Six common beliefs addressed, Part 141

1. "Keto" followers love "keto" doughnuts because they make a great "healthy" snack. 

Of course people love them. They are all overweight/obese. When have you seen an overweight/obese person that doesn't love doughnuts? 

The question you should be asking yourself is not whether the doughnuts "are okay to eat", but whether you're okay with remaining fat. Some people are okay with that. In fact, more and more low carb advocates are settling for the idea that leanness should no longer even be the goal. This is because they can't let go of their doughnuts. 

Don't be one of those weak people that have decided to be victims of their fat for the rest of their lives. If you are here, it's because you want to actively do something about your fat. Doughnuts, of any kind, are never okay. 

2. Getting older does not effect metabolism.  

It does. Unfortunately, the advice that could have prevented this should have been given to you when you were in your twenties. The older you get the harder your journey. This is because: 

• The older you are the more insulin resistant you become irrespective of diet. Once the body no longer needs insulin to grow, a lot of its organs and tissues develop a natural inclination towards insulin resistance. This effects glucose homeostasis especially when the diet has a substantial glucose load. 
• The older you are the harder it is to grow and maintain lean muscle mass as the body continues resisting insulin making it difficult to synthesize protein. This causes a continuous loss of lean body mass and a difficult time rebuilding it. This is even worse when it's coupled by an over expression of catabolic hormones which is the case for people with metabolic syndrome/diabetes. 
• The older you are the harder it is to lose body fat as body fat is a tissue which maintains insulin sensitivity until the end. So, expect to continue building fat mass just fine well into old age, even if everything else deteriorates. 
• The older you are the more hormones will work against you. The loss of sex hormones causes for the body to shift its metabolism and promote even more fat storage. This is detrimental for males, but females don't have it any easier. Females begin having a male pattern fat storage, where they begin accumulating fat around the middle and in the viscera from the loss of estrogen, while males experience the opposite effect and become more estrogen dominant causing man boobs. Though man boobs can be embarrassing, they aren't the problem. The problem is the loss of testosterone. 
• The older you become, the more health issues you develop and this can affect your mobility, ability to adhere to a specific diet and/or have to use medications that can affect blood glucose further in order to treat chronic conditions. Also the older you become the more reluctant you will be to make a lifestyle change.
  

As you can see getting older means a much more difficult time trying to stay healthy. The only thing you can do is be consistent with your low carb diet and fasting protocol while staying as active as possible. If there is one thing that is helpful for staying young and managing weight, in older adults, it's exercise. Get an exercise regimen if you don't already have one. 

3. Feeling tired on "keto" is normal. 

Negative. Get off "keto" and go to a normal low carb diet. 

Though many things can be causing this, and you should consult a doctor if you haven't already, in the context of diet alone you might not be using fat for fuel efficiently. This is the result of poor leptin expression. This effects your ability to burn fat for fuel. 

Being tired on ketosis is also the result of the loss of lean muscle mass. You are either not in taking adequate amounts of protein or ketone presence in the body is causing it to go into stress, breaking down its lean muscle further, or both. For this reason, reformulate your diet so that it is adequate in protein and only causes mild/cyclical ketosis. 

4. There are no health advantages to consuming dairy on carnivore.

Dairy has always been advantageous and this is why most of us can still digest it well into adulthood. 

Dairy is a fermented food so it has helpful probiotics for gut health. Whey protein stimulates insulin for lean muscle mass growth. It is also a great simulator of glutathione, the most powerful antioxidant in the body. The fatty acids in diary, especially decanoic acid can cross the blood brain barrier. Dairy is a great way to increase ketones in people who have epilepsy and other disorders where they must keep ketone levels high. Dairy is also extremely nutritious, milk being the most nutritious food on the planet. 

As you can see, you get a lot of bang for your buck consuming dairy, sort of like when you consume organ meats. 

5. "Stress" and lack of sleep will effect blood glucose and insulin.

Stress effects insulin through the over expression of counter regulatory hormones, which release glucose into the blood stream. The more advanced your metabolic disease, the more exaggerated this effect is. Diabetics can dump quite a bit of glucose into their blood stream, driving their postprandial blood glucose well into the 500 mg/dL range and beyond, while dipping their fasting blood glucose to very low levels. Some diabetics are able to maintain high blood glucose all of the time. 

This of course, effects insulin levels as insulin will respond to this fluctuation in serum blood glucose to try and help clear it. The more blood glucose, the higher the insulin levels will have to be and the longer it must remain expressed in the body. This keeps insulin chronically high and over expressed. Keep in mind that the "stress" I am referring to is not "emotional" stress but metabolic stress. Such as when you eat a candy bar. The erratic ups and down in blood glucose, with high disparities between postprandial and fasting levels, are the main stress that the person with metabolic syndrome has. That is the pathological stress that they have to take control of. 

Emotional stress can effect blood glucose, especially when it is already not well regulated but no one becomes diabetic and/or obese from emotional stress alone. Emotional stress does not cause that type of pathology. Lack of sleep has been shown to effect insulin levels because it is a stressor for the body and also if you aren't sleeping, blood glucose will not lower enough as the body is still active and requiring fuel. Again, this keeps insulin levels higher than normal, when they should be low. 

Too much importance has been given to lack of sleep in blood glucose control, but again, insomnia does not cause diabetes/obesity. Just like emotional stress, it contributes to already poor glucose control but it is not the main driver of it. The main driver that effects blood glucose and insulin is lifestyle. 

6. You should never do a low carb and low fat diet at the same time. 

Of course you can do a low carb and low fat diet at the same time. That is basically the description of a protein sparing modified fast, the most powerful diet for body fat loss known so far. It is also the complete opposite of the Standard American Diet (SAD) which is both high in carbs and fat. Whoever told you that low carb and low fat shouldn't be done together is out of their mind or is selling another type of diet.