.

If you'd like to get a free download of my KetoSHAKE recipe, check out the link above, and there you can find a quick download for the keto shake recipe that I drink almost every morning– a really quick and easy way to get a lot of high-quality nutrients such as healthy fats and vitamins, minerals, as well as herbs into my diet, first thing in the morning.

If you enjoyed this video please share it with someone who you think would benefit from this information. Like, comment, ask questions, and my team and I will get back to you as soon as we receive them.

In addition, make sure that you click on the link above for that handout, the Quick Start KetoSHAKE recipe.

If you found value from this video, check out the other articles in my blog. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

I hope that this information helps you learn how to take charge of your own brain health so you can live an extraordinary life.

Bye for now.