Ketosis
You have heard that fat loss isn’t necessarily safe.
There are several causes of unsafe fat loss.
One of them is the use of supplements that tamper with little known chemical processes, get official approval one day and are banned the next because science later demonstrates once more that miracle pills aren’t the way to go.
But there are other forms of unsafe fat loss.
One of them is completely natural and requires absolutely no chemicals (ie: natural doesn’t necessarily mean safe). It is called ketosis.
Ketosis is the process of catabolizing fatty acids in the liver.
Your liver can break down glycerol or even amino acids into glucose perfectly safely (although the process with amino acids causes the creation of toxins). But the liver can also break down fatty acids, and this actually saves your life when it happens.
Besides the liver, the only places fatty acids can be catabolized is the billions of mitochondria that exist in most of your body’s cells. But if that process is saturated, all the mitochondria are running full speed but there are more fatty acids waiting in line, and your body’s activity causes it to require more energy. If that happens, there is a good chance you are low on sugar and that your brain and heart are in danger of shutting down due to insufficient energy availability.
This is where ketosis starts. The liver takes part in extracting glucose from the available fatty acids. And yes, if it didn’t, you would be in danger of dying from heart failure or brain damage.
But ketosis doesn’t result in the same types of sugar as the aerobic process in the mitochondria does. It creates ketonic bodies that only the heart and brain cells can use. That makes it a great survival mechanism, except for one thing:
Ketonic bodies are toxic for the rest of your body’s cells.
Ketosis can lead to a ketonic coma, and sometimes death. Sometimes the lifesaver becomes a killer.
The less mitochondria you have, the less effort it takes to trigger ketosis. This gives the strength-speed profile a disadvantage because they have more type II muscle cells, which host very few mitochondria. They therefore have a lower fat burning capacity and can more easily burn all of the sugar storage.
Anyone can trigger ketosis. Some people trigger it more easily. Everyone should avoid it.
Ketosis happens when you enter a state of hypoglycemia (low sugar makes it necessary to do something for the heart and brain to survive). You should avoid hypoglycemia at all costs. Burning fat just a little faster isn’t worth the risk.
This also means you shouldn’t let yourself believe medical supervision is for others. Fat loss is about making profound changes in your body, and in ways that no one understands entirely. Being monitored is a necessity.