The world is jam-packed with tips, tricks, diet fads, and “miracle” pills promising to do one thing or another, often leaving people scratching their heads as they try to navigate through the health and wellness industry. However, if you hop on social media, you can expect to be immediately swarmed by those pesky advertisements with influencers smiling from ear to ear holding a trendy product that they just swear by. Now we are not saying that all products are bad, in fact, one supplement that has recently grown in popularity, especially in the keto community, that we can get behind, is MCT oil.
What is MCT Oil?
MCT stands for medium-chain triglycerides and is fats that are found in foods like coconut oil. Our body metabolizes these fats differently than long-chain triglycerides (LCT) which are found in most other foods.
MCT oil is a supplement that is made up of those fats which are more easily absorbed by the body compared to LCT fats. They do not require pancreatic enzymes to be digested like their counterpart but instead are transported directly to the liver. Since MCT fats are readily absorbed, MCT oil has an incredible list of uses and health benefits. In other words, MCT oil is a keto dieter’s dream!
What Are the Benefits of Using MCT Oils With Keto?
Consuming MCTs come with many benefits but the most important ones are for the people who live a keto lifestyle. The benefits they provide include increased energy, weight loss, improved heart health, memory, and anti-microbial properties.
Weight loss and increased energy are often the benefits that people are looking for in a keto diet. After all, who couldn’t use more energy these days? Memory enhancement and heart health are important for everyone, but they can be especially important for newbies to the keto lifestyle as they may be experiencing keto flu symptoms.
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Increase endurance and boost energy- As we discussed earlier, MCTs are digested and absorbed much faster which means they can be used to fuel ketone production much more quickly after eating. Providing energy to your body quickly will boost energy levels and can even increase endurance if taken before a workout.
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Weight Management and Weight Loss- The process of breaking down MCT oil requires more energy than it does to process other fuel sources. This means that you end up using more calories to process MCTs and can end up losing weight over time due to the amount of energy it takes to break them down. MCT oil also helps to reduce hunger resulting in your body feeling satisfied. While appetite isn’t usually a problem for keto dieters, since keto-friendly foods are very filling, this can still result in you eating less which may also contribute to weight loss.
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Promotes a Healthy Heart- The keto diet is known to promote a healthy heart, but with MCT oil you can take it a step further. MCT oil is believed to address risk of certain heart diseases. It is also capable of reducing the production of "bad" cholesterol and improving the production of "good" cholesterol. These factors combined give MCT oil the added benefit of helping to protect your heart and prolong its health over time.
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Increase Focus and Memory- The ketones, that are produced when MCT oils are broken down by the liver, are capable of passing through the blood-brain barrier and providing fuel directly to the brain. Think of MCT oil as nutrient-rich brain food! The result of this process is increased brain function and is the source of the ketogenic diet's positive effects on dieters with neurological complications like epilepsy and Alzheimer's. This is because many neurodegenerative conditions limit your body's ability to use glucose as a fuel source, but that isn't a problem for keto dieters because limiting glucose and using fats as fuel instead is what keto dieting is about.
Weight loss, energy boost, increased focus, and a healthy heart… What more can you ask for? That’s why so many people are jumping on the MCT oil bandwagon and using it every day. Throw in a few fat bombs and you’ve made a keto dieter’s dream come true. Whether you’re a morning coffee drinker or an afternoon coffee drinker, we don’t blame you for adding in MCT oil to give you the additional kick you need.
How To Use MCT Oil?
The most common way to add MCT oil foods to your keto diet is with coconut oil, butter, and whole milk. These products are all keto-friendly and contain MCT oils. However, we all know how difficult it can be to reach complete nutrition through foods alone so there are companies out there that sell high-quality MCT oil, such as Adapted Nutrition. A few ways MCT oil can be used is as an additive in salad dressings or smoothies. It can even be substituted for palm kernel oil, palm oil, and olive oil in your own recipes, making it perfect for a keto diet and helping you lose body fat if that's your goal.
We can all agree that time is valuable and most of us in the keto community rather spend our time whipping up some keto-friendly treats so the fact that MCT oil can easily be added to your diet on top of the already known benefits, is a no brainer when it comes to deciding if it’s right for you.
As consumers are reaching more and more towards the goal of achieving optimal health, we’re finding a ton of them are choosing the keto lifestyle. If you are looking to boost your energy, keep your ketones up, control your weight, increase medium-chain fatty acids in your diet, increase your heart health, fuel your brain, fight yeast and bad bacteria, then look no further because this amazing super oil is right for you – we highly recommend adding MCT oil to your life!