When you begin the Keto diet you expect to lose weight, have fewer cravings, see improvements in your blood work, and improve your health overall, right? But you probably weren’t thinking about how your libido on Keto would fare, were you?
Some people have reported feeling, how can I say this in a G-rated way, “more frisky” after reducing their carb intake. But others say their libido on Keto decreased.
So what’s the real story?
First things first, the libido
Before we talk about the effect of a Ketogenic diet on your libido, we should take some time and talk about our libido in general.
Our libidos, also know as our sex drive, is part of a four-phase sexual response cycle:
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- Desire
- Arousal
- Orgasm
- Resolution
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Some of the elements of the first phase, desire, include sexual drive, motivation, and our sexual wish.
Our desire for sex depends on a rather complex set of factors. Here are just a few of those factors in no particular:
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- Overall health
- Age
- Sex hormones
- Social influences
- Relationship satisfaction
- Stress levels
- Body image
So you can see our libido is dependent on several factors, both internal and external. The various interactions of all these factors, and more, influence just how high (frisky) or low (not so frisky) we’ll feel. Also, none of these factors are constant and they will change throughout our lifespan. A fluctuating libido is normal.
Diet will affect our libidos
It’s well known that our diet has a huge influence on our health, both physical and mental health. Seeing that our libido is an aspect of our health, it’s obvious that our diet will influence our libidos. For instance, it’s been shown that unhealthy diets can lead to metabolic syndrome, type II diabetes, and low testosterone – a hormone that plays a part in regulating our libidos.
The nutrients in the food we eat can have a far-reaching effect on our sexual health. The number of calories you take in can have an effect too. People carrying an excess of body weight who limit their caloric intake to lose weight tend to feel a bit more frisky. However, if our calorie intake is near starvation levels your libido will decline substantially as will your general health.
Now, what about your libido on Keto?
Sadly, we don’t know a lot about our libidos in relation to a ketogenic diet. There was a study in 2007 comparing low-carb to low-fat diets for weight loss where one of the twenty-nine subjects reported a lower libido. Yet in a different study evolving obese subjects found the Keto diet improved the overall sexual wellness.
You might have already heard anecdotal evidence and stories about how the libido is affected by a Keto diet. That can add to the confusion. But if you stop and think about it, anything that improves your overall health is going to impact your libido in a positive way, increasing your sex drive. Losing weight doesn’t just improve your wellbeing, it’s also going to reduce inflation and bring hormones into balance. However, if you don’t eat a healthy diet and it’s causing negative side effects you’re likely to have a diminished libido.
If you don’t plan your Keto diet well you can end up with a deficit in nutrients that are important to hormones and brain health, like zinc and magnesium. The Keto diet is known to improve the functioning of the brain and since the brain is our main erogenous zone, the next logical step is a Keto diet that will improve your mood for sex.
A few theories about libidos and Keto explained
As you now know from reading the above, there isn’t a lot known about how a Keto diet affects our libidos. There are many ideas about it. Following are just a few of these ideas explained.
Hormones balance
A poor diet can create a sex hormones imbalance when our blood glucose and insulin are elevated. These imbalances are linked to a hormonal condition that leads to sexual dysfunction and other problems know as PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) in women. The Keto diet improves both glucose and insulin levels improving hormonal balance in turn.
Mood improvements
A Keto diet has been shown to improve conditions that are connected to problems with mood such as GABA deficiency, low levels of serotonin, proper functioning of the mitochondria, stress, inflammation, insulin resistance, and more. Additionally, the success you’ll experience with a Keto diet will give you an immediate mood boost and bump in your confidence (friskiness).
Nutritional deficiency
In spite of all this good news, starting a Keto diet can cause a temporary loss of libido. Often a person will experience an electrolyte imbalance when they first begin their Keto diet. One electrolyte, magnesium, is quite important for trusting sexually. Low levels of magnesium can affect the thyroid too. Fortunately, this all passes quickly when you’re eating the correct foods.
