Six common beliefs addressed, Part 84

1. Following "keto" will help you lower blood glucose and get off diabetes medications, but if you stop consuming high fat, your blood glucose will go back up.

You aren't "cured" and are still a diabetic, if you have to eat enormous amounts of fat to not see your blood glucose rise. You are simply masking your symptoms using a pretty simple and well-established fact about metabolism: fat metabolism displaces glucose metabolism and vice versa.

Fat consumption may give the affect of lower blood glucose simply because it raises basal insulin levels. You need insulin to store excess dietary fat. Higher insulin lowers blood glucose but it also lowers it when you don't want it to lower, which is when you are fasting. Abnormally low blood glucose while fasting disrupts proper blood glucose regulation in the long run. It is the main driver of metabolic syndrome. Remember, the lows in blood glucose, not the highs, set the rules.

2. Is Nutrisystem a "scam"?

Nutrisystem is a calorie centered weight loss approach, similar to Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Slim Fast, etc. Just like the others, it is also not appropriate for addressing metabolic dysfunction or obesity, since they only target one contributing factor for these conditions - all energy in. Basically calories.

Trying to address metabolic disease and obesity using only all energy in, with metrics such as calories, is a fool’s errand. The only thing you should care about is your blood glucose control. This is better done though macronutrient tracking, not calories. Not all macronutrients affect blood glucose the same way. 

With this program, no other lifestyle intervention is addressed, in any sustainable way. It is also not a whole food based program because when you use calories, as your tracking method, food quality becomes irrelevant. But, we know food quality effects the obese profoundly, as it affects their blood glucose regulation and energy out. You can be on a low calorie diet that is still affecting blood glucose regulation and preventing you from burning fat.

So, if you need to lose 20 pounds for bikini season, and you are otherwise healthy, try Nutrisystem. If you are also a lazy healthy person, who refuses to cook, use Nutrisystem. But, if you need to lose 50 lbs. and have diabetes, don’t bother. It will not affect your metabolism profoundly enough to be of any help in the long term because it does not address blood glucose regulation enough to do so.

BTW, don’t fall for the low carb/"keto" BS that claims these programs are "scams". That’s the pot calling the kettle metal. There are specific reasons, explained above, as to why these programs have low efficacy and it’s not simply because "keto" is better. "Keto" is also a rip off, as we also see the same unsustainability, nutrient poor food, expensive unnecessary junk (including books), concessions and marketing schemes galore. There are many iterations of 'keto' that do not help improve blood glucose regulation.

3. Can starchy vegetables affect ketosis and blood glucose?

That depends on the overall composition of the diet, amount eaten and how long you’ve been low carb. If you started a ketogenic diet yesterday, your blood glucose will still be affected. As time goes on, blood glucose is less affected because the body partitions it’s fuel better and blood glucose regulation improves. That is why it’s better to eat starchy vegetables, once your blood glucose stabilizes and you start losing body fat. 

You can absolutely be in ketosis, while eating potatoes because ketosis also occurs from starvation. So, if you only eat potatoes, but not too much of them, you’ll be in ketosis. Of course, starvation is never recommended, particularly to try and keep potatoes in the diet. Eliminate them instead.

4. Should you tackle blood glucose first and then weight?

You should normalize blood glucose first and then you can start losing body fat. Once blood glucose is normalized, the body metabolic adaptation that excessively stores and spares body fat will be broken.

5. Fasting is "anabolic", it increases metabolic rate and lowers lipids. 

The anabolic effect and increase in metabolism, that fasting produces, is extremely short lived. It is so short lived, in fact, that it is useless to even mention them as a "benefit", since the long-term effects of catabolism and lowering of metabolic rate, far outweigh any initial benefits seen. 

Also, the lowering of lipids, during a fast, is the same as the lowering of blood glucose. Both are temporary mumbo-jumbo, as it's expected that if your engine is OFF, you won't see any malfunction. The car is always running great, when it's simply not running.

6. Can plants exacerbate autoimmune conditions and other digestive conditions in some people?

Some people have to go on an all meat, "carnivore" style diet because plants interfere with their health. There are many reasons for this, from phytotoxins, to lack of enzymes, to lectins, to glutens, to residual pesticides and herbicides, but to make things really simple, plants may exacerbate health conditions because they simply weren’t in the food supply for 99% of our history on earth. Every single fruit and vegetable you see, at your farmer's market, has been man-made through cultivation and breeding. When you eat your plate of salad, you are actually eating a "processed" food. It is no wonder that, for many people, plants are intolerable to their health.

Foods with high amounts of indigestible cellulose and other fibers can change gut bacteria, causing excess gas and unnecessary bulk. This is the normal result of turning your one stomach into a fermentation vat, that requires four stomachs to digest, and ultimately end up filling your small intestine with roughage. We were made with a short colon because we aren’t supposed to carry around large amounts of unusable bulk. Your small intestine is designed to extract the most from nutrient dense foods. Plants aren’t those types of foods, so it puts extra strain on a system that wasn’t designed to process this type of stuff to begin with.

The safest plants are berries and roots. That’s what we would gather, in small amounts, and consume. Any other plant material we consumed came directly from the intestine of the animals we hunted and ate. That plant material was already broken down for us, so we didn’t have to do it.

People who aren’t affected by the consumption of plants have simply developed a tolerance for them, just like we developed an ability to digest milk, well into adulthood, from simply being exposed to it. Milk has proven to be advantageous, plants not so much. Therefore, for a large group of people, vegetables are problematic. Depending on the issues you are having, limit their consumption or eliminate them all together. You can also replace them with tubers, roots and/or squashes if you fare better on those.

At the end of the day the priority in your diet is meat, not plants. Plants are great side dishes and recipe enhancers, but nothing else.