1. Why do so many low carb diets fail, even though you have explained how they would be the most beneficial treatment for metabolism?
Because most diets are fads and scams. Unfortunately, low carb diets have not been immune to this.
There are many iterations of low carb diets online which are full of junk foods (wrong macronutrient compositions), unrealistic/unsustainable protocols (bone broth fasts), floggings/binge eating (fast for a week/eat 3 pounds of bacon) and symptom chasing (postprandial blood glucose/gained five pounds). I have said before that the low carb community is full of frauds, scammers, snake oil salesmen and quacks. Low carb diets attract a lot of desperate, misinformed and serial dieters with eating disorders. All of these people are easy to manipulate, lie to and rob.
This is why I made this blog. In order for anyone to get the information they need, for free and simply explained so they have a better chance of reversing their condition.
2. What is the correct insulin to glucagon ratio?
Insulin in the pancreas is at its purest and most undiluted form. It is no coincidence that the alpha cells are right next to the beta cells in the pancreas. This close proximity causes for insulin to be potent enough to stop the secretion of glucagon, as its potency begins to reduce as it enters the liver and finally the peripheral tissues.
Insulin is released during the fed state so that's when glucagon should be properly suppressed. The fed state means no glucose should be produced as blood glucose naturally rises from the breakdown of the food we eat. The correct insulin to glucagon ratio at this point should be around 7 - 4.
3. I just watched a video on YouTube from a "low carb doctor" and he was basically saying that the dietary advice given on a national news network was wrong but he never said how exactly. He was just pissed at certain recommended items like fruit, barley and broccoli. He only seemed to agree with any item that was "low carb". I browsed through the comments and they were mostly of people saying they only had to take their insulin twice since going carnivore or how there is a war against meat. There wasn't a single dissenting voice in all of the comments. I remember, some years back, there would be challenges to these claims but now I see none.
Because they most likely filter out comments. I remember when there would be a lot of unanswered questions in the comment sections of these charlatans but those are gone too. They know its bad for business to leave questions unanswered. Jimmy Moore was notorious for cleaning up his comment sections. He would ban people from his page, in a hot second.
Look, all of these people are frauds and scammers. Most of them have given up and moved on to something else but there are a few still holding on to their flock. They have just moved to another platform like YouTube instead of Facebook. Too many people from their past are still on Facebook so they look for a new audience elsewhere. I have said it many times before, snake old salesmen have to keep moving from town to town or their gig will be up.
Aside from that, all of these frauds are one trick ponies. They see dietary food choices from one myopic viewpoint - no carbs. For them, this is the "cure". Of course, they know its not but they peddle it because, just like you saw in the comments, someone will pipe up and say they were taken off their insulin or their HbA1C is lower than ever before. For these people, this signals that they have been miraculously "cured". They don't understand diabetes any more than the fool they are following. Of course your blood glucose lowers if you don't consume dietary glucose but the condition is still progressing. By the time your postprandial blood glucose shows a significant rise, you have been having blood glucose dysregulation for years. This is why these people will remove the carbs and then start complaining that now their blood glucose is going up from meat.
I hate to say this, but they are all dummies. Back in the day, when you could only get information from your doctor or some quack you met at the pharmacy, I could understand the ignorance but there is internet now. The same time they put into watching a clown on the low carb circus, is the same time they can put into reading some obesity medical journals. They are all free online, ready for viewing. They don't do it because they are lazy. It's easier to keep watching the clown comes out of the car than to do actual research so I don't feel sorry for them and you shouldn't either. Forget the ones that can't be saved and save yourself.
4. Why is it that a lot of carnivore proponents have become sick and had to leave their diets if this is the diet we evolved with?
Because they are quacks. Let's be real, the only "carnivore proponents" I have seen are just regular people who tried out a diet, found it beneficial and decided to write a book, make a website, create a program and charge for all of them. I hate to say it but they are grifters. They know where the money is at. It's at every single fad diet that can be thought of. These people did not take time to research the diet or its possible side effects.
We absolutely evolved eating meat. In fact, meat made us human, particularly when we learned how to cook it. Cooking meat extracts its nutrients exponentially. There is just one problem - we are not living in caveman days so the meat we have access to is very different from the meat hunter/gatherers have access to.
Hunter/gatherers have access to wild game. Wild game is very lean so it packs a much higher amount of protein per serving than farm raised animals. Eating lean meats for a long period of time can cause health problems (rabbit starvation) as you need fats to be able to metabolize certain nutrients. For this reason, hunter/gatherers eat nose to tail. This means they consume the entire animal, particularly the organ meats. Organ meats are where most of the nutrients, fats and electrolytes are found. It is also where you can find already digested and fermented plant matter which has beneficial bacteria.
In modernity, these "carnivore proponents" sit down to large plates of muscle meat and claim they are eating like their ancestors. They are not. Muscle meat is not as nutritious as organ meats and over time, you start experiencing electrolyte imbalances. This is particularly true on a diet that tends to keep your insulin very low. This can be detrimental in the long term because the more you deplete your electrolytes, the more difficult it is to replenish them and you end up in a state of chronic dehydration that's hard to reverse. This will cause all sorts of nasty health problems that can even become dangerous and in some instances not reversible.
Electrolyte imbalances are the worst case scenario of eating muscle meat carnivore but another problem is the fat in the meat. The muscle fat in farm raised animals is very different from the organ fat in wild game. Consuming too much dietary fat, over the long term, will only deteriorate your insulin function since fat keeps basal insulin levels higher than normal. This is why a lot of "carnivore proponents" end up seeing their metabolic markers deteriorate over time. This is particularly true if they already had some stage of metabolic syndrome. Farm raised meat packs quite a load of fat, especially when all you eat is cattle. Wild game is not cattle. It's a wide array of animals, including insects. Also this extra fat comes at the expense of protein. This means you can be carnivore and still suffer from not consuming adequate protein because that rib eye will fill you up before you can get the most protein out of it. Meat is very satiating so it is difficult to hit your protein goals without going over your fat goals.
All of this means that carnivore is the most difficult diet to follow out of all low carb diets. A lot of people do not like organ meats. They cannot become accustomed to their taste, they are difficult to find and you have to learn how to prepare and cook them. It is hard to have a Thanksgiving dinner table that features lamb hearts instead of turkey and fish eyeballs for hors d’oeuvres. For this reason, if you want to do carnivore using only muscle meat, you have to be knowledgeable in the right supplementation of electrolytes and possibly protein as well. You have to watch your fat intake through careful tracking of macros and choosing the right cuts of meat.
