Six common beliefs addressed, Part 268

1. What evolutionary advantage is there to blood glucose shifts to cause the body to go into a starvation response? I much rather be the person who can maintain their blood glucose regulation intact while eating doughnuts and pizza.

I know that when I speak of "proper blood glucose regulation" it seems as though you have to constantly walk a tight rope because your body is against you but it actually is not. It is doing exactly what it is suppose to do. Shifts in blood glucose homeostasis help the body determine what the food environment is like. It helps the body know how much and what type of nutrient availability there is. It uses this information to determine if it needs to get fat for survival or not.

Of course there is an evolutionary advantage for the body to kick into starvation mode the moment it senses a disruption in blood glucose. This is why most people get fat and very few are able to sustain staying lean well into old age. The person whose metabolism is resistant to respond to blood glucose shifts might be blessed in an industrial modern setting but they would be toast in a hunter/gatherer setting. How would they survive a famine or even times of general food scarcity? They wouldn't fare very well at all. It's the one who can get fat that survives and that's why there are so many of us left since we were the ones who didn't die off. Evolution has made the decision that anti starvation mechanisms like the propensity for overweight/obesity, is a good thing in general.

So when I speak about "proper blood glucose regulation", you can think of it more as avoiding its disruption as much as possible.

2. I watch a YouTube doctor, who has millions of subscribers, but the advice he gives is really generic, simplistic and kind of vanilla. It's like a public relations team writes his content for him. He tried to do a "keto" diet one time and complained about how much fat he had to eat and how boring and inconvenient it was. Then he said he had to drop the diet because his "cholesterol went up". I doubt that was even true. I think it was a gimmick to make people not want to try the diet out through fear mongering.

YouTube doctors are like daytime TV, full of sh%t. They are there to gate keep the status quo, push a narrative/agenda and virtue signal to their audience. I actually believe that you might be right and this doctor did make up that his cholesterol went up following this diet because he knows that is a common problem people face. He wanted to make sure you stick with the standard dietary advice without question, and if you attempt to veer off, well then bad things will happen to you.

Look, we know who the target audience for these young, scrub wearing, obesity resistant, athletic, feminized, male doctors are - middle aged, overweight women who are bored with their lives and their "health" has now become their only hobby. They are ready to follow any fool who makes the claim they can "save" them from whatever is ailing them. It also doesn't hurt that these doctors are easy on the eyes and relatable while doing so. Sorry for whoever I triggered.

Stay away from this type of nonsense. It will not help you lose one pound. Why this doctor decided to eat that much fat on "keto" is beyond my understanding because as a doctor, he should know that you can go naturally into ketosis through carbohydrate reduction exclusively, but who knows. He might not even be a real doctor. These people will do anything for views except state facts.  

3. I love pudding and I saw a "keto pudding" online which I ordered, thinking it was truly "keto". When I looked at the ingredients though, it is 100% starch. It doesn't say what type of starch. Isn't regular pudding made of corn starch? So what's the difference between this keto pudding and the real thing? Is starch even "keto"?

Anything that does not disrupt ketosis is "keto". I have said before that "keto" is not a set of ingredients, it is simply a metabolic state where you primarily burn fat for fuel and produce ketones. The more efficient you become at burning fat, the less ketones you will produce. This has zero to do with metabolic health. If you are here because you want to treat your overweight/obesity/diabetes, then your main concern should not be ketones but your blood glucose regulation. So I will reply to this question as if you are dealing with overweight/obesity/diabetes since you did not specify why you are on a "keto" diet.

Do not get duped by these "keto" and "low carb" labels. Manufacturers are using these labels in order to sell their junk to a new wave of customers who are following these fad diets. The reason that this pudding was most likely labeled as "keto" is because it does not contain granulated sugar but some sort of artificial sweetener instead. They know their customers are dumb enough (with all due respect) to not even know that starch is simply a chain of glucose molecules bound together. Basically, glucose. Glucose disrupts blood glucose homeostasis. So it doesn't matter if this product is "keto", it is obesogenic.

