Six common beliefs addressed, Part 196

1. My doctor told me that “keto” is great for short term weight loss but not for the long term.

Your doctor is correct. "Keto" is great for short term "weight loss" and so are all other diets. So "keto" is no worse than any other diet in that sense. Once your body fat is challenged, leptin always under expresses to prevent further fat loss. This is why all diets fail. These fad “keto” protocols are particularly detrimental because they increase the adrenal stress response through starvation and adapt the body further to sparing fat mass.

For this reason, the target of a ketogenic protocol is to control blood glucose regulation so that the adaptation to starvation is broken.

2. Low carb protocols are a "lifestyle" and not just for fat loss.

That statement is always made by scammers. They want to take your focus away from what they can’t deliver - fat loss.

All diet's primary goal should be the loss of body fat because body fat is the main indicator of a pathological metabolic adaptation that leads to diabetes. It is the canary in the coalmine that blood glucose regulation is abnormal. "Weight" is not implicated in diabetes, body fat is. The loss or gain of body fat is an indicator of what your metabolism is doing. If you can lose body fat, then you are headed in the right direction. If you can’t, you are only rearranging chairs in the Titanic. Nothing matters, until body fat is lost. Nothing. 

I know a lot of people do not like to hear that but I'm not here to tell fairy tales so you feel good. That's what cake used to do and look where it got you. Metabolic health can only be obtained through the loss of body fat because this means you have regulated blood glucose enough that leptin is responding to treatment. If leptin does not respond, you will forever be stuck at diabetes' front door.

So yes, low carb protocols should be a lifestyle because it takes much more than just diet to address metabolic issues but the primary goal is always to get your body to start burning its own body fat. That's the first engine that must come on for the machine to begin working properly. The loss of body fat is the primary metabolic advantage.                                            

3. Cancer “feeds on sugar”.

I've addressed this statement before but I don't mind doing it again so it's clear and the nonsense can stop.

Cancer feeds on the same things your healthy cells feed on. This is why cancer hasn't been able to be successfully "starved" as you would have to starve yourself. Anything that is poisonous to you, is poisonous to cancer. That's why chemotherapy and radiation damage healthy cells along side cancerous ones.

So, cancer feeds on sugars, proteins and fats - just like you. This occurs to varying degrees depending on the type of cancer as all cancers are different. But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that cancer only feeds on sugar. Well, your body makes its own sugar so it will be feeding the cancer all by itself. In fact, the body especially likes to make sugar when it is sick (like having cancer) so it will be an open 24 hour buffet for it.

4. No one knows what obesity is or what causes it.

Obesity is the chronic under expression of leptin, caused by blood glucose dysregulation which abnormalizes insulin expression over time. This process doesn’t occur over night. You don’t wake up one morning with under expressed leptin and begin piling on the pounds of fat. It is a gradual occurrence. Obesity is not a line you cross, it’s steps you take, like a ladder. A series of things together cause a “compounding effect” and once they begin, they become a viscous circle, feeding off each other and progressing the condition further. 

To be obese you must have:

• Blood glucose dysregulation – Erratic fluctuations in blood glucose, with large disparities between highs and lows, which deteriorates insulin function over time causing “insulin resistance”. Insulin resistance affects all glucoregulatory systems, lipid metabolism and fat cell function. Leptin is a slave to insulin and is produced by fat cells so it becomes compromised and chronically under expressed.
• Obesity - That's right. Being obese makes you more obese, hence the viscous circle description above. The fatter you are, the fatter you will become because being fat itself interferes in proper insulin function as the obese have a very high insulin demand which dysregulates their blood glucose further. 
  

Many things can cause blood glucose dysregulation but some of the most common lifestyle factors are diet and exercise. Of course, there is a lot of nuance to both and this is why the generic advice of "eat less/move more" will not help you. It is much more complicated than that. The nuances are:

• Not moving enough – insufficient hours active
• Not moving the right way – strolling through stores or jogging
• Not moving at the right times – working out on the weekends only
• Eating too frequently or not enough – chronic snacking/extended fasting
• Eating the wrong things – too many energy based foods that are nutrient poor
• Eating the wrong way – eating as a reward, as consolation for a bad day or because of boredom
• Eating at the wrong times – eating too late at night or out of consistent meal times

The obvious habits of drinking sodas, eating fast food, sweet based snacks and processed foods all contribute to obesity but they aren't the only things. You could have eliminated all of these things, from your diet, and still be doing one or all of the things listed above. Age, gender, current metabolic profile and genetics will all compound the effects these habits cause.

5. An exaggerated stress response cannot damage the liver.

The uncontrolled catabolism experienced by diabetics can absolutely damage the liver causing inflammation and cirrhosis which further deteriorate their condition. Many diabetics experience an increase of this risk after illness or injury.

Eventually, there is also kidney damage as both the liver and kidneys are the organs that have to filter the byproducts of this excessive skeletal muscle catabolism. This is why only 30% of diabetes progression is due to diet but 70% is due to the effects of this exacerbated stress response.

6. You cannot make low carb work if the only vegetables your digestive system can tolerate are potatoes. 

You can have potatoes as long as you aren’t consuming sugar and grains and you stick to your carb macros. Make sure you use red potatoes or sweet potatoes, not “baking” or “Idaho” potatoes as those are hybrids with too much starch.