Ketogenic Diet anyone?

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  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    elphie754 wrote: »

    Is . . . is that website for real? Am I really supposed to take their health and wellness advice seriously when they think vaccinations are "medical fascism"?

    My god, I posted the first link I saw on google of an article I well know that explains it in layman's terms, which was originally published elsewhere. It this better for you pumpkin?

    http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/20/6/1536.fullp

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16470012

    There are plenty of other qualified medical professionals who've spoken out on this. I'm just trying to share the information. But it's fine if you want to turn a blind eye, go ahead.. and enjoy your statins.



    I'm in great health, "pumpkin" -- I'm not sure why you would assume you know anything about my health or how I eat based on my reaction to that website and their articles about vaccinations, 9/11, and JFK.

    Oh geez. I didn't even click the link so didn't see that. Sale on tin foil hats, isle 5.

    Apparently my embrace of "medical fascism" will guarantee that I'll wind up on statins, regardless of what I eat or what I do.

    Perhaps I'm wrong in assuming that because you have not considered the information I'm sharing (which is clearly against the current mainstream belief and recommendations), you don't agree with it and therefore believe in and subscribe to the misguided recommendations currently accepted... which there's a good chance will end up making you one of the statistics they mention.

    I honestly don't know why I waste my time in these forums, when people like you two are clearly more interested in discussing the semantics of a debate than the actual information being shared or discussed. Since acknowledging my "mistake" of quickly posting an article the source of which was reproduced by a website you were quick to write off, I've posted three other credible and legitimate medical studies and sources to support the same information. You have yet to acknowledge those. Your loss I suppose. There's tons more out there where those came from, and I'm well-intentioned in sharing, but I'm done with this topic and your poor attitudes.

    You are wrong in assuming this is the first time I'm encountering the information you're presenting.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    yarwell wrote: »
    What I wonder about the keto diet, going by the scant knowledge I have and looking at one person's diary who say they're keto, is that they have virtually no fruit or veg. I know they are carbs so are limited but if that's the case, where are your micronutrients coming from?

    Which ones concern you ? Atkins induction recommends 12-15 grams of carbohydrate (net carbs for Americans) per day which can be a pound a day of vegetables.

    Nothing specific, it was a diary that consisted of basically cream, protein shakes, butter and a "cup" of spinach a day that got me wondering. If people are hitting or close to their micros then fair enough! I was thinking out loud as it's not something I've done so wouldn't know what the micros look like.
  • lodro
    lodro Posts: 982 Member
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    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    arb037 wrote: »
    Ive been doing keto for several months now and dropped around 35 lbs. Keto is supposed to reverse type 2 diabetes, alzheimers and help prevent some cancers, as well as CHD, so no worries there. My cholesterol is elevated on it due to all of the bacon im eating. Only way for me to get the 5000mg sodium recommended without drinking beef/chicken broth everyday. Im not terribly worried about the increase in cholesterol because I will not stay on keto forever, but it has been very effective in weight loss

    Care to explain how a specific diet can reverse a disease that is caused by the decreased fiction and death of neurons in the brain? That's absurd. Alzheimers is a chronic, progressively worsening condition.

    I just Googled it and the THEORY is that ketones can be used more easily for energy in the brain, reducing the stress on brain cells. However, evidence in support of this theory is very scant.

    I'm confident the evidence will never be found. If there were an advantage to running on ketones, evolutionary pressures would have pushed us all that way, a long time ago.


    But they have!
  • umayster
    umayster Posts: 651 Member
    edited August 2015
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    elphie754 wrote: »
    umayster wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    arb037 wrote: »
    Ive been doing keto for several months now and dropped around 35 lbs. Keto is supposed to reverse type 2 diabetes, alzheimers and help prevent some cancers, as well as CHD, so no worries there. My cholesterol is elevated on it due to all of the bacon im eating. Only way for me to get the 5000mg sodium recommended without drinking beef/chicken broth everyday. Im not terribly worried about the increase in cholesterol because I will not stay on keto forever, but it has been very effective in weight loss

    Care to explain how a specific diet can reverse a disease that is caused by the decreased fiction and death of neurons in the brain? That's absurd. Alzheimers is a chronic, progressively worsening condition.

    Have you heard Alzheimer's called 'Diabetes Type 3'? The new studies being published are very interesting.

