There is. People who are ketogenic use the break down of fat as their primary fuel. There are two ways to do this and each depends on your goals and condition being treated:
- Ketogenic for a metabolically healthy, lean epileptic - fuel from the breakdown of dietary fat.
- Ketogenic for a metabolically unhealthy, obese patient - fuel from the breakdown of body fat.
That's it. That's the rule book. You must follow the above rule if you are ketogenic, not the made up rules you may have read online or the person who told you there were no rules at all.
Ketogenic diets are very low in carbohydrate. So, you must restrict your carbohydrates low enough, so that the body can mobilize fatty acids. Reread that sentence carefully. You are mobilizing fatty acids, not "ketones". Ketones are simply a by-product of this process and their presence does not differentiate between dietary fatty acid mobilization or body fat, making them a worthless metric. After all, the metabolic advantage is completely dependent on where these fatty acids are coming from. Having them come from your plate, will make a huge difference in outcome, than if they were coming from your behind. You want them to come from your behind.
The way you choose to restrict carbohydrates is left up to you, as the diet does not have a “restricted carbohydrates” list. The only requirement is to drop carbohydrate to very low levels. Of course, the easiest way to do this is to eliminate concentrated carbohydrates like grains and sugar. In the context of obesity, these refined, isolated and concentrated carbohydrates are detrimental.
The fake rules that have been added to this diet, by charlatans, such as eating gobs of fat and restricting protein are not real rules, but marketing schemes for money making attention.
You can read more about ketogenic diets in my blog post here.
2. If you follow low carb and still have blood glucose issues, you should lower your carbs further.
You might come across this type of advice often, from low carb advocates. This is because low carb advocates only talk about dietary glucose, since that's the easy and profitable part. They never talk about the glucose your own body is making, because that's the hard and non-profitable part. After all, not even conventional medicine has been able to control this except in pseudo ways using pharmaceuticals.
Uncontrolled creation of glucose by the body has to do with glucagon and adrenal counter regulation (stress hormones), which simply does not fit the low carb narrative of - "It's the carbs affecting insulin, stupid". No, stupid, it's not. That domino fell a long time ago and the diabetic is long past it. Now the diabetic has a slew of other issues going on, which will not normalize through diet alone, or by just "lowering insulin levels". They sure as hell won't normalize by lowering glucose levels either.
This is a very complicated "disease" that requires multi factorial treatments of which low carb in only one part of.
3. Whole fruit can spike blood glucose the same way as simple sugars.
I know that many low carb pages and groups, out there, like throwing around blanket mantras that keep their base stirred up, but we don't do that here. Why? Because it's false. Claiming that fruit spikes blood glucose the same as simple sugars is only true for people with metabolic syndrome. So, it's not the fruit, it's the condition caused by poor blood glucose regulation.
Certain foods are known to disrupt blood glucose homeostasis. Grains and added sugars are especially notorious for this effect. Consuming these products will make metabolic problems worse. Those that are still healthy, will be pushed towards disease with time.
If you follow any dietary practice that dysregulates blood glucose, you will eventually become metabolically sick of which an increase of body fat is the first symptom. Increasing body fat will inevitably cause you to go beyond your fat threshold, with time, and place a high insulin demand on the body, furthering blood glucose dysregulation and perpetuating the disease. You are especially at risk for this as you become older, since older people grow fat much more efficiently than they do muscle due to a natural resistance to insulin with age. So, by default, the older you are, the fatter you can become.
As far as the effects of whole fruit is concerned, it all depends on how far along your disease is, what type of whole fruit you’re eating, how much if it you’re eating, how often and, most importantly of all, if it's dysregulating your blood glucose. I'll give you a hint: If you are already fat and/or getting fatter, you can make the educated guess that it is affecting your blood glucose. If your blood glucose continues to be dysregulated, there will come a time where even eggs will spike it. Eventually, breathing will spike it too and that’s when you will have high blood glucose all of the time, since it's now coming from the inside and it won't disappear just because you stopped it from the outside. That's when you are diabetic.
So, I don't want anyone who reads this blog to miss the forest for the trees. Anything that contributes to blood glucose dysregulation, will eventually lead to metabolic dysfunction, whether it's whole fruit or coconut oil.
4. Insulin resistance only affects the liver and muscles.
Insulin is a master metabolic hormone. It not only facilitates glucose into cells, but it also delivers nutrients, regulates energy usage, regulates growth and regulates catabolic function through various hormones, amongst other things. When insulin is either insufficient or tissues/organs are resistant to its function, then many serious problems can arise, besides fatty liver disease and obesity. So no, liver and muscles are not the only organs affected. Many other organs and tissues are also affected downstream and upstream from these as well.
5. Should you eat mostly fat?
Yes. If you want to gain weight and/or continue to be obese, by all means, eat mostly fat.
6. Low carb can heal heartburn.
If carbs are what’s causing the heartburn, then their elimination would heal it. For example, some grains trigger heartburn because they cause excess acid production in the stomach. If you go low carb by avoiding grains, you will obviously reduce your heartburn. Other heartburn is due to low stomach acid, diet changes or gastroparesis, which all require other interventions besides low carb.
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