How Keto Does What GLP-1 Promises [Keto vs. Ozempic]

How Keto Does What GLP-1 Promises [Keto vs. Ozempic]

Video | How GLP-1 Works | How to Boost GLP-1 Naturally | Using Food to Enhance GLP-1 Diet Approaches

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post on Ozempic, which is a GLP-1 agonist intended for blood sugar control with the often desired side effect of weight loss. 

However, these drugs also have undesired side effects, and while the comments I received were not all against the drug.

“I’ve been on Ozempic for 8 months, and it’s a godsend for both me and my husband.” 

I was shocked by how many people shared problems.

One viewer had this to say after trying a semaglutide, which is a GLP-1 agonist: 

“I tried semaglutide and ended up in bed for five days with a huge headache, nausea, throwing up, and stomach pain. I will never take it again.”

Another viewer commented about muscle loss.

“Ozempic also causes muscle loss. I atrophied a lot when using it”

And another commenter had this to say: 

“I did try Ozempic. There is a side effect that isn’t talked about much – suicidal ideation. It was terrifying, and I immediately stopped the drug.”

Ozempic is expensive, requires weekly shots, and, as you can see, comes with unpleasant and even scary side effects. There is an alternative that can leave you feeling better, not worse, and all you need to do to make it work is shop for different foods at the grocery store. In this blog post, I share how keto does what GLP-1 agonists promise. 

Keto vs. Ozempic – At-A-Glance


  • GLP-1 is a hormone produced in the distal (lower) part of the small intestine in response to food intake. It creates a robust insulin response, slows digestion, and increases fullness, giving you better blood sugar and weight control.
  • Ozempic mimics the action of GLP-1 by acting as an agonist, meaning that it causes the same action as the natural substance, enhancing the effect.
  • Slow-digesting food nutrients stimulate GLP-1 secretion, with lipids or fats stimulating the highest secretion.
  • Consuming fat signals the release of bile acids into the small intestine. Bile moves through the digestive tract, stimulating GLP-1 secretion.
  • GLP-1 secretion is enhanced by consuming slow-digesting nutrients like fat, protein, and fiber. You can choose your diet approach (i.e., keto, intermittent carnivore, low-carb).

How Keto Does What GLP-1 Promises [Keto vs. Ozempic] (Video)

In this video, you’ll learn…

  • What GLP-1 is and how it works!
  • How your diet can affect GLP-1 production.
  • Diet options designed to produce GLP-1 naturally.

How GLP-1 Works for Weight Loss

The “magic” of Ozempic and similar weight loss medications is that they mimic the action of a naturally occurring hormone called GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1).

This hormone is produced in the lower or distal part of the small intestine in response to food intake.

After you eat and there is food inside your system, GLP-1 is called into action. Its responsibility is to help bring your blood sugar level back down after the meal and ensure that you feel full.

This naturally occurring hormone is helpful. It creates a more robust insulin response, slows digestion, and increases fullness, giving you better blood sugar and weight control.

Ozempic mimics the action of GLP-1 by acting as an agonist, meaning that it causes the same action as the natural substance, enhancing the effect.

The “magic” of Ozempic

How to Boost GLP-1 Naturally

GLP-1 is the central focus of these drugs. However, your digestive tract already makes it in response to the presence of food. But not just any food. 

We see from a study on factors related to the secretion of this hormone that the components of a meal act as potent stimulants of GLP-1 secretion, and the levels of its secretion change with the intake of different nutrients (1).

In other words, food choices matter. 

GLP-1 is released far down in the digestive tract by special cells called L cells. 

While there are some indirect pathways that cause the secretion of the hormone, the direct exposure of L cells to content within the tract appears to be the primary route for GLP-1 stimulation. 

You want to eat foods that take time to digest and move through your system. To be clear, we are talking about slow-digesting foods, not quick-digesting ones. 

Refined carbs from ultra-processed foods digest quickly. Think about putting a cracker or a piece of bread in your mouth. Even if you don’t chew it, it will break down because it is a refined carbohydrate. It doesn’t stay in your system, and you are hungry again in no time. 

Slow-digesting foods include protein, fat, and fiber. Of these nutrients, lipids or fats stimulate the highest secretion of GLP-1.

food choices matter

We already know that dietary fat digests slowly, and essentially, when food stays in your system longer, your hunger stays satisfied longer. That is a fundamental explanation of why keto diets, which are high-fat diets, are so hunger-satisfying. However, that is not the end of the story. 

We can build on that understanding by noting that bile acids moving through the digestive tract stimulate GLP-1 secretion (2).

How does bile get into your digestive tract? By eating fat. 

When you eat fat, it passes through your stomach and into the top part of your small intestine. That signals the release of bile, a digestive fluid that breaks down the fat. Bile is good at doing that, but once it’s completed its job, it stays in the tract, reaching the far end of the intestine, where it stimulates GLP-1 secretion. 

A meal high in slow-digesting nutrients stays in your system for a long time, prolonging hunger satisfaction. Of the slow-digesting nutrients, dietary fat has the added benefit of triggering the release of bile, which leads to more robust GLP-1 secretion. 

I will share some ideal foods to eat in a moment. But there’s a small caveat that if you don’t recognize can make you feel like a keto diet isn’t working. That is, your body does not reach the peak of GLP-1 levels until 20 to 30 minutes after a meal. 

I share that because if you struggle with wanting to keep eating after a hearty keto meal, understand that your body just hasn’t gotten the “I’m full” message yet. That understanding alone can help you avoid overeating because you know that hunger satisfaction will show up if you just wait a few minutes. 