    I really hope that is a joke.

    "Altogether, the results from these studies provide strong evidence in support of the hypothesis that AD represents a form of diabetes mellitus that selectively afflicts the brain."

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2769828/

    Soooo, if you have risk factors for diabetes like obesity, near relatives with type 2 or HbA1c levels that are above perfect AND are not actively seeking to reduce carbohydrate intake to minimum levels, you may find yourself with some very undesirable metabolic issues in the years or decades after eating too many carbs for your body to handle.

    How many carbs are too many? Unfortunately we have to flipping figure it out on our own, since the nutrition industry has spent the last 40 years saying 'eat more carbs' and covering their eyes.
  • Sean_TheITGuy
    Sean_TheITGuy Posts: 67 Member
    edited August 2015
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    lodro wrote: »
    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    arb037 wrote: »
    Ive been doing keto for several months now and dropped around 35 lbs. Keto is supposed to reverse type 2 diabetes, alzheimers and help prevent some cancers, as well as CHD, so no worries there. My cholesterol is elevated on it due to all of the bacon im eating. Only way for me to get the 5000mg sodium recommended without drinking beef/chicken broth everyday. Im not terribly worried about the increase in cholesterol because I will not stay on keto forever, but it has been very effective in weight loss

    Care to explain how a specific diet can reverse a disease that is caused by the decreased fiction and death of neurons in the brain? That's absurd. Alzheimers is a chronic, progressively worsening condition.

    I just Googled it and the THEORY is that ketones can be used more easily for energy in the brain, reducing the stress on brain cells. However, evidence in support of this theory is very scant.

    I'm confident the evidence will never be found. If there were an advantage to running on ketones, evolutionary pressures would have pushed us all that way, a long time ago.


    But they have!

    No kidding. Because someone figured out how to make wheat, then bread, then base a whole society around eating things only squished between two pieces of bread and chasing it with deep fried potatoes, people think we've evolved to live on this trash.

    Look at how hunter gatherer societies that lived anywhere except near the equator would have eaten. Mostly meat. Protein and fat. Muscle tissue and organs. A few wild seeds and grains found here and there might have been chomped on, but if you haven't figured out how to have a field of grain grasses and how to separate the starchy grains from the straw, then you're never going to have grain as a staple of your diet. Also, nice, wild fruits (which were far less sweet than our cultivated stuff) would have only been in season a few weeks to a month every year.

    Move even further from the equator. Look at the traditional diet of the Inuit people of Northern Canada. Until less than a hundred years ago (and even some people today) lived almost entirely on seal, fish and whatever other fatty critters the cold ocean waters gave up. They might find some plants worth eating in the short summer growing period, but not enough to be anything close to a dietary staple.

    Humans are meant to run on ketones the vast majority of the year, and switch it up for some sweet stuff like honey and fruit when the rare chance occurs, and then rapidly convert this big boost of food energy into fat, because guess what? A load of fruit on the trees means good old winter is right around the bend.

    Cut to today, we get 50-70% of our calories from bread, rice, potatoes, sugar, fruit, etc. We're constantly in the "load up fat for winter" phase, year round.

    We're very close in our dietary macro needs to, say, a black bear. Black bears spend most of the spring and summer eating bugs, grubs, maybe some meat if they can find something, eggs if they find them, and plant material. In the fall, they gorge on berries and honey and whatever other stuff they can find to help them survive a cold winter.

    We invented coats and fire so we don't have to hibernate, but in our natural environment, we wouldn't be eating bread and chips year round.

    Edit: In before anyone says "historically we lived to 30". That's a falsehood. In the olden days, live expectancy wasn't 30. The Average Life Expectancy was. Meaning a tragic level of infant mortality (which existed) wrecked the average. There are a lot of old Canadian First Nations people that probably lived most of their life on a traditional diet. Nutrition wasn't as big a factor in people dying young (except during times of famine). The biggest factor in our extended average life expectancy is the decreased infant mortality, access to emergency services so a broken leg isn't a death sentence, and societal aid for the elderly so they don't starve to death when they can't make a living any longer.
  • katiegud
    katiegud Posts: 25 Member
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    Nothing specific, it was a diary that consisted of basically cream, protein shakes, butter and a "cup" of spinach a day that got me wondering. If people are hitting or close to their micros then fair enough! I was thinking out loud as it's not something I've done so wouldn't know what the micros look like.

    In that case the protein shakes are probably vitamin/mineral fortified. Mine are. I don't cut my carbs nearly as much as the people on here are talking about (usually shoot for 70-90g), but it worries me less to drink a shake with supplements than to limit fruit and veggies without a backup plan.

  • Sean_TheITGuy
    Sean_TheITGuy Posts: 67 Member
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    katiegud wrote: »
    Nothing specific, it was a diary that consisted of basically cream, protein shakes, butter and a "cup" of spinach a day that got me wondering. If people are hitting or close to their micros then fair enough! I was thinking out loud as it's not something I've done so wouldn't know what the micros look like.

    In that case the protein shakes are probably vitamin/mineral fortified. Mine are. I don't cut my carbs nearly as much as the people on here are talking about (usually shoot for 70-90g), but it worries me less to drink a shake with supplements than to limit fruit and veggies without a backup plan.

    I don't think many people are limiting vegetables, are they? They might be misreading what a low carb diet entails if that's the case. While one can live on just animal sources of food, to get a full compliment of nutrients, that usually entails eating darn near the whole animal, blood, organs and other such bits that we've been socially conditioned to be repulsed at.

    Broccoli, kale, spinach, onions. Even carrots, in moderation, can be part of a low carb diet, as sweet as they are.
  • Sean_TheITGuy
    Sean_TheITGuy Posts: 67 Member
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    shell1005 wrote: »
    lodro wrote: »
    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    arb037 wrote: »
    Ive been doing keto for several months now and dropped around 35 lbs. Keto is supposed to reverse type 2 diabetes, alzheimers and help prevent some cancers, as well as CHD, so no worries there. My cholesterol is elevated on it due to all of the bacon im eating. Only way for me to get the 5000mg sodium recommended without drinking beef/chicken broth everyday. Im not terribly worried about the increase in cholesterol because I will not stay on keto forever, but it has been very effective in weight loss

    Care to explain how a specific diet can reverse a disease that is caused by the decreased fiction and death of neurons in the brain? That's absurd. Alzheimers is a chronic, progressively worsening condition.

    I just Googled it and the THEORY is that ketones can be used more easily for energy in the brain, reducing the stress on brain cells. However, evidence in support of this theory is very scant.

    I'm confident the evidence will never be found. If there were an advantage to running on ketones, evolutionary pressures would have pushed us all that way, a long time ago.


    But they have!

    No kidding. Because someone figured out how to make wheat, then bread, then base a whole society around eating things only squished between two pieces of bread and chasing it with deep fried potatoes, people think we've evolved to live on this trash.

    Look at how hunter gatherer societies that lived anywhere except near the equator would have eaten. Mostly meat. Protein and fat. Muscle tissue and organs. A few wild seeds and grains found here and there might have been chomped on, but if you haven't figured out how to have a field of grain grasses and how to separate the starchy grains from the straw, then you're never going to have grain as a staple of your diet. Also, nice, wild fruits (which were far less sweet than our cultivated stuff) would have only been in season a few weeks to a month every year.

    Move even further from the equator. Look at the traditional diet of the Inuit people of Northern Canada. Until less than a hundred years ago (and even some people today) lived almost entirely on seal, fish and whatever other fatty critters the cold ocean waters gave up. They might find some plants worth eating in the short summer growing period, but not enough to be anything close to a dietary staple.

    Humans are meant to run on ketones the vast majority of the year, and switch it up for some sweet stuff like honey and fruit when the rare chance occurs, and then rapidly convert this big boost of food energy into fat, because guess what? A load of fruit on the trees means good old winter is right around the bend.

    Cut to today, we get 50-70% of our calories from bread, rice, potatoes, sugar, fruit, etc. We're constantly in the "load up fat for winter" phase, year round.

    We're very close in our dietary macro needs to, say, a black bear. Black bears spend most of the spring and summer eating bugs, grubs, maybe some meat if they can find something, eggs if they find them, and plant material. In the fall, they gorge on berries and honey and whatever other stuff they can find to help them survive a cold winter.

    We invented coats and fire so we don't have to hibernate, but in our natural environment, we wouldn't be eating bread and chips year round.

