Six common beliefs addressed, Part 195

1. You need protein to build muscle and carbs to keep them. 

If you are working out beyond your glycogen stores, because you are an athlete, you will begin to break down muscle into glucose in order to keep up the demand for glucose driven activity. This is not the case for the average person.

The average sedentary to moderately active person has enough glycogen stores for the minimal glucose fuel driven activity they do. Fat fuel takes care of the rest. Fat is the main fuel used by the body for everything, except running from a bear or training for the Olympics.

So if you are an athlete, then you will have to incorporate some type of carb into your diet in order to have the energy to continue with these types of unnatural activities. Everyone else is fine on fat and minimal carbs. You will not lose muscle. The only threat of muscle loss, that a sedentary and/or diabetic person has, is the wasting away from non usage and uncontrolled catabolism.

2. I have been “keto” for several years and am now noticing "discomfort" in my liver from fatty deposits. 

I can’t imagine how it wouldn't be. When you do "keto", as it is is recommended online for 2 years, I would be surprised your liver wouldn't be packed with fat. After all, the astronomical amount of fat in these failed protocols will cause the deposit of fat into the liver since it has no where else to go. All other stores would be full and you aren't burning what you already have. You first tried to kill yourself with glucose and now you are trying to kill yourself with fat. You are still on the trajectory towards death. You are just acquiring it through different means.

Having said that, "discomfort" doesn't truly mean anything. You have to go to your healthcare professional so they can order the appropriate testing for a true diagnoses. That would be the only way to know what’s really going on.

3. You shouldn't eat fat if you "need to lose weight". 

"Keto" pages always make stupid over simplified statements like these, without context whatsoever, because they are scams. The correct way to say this is that you shouldn't eat fat to excess if you want to lose body fat.

"Excess" is individualized and relative but a good rule of thumb is to stay around 50 grams of fat a day if you are obese. For everyone else, you should never go over 150 grams of fat a day. The absolute best way to determine your individual numbers are to calculate your macros.

4. You can use heavy whipping cream in coffee and you also cannot overeat meat. 

There is no reason to use heavy whipping cream in coffee if you are obese. Save your heavy whipping cream for recipes or to whip up at home and avoid the added sugar found in store bought whipped creams. Use half and half or milk in your coffee instead.

Yes, you can overeat meat. If you are carnivore and begin gaining body fat, then you have overeaten meat. Meat comes with fat. If you overeat certain fatty cuts of meat, you will end up going over your fat threshold and begin gaining body fat.

5. "Keto” is safe for diabetics with high cholesterol.

It is very difficult to predict how anyone will react to any diet when they have preexisting metabolic conditions. This is especially true if they are on medications for these conditions. For this reason, you should consult with your doctor about any changes in your diet.

Ketogenic protocols can drop blood glucose to very low levels. If you are on diabetes medications, this can be very dangerous.

Some people with certain genetic lipid abnormalities can have an adverse change in their cholesterol composition due to diet, putting them at a higher risk for heart disease. This is why you should have your cholesterol tested with an advanced lipid panel, a few months after beginning your diet, in order to see what fats have to be changed so that you don't have an adverse reaction.

All of this takes patience, testing and an open dialogue with your doctor.

6. "Keto” has no effect on cholesterol.

“Keto” diets can lower cholesterol or raise it depending on your genetic variability. For some, the rise in total cholesterol is from a rise in HDL or a rise in LDL or a rise in both. For most people it does nothing. There's a small segment of the population that see astronomical rises in cholesterol, particularly LDL, but all of these ups and downs in total cholesterol do not determine if you are having an adverse reaction or not. It is only a marker. Sometimes it can correlate with an adverse reaction and sometimes not.

There are some people who experience a very adverse reaction in the composition of their LDL cholesterol when they eat saturated fats. These people become high risk for heart disease. You can guess who these people are by looking at their family history for heart disease and any previous or current heart conditions. There is also genetic testing available to determine this with more accuracy.

So you cannot assume that "keto" will not adversely effect your lipids. It can. You need the proper testing done in order to determine if you are one of those people. Total cholesterol is not enough so you need an advanced lipid panel that checks particle size. This test is not fool proof but it can give you a better idea as to what may be going on with your lipids.

So if you have a history of or current heart disease in your family, you should refrain from following a saturated fat based ketogenic protocol. Use monounsaturated fats instead.