They most likely didn't use corn starch in order to not alarm any potential customers as many of these "keto" followers are leery of corn and avoid any product that has corn in their ingredients. Corn sounds too much like high fructose corn syrup. This means the starch used is most likely cheap tapioca instead, which is believed to be lower in carbs, though no specific number exists or even a comparison to corn starch. I can almost guarantee tapioca is either higher in carbs than corn or about the same. In fact, I actually prefer the corn. You can become 700 lbs on tapioca or any other type of starch. Remember starch is just a fancy term for glucose as described above.

Real "keto" pudding is not only sugar free but starch free. This means you have to go online and find a starch free pudding recipe. You will need to actually buy other ingredients, to replace the starch, and do some cooking and it will not be "instant pudding". In other words, it will be a pain in the a$$ to make and the results are not guaranteed to be the consistency or texture you are accustomed to. I have become convinced that a lot of these substitutions simply do not hold up to the real thing. You can't reinvent the wheel. The wheel is perfect as is and it can't be made any better.

For this reason, I do not recommend any of this "find a substitution" practice. You need to become accustomed to your new diet and this is best done by accepting it as it is instead of trying to make it something that it's not. You will have to live with the fact that some of your favorite foods will just have to remain in the past so you can move forward. Find some other "keto" dessert that is not a mock recreation of the usual high carb fare.

4. I know someone who had bariatric surgery and it was successful. They changed their lifestyle and kept the weight off. It has been three years since their surgery and their weight is still off but they are having serious health issues which have not been easy to diagnose. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of this. I have read multiple stories online of people who have lost their weight, kept it off, only to be plagued by multiple, mysterious health issues that have ruined their quality of life. What is going on?

I don't know and I doubt anyone else does. Health issues are individualized and we simply don't know what is going on with this person, who had bariatric surgery. If their doctors haven't been able to figure it out, I doubt we will. It could be the result of such an invasive surgery. It could be the complications that occur afterwards. It could be something totally unrelated that just so happened to occur after the surgery. We can only speculate at this point.

What I can tell you is that obesity has long term health consequences even after it is resolved. Body fat is the largest endocrine organ in the body, aside from the thyroid, by sheer surface area and distribution. Challenges to this body fat can pose potential long lasting, metabolic effects. Bariatric surgery does not just cause body fat loss, but mostly muscle mass and water loss. Loss of muscle mass is implicated in shorter lifespans and disease. This is not even considering the effects of abnormal insulin expression on tissues and organs. Insulin is what gets all nutrients, energy and electrolytes into cells. Insulin resistance basically starves various tissues and organs, to varying degrees, of these nutrients and the long term effects of starvation are pretty dire. Because bariatric surgery can induce weight loss without the need of insulin normalization, for the most part, the metabolic problems continue which often lead to weight regain and inability to regain muscle mass. These insulin abnormalities will continue inducing pathology over time.

As you can see, the cure for obesity is not weight loss. The condition and the metabolic abnormalities that result in it, persist regardless of weight loss.

5. I was controlling my blood glucose with a low carb diet but I moved to a more rural area and am now having allergies that I never had before. This has disrupted my blood glucose control. I don't understand how allergies can affect blood glucose and cause me to start gaining weight again. I thought that as long as my diet remained low carb, I wouldn't have these issues any longer.

This is the fallacy of the low carb community. They keep promoting this myopic idea that carbs are the only influence on blood glucose but they are wrong. Many things can negatively affect blood glucose control and if this negative affect continues for a prolonged period of time, insulin will start to abnormalize and metabolic conditions will ensue. They say you can't get fat from air but in your case, that is exactly what's happening.

There is a bidirectional relationship between histamine and blood sugar, with each influencing the other's levels and contributing to metabolic dysregulation.

• Histamine can stimulate the release of insulin, which can lead to hypoglycemia.
• Histamine can increase glucose uptake in muscles and adipose tissue, further contributing to hypoglycemia. In the case of the already overweight/obese, who have super insulin sensitivity of their fat mass, most of that glucose is going into their fat mass rather than their insulin resistant muscle.
• Histamine can suppress the release of glucagon which can also contribute to hypoglycemia.
• For individuals with certain chronic conditions, like mastocytosis, histamine can lead to hyperglycemia.
  

