Do you want to lose weight and keep your hair healthy and voluminous at the same time? Well, if you are on a ketogenic diet lately, that might not be possible.

What Is the Ketogenic Diet?

The ketogenic diet is a low carb, high-fat diet. The aim of this diet is to switch to the ketosis stage and convert the body fat into ketones. The most important issue here is the low carbohydrate intake. When there are not enough carbohydrates in the system, your body starts to use fat in order to get energy. However, glucose finishes very quickly, and it is hard for your body to use fat. For this reason, your body converts fat into ketones. People go through a ketogenic diet for its fast fat burn. While it is highly beneficial to lose fat, it might not be good for hair health.

Why the Ketogenic Diet Is Bad for Your Hair

We all know that there are multiple causes of hair loss. While the most common ones are due to hormonal diseases, stress, and wrong steps on hair care, aggressive diets might also cause hair loss.

When it comes to the ketogenic diet, there might be two main reasons why it causes hair loss.

1. Stress

There are three basic needs that every living thing must have to survive. These are air, water, and food. Any change that is related to these three main needs affects us. Everything in our body has only one purpose: keep on living. Even so, our body adapts itself to every situation, such as scarcity. 

When you start a diet as a ketogenic diet, you change your lifestyle. Any change around us puts extra stress on our body until it gets used to it. Eating less than usual will alarm your body; it will open the survival mode. So your body will start using all the energy for the important parts. Unfortunately, hair is not a priority for the brain. Thus, instead of sending food to your follicles, the brain will prefer your vital organs. In the end, all this process will cause hair loss.

2. Lack of Nutrition

As we have mentioned before, diets include limited options, and this leads to a lack of nutrition. When it comes to the ketogenic diet, you will be getting low levels of carbohydrate. While you are trying to take in less carbohydrate, you will get fewer vitamins and nutrients as well.

Also, biotin, which you can get only from grains, will be limited during the ketogenic diet. Low levels of biotin will cause hair loss or thinning.

If you are on a ketogenic diet, it is more than probable that you will experience hair loss for the first three or four months. This condition might diminish itself after your body gets used to the way you eat. If not, it is best to consult your doctor before you continue the diet. It also might be a good idea to consult a hair specialist before you make any major changes in your life.