If you need something to help bridge that gap, use a Stopper, which is an item or activity that changes the taste in your mouth or takes time to consume so you can comfortably separate from eating.

Using Food to Enhance GLP-1

We’ve learned that GLP-1 is a naturally occurring hormone that helps control blood sugar, slow digestion, and increase fullness. Ozempic is a GLP-1 agonist, which is a type of medication that mimics the action of the hormone. As with many drugs, you get the desired effect, but you also get undesirable side effects.

As Socrates is credited with saying, “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

Let’s get into how simply shopping for different foods at the grocery store allows you to follow a keto diet and enhance GLP-1 without the unwanted consequences. 

When I say, “shop for different foods,” the big picture is to bypass the cereal, chip, cookie, and cracker aisles and spend your time in the meat, dairy, and produce aisles. 

These outer aisles are where you’ll find slow-digesting foods. Earlier, I mentioned that fat, protein, and fiber are slow-digesting nutrients, with dietary fat having a GLP-1 advantage thanks to bile. There are beneficial pure fats that we use in cooking and food prep, such as butter, lard, tallow, avocado oil, and olive oil.

But when we look at actual foods, we find a higher fat content in meats, eggs, fish, seafood, and many dairy products (e.g., full-fat yogurt, sour cream, cheese).

foods to eat on a low carb diet
*limit your intake of processed meats

If you’d like to download a copy of these foods, you can do so for free from my blog post on foods to eat on a low-carb diet.

These foods are animal products, so in addition to fat, most are also a good source of protein. 

There are also plant-based fats. They include nuts, seeds, nut butters, and a few high-fat fruits, such as avocados and olives. 

However, these plant-based fats are substantially lower in protein than their counterparts. What they do provide is fiber. 

Fiber is one of the three slow-digesting nutrients that I mentioned. It also promotes the growth of beneficial gut bacteria. When gut bacteria process fiber, short-chain fatty acids are produced, stimulating the release of GLP-1 (3).

The challenge is that fiber is found in carbohydrate-containing foods. A keto diet is a very low-carb diet where less than 10 percent of daily calories come from carbs. 

A high-fiber diet and a keto diet don’t match up. Which direction do you take? This is one of the frustrations that we face when trying to eat healthily. 

Diet Approaches to Increase GLP-1

There is no one-size-fits-all diet, but you have options. Choose the diet approach that fits your lifestyle. To learn more about each diet, see my blog post titled “Carnivore, Ketovore, Keto, Low-Carb: Carb Limits and Food Lists.”

Diet Approach #1: Keto 

The first option is to follow a keto diet, putting less importance on fiber. 

Fiber has become a highly debated topic in nutrition. Some say that it is less important for keto dieters because the diet provides many of the same benefits. Specifically, a keto diet reduces insulin spikes, stabilizes blood sugar, and may even produce short-chain fatty acids from ketones. 

If you are not comfortable abandoning fiber, here are two options that may give you the best of both worlds. The first one is Intermittent Carnivore.

Diet Approach #2: Intermittent Carnivore

Intermittent Carnivore Diet is a diet regimen that introduces brief periods of eating zero carbs or as close to that goal as possible. 

On a carnivore diet, you eat meat and other animal products. There are no plant-based foods because all plants contain carbohydrates.

Intermittent Carnivore Diet

As an example, you could introduce three days of carnivore dieting per week. This will allow you to benefit from the high-fat carnivore foods for part of the week, and if you choose, add fiber-rich foods for the remaining four days. 

The second option for getting the benefits of both fat and fiber is to follow a low-carb, not keto, diet. 

Diet Approach #3: Low-Carb 

A low-carb diet is still a high-fat diet, but there is more allowance for whole, unprocessed carbohydrates, such as fruits and vegetables.

These additional plant-based foods raise the fiber content of the diet, and many people find low-carb dieting enjoyable because it offers plenty of variety.

Can’t I Just Add Fiber? 

You might have a question: “Can’t I just add fiber from a fiber supplement?” 

While there are beneficial fiber supplements, like psyllium husk, for example, when it comes to boosting GLP-1, added fiber doesn’t work as well as eating the whole food. This may be because it is the intact matrix of the food that takes time to digest, which provides the benefit.

I will also add that food companies often add fiber to processed foods to get you to buy their product. That added fiber is often isolated or synthetic, lacking nutritional value, and can cause digestive discomfort, such as bloating or gas. If “added fiber” is printed on the label of a boxed food, it may look healthier, but in reality, it is best left on the shelf. 

Takeaway

Any time you dramatically change your diet, your body will need time to adapt. During that transition, it is not unusual to experience a drop in energy. However, that discomfort will pass in a few days. By focusing your diet on keto-friendly foods, you can regulate your blood sugar, slow digestion, and curb hunger without the cost or long-term side effects of medication. 

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful week.

References: 

(1) Wang, XingChun, et al. “Multiple factors related to the secretion of glucagon‐like peptide‐1.” International journal of endocrinology 2015.1 (2015): 651757.

(2) Brighton, Cheryl A., et al. “Bile acids trigger GLP-1 release predominantly by accessing basolaterally located G protein–coupled bile acid receptors.” Endocrinology 156.11 (2015): 3961-3970.

(3) Bodnaruc, Alexandra M., et al. “Nutritional modulation of endogenous glucagon-like peptide-1 secretion: a review.” Nutrition & metabolism 13 (2016): 1-16.

About the Author

Becky Gillaspy, DC, is the author of The Intermittent Fasting Guide and Cookbook and Zero Sugar / One Month. She graduated Summa Cum Laude with research honors from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1991.

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