Anyway you put it and through whatever mechanism, histamine affects blood glucose and metabolic conditions require for blood glucose to not be disrupted in order to regain its proper regulation. For this reason, it is not surprising that your new found allergies are affecting you in this way. You need to work with your doctor in order to ensure you can take control of this situation before it gets worse.

6. Can dehydration cause blood glucose issues? Low carb groups always say to consume salt in order to increase sodium intake.

Salt and sodium are not the same things. 1 tsp salt is made up of 5 grams of salt and 2.3 grams of sodium. The rest is chloride.

Sodium in an essential mineral. It is found in your blood serum and the extra cellular fluid that surrounds all of your cells. Your kidneys and adrenal glands help keep sodium balanced in your body. When you consume too much salt, your kidneys simply excrete more of it. If you eat too little, then your adrenals cause your kidneys to conserve it through the action of aldosterone. This causes the side effect of potassium waste, which you don't want. When sodium is reduced the adrenals release cortisol and adrenaline which interferes in blood glucose.

So yes, dehydration can cause blood glucose abnormalities through stress hormone release. The proper way of addressing this is by making sure you are intaking suffice electrolytes. It is not resolved through drinking more water or consuming more salt. Either one of these, can cause more dehydration.

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 255 - Iodized Salt Edition

1. My thyroid is normal but I am borderline on my iodine. My endocrinologist did not recommend iodine supplementation and instead told me to simply consume iodized salt but all of them contain dextrose. That's why I haven't used iodized salt in years. What can I do?

Iodine is a mineral found in some foods. The body needs iodine to make thyroid hormones. You can be low on iodine but still have enough to make thyroid hormone causing for thyroid markers to appear normal. But you don't want that to lull you to sleep and ignore your borderline result. If your iodine gets too low it can cause thyroid problems, including goiters.

Iodine is usually not recommended as a supplement you administer yourself because it is known to cause serious issues, particularly if you have undiagnosed thyroid disease. More than 1,100 micrograms of iodine a day for adults can be problematic. It could cause thyroid problems amongst other things. For this reason, long-term use of iodine or supplementation at higher doses requires proper medical supervision. That way the right testing can be done routinely to ensure your iodine is at the right levels. This is most likely why your endocrinologist did not recommend supplementation. They most likely deemed this was not a significant deficiency that required medical intervention but could resolve itself with the simple intake of iodized salt.

Goiters have become a thing of the past since iodized salt came on the market. I have personally never seen anyone with a goiter and I am 51 years old. My mother, who grew up in Cuba remembered seeing quite a few goiters in her lifetime but never again once she came to this country. So iodized salt seems to be effective in preventing this issue, regardless of the quality of the iodine used.

There is only one problem. Dextrose. The dreaded simple sugar derived from corn that makes low carbers drop in a dead faint or run to the hills when mentioned. The low carb drama is really real.

There is no doubt that a lot of conventional/processed "table salt" is terrible. It is filled with chemicals, preservatives and sugars depending on what brand you choose. In fact, a lot of these salts have so many added ingredients that salt is last on the list. But that's not what we are going to discuss here. After all, there are many alternatives to conventional salt, at reasonable prices and available everywhere. You can use Kosher salt, sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, Celtic salt or salt picked by elves from the Dead Sea. It's your choice.

In this post, we are simply going to discuss dextrose in iodized salt. No, it's not in there to make salt "taste better" and sabotage your diabetes management. The makers of these iodized salts do not have stock in dialysis machines. Dextrose is actually added as a stabilizer to prevent potassium iodide, the ionic state of iodine, from oxidizing and evaporating. Iodide is volatile and oxidizes rapidly with light and humidity. If the iodide gets oxidized to iodine, it could give an unpleasant taste to the salt and loose its effectiveness. After all, if you bought the salt thinking that it was supplying you with iodine but all the iodine is gone or no longer bioavailable, you are going to be royally pissed as you sit at your doctor's office with your brand new shiny goiter.