    Edit: In before anyone says "historically we lived to 30". That's a falsehood. In the olden days, live expectancy wasn't 30. The Average Life Expectancy was. Meaning a tragic level of infant mortality (which existed) wrecked the average. There are a lot of old Canadian First Nations people that probably lived most of their life on a traditional diet. Nutrition wasn't as big a factor in people dying young (except during times of famine). The biggest factor in our extended average life expectancy is the decreased infant mortality, access to emergency services so a broken leg isn't a death sentence, and societal aid for the elderly so they don't starve to death when they can't make a living any longer.

    The fact that you choose to call food choices "trash" tells me all I need to know. Next.

    The fact that you seem to grant equal credence to all food choices, regardless of nutritional depravity..

    Some food IS trash. Chips, fries, burgers, pizza. All delicious and fun to eat. If you can eat a moderate amount for the pleasure it gives, fine. As a stand in for a proper meal, it's trash. I'm guilty of eating it, but I realize that a big mac combo is just a fatty, sugary, salty industrial food bomb designed to make me want another one.
  • lodro
    lodro Posts: 982 Member
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    lodro wrote: »
    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    arb037 wrote: »
    Ive been doing keto for several months now and dropped around 35 lbs. Keto is supposed to reverse type 2 diabetes, alzheimers and help prevent some cancers, as well as CHD, so no worries there. My cholesterol is elevated on it due to all of the bacon im eating. Only way for me to get the 5000mg sodium recommended without drinking beef/chicken broth everyday. Im not terribly worried about the increase in cholesterol because I will not stay on keto forever, but it has been very effective in weight loss

    Care to explain how a specific diet can reverse a disease that is caused by the decreased fiction and death of neurons in the brain? That's absurd. Alzheimers is a chronic, progressively worsening condition.

    I just Googled it and the THEORY is that ketones can be used more easily for energy in the brain, reducing the stress on brain cells. However, evidence in support of this theory is very scant.

    I'm confident the evidence will never be found. If there were an advantage to running on ketones, evolutionary pressures would have pushed us all that way, a long time ago.


    But they have!

    No kidding. Because someone figured out how to make wheat, then bread, then base a whole society around eating things only squished between two pieces of bread and chasing it with deep fried potatoes, people think we've evolved to live on this trash.

    Look at how hunter gatherer societies that lived anywhere except near the equator would have eaten. Mostly meat. Protein and fat. Muscle tissue and organs. A few wild seeds and grains found here and there might have been chomped on, but if you haven't figured out how to have a field of grain grasses and how to separate the starchy grains from the straw, then you're never going to have grain as a staple of your diet. Also, nice, wild fruits (which were far less sweet than our cultivated stuff) would have only been in season a few weeks to a month every year.

    Move even further from the equator. Look at the traditional diet of the Inuit people of Northern Canada. Until less than a hundred years ago (and even some people today) lived almost entirely on seal, fish and whatever other fatty critters the cold ocean waters gave up. They might find some plants worth eating in the short summer growing period, but not enough to be anything close to a dietary staple.

    Humans are meant to run on ketones the vast majority of the year, and switch it up for some sweet stuff like honey and fruit when the rare chance occurs, and then rapidly convert this big boost of food energy into fat, because guess what? A load of fruit on the trees means good old winter is right around the bend.

    Cut to today, we get 50-70% of our calories from bread, rice, potatoes, sugar, fruit, etc. We're constantly in the "load up fat for winter" phase, year round.

    We're very close in our dietary macro needs to, say, a black bear. Black bears spend most of the spring and summer eating bugs, grubs, maybe some meat if they can find something, eggs if they find them, and plant material. In the fall, they gorge on berries and honey and whatever other stuff they can find to help them survive a cold winter.

    We invented coats and fire so we don't have to hibernate, but in our natural environment, we wouldn't be eating bread and chips year round.

    Edit: In before anyone says "historically we lived to 30". That's a falsehood. In the olden days, live expectancy wasn't 30. The Average Life Expectancy was. Meaning a tragic level of infant mortality (which existed) wrecked the average. There are a lot of old Canadian First Nations people that probably lived most of their life on a traditional diet. Nutrition wasn't as big a factor in people dying young (except during times of famine). The biggest factor in our extended average life expectancy is the decreased infant mortality, access to emergency services so a broken leg isn't a death sentence, and societal aid for the elderly so they don't starve to death when they can't make a living any longer.