It's a science to do carnivore correctly in modernity because the carnivore of today is very different from the carnivore of the past. So don't follow "proponents", follow information. You must do the right research to ensure the diet you choose is right for you and will get you to your goals.
5. I keep hearing "fasting" people say that you can add fasting to any diet. Can fasting help with better blood glucose control.
I have touched on this before but it's been quite a while so I will recap in this reply. The term "fasting can be added to any diet" is a marketing slogan. Why limit your customers to only low carbers when you can have a wider audience covering all kinds of diets? These people are selling fasting. It's a business that's also a gimmick. They could care less about anything else except if its profitable at the end of the day. So they can't even explain how it works or why it should even work. We have already discovered it doesn't.
Fasting used in this fad way is a symptom chasing approach. Diabetes is not a symptom. It is a syndrome. There's a difference. If you want to have better blood glucose control, which is just another way of saying you want to obtain proper blood glucose regulation, then you can't try to resolve it using one method and destroy it with another. Every time you eat the wrong macronutrient composition, you are once again disrupting your blood glucose and fasting won't correct it. Instead, fasting would reinforce it because it lengthens your time in hypoglycemia after a bout of hyperglycemia. Hyperglycemia disrupts insulin function and hypoglycemia makes the disruption permanent.
The premise of fasting is to lower blood glucose so that insulin release/expression reduces. This helps normalize your fasting insulin levels, breaking the resistance and allowing for better leptin expression. This is done after a proper meal that does not disrupt blood glucose to begin with. The last thing you want to do is fast after very high postprandial blood glucose as you will release excessive insulin after. This insulin will not be cleared after fasting so fasting further will only cause a severe drop in blood glucose. This strengthens the disparities between postprandial and fasting blood glucose, allowing the condition to be reinforced and progress.
Remember, diabetes is caused by chronic, large disparities between postprandial and fasting blood glucose so that is what you want to avoid.
6. I was told that carnivore was not a good diet because our ancestor's diet varied greatly depending on region and climate. I was also told that a balanced diet would get you all the nutrients you need.
Yes. Our ancestor's diet varied wildly as humans are highly adaptable when it comes to diet. How this translates to carnivore not being a "good diet" is unknown.
As far as a "balanced diet" goes, that is a product of modernity. Like I mentioned above, humans are highly adaptable when it comes to diet and can thrive on many different types of diets. This means they can thrive on a modern "balanced diet", the same way they can thrive on a restrictive carnivore diet. A "balanced diet" is no better than a vegetarian diet or a ketogenic diet.
No one who recommends "balanced diets" can even define what that even means. I suppose they mean any diet that is not restrictive of any macronutrient. Why the restriction of a macronutrient would translate to the restriction of micronutrients is unknown.
Humans have evolved with and thrived with diets that fall anywhere between 100% animal based to 80% plant based. The only diets that humans have never evolved with are 100% plant based diets (vegan), "fat free" diets or "balanced diets". Just like "balanced diets", vegan diets are a concoction of modernity as well but even so, they can be followed successfully if done right. That means that humans are so adaptable that they can even thrive on diets they didn't even evolve with.
A "balanced diet" does not guarantee you will get all the nutrients you need. The Standard American Diet (SAD) is a "balanced diet" but it is still quite nutrient void. The nutrients in your diet are completely at the mercy of you including bioavailable nutrient rich foods and your body's ability to metabolize them.
A sensible and simple, real food approach for improving metabolism without the BS.
Welcome
On this blog, I not only share the dietary and lifestyle approach which reversed my metabolic disease and achieved my weight loss, but I also debunk many misconceptions surrounding obesity and its treatment.
I am 5'5" and was weighing 300 lbs., at my heaviest. I lost a total of 180 lbs. I went through several phases of low carbohydrate dieting, until I found what worked best and that is what I share on this blog. Once on a carbohydrate restricted diet, along with intermittent fasting, I dropped all of the weight in a little over two years time.
My weight loss was achieved without any kind of surgery, bariatric or cosmetic. I also did not take any weight loss medications or supplements. I did not use any weight loss program. This weight loss was solely the result of a very low carbohydrate, whole foods based diet, along with daily intermittent fasting and exercise.
There are years worth of content on this blog, so I suggest you use Labels to easily find the information you are looking for. If what you are looking for is not under Labels, enter it into the Search Bar.
Six common beliefs addressed, Part 271
Six common beliefs addressed, Part 264
1. I've decided to stop taking collagen. I'm trying to determine if protein is contributing to my "leptin resistance".
Protein has nothing to do with "leptin resistance". Collagen is not even a complete protein....SMH
Poor leptin expression is very complex and still being studied as very little is known of its exact mechanism. What we do know is what contributes to it. It occurs through metabolic dysregulation, mainly the cross-talk with insulin, as leptin is a slave to insulin. Hypothalamic dysfunction caused by chronic obesity and excess "sweet taste", not to mention the effects of being sedentary on adipocytes (fat cells) through leptin/adiponectin ratios, all affect leptin expression.
So we know metabolic hormones, the brain and adipocytes are all involved in leptin function. Unlike insulin, leptin is completely regulated by the state of your neuroendocrine system, not by any one external force. This is why there is no "leptin diet". The closest we have to a "leptin diet" is a protein sparing modified fast and a good enough amount of exercise because both of these affect your neuroendocrine state. There is also no "leptin pill" as serum leptin levels have nothing to do with its expression on the adipocytes and brain.
Aside from that, what makes you think you are "leptin resistant" anyway? Just because you are overweight/obese does not automatically make you "leptin resistant". You could just have temporary under expressed leptin until you correct the lifestyle factors that are contributing to your poor metabolic state. Intractable obesity would be more commonly considered as "leptin resistance".
Ugh, the low carb world just went from insulin to leptin, got them both wrong, and not one pound lost.
2. I go out shopping daily so I "make my steps" while walking around Walmart. Does this count as walking?
No. "Making steps" is not exercising.
You would be surprised how many steps an overweight/obese person can make from walking a very short distance. In fact, they can make 10K steps from just walking from their car to the front door of the Walmart. I remember when I started walking, I hit a milestone of 35K steps from walking a route I now make only 12K steps on. How is this possible, if it's the same route?
Because people who are in generally poor health, have a very short stride. They simply take more steps to cross the same distance compared to a healthy person. It has been harder for my husband JC, to improve his health compared to me and I can see this clearly in his stride. As we walk, he takes two additional steps for every one of mine. When we are both done walking and compare our pedometers, he always has about 900 more steps than me, though we both walked the same route together. So pedometers can be deceiving and must be used as a rough guide only. Just because you are "making your steps" doesn't mean you are exercising enough or as frequently as you should.
As my health improved, it started becoming harder and harder to make 10K steps on the routes that would give me 20+K steps before. I have been unable to surpass or even duplicate those 35K steps. For this reason, counting steps are great for a beginner but you can't remain there and they certainly won't work very well for a healthier person. A healthier person must change their walking goals to miles, rather than steps. You can also use "hours active" to monitor daily activity levels.
You have to "walk for exercise", which means exertion. Your walking routine should increase heart rate and make you feel as though you're getting a work out. Walking for exercise is not a stroll and it's non-stop until the goal is reached. Make your steps count.
3. I have a friend who was recently diagnosed as diabetic. They are not overweight/obese and have a history of working out. They suddenly ended up in the hospital last week with kidney problems from diabetes. How could diabetes do this to them so quickly and suddenly?
This is the unfortunate reality of Type II diabetes. It is quite insidious.
First, many diabetes cases are diagnosed late. This means that the person has had serious blood glucose abnormalities for a very long time before the diagnosis is made. This is because diabetes really does not have any symptoms, or just a few common mild symptoms, until a complication arises.
I have mentioned before how my husband's coworker had blurry vision for years. They complained constantly that none of the glasses they ever bought helped. They then passed out one day, on the job, and were taken to the hospital to find out they were a full blown diabetic and nearly went into a coma from a sudden rise in blood glucose. Once their diabetes was treated, their vision was no longer blurry. Of course, the damage the diabetes has caused on their body cannot be reversed.
The same happened to my friend, who also passed out at her job from a dangerous rise in blood pressure. Turns out that blood pressure rise was associated to uncontrolled diabetes, which she was unaware she had.
Even if you go to the doctor and have a yearly physical, understand that the metabolic panel ordered, only tests for fasting blood glucose which is many times low for diabetics. In fact, a lot of diabetics will have incredibly low blood glucose numbers while fasting. Diabetes is a syndrome. It does not manifest the same for any two individuals, even if there are some common symptoms. For some diabetics, their blood glucose is always high but for others, that rise is not constant and there is an equal sudden low.
This is what happened to my husband's best friend's brother. He died in his car from a drop in blood glucose because he was an undiagnosed diabetic. He simply felt sleepy, pulled over to take a nap and never woke up. This was a young man in his twenties who was not overweight/obese.
This is why I tell my readers, over and over, that diabetes is not high blood glucose so lowering your blood glucose, will not help. Diabetes is the result of abnormal blood glucose regulation. That means blood glucose can go very high or very low but it's never normal. These highs and lows are dangerous and cause pathology. The lows are particularly malignant because they not only reinforce the condition and continue making blood glucose set points too high, but they can cause sudden death to boot as most metabolic syndrome/diabetes sufferers do not feel hypoglycemic symptoms.
What does this all mean for your friend? This means that this erratic blood glucose is causing abnormal insulin expression because insulin is a slave to blood glucose. Hyperinsulinemia is extremely pathological to the kidneys. High blood glucose is pathological to the kidneys as well by overworking them. All of this sets the stage for kidney disease, a very common diabetes complication and it doesn't take long for this to occur. You can already experience impaired kidney function while simply having metabolic syndrome.
Metabolic syndrome causes high blood pressure and this is detrimental to the kidneys as well. Certain ethnicities are more susceptible to this. Native Americans and other Native Peoples of Central and South America are experiencing an epidemic of kidney disease caused by diabetes. For genetic reasons, they manifest very high insulin resistance in response to blood glucose abnormalities and as I've stated before, insulin resistance is notorious for causing renal disease. So diabetes even manifests differently in different genetic lineages.
Everyone has to understand that abnormalities in blood glucose regulation is a silent killer. By the time you are diagnosed with diabetes, you are at the end stage of metabolic disease. You will also most likely be diagnosed during a serious health crisis caused by the syndrome.
Do you want to be diagnosed sooner? Buy a blood glucose meter. You no longer need a prescription to get one in the United States. You just have to pay out of pocket for it but they are quite inexpensive now. Check your morning fasting blood glucose and then check your postprandial blood glucose, two hours after the largest meal. Do this for ten days straight and see your results. High disparities between fasting and postprandial blood glucose of more than 40 points, even without hyper/hypoglycemic numbers, means you are at risk for developing diabetes. Now you can do something about it rather than waiting for it to happen.
4. Should I restrict protein to get rid of eye floaters? I am on "keto" and was told that the restriction of protein could help with this.
This question has nothing to do with metabolic health but again, I am going to address it because it is in the context of diet. Unfortunately, low carb diets are riddled with this type of nonsense. Like I have stated many times before, low carb diets are only a palliative treatment for metabolic syndrome. They are not meant to "cure" anything. They don't even cure metabolic syndrome!
Ketogenic protocols for the treatment of metabolic syndrome, fall under the umbrella of low carb diets. Often described online as "keto" diets, there are several iterations of them but the only legitimate ones are ones that do not restrict protein. There is no need to restrict protein on ketogenic protocols whose goal is better metabolic function.
Eye floaters are spots in your vision. They may look like black or gray dots but can also look like strings or cobwebs. They drift when you move your eyes and dart away when you try to look at them directly. Most eye floaters are caused by changes that occur as the jelly-like substance (vitreous) inside your eyes liquefies and contracts. Scattered clumps of collagen fibers form within the vitreous and can cast tiny shadows on your retina. The shadows you see are called "floaters".
This has nothing to do with dietary protein unless you plan on making your vitreous out of some other material that is not protein. Your body is already made of fat and protein and your diet will not change that. Eating water bottles will not make you into plastic. Not eating fat and protein will not turn you into gold or some other material. You will still be fat and protein. This is pretty much common sense. Even if you were to restrict all protein, your body will break down its own lean muscle mass and so the floaters will continue.
Some people see more floaters than others. I have high myopia and will occasionally have bouts of many floaters. Usually the more vigilant of them you are, the more you are apt to see them. Age greatly affects the amount of floaters you will experience so the older you get, the more floaters you will see.
Sometimes floaters can be a sign of a retinal tear so if you see many of them and they are accompanied by flashing lights, it's time to see a doctor. Particularly if you have had a recent head/face trauma. Protein restriction will not repair or reattach your retina. You would need emergency surgery instead.
5. I am trying to eat healthier so I bought a "healthy" butternut squash soup that tasted like sewer water. It had wholesome ingredients though. Why do healthy things taste like %^&*?
Yes.......yes they do taste like that. They either taste like crap or have the wrong texture or simply don't hold up to the real thing. This is usually what occurs when you take something that has been perfected already and try to make it out of something else.
I always laugh at these health zealots when they claim there are "so many delicious healthy" foods. I am sure there are but none of them are fried chicken and waffles. This means you have to leave the chicken and waffles behind because they won't taste the same made "healthy". Just enjoy naturally delicious healthy foods like baby back ribs. I'm sorry, but that's just how it is.
It's hard to find creamy soups like butternut squash in the "healthy aisle" as that usually means low fat and/or low carb. Butternut squash soup is neither. Even if you make it yourself at home to avoid the fillers, gluten and MSG, it still requires butternut squash (carb) and coconut milk or cream (fat). For some, the seasoning for it is brown sugar and/or maple syrup (more carbs). You probably found an iteration made with bone broth instead in order for it to be healthy. Well, you just found out there's nothing like the real thing, baby because fake stuff sucks.
I recommend you stay away from constantly trying to recreate items you can no longer eat. A lot of these "healthy" soups or other food items remove the ingredients that make the original so good. If you take away a model's beautiful long hair, fit body, young age and symmetrical facial structure, you end up with me. Can you truly say I'm still a model? No. Not if you're being honest.
So when you take away the sugar, dairy, wheat and MSG from your favorite staples, can you truly say they are the same? No. They aren't.
6. Can I drink mineral water instead of electrolytes?
All water, except for distilled water, contains electrolytes. Mineral water generally has more electrolytes than tap water so you can consume it if you wish, since it is cheaper than electrolyte mixes.
We get most of our electrolytes from food. The body usually keeps its electrolytes tightly regulated. There are some exceptions though and this is why we emphasize the importance of electrolytes on this blog.
When you follow low carb/"keto" diets, your insulin naturally lowers. Changes in insulin levels have an impact on serum electrolyte levels. This is why they usually mix sugar in with electrolytes. You see this in the electrolyte IVs they give at the hospital and also in many "sports drinks". Sugar facilitates electrolyte entry into cells by raising insulin. On a side note, many diabetics are in a constant state of mild "dehydration" because of insulin resistance.
Insulin is also an anti-diuretic so when it lowers, you will naturally release more water from your body and this can cause imbalances in electrolyte levels which make you feel generally unwell. This can occur with any diet, since all diets affect insulin, but because low carb/keto diets can be sustained for a longer term, the effect is worse as the imbalance increases over time. Whenever you hear people complain that low carb makes them "feel like crap" so they "need carbs", it's because of this effect. 99% of the time this unwell feeling is caused by electrolyte imbalances.
For this reason, you have to keep your electrolytes in mind always. Not only should you supplement 400 IU of magnesium daily, you should drink an electrolyte mix after exercising, working in the heat or if you begin to just feel unwell on your new diet. Make sure the mix you use, does not contain sugar. Though sugar helps cells intake electrolytes, it is not a requirement. Taking electrolytes should make you start feeling better again but if you don't, then you have to stop the diet and see your doctor.
Unless you have certain medical conditions, like renal disease, that requires careful monitoring/restriction of potassium intake, you should not have any issues consuming electrolytes, since the body balances them for you. If you do have a condition where potassium can be problematic, speak to your doctor first.
Six common beliefs addressed, Part 247
1. I recently had the flu, so I followed the advice in a fasting group to "fast it away". I ended up in the hospital with dehydration. The moment I ate again, my symptoms subsided, and I recovered quickly. My doctor told me I had done a dangerous thing. How do these people get away with giving this type of advice?
I hate to say it but if you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.
Illnesses like the flu can cause serious dehydration and this in turn can result in electrolyte imbalances. You have to be well hydrated, but you also need proper nutrition because electrolytes are mostly controlled in the colon by what you eat. This is why you can get very sick when you fast, even if you drink suffice water. It's simply not enough.
Your immune system also needs protein to make antibodies and since stress causes for there to be a lot of lean muscle mass breakdown into sugar, you have to make sure you eat adequately to help your body fight off infection. In fact, access to nutrients has been a major factor in humans surviving infectious diseases like the flu. Malnutrition/not enough food is the main contributor of death in third world countries. The best and only support available for viral infections is proper electrolyte administration.
The reason these people get away with this type of advice is because others are foolish enough to follow. Don't blame the leaders, blame the followers. Anyone who goes online to seek medical advice, is basically a fool. I prefer for people to become educated and not follow idiots rather than censoring them. Let them give all of the advice they want but if no one follows, they will simply have to find another gimmick.
2. I have obesity and metabolic syndrome, so I have to be on a low carb diet in order to control these conditions. Unfortunately, I also have a genetic condition where I cannot metabolize fats very well, so I tend to get sick on a "high fat diet". The protocol for my particular condition recommends that I restrict fat to only 20 grams a day. When I remain low fat, I feel great. Is there a practical way of going low carb and low fat at the same time for the long term?
Yes. Low fat and low carb is basically a protein sparing modified fast protocol. You are restricting (fasting) the energy macros from your diet (fat and carbs) and keeping (sparing) the protein. There are multiple ways of applying this protocol because the macros can be modified depending on your goals. Hence the name of the diet.
But before I take a deep dive into your question, I want to address the "high fat diet" part. We do not recommend "high fat" protocols on this blog. Those are not legitimate protocols. This blog is all about low carbohydrate, not high of anything. I know there are some legitimate protocols out there that have unfortunately been described as "high fat" but those are false labels. The only "high fat diets" that exist are being followed by very obese, low carb advocates online that went rogue. No legitimate protocol endorses that way of eating.
When a protein sparing modified fast is being used for body fat loss, it is quite restrictive, making it very difficult to adhere to. It also cannot be used for the long term as it should no longer be followed once body fat goes below a healthy percentage.
- For a man, 2–5% fat is essential, 2–24% fat is considered healthy, and more than 25% classifies as obesity.
- For a woman, 10–13% fat is essential, 10–31% fat is healthy, and more than 32% classifies as obesity.
Of course, the obese will have a very difficult time getting to "essential" or "healthy" fat percentages, so they are pretty safe following protein sparing modified fasts for as long as they are still obese.
But of course, this diet can be modified. That's the operative word. It doesn't have to be so restrictive especially if you have to follow it for life. You can simply keep dietary fat up to 50 grams a day in order to give you some leeway. In your case, you can keep it at 20 grams a day so you feel your best. Keep your protein consumption adequate so that your body does not reinforce its starvation response. The carbs can go anywhere from 0 to 100 grams a day. Remember, the priority of this protocol is protein, not fat or carbs so they are irrelevant as long as they are kept low.
Practical ways of achieving this is avoiding dairy products, as they are very high in fat. If you wish to still consume them, you will have to get the 'low fat' or 'fat free' versions but watch your carbs if you do so. Buy 'lean' to 'extra lean' meats and add your own fat at home, if needed. Remember farm animals still contain a high amount of fat even when labeled lean. But adding your own fat to lean meats (preferably wild game) can help you control how much fat is in them without sacrificing protein which is your priority. Avoid unnecessary novelties like nut products and other "low carb" favorites which usually are more fat than anything else. Your priority is protein not fat.
Stay away from junk. Go for the naturally 'low fat', 'fat free' foods which are still whole and not processed or packaged. In other words, choose part-skim mozzarella and not fat free Oreo's. The premise of consuming whole foods still applies to low fat diets.
3. I was sitting at the grocery store and saw that nearly every obese person who passed by me, had a cart that was either empty or had very little food items in it. Yet, every single one of them went directly to the bakery to pick up a pie, cookies or a cake. The stereotype is always that a fat person would basically inhale the entire market, but their carts say otherwise. Strangely enough, every person who was slim bypassed the sweets and went to the bread aisle of the bakery instead. It was an eye-opening experience and I was wondering if you can opine on it.
You pretty much experienced the reality of the obese and why the calories in/calories out (CICO) approach as a treatment has failed so miserably. The obese are the least hungry people on earth. At least, for food. I will relay to you my own experience with this, and I have two examples.
Example 1: My husband's mother was morbidly obese and diabetic. When we would go out to eat, she would take two bites of her food and then stop. Then she would either bag it for the dogs or tell me I can have it. You would imagine, from simply looking at her, that she would wolf down the entire table of food but it never happened. She would blame her hiatal hernia for being unable to eat as it caused her to feel full prematurely but she would then order the dessert and eat it in its entirety by herself.
She would wake up in the morning with no hunger whatsoever and wouldn't eat a thing until almost evening. Of course her meal would consist of mango juice or a milk shake at the ice cream shop. I never saw her sit down to a real meal. Ever. Every time food was available, she was never hungry. She never even cooked. She lived off novelties.
This woman was well at or below her daily calories chronically but yet she was still obese. As you can see it wasn't the quantity of food she was eating that was causing her obesity but her disordered eating habits instead. She was on a high fat/high carb novelty diet and calories be damned.
Example 2: I had a friend who was overweight and diabetic. She did the exact same thing. Every time we would go out to eat, she would take two bites of the meal and then tell me to eat the rest. She blamed her missing gallbladder, but she always had room for dessert, the bread and the fries. She just could never stomach the meat and vegetables. She was never hungry but always had room for high carb "junk". Again, disordered eating habits.
This doesn't end at these Standard American Diet (SAD) followers. We also see this in the obese who follow "keto" or the fad low carb diets you find online. None of them ever sit down to a real meal. Their food always consists of fat. Cream cheese, butter, ice cream, fat bombs, bulletproof coffees, high fat sauces and novelties are considered "meals" for these people. They simply went from disordered eating habits which featured high carb foods to disordered eating habits which feature high fat foods, but the disordered eating habits remain. They were never changed and not even acknowledged.
So yes, I have also seen the very obese walking around the market with a skinless chicken breast, fat free milk and salt free broth in their cart, plus a package of brownies. I have also seen the obese live off salads and veggies because they refuse to eat a real meal. The obese have very strange eating patterns that go well beyond "overeating". Most of the time "overeating" isn't even on the docket. It's really overeating of sugar and under eating of real food or eating air. Real food is meat and vegetables. You know the type of stuff they consider boring and not fun. It's a chore to cook but a joy to open an Entenmann's Bakery box or drink of gallon of diet soda.
Of course, this is also a huge contentious topic with the obese as they do not like to be criticized for their eating habits. They rather blame someone else for their problems, like their doctors, fat free diet products or the Dietary Guidelines. Obesity is already very difficult to treat biologically, and this "victim" mentality and "don't fat shame me" attitude makes it all the more difficult. Behavior must be addressed when treating obesity or the condition will always return, no matter what amount of weight is lost. This is why "weight loss surgery" has been a failure as well.
Thin people heading to the bread aisle of the bakery is a much more complicated topic as bread is eaten around the world and obesity does not track with it. Obesity tracks with sugar intake, not bread. All cultures have their own bread recipes, and they are quite old, yet obesity is a modern condition.
Regardless, bread is a food item that is not recommended on this blog because it is very difficult for an overweight/obese/diabetic to control their blood glucose regulation while keeping bread in the diet. In fact, grains in general are to be avoided at all times. But we all know that bread is very different from doughnuts.
For a person who is still metabolically healthy, what will ward off disease is the overall macronutrient composition of their diet, eating habits and other lifestyle factors. A lot of these thin people, who are headed to the bread aisle of the bakery, are mostly using calorie restriction to maintain their metabolic health even though we know this will ultimately fail if they aren't watching their blood glucose as well. But they will be able to sustain their blood glucose regulation for longer if they continue to bypass the cupcakes and get a loaf of rye instead.
4. Are eggs and cream cheese a good meal to have? A lot of low carbers have told me it's really good.
Eggs and cream cheese are not a "meal". It's a novelty. This type of disordered eating will only make you fatter, especially if you have had a hard time losing weight since that is indicative of leptin resistance. Low carbers shouldn't be telling you that eggs and cream cheese are "really good". The only thing that's good is regaining and sustaining proper blood glucose regulation. That is the only lens you should be using to formulate your dietary choices because that is all that matters.
When you are leptin resistant, any fat you eat is stored and never burned. This causes for dietary fat to be extremely obesogenic as it only adds to your fat mass.
There is no reason to live off cream cheese. Low carb is not cream cheese. It's meat and vegetables. Eat a real meal.
5. Is it true that the purpose of "keto" is not weight loss?
The purpose of "keto" depends on your goals.
There are many iterations of a ketogenic diet. Each is designed for different goals. The classic ketogenic diet is for the treatment of cancer, seizures and other neurodegenerative conditions. There are ketogenic protocols for muscle gain, for weight gain, for the treatment of metabolic syndrome/diabetes and also for weight loss.
The fad "keto" protocol promoted online was marketed as a weight loss diet. This is what caused hordes of people to flock to it and give it a try. When it didn't work, suddenly the purpose was redefined.
Don't let these people gaslight you. This diet gained popularity as a weight loss tool, period. That is probably why you decided to follow it too. If it didn't work, dump it. No weight loss = no long term metabolic change. So who cares what it improves in the short term. Obesity can only be treated with long term changes.
6. Is it "healing" for the body to shift from burning glucose to fat and does this "cure" you of obesity?
As of this post, there is no known cure for overweight/obesity. There is nothing to "heal". Overweight/obesity is not a "disease" that requires "curing" or "healing". It is a metabolic state that requires changing.
Your obesity was not caused from "burning glucose". Your obesity was caused from not burning fat. Glucose burning can displace fat burning but that's meaningless in obesity. That happens to everyone. Our bodies are constantly burning both glucose and fat. It never does one or the other. It does them both at different rates.
For instance, athletes burn massive amounts of glucose all day and do not become obese from it even if it temporarily displaces fat burning. At the end of the day, when they reduce their glucose burning, they burn fat just fine and continue to do so while resting. The obese do not. They just simply don't burn enough fat to not be obese.
The obese also burn very little glucose. The glucose they have is turned into more fat instead. So, the obese are not burning much of anything. This is why they are constantly tired and growing fatter. In fact, most of the energy that the obese "burn", is from converting glucose into more fat. This is why some obese people have high metabolic rates but are still obese. It takes a lot of energy burning to be fat. Not only to they have to lug around gym weights in the form of body fat, but they have to keep converting glucose into more fat.
When the obese are starved of dietary glucose, they simply convert more lean muscle mass into glucose and continue expanding their fat mass from it. They do not magically start burning fat because there is no glucose in sight. There is always glucose. It never disappears just because it's not on your plate. The only thing that causes the obese to burn fat is an increase in leptin expression. This can occur through the normalization of other metabolic hormones but it's not guaranteed.
Six common beliefs addressed, Part 63
First, weight loss does not occur from lack of hunger. At least, not the type of weight loss you are trying to achieve which is specifically weight loss from fat loss. That only occurs through the stabilization of blood glucose.
Metabolically dysfunctional people experience this same issue with carbohydrates. They have to eat an enormous amount of carbs in order to reach satiety, significantly disrupting their blood glucose and making them uber fat. When they switch to fat, the same thing occurs. This is a sign that leptin is not communicating fat stores, to the brain, and the body is constantly in starvation mode, since it doesn't see its own exceeded fat reserves.
This is active obesity. The body is demanding large amounts of energy, through hunger, which it obviously doesn't need, in order to continue building fat mass. Hunger for fat or hunger for carbs, means you are getting fatter. If the diet was truly reversing your obesity and healing your metabolism, this wouldn't be occurring. Stop feeding your fat mass with fat. You already did that before with carbs.
2. Calories is the same as energy, so there is no need to differentiate between the two.
I know that this can be confusing, but it's a good way to begin thinking differently about food. The term "energy" helps take into account the different macronutrients and how they are partitioned and prioritized, by the body, since the body doesn’t have a linear “caloric” relationship with food.
Calories are a piss poor way to measure energy in an effective way, as far as metabolism goes, regardless of how practical it may be. This is because, ultimately, the body is primarily affected by the allocation of energy, not its measurement. The body partitions calories depending on the macronutrient they come from. This means that knowing the total calories, of a food item, tells you nothing about whether it is obesogenic or not. You can be on a very low calorie diet that’s still fattening. As an example, roughly speaking, 100 calories of dessert go primarily to your fat (m)ass, through the disruption of blood glucose, while 100 calories of steak goes primarily to your lean muscle mass because there is no blood glucose disruption.
3. The only thing that matters is 'absolute risk' not 'relative risk.'
"Risk" has to do with statistics and it refers to probabilities, not certainties. It’s a very complex subject and you shouldn’t get bogged down by it, as it will not help you lose a pound.
Pharmaceutical studies always use relative risk, rather than absolute risk, since they only want to compare between those that took the drug, being studied, and those that didn’t. This means that if statins reduce your relative heart disease risk by 50%, that’s only relative to those that didn’t take the pill. But, if your absolute risk for heart disease was only 2%, to begin with, then the statin only decreased your individual risk to 1%. That’s still relatively 50%, but not very impressive overall. This is why it’s often said that absolute risk is really all you should care about. The problem is who determines it?
Individual absolute risk is extremely difficult to determine, so even though it may be the only thing that truly matters, it’s unusable in practice. Though absolute risk can be calculated, in a group of people participating in a study, the results will only pertain to them, not you. Absolute risk may vary depending on the pool of people being used. Maybe another group of people, even though similar, might have a different absolute risk result. After all, there are people who smoke till old age, without any lung disease. Others eat birthday cake daily, without any diabetes. Others have all their family members die of heart attacks, but they never develop the disease themselves.
To eliminate all confounders, relative risk is commonly used, as it narrows things down to only two groups of people - those who took the drug and those who didn’t, eliminating all of the other individual unknowns. The media may distort the results, to get readers attention, but the actual studies have all the data disclosed and it’s not difficult to obtain them.
Having said all of that, since our purpose here is to help with obesity and metabolic disease, and not create statistical reports on research studies, all of this is irrelevant. Focus on tried and true biology, along with your results, and leave all these word play shenanigans alone.
4. Glucose is an electrolyte.
Glucose is not an electrolyte. It is usually added to electrolyte drinks, because it helps withhold electrolytes in the body better, due to its affect on insulin, but it is not needed.
5. You should separate sugar and glutamine, in meals, to prevent cancer.
Your own body makes glucose (sugar) and glutamine. Both of these are not essential nutrients, so they are not derived solely from diet. The body makes both abundantly. Glutamine is the most abundant amino acid in the body. Both glucose and glutamine are ancient nutrients that we evolved to use in multiple ways, so we make them ourselves. You can not separate them, in the human body, and separating them, in a meal, is ignorant and useless.
Instead of quackery, please learn real science.
6. You can not enjoy life or entertain yourself, without an occasional treat.
Some people are so dysfunctional, that they can't seem to live their lives happily without involving the mouth. I suggest you find an activity that is not dependent on the mouth. If you are bored and can't find entertainment, with life, do not take it out on your fat mass. Find something to do that doesn't require chewing and swallowing. There is just so much to do besides eating, that I would need a book to list it all.
Stop associating food with "party time". You don't need "treats". You are not a pet. Humans are way more complex than pets. That's why humans do not like to be kept by other humans, as pets, even with the promise of unlimited treats. The human brain usually does not find fulfillment in a life of treats, unless something is very wrong. You need food, not treats.
Eating a meal should be pleasant enough as is. It's just one of the many pleasurable things you can do in a day. Any day you aren't starving is a good day. You should never use food as a recreational drug.
Six common beliefs addressed, Part 60
The rise in blood glucose, after a high carbohydrate meal, is not what causes metabolic issues. It's the drop in blood glucose that occurs later. By drop, I don't mean that blood glucose ever goes into a medical definition range of hypoglycemia. I mean a drop from 200 mg/dL, after a high carb meal, to 120 mg/dL some hours later. A blood glucose of 120 mg/dL is not anywhere near hypoglycemia, but metabolism responds like it is because it dropped from such a high rise.
This is not surprising, since the body always keeps a tight and narrow range in its blood glucose. It does not like large disparities between highs and lows. There is an 80 point drop from 200 mg/dL to 120 mg/dL. That is huge and would never occur under normal and natural circumstances. We did not evolve to handle drops in blood glucose of that proportion. The body is extremely sensitive to drops in blood glucose, not rises. It's the drops that adapt metabolism. The excess insulin release in response to such high postprandial blood glucose means insulin will be circulating in the serum long after blood glucose lowers, causing it to lower even further. This causes an aversion to any lowering of blood glucose over time. The body begins dosing blood glucose to counter balance the high insulin, keeping blood glucose abnormally high all of the time.
The difference between us and our ancestors, or hunter/gatherers today, is that they do not experience these disparities in blood glucose frequently enough or for any significant amount of time that would cause a pathological adaptation to occur.
2. Should protein always be kept very low?
We don’t concern ourselves with protein, on this blog, except to ensure you are getting an adequate amount. Therefore, we don't have hardline numbers for protein consumption, as it's dependent on the individual. Protein is the macronutrient of leanness, since it doesn’t contribute to obesity, making it the macronutrient of least concern. You can eat it to satiety, as it is also the macronutrient of satiation.
But, to ensure you are getting adequate amounts of protein, you might need to track it. Our recommended values are as follows:
- General - We use Dr. Naiman's recommendation - A recommended, daily minimum consumption of 1.0 grams of protein, per pound of desired body weight.
- Fat loss - We use Dr. Naiman's recommendation - Keep protein grams over your desired body weight (in pounds) and keep non-protein energy (fat + net carbs) under same target.
- Hyperglucagonemia (high postprandial blood glucose) - We use Dr. Bernstein's recommendation - A recommended minimum daily consumption of 1.0 - 1.2 grams of protein, per kilogram of desired body weight, divided into three meals as follows: Breakfast: 3 ounces protein, Lunch: 4 ounces protein, Dinner: 5 ounces protein.
- Genetic protein metabolism issues - We use the generic minimum recommended daily allowance (RDA) - A daily recommended minimum consumption of 0.8 grams per kilogram of current weight. But, a more appropriate value would be 1.2 grams per kilogram of current weight, since it has been shown that the RDA recommendation is too low and can cause future health issues. Remember to divide your daily protein allowance into two or three meals in order to reduce the stress on your enzymes, as most genetic issues with protein metabolism are the result of enzyme abnormalities.
3. Coffee should always contain an unlimited amount of butter.
If you don’t like cream or milk, you can use butter, as long as you don’t go over 150 grams of fat a day. If you’re stalled drop your fat intake closer to 50 grams a day, but no lower. Make sure you aren’t drinking coffee during your fasting times.
4. "Keto creamers" are best to use in coffee to maintain "ketosis".
The only “keto creamers” that exist are butter, coconut oil or cream, so do not buy any product labeled "keto creamer". Remember that the best "keto creamer" in the world is body fat.
5. Why are weight loss coaches suddenly experts in diabetes treatments?
A "culture of diabetes" has taken over weight loss circles. These people do nothing, but talk about metabolic syndrome, diabetes and insulin resistance constantly and mostly incorrectly.
Diabetes is increasing at epidemic rates, and all weight loss programs are aware of this, so they know the potential financial benefit in adding "diabetes reversal” to their weight loss claims. For this reason, most weight loss programs are now involved in some kind of "diabetes treatment". This is especially true of low carb weight loss programs. Obsession over "lower glucose" is their bread and butter, so this is something they will continue to do because it pays.
It's up to you to do your due diligence when researching any claim. Not treating metabolic problems correctly can cause worsening of the disease and push you back years from remission.
6. The low carb community is now saying that water is bad.
Drinking too much water can flush your electrolytes to low levels, worsening dehydration. But, I am pretty sure these low carb people are most likely discussing water intake in the context of "weight gain". They know drinking water causes weight to increase.
It’s a known hack that reducing water intake will drop your weight. Athletes practice this unhealthy "hack", all the time, in order to “meet weight requirements”. So, I suppose, the new low carb diet scam is to discourage people from drinking water, so it appears like the diet protocol is working. That's the same thing they did by extending fasting, to ridiculous lengths, in order to make it appear as though you are losing weight, while only getting fatter.
Don’t fall for this. It's dangerous. Drink to thirst, but don’t go thirsty.
Six common beliefs addressed, Part 45
I do not offer any miracles here. This blog is only for people who can still help themselves. Readers of this blog must be able to:
- Adhere to a proper carbohydrate restricted diet, consistently.
- Fast for an appropriate and beneficial period of time daily, minimally 12 hours.
- Exercise up to their limitations.
- Adhering to a proper, low carbohydrate, whole foods diet removes from the table many of the familiar foods that you are use to. This means you have to retrain your palate. This can be grueling.
- Fasting does not allow you to partake in habitual fun behaviors, which you enjoyed in the past, like eating while watching TV or grabbing something from the fridge, just because you walked by it.
- Exercise is painful, tiring and exposes you to "icky" things like heat, sweat and sun. It takes time out of the day, which could have been otherwise spent reading, on the computer, sleeping and eating.
2. I tried a low carbohydrate approach and felt terrible, so I had to stop.
Many people who begin following a low carb diet, experience uncomfortable symptoms. They can have no energy, feel fatigued, have heart palpitations, hair loss, anxiety, feelings of being cold, etc. The list of symptoms is endless. For others, it worsens thyroid function and/or causes increased hunger, rather than a decrease.
99% of the time, these symptoms are being caused by electrolyte imbalances, so they can be corrected with the right supplementation. Make sure that when you begin any low carb diet, you treat electrolytes as a fourth macronutrient. You do not want to put all of your focus on carbohydrates at the expense of everything else.
An electrolyte guide can be found here.
Electrolyte imbalances can cause much more than just uncomfortable side effects. They can cause permanent adverse health effects if they are ignored. Electrolytes are required for proper thyroid and digestive function.
3. I am losing too much weight on a ketogenic diet. I should eat carbohydrates again.
Yes. If you wish to be fat, you must eat a fattening diet and carbohydrates are part of a very fattening diet. But, if you want to be lean and healthy, or remain that way, then you have to sustain a carbohydrate restricted diet.
The first thing you need to do is make sure that you are truly losing an abnormal amount of weight. Being thin, and staying that way, is not indicative of abnormal weight loss or that you are becoming unhealthy. Being fat is not a sign of good health. "Normal weight" has been clouded in an atmosphere of mostly obese people, so now anyone who is not coated in a layer of fat is deemed to be anorexic. So, make sure you are interpreting your weight loss correctly by making the proper measurements, not just eyeballing the mirror. Then you should discuss any weight loss concerns with your doctor.
While you wait for an appointment, you can take into consideration the following - The only time that a ketogenic diet would cause abnormal weight loss is when it is protein restricted and/or very low in calories. Other than that, abnormal weight loss is not a common occurrence and usually only happens to people who are obesity resistant. These people did not have a significant amount of body fat to lose, when they started the diet, and may have gone ketogenic for other reasons that were not weight related. Because they are not obese, they immediately lose weight quickly and can go below their usual, already lean, baseline body weight. This is why it's so important to have a well formulated ketogenic diet and not follow clowns online. It is very easy for ketogenic diets to become protein and calorie deficient, causing adverse health effects, or even become fattening.
To counteract this effect, up your protein and calories. Calories can be made higher by increasing dietary fat. Remember, the less body fat you have, the more dietary fat you can consume. You also need to make sure that you are doing the proper exercises to build muscle.
If you continue to lose a lot of weight, then you have to discuss it with your doctor, as this most likely has nothing to do with the diet and something else could be going on. This is especially the case if you have been a long term Type II diabetic. Any diabetic who experiences abnormal, persistent weight loss, needs to see their doctor immediately.
4. Can I ignore my high blood glucose because I am already on low carb?
There are people out there that will tell you to ignore your blood glucose, if it starts rising, while following a low carb/"keto" diet. They make excuses and caveats about how the diet is still working, even with high blood glucose because, to them, high blood glucose can be "normal" on low carbohydrate. They minimize effects like Dawn Phenomenon (DP) and physiological insulin resistance.
I have written extensively about DP, and though it’s a normal event that occurs to everyone, the DP diabetics experience is not normal, even if they are following low carbohydrate. If the DP is persistent, and does not improve with time, it must be addressed.
Physiological insulin resistance, also known as 'adaptive glucose sparing', is another occurrence that everyone on low carb experiences, to some degree, but if it persists, especially when consuming low carbohydrate items like above ground vegetables, then it is absolutely not normal.
The same goes for weight. Weight gain is not "health gains", it’s obesity. So, if weight is creeping up on you, it's indicative of a problem. Don’t listen to the excuses given by fanatics, who are so twisted by their absurd blind belief in their diet, that it causes you to harm your health.
If your blood glucose is still high on low carb/"keto" then you’re still sick. If high blood glucose did not indicate sickness you could have accepted high blood glucose on the Standard American Diet as well. The goal of the diet is to stabilize blood glucose within a normal range in order to improve its regulation, improve insulin and start losing body fat.
5. Is there a macronutrient, which is best for people with metabolic syndrome?
There is. Protein.
Protein is the only macronutrient that will not contribute further to your fat mass.
6. All symptoms of metabolic syndrome/diabetes will disappear once insulin levels lower.
Each organ in your body has a specific, independent and unique metabolic profile. The body is not a monolith, though everything must work in sync.
Lower insulin without improving its function only starves glucose dependent tissues more. Certain glucose dependent cells in the nervous system, retinas, kidneys and red blood cells cannot use fat. Lower insulin levels mean that these cells will struggle more to acquire the glucose they need. This can exacerbate certain conditions like retinopathy, neuropathy, anemia, etc. This is most likely the mechanism behind worsening of certain diabetic conditions, when following “keto” and extended fasting protocols.
Six common beliefs addressed, Part 19
If you don't like them, don't eat them. No where has it ever been proven that greens are needed. I understand that many hundreds of years ago people wanted to sell their crops and came up with the whole "you need your greens" mantra, but don't let agricultural marketing ploys control what's on your plate today. The only thing you need is to breathe. If you prefer a diet without greens, then eat only animal products.
2. Stable blood glucose is not important, because diabetes is a disease of insulin.
Diabetes is a disease of poor blood glucose regulation which eventually affects insulin release, function and expression (insulin resistance). Therefore, stabilizing blood glucose is extremely important to correct diabetes, because these erratic blood glucose fluctuations continue driving the insulin resistance. Everything else that occurs is always downstream from poor blood glucose regulation.
Stabilizing blood glucose, in the context of pharmaceutical medications, is a fool's errand. Diabetes is a chronic and progressive disease, because the medications that "treat" it, only work to lower blood glucose, not to properly regulate it. This is why these medications do not "cure" diabetes, since they never reverse insulin resistance.
3. Is taking magnesium and potassium enough to correct an electrolyte imbalance?
There are seven important electrolytes, which the body requires, and all of them work in unison - sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, phosphorus and sulfur.
You need to replenish and balance electrolytes with a good quality electrolyte supplementation. These supplements can be found in health food stores or vitamin shops. Make sure the product you choose does not contain sugar. Also avoid products that are labeled electrolytes but contain other vitamins, minerals and "antioxidants" as fillers. You want electrolytes, not anything else.
Discuss electrolyte concerns with your healthcare provider, so you can get the appropriate testing required to have a better understanding of what might be going on. This is especially true if you are symptomatic.
4. Since low carb diets will always work, I can just go back to them after binging and cheating.
No.
Poor leptin expression can cause the inability to lose weight, unless extreme measures are taken. The more extreme, the less sustainable and the higher the failure rate. This is why a diet that worked once, might not work a second time.
This is why practicing a consistent dietary, fasting and exercise protocol is so important. You have to stick with it, so you can develop a healthy circadian rhythm, that your body will respond to. You do not want to stress your metabolism into no longer responding to anything.
5. I was told sugar is bad, but fructose is fine, since it does not raise my blood glucose.
Fructose does not raise blood glucose, because it is metabolized in the liver like alcohol, and becomes liver fat. Liver fat only perpetuates metabolic dysfunction further.
6. Is coconut water good for electrolyte imbalances?
Coconut water contains all of the electrolytes needed, but if you are symptomatic, this is not enough. The more fluids you intake, the more you urinate and this causes more electrolyte loss. Electrolyte supplementation will be your best course of action, not drinking more.