Let's be reasonable here. The dextrose in salt is quite trivial. For example, Morton Iodized Table Salt contains 0.04 percent dextrose or 40 milligrams per 100 grams of salt. This means that no, Morton salt did not cause your diabetes. You had to add doughnuts to that salt to make a difference. This means you can safely add iodized salt to your diet, if you require it, without losing a leg or needing a kidney transplant. This is particularly true when you are on a very low carbohydrate diet, free of dextrose and any other sugar in other food items. You can always mix the iodized salt with pink salt, sea salt and/or Low Salt. You can also just use it for cooking and use other salts for everything else. Just make sure the only ingredients in your iodized salt are salt, potassium iodide and dextrose. Don't get a salt with ten different additives.

Now if you are dead set on never having dextrose touch your lips while alive, then you can always have organ meats. Organ meats are surprisingly high in iodine and this is why hunter/gatherers have no need for iodized salt. But if you don't want your Sunday dinner table to feature lamb brains and ox heart, then you need to find iodized salt without the dextrose. The latter will be very rare and quite pricey.

But where there's a need, there's a market. Supposedly some scientists in Spain have found a way to keep iodide from oxidizing, without the need of any stabilizing agent. Go figure. No one knows exactly how they accomplished this or why they even tried but that's their claim and they are sticking to it. You can find this secret technology salt on Amazon. I recommend you store it very well and hope that it truly is supplying you with iodine, especially for the price you paid for it.

So, when it comes to iodized salt, let thy goiter be thy guide, not some low carb clown.

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 118

1. You should salt your food liberally.  

Eat salt to taste, but track your electrolytes using this guide. 

2. You should only count carbohydrates and not calories. 

You shouldn't be counting anything, except your macros. The reality is that some people cannot wing this. There are people, like me, who can intuitively eat low carb and have no issues achieving results. We don't need to track a thing, but other people do. Some people must track their macros or they simply cannot achieve results. 

This all has to do with how well you can regulate your blood glucose. Some people are able to achieve proper blood glucose regulation and affect their insulin profoundly enough to affect their leptin. Others cannot. There are some who simply cannot achieve proper blood glucose regulation, even while seemingly following their diet correctly. Before you can move on to other causes, we must make sure the diet is on point and sometimes what "seems" correct is not. Until you can obtain and sustain proper blood glucose regulation, nothing is correct.

So, if you have to track anything, track your macros. They are a better tracking method than just carbs or just calories. Macros are three: carbs, fat and protein. Not one or two. If you aren't consuming sugar, grains or starches, then you have no need to track carbs. Your focus should then be on fat and protein. You want to make sure fat remains moderate and that you are consuming adequate protein. That's how this works. You can read the recommended way of doing this here. 

Calories generally do not have to be tracked, unless you have no satiety signaling and/or you have some kind of disordered eating issue. Then calories can be added to your macros in order to ensure you are following them. Calories kind of become a fail safe with this method. 

3. The best protocol is one where you have no calories for breakfast. You have your first meal late in the day and the second one in the evening. 

The only thing that makes a protocol "good", is if it's getting you results. Not just "working for you", but results. Many things work very well, but achieve 0 results. Results are only quantified though blood glucose regulation. If you can sustain proper blood glucose regulation, you will begin to lose body fat. 

 

So, if eating your first meal at noon and the next one in the evening is getting you results then, by all means, proceed. But if you aren't getting results, then it's because that protocol is no good and it shouldn't be surprising. 

 

There are certain general observations that appear to be consistent in the obese. For example, the later a person tends to eat, the fatter they generally are. This has been shown to be the case in study after study. This has to do with how insulin expression differs at different times of the day and especially while we are asleep. This is particularly the case for the insulin expression of the obese. Insulin should be at its lowest during the night time fast. There is something about having low insulin levels while asleep, that is not achieved while awake. This probably has to do with energy flux. You do not use the same amount of energy while asleep or in the same ways. The later you eat, the less you will be able to drive insulin to its lowest level, while asleep. The diabetic cannot drive their insulin low enough while asleep and that's why they experience hypoglycemia during the night and wake up with Dawn Phenomenon in the mornings.