    I agree with what you write up to a point. Hate to burst your bubble though: quite a lot of tubers were consumed and a hunter - gatherer way of eating was much different from our own, as it included fasting for prolonged periods.

    I also think you're addressing the wrong sceptic LOL
  • Sean_TheITGuy
    Sean_TheITGuy Posts: 67 Member
    Options
    lodro wrote: »
    lodro wrote: »
    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    arb037 wrote: »
    Ive been doing keto for several months now and dropped around 35 lbs. Keto is supposed to reverse type 2 diabetes, alzheimers and help prevent some cancers, as well as CHD, so no worries there. My cholesterol is elevated on it due to all of the bacon im eating. Only way for me to get the 5000mg sodium recommended without drinking beef/chicken broth everyday. Im not terribly worried about the increase in cholesterol because I will not stay on keto forever, but it has been very effective in weight loss

    Care to explain how a specific diet can reverse a disease that is caused by the decreased fiction and death of neurons in the brain? That's absurd. Alzheimers is a chronic, progressively worsening condition.

    I just Googled it and the THEORY is that ketones can be used more easily for energy in the brain, reducing the stress on brain cells. However, evidence in support of this theory is very scant.

    I'm confident the evidence will never be found. If there were an advantage to running on ketones, evolutionary pressures would have pushed us all that way, a long time ago.


    But they have!

    No kidding. Because someone figured out how to make wheat, then bread, then base a whole society around eating things only squished between two pieces of bread and chasing it with deep fried potatoes, people think we've evolved to live on this trash.

    Look at how hunter gatherer societies that lived anywhere except near the equator would have eaten. Mostly meat. Protein and fat. Muscle tissue and organs. A few wild seeds and grains found here and there might have been chomped on, but if you haven't figured out how to have a field of grain grasses and how to separate the starchy grains from the straw, then you're never going to have grain as a staple of your diet. Also, nice, wild fruits (which were far less sweet than our cultivated stuff) would have only been in season a few weeks to a month every year.

    Move even further from the equator. Look at the traditional diet of the Inuit people of Northern Canada. Until less than a hundred years ago (and even some people today) lived almost entirely on seal, fish and whatever other fatty critters the cold ocean waters gave up. They might find some plants worth eating in the short summer growing period, but not enough to be anything close to a dietary staple.

    Humans are meant to run on ketones the vast majority of the year, and switch it up for some sweet stuff like honey and fruit when the rare chance occurs, and then rapidly convert this big boost of food energy into fat, because guess what? A load of fruit on the trees means good old winter is right around the bend.

    Cut to today, we get 50-70% of our calories from bread, rice, potatoes, sugar, fruit, etc. We're constantly in the "load up fat for winter" phase, year round.

    We're very close in our dietary macro needs to, say, a black bear. Black bears spend most of the spring and summer eating bugs, grubs, maybe some meat if they can find something, eggs if they find them, and plant material. In the fall, they gorge on berries and honey and whatever other stuff they can find to help them survive a cold winter.

    We invented coats and fire so we don't have to hibernate, but in our natural environment, we wouldn't be eating bread and chips year round.

    Edit: In before anyone says "historically we lived to 30". That's a falsehood. In the olden days, live expectancy wasn't 30. The Average Life Expectancy was. Meaning a tragic level of infant mortality (which existed) wrecked the average. There are a lot of old Canadian First Nations people that probably lived most of their life on a traditional diet. Nutrition wasn't as big a factor in people dying young (except during times of famine). The biggest factor in our extended average life expectancy is the decreased infant mortality, access to emergency services so a broken leg isn't a death sentence, and societal aid for the elderly so they don't starve to death when they can't make a living any longer.


    I agree with what you write up to a point. Hate to burst your bubble though: quite a lot of tubers were consumed and a hunter - gatherer way of eating was much different from our own, as it included fasting for prolonged periods.

    I also think you're addressing the wrong sceptic LOL

    True, but look at the nutritional content of a modern white potato vs an african yam or a lily pad tuber. Similar to comparing a wild crab abble with a honeycrisp apple. They're barely even the same species and nutritionally, the modern ones are delicious and have far more bio available carbs.

    Also, many keto adherents also do intermittent fasting.

