The keto diet is vastly popular at the moment. While there are several variants of the diet, in most instances dieters are required to strictly moderate their intake of foods that are high in carbohydrates. In addition, those on the keto diet are required to up their ratio of protein and fat. The protein helps to keep the person feeling full for longer, and the fat is there to replace the energy source usually taken up by foods high in carbohydrates.
During this process, the body switches from using carbs as an energy source — and uses fats instead. When this happens, it is said that the body has gone into ketosis.
Recently, Today anchor Savannah Guthrie has undertaken the keto diet, and spoke out about her experience with it — including why Dr. Mehmet Oz asked her to breathe on him during a function that they were both attending.
Savannah said that she wasn’t using the keto diet in order to lose weight, merely as a “little summer experiment,” according to her interview on Today.
“I’m not really trying to lose weight or anything, but we might overeat and then you’re like, ‘I’d like to lose 2-3 pounds, 5 pounds, so I did it and I did like it,” she said.
The Today anchor was honest in her assessment of the keto diet. While she felt less energy in relation to working out, she was convinced that her mental alertness had improved.
But she’s feeling mentally sharper! https://t.co/OMDY0c8zwy
— Women's Health (@WomensHealthMag) November 7, 2018
“I feel less energy in the sense that I don’t want to work out anymore,” Guthrie said. “I think I need those carbs to want to go on a run or do aerobics or do whatever I might do, but Hoda [Kotb] says she thinks it’s making my mind sharper.”
“Like I was remembering things, where she’s like, ‘How do you even know that?’ I’d be like, ‘Oh that was on page 252 of that book.’ She’s like, ‘Where’s this coming from, this keto diet’s insane!’ So I do feel like it made me a little sharper.”
In addition, Savannah Guthrie finds that she is enjoying eating foods that she would normally restrict — even if it means having to cut back other food groups.
“In some ways, you have to deprive yourself,” Savannah explained. “No carbs whatsoever, and that’s really restrictive, but it’s opened up some things that I would never let myself eat a lot of, such as cheese and bacon, so I like that.”
One question remains — why did Dr. Oz ask Savannah to breathe on him?
When a person is in ketosis, their breath can take on a very distinctive aroma. In fact, it can cause people to have bad breath — which results in a scent reminiscent of acetone.
However, in Savannah Guthrie’s case, she didn’t have to worry about bombarding Dr. Oz with keto breath.
“I was like, ‘I’m at a party I don’t want to breathe on you, that’s so rude!”’ she said. “And he’s like ‘breathe on me,’ and then he said, ‘You’re not in keto,’ because one of the things is, supposedly you have bad breath when you’re in keto.”