The magic is in getting insulin to a very low point, during the night time fast, so it stops dropping blood glucose too low, and then letting it rise again with breakfast. This causes the pulsatile function insulin was meant to have. The person with metabolic syndrome/diabetes, just has a stagnant insulin level, that is high all the time. It never goes low enough and it never goes high enough. 

So, lowering insulin is not enough. It must go very low. Eating early in the day allows for very low levels during sleep. 

4. There is no need for set meal times.

Set meal times help adjust your circadian clock so your body can better predict nutrient availability and this reduces hunger, helps regulate metabolic hormones and reduces the stress response. Whoever tells you that meal timing is not important is a fool. 

5. Food should be eaten slowly and cut up in small pieces. 

Yes, if you don't want to choke. You would be surprised how many deaths occur from choking in modernity. So please, don't bite off more than you can chew, literally. Chew well and don't laugh or fool around while eating. It is also a good idea to learn the Heimlich Maneuver. There is even a way to do it on yourself. 

Chewing food well, also allows for better digestion, especially if you suffer from dry mouth. But, as far as obesity/diabetes is concerned, how you chew is irrelevant. Chewing will not cause a single pound to be lost.

6. Liquids should be consumed only 5 minutes prior to eating and then no more until 30 minutes after.  

This is not necessary unless you are having some digestive issues, like low stomach acid. Water can dilute your stomach acid if you are consuming it with your meal. But a better way to resolve that is by either having apple cider vinegar or supplement with betaine.

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 74

1. You should "eat to hunger" during your eating window.

I know that there is a lot of debate about whether you should eat if you aren't hungry and the default is always - you should. You should never skip meals. Ever. You need to develop predictable meal times and stick to them. This lowers the stress response by helping to keep blood glucose steadier. Steadier blood glucose will help normalize satiety and hunger. The last thing a person with metabolic syndrome needs is erratic meal times that prolongs the time in hypoglycemia, causes the need for snacking and causes binging when hunger finally kicks in.

There are two primary reasons for why the person may not experience hunger and each one means something different depending on your metabolic state.

• Reason #1 (The Best Case Scenario) - Your body is burning through stored fuel, so it has no reason to be hungry. It is adequately acquiring all of the fuel it needs from storage, you are losing weight and your metabolic markers are normal and stable. You can comfortably wait for your meal times with no discomfort from hunger but this lack of hunger does not make you want to skip your meals when it's time to eat.
  
• Reason #2 (The Worst Case Scenario) - Your body is not recognizing stored fuel and so it's not using it. Your leptin expression is nil and your body is making excess glucose and living off it. There is no reason to be hungry, as you are living off the stress response, through the break down of your lean muscle mass and your metabolic rate is 0. You lose no weight or gain instead and your metabolic markers are barely hanging on. Not only are you not hungry between meals, but when your meal time comes around, you struggle to eat it because it feels as if you can fast forever.

This is why you should never automatically think that lack of hunger is a good thing. It's usually indicative of active obesity, if you are already overweight/obese. Lack of hunger is only good if you are losing weight or are already slim and when that's the case, the lack of hunger is not chronic. Context changes everything.

If you are going through Reason #1, continue eating your meals at meal times as well so your circadian rhythms are not disrupted. 

If you are going through Reason #2, you should eat, even if you aren't hungry because that's the only thing that will kick start leptin. Leptin only responds to long term nutrient availability. Even if the meal is small, that's fine, but don't extend your fasts from lack of hunger. That falls under the "caloric restriction" mentality, which assumes that if you aren't hungry, then it's a good thing because you will eat less calories. Well, the obese are some of the least hungry people on earth, but that doesn't help them shed a single pound.