    I was originally addressing, agreeing with, and expanding your comment of "but they have" in response to how humans should have evolved to live on a keto diet.
  • stephaniemenzies
    stephaniemenzies Posts: 2 Member
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    I did for about 4 weeks, butter coffee and all, but could never shake the "keto flu"...It happens to me everytime I try to go low carb/keto. If I could resolve the "flu" symptoms I could probably stick with it for the long term.
  • Sean_TheITGuy
    Sean_TheITGuy Posts: 67 Member
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    I did for about 4 weeks, butter coffee and all, but could never shake the "keto flu"...It happens to me everytime I try to go low carb/keto. If I could resolve the "flu" symptoms I could probably stick with it for the long term.

    Were you keeping on top of your electrolytes? Often cited as a cause of the keto flu. Chicken broth or even zero calorie sports drinks (not the preferred method, but it works) will help you stay on top of it.
  • randiewilliams72
    randiewilliams72 Posts: 119 Member
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    I did for about 4 weeks, butter coffee and all, but could never shake the "keto flu"...It happens to me everytime I try to go low carb/keto. If I could resolve the "flu" symptoms I could probably stick with it for the long term.

    I slowly decreased my carbs and avoided the sickness. Not sure if that would work for you. I cut out carbs one meal at a time. First snacks, then snacks and breakfast, then snacks, breakfast and dinner, etc. I think everyone has to customize a plan that works for them. The two most important things you have to stick to is lower your carbs (general 20 or less net carbs) and make sure you get adequate protein for your height and activity level. Make sure you get enough salt especially in the beginning to keep the sickness away. It takes generally a month to feel back to normal. That is not for everyone. Some people just take longer. I would suggest you read everything that you possibly can on the subject to get ideas on what may help and what a good diet plan is.


    On another note, I eat more vegetables now than I did on my old diet. After 2 months I am comfortable enough with what to eat that I don't worry about most vegetables except the starchy ones like potatoes and corn.
  • HEATHERACU73
    HEATHERACU73 Posts: 46 Member
    edited August 2015
    Options
    Interesting article on how inflammation can affect the ability to live long. Stress on the body usually comes in form of diet/exercise/attitude/genetics. So to zero in on cholesterol as the main culprit in heart disease would be a very, big generalization. Just to give you an idea, cholesterol medication has a ratio of saving 1 out of 500 people from a heart attack. I remember my doctor telling me that if you look at the pharmaceutical websites, they have to post how efficacy their medication has to treat the issue that they are being prescribed for and that is the ratio for cholesteral medication. (I'm sorry but I don't have any links on this to prove this so you really don't have to believe me). The biggest thing I personally think would be the worse thing about keto diet is the narrow diet variety. Make sure you get your nutrients in and I think your body will be happy.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/staying-healthy-after-100_55c249e0e4b0138b0bf4bf18?kvcommref=mostpopular
  • umayster
    umayster Posts: 651 Member
    Options
    I did for about 4 weeks, butter coffee and all, but could never shake the "keto flu"...It happens to me everytime I try to go low carb/keto. If I could resolve the "flu" symptoms I could probably stick with it for the long term.

    It is recommended on keto that sodium intake is 5000 mg. This is about twice the normal recommended maximum. I feel best when eating high salt on keto. A ketogenic diet promotes salt elimination by the kidneys.
  • cwilso37
    cwilso37 Posts: 79 Member
    Options
    lodro wrote: »
    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    elphie754 wrote: »
    arb037 wrote: »
    Ive been doing keto for several months now and dropped around 35 lbs. Keto is supposed to reverse type 2 diabetes, alzheimers and help prevent some cancers, as well as CHD, so no worries there. My cholesterol is elevated on it due to all of the bacon im eating. Only way for me to get the 5000mg sodium recommended without drinking beef/chicken broth everyday. Im not terribly worried about the increase in cholesterol because I will not stay on keto forever, but it has been very effective in weight loss

    Care to explain how a specific diet can reverse a disease that is caused by the decreased fiction and death of neurons in the brain? That's absurd. Alzheimers is a chronic, progressively worsening condition.

    I just Googled it and the THEORY is that ketones can be used more easily for energy in the brain, reducing the stress on brain cells. However, evidence in support of this theory is very scant.

    I'm confident the evidence will never be found. If there were an advantage to running on ketones, evolutionary pressures would have pushed us all that way, a long time ago.


    But they have!

