The Ketogenic Diet Guide
A visual guide to the diet that helped people with schizophrenia recover after decades of symptoms.
🤔 What is the Ketogenic Diet?
The ketogenic diet is high in fat, moderate in protein, and very low in carbohydrates.
When you eat very few carbs, your body switches from burning glucose (sugar) to burning ketones — a fuel made from fat.
This switch changes how your brain works and can help fix problems with mitochondria (your cells' energy makers).
💬The ketogenic diet is now the best-studied dietary intervention for its effects on the brain. It provides an alternate fuel source, which can be a lifeline to insulin-resistant brain cells.
🧠 How It Helps Schizophrenia
Rescue Fuel for Brain Cells
Many people with mental disorders have insulin resistance in their brains. Glucose can't get into their brain cells properly. Ketones can get in easily and provide energy when glucose can't.
Creates New Mitochondria
The diet induces both mitophagy (cleaning out broken mitochondria) and mitochondrial biogenesis (creating new healthy ones). After months on the diet, cells have more healthy mitochondria.
Balances Neurotransmitters
The ketogenic diet increases GABA (calming) and decreases glutamate (exciting). This reduces the hyperexcitability that causes hallucinations and other symptoms.
Reduces Inflammation
The diet decreases inflammation and improves the gut microbiome. Both of these directly affect brain function and mitochondrial health.
💬It changes neurotransmitter levels, regulates calcium channels, decreases inflammation, improves the gut microbiome, increases overall metabolic rate, reduces insulin resistance itself, and most importantly, induces both mitophagy and mitochondrial biogenesis.
⚡ Why This Works: The Epilepsy Connection
The ketogenic diet has been used to treat epilepsy since the 1920s. A 2020 Cochrane Review (gold-standard research) found:
Why does this matter for schizophrenia? Both seizures and psychiatric symptoms involve the same problem: hyperexcitable brain cells. Many epilepsy medications are also used in psychiatry (like Depakote, Lamictal, Klonopin).
If the ketogenic diet can stop seizures by calming overactive brain cells, it makes sense that it could also help with hallucinations and other symptoms caused by the same overactivity.
🍽️ What to Eat
✅ EAT THESE (High Fat, Low Carb)
❌ AVOID THESE (High Carb, Sugar)
🍳 Simple Meal Ideas
- 🥚 Eggs with cheese and butter
- 🥓 Bacon or sausage
- 🥑 Half an avocado
- ☕ Coffee with heavy cream
- 🥗 Big salad with olive oil
- 🐔 Chicken or fish on top
- 🧀 Add cheese & nuts
- 🥒 Cucumber or celery
- 🥩 Steak, fish, or chicken
- 🥦 Broccoli with butter
- 🥬 Side salad
- 🫒 Cook in olive oil or butter
🍫 Snacks
📖 Important Points from Brain Energy
⏰ Give It Time
“The effects of the diet in the first year are just like a medication. People need to remain on the diet religiously. They can't stop it for 'cheat days,' just like they can't stop their medications for cheat days.”
✨ Long-Term Healing
“After people are on this diet for months or years, their cells have more healthy mitochondria. This can result in long-term healing. Many people can stop the diet after two to five years and remain well.”
🏥 Work With Doctors
“Those with medical or mental disorders should only do this diet with medical supervision, as there are risks and side effects, and prescription medications usually need to be adjusted or stopped safely.”
Mildred's Story: It's Never Too Late
Mildred was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 17. For 53 years, she was tormented by hallucinations and delusions. She tried to kill herself multiple times. She weighed 330 pounds and had a court-appointed guardian.
At age 70, she went to a weight-loss clinic at Duke University that used the ketogenic diet.
“Within two weeks, not only did she begin to lose weight, she noticed significant improvement in her psychotic symptoms. She said that for the first time in years, she was able to hear the birds singing outside. The voices in her head were no longer drowning them out.”
Mildred was able to taper off all her psychiatric medications. Her symptoms went into full remission. She lost 150 pounds. She got rid of her guardian.
Now, 13 years later (at 83), she remains symptom-free, off medication, and doesn't see any mental health professionals. She says she's happy and excited to be alive.