2. A low carbohydrate diet will always result in the loss of body fat. 

Following a low carb diet simply helps better regulate blood glucose by preventing the introduction of exogenous glucose into the body. Exogenous glucose disrupts blood glucose homeostasis because it causes higher than normal postprandial blood glucose, increasing the demand for insulin and then lowering fasting blood glucose abnormally. These erratic, highs and lows in blood glucose, with large disparities between them, causes a pathological metabolic adaptation which results in high blood glucose, insulin and body fat set points over time. This is metabolic syndrome. 

By eliminating exogenous glucose through low carb dieting, you can help normalize your blood glucose regulation, or at the very least, not disrupt it further so you can better control your condition and have a higher chance of achieving reversal or remission, depending on how far along the condition is.

The premise is that when your blood glucose homeostasis successfully improves, it allows the body to lose body fat but this is not a magic pill, like so many low carb advocates claim. They like making you believe their diet works without fail, but we all know that is not true, because the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis (CIH) is dead. No one in their right mind believes it anymore, since carbohydrate is not the sole contributor of blood glucose dysregulation. Their elimination will help, but it will only take you so far. Lifestyle changes that include diet (not just carbohydrate restriction), fasting and exercise must be implemented and there is no one size fits all for any of them. Each person has to try and tweak these changes, for their own individual needs, until they begin seeing results.

Lastly, let's make one thing crystal clear, because low carb advocates only talk about insulin, but you can't lose body fat without leptin. If leptin does not tell the brain there is body fat to lose, then no fat will be lost. "Dieting" does not affect leptin. This is precisely why no one can make the claim, with 100% certainty, that low carb diets will cause you to lose body fat. Again, the premise is that better blood glucose control will lower insulin and improve insulin sensitivity which would in turn improve leptin expression but remember, this is completely dependent on how much an individual can improve their blood glucose regulation.

3. Meat, for early humans, was a rare luxury.

Cave paintings tell us that early humans spent most of their time hunting. Though we know early humans also gathered, hunting was the primary activity depicted in the stories they painted on stone walls. They didn't even bother to depict cave porn, so even procreation was secondary to hunting. Our digestive system, from our teeth to our colon, tells the story of a primarily meat based diet.

Hunter/gatherers of yesterday and today allow us to see that humans can survive and thrive under many different conditions and can adapt to many different diets. There are hunter/gatherers who eat mostly meat and others who eat mostly plants. Humans are omnivores and this high adaptability, to whatever is available in the food supply, allowed us to migrate and inhabit many different kinds of terrains and climates. Adaptation allowed us to be mobile and we ultimately lived everywhere, except Antarctica.

Since, very early humans ate a mostly meat based diet and evolved from it, there are no hunter/gatherers, anywhere on earth, that eat an all plant diet. None. There are some who eat all meat diets, but there are none that eat all plants. We also know that no hunter/gatherers consume a diet with ice cream, Twinkies, cookies, cakes, waffles, pancakes or any other junk that is considered "food" in the modern world. So, the tribes that eat "plants" are eating them in the form of roots, berries, nuts and seeds, and whatever they find in the intestines of animals, not sandwiches or leaves.

4. Is salt bad for you?

It depends. Notice that most answers, on this blog, are addressed in the same way - "It depends." This is because context changes everything. When you ask a question, that requires nuance and the person just regurgitates a solid "yes" or "no" answer, then you can be assured they are dishing out BS.

If you have an obesogenic metabolic state, such as is the case with metabolic syndrome, you tend to retain fluids. Salt intake can aggravate this state and cause edema and high blood pressure. High blood pressure damages the cardiovascular system and aggravates preexisting cardiovascular disease (CVD). A diet that is high in sugar is usually the culprit for this issue, as sugar is anti diuretic because of its effects on insulin. So, eating a diet that is both high in sugar and high in salt is a really bad idea. This is why doctors always advise for salt intake to be reduced, but many studies have shown that even the reduction of salt does not eliminate the negative outcomes of the anti diuretic effects of insulin. This means that even without any salt intake, blood pressure does not stabilize when there is hyperinsulinemia. This is because hyperinsulinemia is not caused by dietary salt.

If you have certain medical conditions such as congestive heart failure, impaired kidney function or kidney disease, then your body has a very difficult time eliminating excess sodium from the body. The reason that salt intake, for a healthy person, is not detrimental is because the body simply eliminates excess sodium through urination. Therefore, the sodium is harmless. The body has absolutely no issues doing this. But, if you have any of the three conditions listed above, your body cannot release excess sodium efficiently and this will only exacerbate fluid retention and further deteriorate blood pressure control. People with these conditions should be cautious with their sodium intake, since their body is not able to handle it adequately or efficiently.

There is a small segment of the population that is very "salt sensitive". For whatever reason, their body is unable to excrete excess sodium efficiently, even without a diagnosed preexisting condition and sodium starts building up in the body. This could be because the body is already experiencing kidney insufficiency, from chronic metabolic stress, or maybe from some other underlying genetic factor. Who knows. What is known is that salt intake, for these individuals, can cause edema and blood pressure abnormalities.

So, if you are the type of person that experiences negative side effects from sodium consumption, put down the salt shaker. If you experience no adverse reactions, to consuming salt, then consume it to taste. Salt in itself is not bad. It's your body's handling of sodium that ultimately determines if salt is bad for you.

Do not try to manage your electrolytes through the consumption of salt and/or water. That is not the appropriate way of managing electrolytes.

5. I cannot afford "grass fed" or "pastured" animal products, which seem to be what most low carb advocates recommend. For this reason, I am going vegan/vegetarian.

Recommending "pasture raised", "humane" and/or "sustainably sourced" meat products, have all become trendy disclaimers when you are advocating a meat based diet. It's as if everyone feels some type of guilt for recommending meat consumption. But, on this blog, there is no guilt, so grass fed or pastured animal products are not required nor are they the focus. If you can afford and easily find them, good for you, but if you can't, you don't have to.

We only emphasize fresh meat from the butcher's counter. No processed meats like hotdogs, cold cuts, precooked, preprepared and or canned meats. These processed meats are usually the ones that people turn to for "economical reasons", but it's all smoke and mirrors, as they are actually quite expensive, not nutritious and full of added carbohydrates that will disrupt your progress. You can get more bang for your buck at the butcher's counter.

The cut of meat does not matter. If all you can afford is ground beef, then go for it. Ground beef has an excellent protein to fat ratio and can be prepared multiple ways to create different meals.

The message of this blog is to eat meat (protein), not carbohydrates and fat (energy). We do not debate nor care whether the meat available to you is from a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) or not. That is not our priority or focus. We only care that you don't swap meat for mac 'n cheese. Unlike what vegans say, CAFO won't kill you, but macaroni will.

6. You should not lift weights or you will end up looking like a bodybuilder.

First, you don't need to lift weights. Hunter/gatherers do not lift boulders for fun, so make sure you lift weights simply because you enjoy it. If you don't enjoy something, you won't do it consistently.

I know there is a huge movement out there of "lifting heavy", but that's not a natural movement nor a requirement for the body. I understand that if you are eating a bowl of pasta, you want to build as much muscle, as possible, so that the body can "burn that glucose", but anything less than Michael Phelps level of activity, will only store that glucose as glycogen, in the muscle and liver, and it won't be burned at all. In order for something to be burned, it has to be used. So, instead of creating more closets (muscles), to store more crap (sugar), stop buying (eating) crap, since there will come a time when you will have no more land to keep making closets (diabetes). Then you will be s%^t out of gas.

Bodybuilding is basically a 24 hour hobby. It takes a lot of dedication, discipline and time to body build. It also takes a lot of drugs that redirect insulin's focus away from the fat mass and into muscle mass. So, it's not easy to be a bodybuilder. A middle aged diabetic is not going to go into the gym, lift for a few minutes a day and come out looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger in a month. It doesn't work that way. If only it did, there would be no diabetes.