    No kidding. Because someone figured out how to make wheat, then bread, then base a whole society around eating things only squished between two pieces of bread and chasing it with deep fried potatoes, people think we've evolved to live on this trash.

    Look at how hunter gatherer societies that lived anywhere except near the equator would have eaten. Mostly meat. Protein and fat. Muscle tissue and organs. A few wild seeds and grains found here and there might have been chomped on, but if you haven't figured out how to have a field of grain grasses and how to separate the starchy grains from the straw, then you're never going to have grain as a staple of your diet. Also, nice, wild fruits (which were far less sweet than our cultivated stuff) would have only been in season a few weeks to a month every year.

    Move even further from the equator. Look at the traditional diet of the Inuit people of Northern Canada. Until less than a hundred years ago (and even some people today) lived almost entirely on seal, fish and whatever other fatty critters the cold ocean waters gave up. They might find some plants worth eating in the short summer growing period, but not enough to be anything close to a dietary staple.

    Humans are meant to run on ketones the vast majority of the year, and switch it up for some sweet stuff like honey and fruit when the rare chance occurs, and then rapidly convert this big boost of food energy into fat, because guess what? A load of fruit on the trees means good old winter is right around the bend.

    Cut to today, we get 50-70% of our calories from bread, rice, potatoes, sugar, fruit, etc. We're constantly in the "load up fat for winter" phase, year round.

    We're very close in our dietary macro needs to, say, a black bear. Black bears spend most of the spring and summer eating bugs, grubs, maybe some meat if they can find something, eggs if they find them, and plant material. In the fall, they gorge on berries and honey and whatever other stuff they can find to help them survive a cold winter.

    We invented coats and fire so we don't have to hibernate, but in our natural environment, we wouldn't be eating bread and chips year round.

    Edit: In before anyone says "historically we lived to 30". That's a falsehood. In the olden days, live expectancy wasn't 30. The Average Life Expectancy was. Meaning a tragic level of infant mortality (which existed) wrecked the average. There are a lot of old Canadian First Nations people that probably lived most of their life on a traditional diet. Nutrition wasn't as big a factor in people dying young (except during times of famine). The biggest factor in our extended average life expectancy is the decreased infant mortality, access to emergency services so a broken leg isn't a death sentence, and societal aid for the elderly so they don't starve to death when they can't make a living any longer.

    Why does it have to be a bear? Why can't it be a unicorn?

    Also things I learned from your post:
    Wild fruits only happen for up to a month and only near winter
    Extreme examples prove the norm
    Conjecture is the same as fact
    Bears gorge on berries in the fall even though berries season is until mid summer
    We have a natural environment

    Also a point that really annoyed me (the thing that made me respond), an expected lifespan is the same as an average lifespan. The expected value is = the mean.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
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    Look at how hunter gatherer societies that lived anywhere except near the equator would have eaten. Mostly meat. Protein and fat. Muscle tissue and organs.

    That's complete nonsense. Most hunter-gatherer groups were nutritionally deficient, which is why farming communities wiped them out - completely.

    Hunter-gatherers were an evolutionary dead end.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    edited August 2015
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    Oh, look, another fresh study...

    http://www.press.uchicago.edu/pressReleases/2015/August/150806_qrb_hardy_et_al_paleo_diet.html

    A new study argues that carbohydrate consumption, particularly in the form of starch, was critical for the accelerated expansion of the human brain over the last million years...Hardy proposes that after cooking became widespread, the co-evolution of cooking and higher copy number of the salivary amylase (and possibly pancreatic amylase) genes increased the availability of pre-formed dietary glucose to the brain and fetus, which in turn, permitted the acceleration in brain size increase which occurred from around 800,000 years ago onwards.

    Eating meat may have kick-started the evolution of bigger brains, but cooked starchy foods together with more salivary amylase genes made us smarter still.

    http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/682587

    I don't care how people choose to fuel themselves. If you want to be ketogenic, it's fine with me.

    But there is no legitimate way to wrap that choice up in the flag of science.
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
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    Mr_Knight wrote: »
    I don't care how people choose to fuel themselves. If you want to be ketogenic, it's fine with me.

    But there is no legitimate way to wrap that choice up in the flag of science.

    Other opinions are available. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4271639/

    "These results indicate that VLCKD may have more favorable changes in LBM, muscle mass, and body fatness as compared to a traditional western diet in resistance trained males."