1. I am reluctant to try low carb or ketogenic protocols because of all the misinformation online, even though I know these diets have incredible results if they are followed correctly.
I really dislike that carbohydrate restricted diets are caught up in this fiasco. I just want to make it clear that this whole "eat fat till you drop" scam has nothing to do with low carbohydrate diets. I know many of these cons try to hide behind low carb diets, but these are all charlatans, who do not representant true low carb lifestyles. Low carb diets are just that: low carb. They have nothing to do with eating tubs of fat.
You can blame "keto" marketers for these shenanigans. The diet industry is a billion dollar industry and it is always looking for the "next big thing". Their hunt will only result in finding something just as useless, as all the things that came before it. This new "keto" thing, that is going around, is solely the fault of very obese people who came up with the great marketing technique of appearing on camera, eating sticks of butter and chugging down cartons of heavy cream. The stunt worked. They received an incredible amount of attention, especially from other obese people who were looking everywhere for the promise of a "free food". Fat became that "free food". But the obese followers, who became hoodwinked by this ploy, soon saw that they continued to be as fat as the proponents of these protocols and they started jumping ship. For many, it's too late.
I would definitely recommend that everyone make the distinction between real low carb and fad low carb/"keto", when choosing a diet. You need to become educated on following low carb correctly.
2. What keeps diabetics sick, will not make healthy people sick.
But it eventually will. People who have metabolic disease, were once healthy as well. The outliers set the rules and the obese/diabetic are outliers. So, studying their metabolism allows us to better understand human metabolism in general. Not only does it allow us to see what affects their disease progression, but what initially caused/contributed to it to begin with. So, you are not exempt from following a proper diet, just because you happen to be healthy now. You are also not exempt from knowing what will make you unhealthy. It doesn't work that way.
What is known is that blood glucose dysregulation sets the stage for the onset of metabolic problems and everything flows downstream from this initial abnormality.
The consensus is that the Standard American Diet (SAD) eventually leads to health problems because of its affects on blood glucose regulation, but as they say, individual results will vary. Just like the consensus is that cigarette smoking causes heart disease and lung cancer, but there are people, who have smoked their entire lives, without developing either. The risks are yours to take. The information is mine to give.
3. You can eat all the fat you want, as long as it's "healthy fat".
The only "healthy fat" that exists, is the one that's not in excess.
Let me be clear about something, because I see this everywhere online. People seem to not understand that it doesn't matter if the fat is "healthy" or "unhealthy", excess fat will make you fat, regardless of where it came from or what it is.
You want to consume healthy, natural fats, because it helps you avoid many health conditions related to the consumption of unhealthy, unnatural fats (vegetables oils), but this has nothing to do with weight loss. If you eat excess "healthy" fats or excess "unhealthy" fats, the result will be the same = obesity. The unhealthy fats will just have additional confounding effects on obesity, but the healthy fats will not prevent obesity.
So, on this blog, excess fat consumption, of any kind, is not advised. Sugar disrupts blood glucose raising bolus insulin levels. Excess fat must be stored, raising basal insulin levels. Raising of insulin levels further deteriorates blood glucose homeostasis, perpetuating metabolic syndrome.
4. Kids are obese because of sugar consumption.
Though this is a complex subject, with many nuances, the bottom line is that kids are obese, because something in interfering with their normal blood glucose regulation. Many things can do this besides sugar. Other dietary factors such as fat, starch and snacking contribute to this problem. Still, there are even other factors aside from diet such as interruptions in circadian cycles, not enough exercise and medications which also have a hand in this problem.
5. Kids are not getting enough of the fat they need to grow.
Yes they are. They get so much of it that they are growing outwards, as well as upwards. Children need protein to grow. We know this, because it has been extensively studied. There is always a correlation between small stature and weaker children in countries that are protein starved.
No one in Western society is "fat starved", much less kids. Believe me, everyone is getting plenty of their share of fat. Very few people in this society have ever followed a true low fat diet. They followed a low saturated fat diet, but not a low fat diet. They followed a low protein diet, but not a low fat diet. This is precisely why low fat diets have failed. Low fat diets are actually very difficult to follow, so few people have ever truly followed one.
Food manufacturers simply swapped saturated fat for polyunsaturated "vegetable" oils, but fat, by any other name, is still fat just the same and so will you become. So, don't get caught up in this "keto" myth that the world is "fat starved". The world is protein starved, not fat starved. Chairs, beds and pants can attest to that, if they could only speak. He who is "fat starved" can simply eat from his own behind.
6. Can "keto" affect sleep?
Some people have a hard time going to sleep and/or staying asleep, while on a very low carb diet, like a ketogenic diet. Others even experience sleep walking, nightmares or other sleep disturbances. There are many reasons attributed to this problem. All of which are not well understood. On this blog, we try to stay focused on what is understood - the stress response.
Going into ketosis is a stressor, for the body, period. It doesn't matter what any online "keto" guru states. It doesn't matter what any "keto" group claims. The body can care less about what any of these people say. It only reacts, as it was meant to, and ketosis has always been a trigger for stress in the body.
Ketosis is a state that the body develops when it is starving. That's how it evolved. So, ketone presence is always a signal to the body that it is starving, whether or not that's truly the case. This causes a stress response, which activates adrenal counter regulation (stress hormones) and these hormones can be quite nasty, depending on your metabolic state. People who have a compromised metabolic state, where the body has a difficult time producing its own glucose when needed and produces an excess of it when it doesn't, already have an abnormal stress hormone response, which overly stimulates the central nervous system. This means they have a dysregulated sympathetic nervous system, amongst other abnormalities, which produce many uncomfortable symptoms, from any event that can cause stress (illness, blood glucose disturbances, injury and yes, ketosis). This can interrupt sleep, cause nervousness/anxiety, increase depression and interfere in blood glucose regulation, all of which do not better your metabolic health, but worsen it instead.
To reduce these symptoms, or avoid them all together, a well formulated ketogenic diet must be followed. This includes the consumption of adequate protein, tracking of electrolytes, keeping fasts short (no longer than 16 -18 hours), eating enough (no one meal a day - OMAD - protocols) and not over exercising, but still exercising enough to keep normal hormonal expression. All of these, combined, eliminate or help reduce the stress response. The only ketogenic protocol that this blog recognizes is from Virta Health.
For some people, their stress response never lowers. These people should avoid very low carbohydrate diets, because even though they are beneficial for metabolic health and weight loss, they aren't necessary. Low to moderate low carb diets work, just as well, as long as the carbohydrates are whole and not in the form of sugar or grains. These people will also have to shorten their fasts even more, to only 12 hours, overnight. Every other recommendation (protein, electrolytes, exercise) remains the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment