Brief thoughts on ketogenic diets
I know that there are established health benefits to a ketogenic diet for some people. But keep in mind that eating nothing at all quickly leads to ketosis. So really, "Keto diet" is a term analogous to "Suffo breathing" (as in suffocation) or "Hypovolemic hydration." The Mayo Clinic lists these as the most common health effects of suddenly going on a very-low-carb diet:
Headache
Bad breath
Weakness
Fatigue
Constipation or diarrhea
These are to be distinguished from the symptoms of massive alcohol intake, which include:
Headache
Bad breath
Weakness
Fatigue
Diarrhea
Seriously, though, although I doubt I will ever go low-carb unless I run out of starchy or sugary foods to eat and don't feel like shopping, eliminating or minimizing carbohydrates may not be the worst thing in the world for you to do, at least in the short term, and as long as you're not an endurance athlete in the midst of a period of serious training or racing. Again, according to the folks at the Mayo Clinic:
Low-carb diets may help prevent or improve serious health conditions, such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease. In fact, almost any diet that helps you shed excess weight can reduce or even reverse risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Most weight-loss diets — not just low-carb diets — may improve blood cholesterol or blood sugar levels, at least temporarily.
That same page offers a lot of caveats:
"[A]t 12 or 24 months, the weight-loss benefits of a low-carb diet are not very large."
"[s]ome diets restrict carbohydrate intake so much that in the long term they can result in vitamin or mineral deficiencies, bone loss, and gastrointestinal disturbances and may increase risks for various chronic diseases."
"It's not clear what kind of possible long-term health risks a low-carb diet may pose because most research studies have lasted less than a year. Some health experts believe that if you eat large amounts of fat and protein from animal sources your risk of heart disease or certain cancers may actually increase."
So, if your primary goal is weight loss without the usual hunger pangs that go along with it, and, reaching beyond that, you want to achieve very low body fat, then do some exercise and don't eat much. When you do, eat animal products or their vegan equivalent. And stock up on Altoids. That seems to be the deal in a nutshell.