Unfortunately, the body is as efficient in breaking down its lean body mass, as it is in increasing its fat mass. Body builders have to fight this everyday. Obesity makes the body much more than just efficient, at doing this, it makes it excellent at it. People with metabolic syndrome/obesity/diabetes are the best at breaking down their lean muscle mass, into glucose, and then making that glucose into even more fat. They are so good at doing this, that becoming a bodybuilder is not anywhere in their future, unless they are body building with fat, rather than muscle.

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 61

1. You must eat lots of fat to not be hungry on low carb.

"Hunger for fat" is a sign of metabolic disease. I want that to be completely understood and clear. Having to eat enormous quantities of fat, in order to reach satiety, is a sign that you are very metabolically sick and not better or getting better by any stretch of the imagination. People with healthy metabolisms do not ever experience this. They reach satiation with protein, not the energy macronutrients.

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. "Keto" will prevent cardiovascular disease (CVD).

CVD is mostly determined by genetics. Having said that, certain genetic lipid abnormalities can be exacerbated by diet, regardless of what the charlatans say. If diet can have a positive effect on some, it certainly can have a negative effect on others.

There is a segment of the population that reacts adversely to saturated fat intake, especially when the consumption is ridiculously high, as is the case for the fake "keto", practiced online. These people develop an increase of small dense LDL and abnormally functioning apolipoproteins.

This is why you should have an advanced lipid panel ordered, yearly, instead of relying on a basic one. You won’t know how your diet is affecting your lipids, until you analyze them, in depth, since total amounts are not enough to tell you anything about their health.

3. Eating lots of salt is healthy.

It should ring alarm bells when someone who is selling salt, recommends you eat plenty of it. (Reeeeally, now....)

Like fat, there is no need to avoid salt, but also no need to over consume it. Salt your food to taste. Do not chew or suck on salt or salt your water. That’s stupid. Eat salt to tolerance. People on low carbohydrate diets, need to keep their focus on their electrolytes, not just salt. An electrolyte guide can be found here.

Some people are salt sensitive and once they go over a certain amount, they begin having adverse reactions. People with certain kidney or cardiovascular diseases may have issues with salt, as well as people on certain medications. Listen to your body and don’t ignore bad reactions. If you are experiencing edema or high blood pressure, put down the salt shaker.

4. You must be overweight/obese to have metabolic syndrome.

No. There are many thin people who have metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of 5 abnormalities that appear to track together:

• Waist circumference over 40 inches for males or 35 inches for females
• Blood pressure over 130/85 mmHg
• Fasting blood glucose over 100 mg/dl
• Fasting triglyceride levels over 150 mg/dl
• Fasting high-density lipoprotein (HDL) lower than 40 mg/dl for males and 50 mg/dl for females

But, you do not have to experience them all to have metabolic syndrome. Each person manifests the condition differently. In the absence of any other disease and/or medication, which might be contributing to these abnormalities, you are considered to have the syndrome if you manifest 3 or more of these conditions.

5. Can "keto" cure mixed hyperlipidemia (MN)?

MH is considered a genetic condition where the person has high blood fats, including high cholesterol and high triglycerides. But, there are lifestyle factors that can cause and/or aggravate this condition, as well, including ones that promote metabolic syndrome. So, before a condition can be deemed completely “genetic”, make sure that the appropriate genetic testing has been done to determine that is the case.

“Genetic” is a lazy term that is often thrown around the doctor's office to make it seem as though there’s nothing you can do to change certain conditions, except through pharmaceutical intervention, when that’s simply not the case. Many people with high triglycerides and/or cholesterol, have been able to normalize their markers through lifestyle interventions. If no lifestyle intervention causes changes, then you can begin suspecting other causes. Genetic testing would be a great place to start identifying them.

6. If you add potatoes, to your diet, you will become obese again.

No. Never, in the history of humanity, have potatoes made anyone obese. Potatoes are not the cause of obesity, they have only contributed to obesity. 

Potatoes, like all carbs, profoundly affect blood glucose. Usually, potatoes are eaten alongside other carbs that affect blood glucose even more. For this reason, potatoes need to be restricted, particularly if you already have metabolic syndrome and your body is using any source to drive blood glucose upwards.