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What are your thoughts on Keto?

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Replies

  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
    More specific than 'I like carbs', but ONLY personal experience.

    As I mentioned up thread, I naturally eat fewer carbs while doing the deficit thing - 'filler' foods tend to be carbs and they're the things that get cut when I'm in a deficit.

    However, one day I very accidentally ended up getting next to no carbs.

    I was dizzy, shaky, and miserable fast.

    That's my actual thought.

    ...No thank you.
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  • goodasgoldilox165
    goodasgoldilox165 Posts: 333 Member
    Low carb/keto means so many things.
    If you stay away from the processed stuff (Atkins bars and other supposedly 'low carb'stuff) the way of eating is pretty healthy.

    I don't know exactly how it leads to weight-loss. It probably does reduce your calorie in-take because it is harder to overeat foods you have to buy fresh and prepare in a mindful way. (High carb snack foods are so accessible, you can eat them without thinking.) It also removes the attention you have to pay to food all day.

    For me weight loss comes because eating low carb silences the hungry tiger in my head. I'm not thinking about my next mouthful all day. I am satisfied and can eat like a normal person. This has been a revelation. I thought I overate because I was greedy or loved sugary/fatty foods so much.

    It is something I now know about myself and will have to deal with forever. Eating low carb works for me. Going back to 'normal' eating will lead me straight back to the tiger and the same regular weight-gain that has been mine for so much of my life.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    wunderkindking wrote: »
    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    NerdyScienceGrl wrote: »
    I agree it doesn’t mean you can never eat carbs again. The theory and purpose behind keto (my understanding… at least) is to lower carbs and to put yourself in ketosis. This changes the type of energy burned from glucose to ketones and body fat. Once off keto, if you drop some of the high fats which are high calorie and replace it with carbs (CICO), your body shifts back to burning glucose first. It causes water weight gain, but also creates insulin spikes which if not burned fast enough kicks your body into fat storage. Reintroducing carbs slowly, from what I have researched, works to keep weight off, but fully replacing calories from fat/protein with carbs can create weight gain, esp in those that are carb sensitive.

    In reality, though, keto works the same way as any weight loss diet (if you use it to lose weight)--by creating a deficit.

    The stuff about burning fat vs sugar is often misunderstood. We all burn fat throughout the day, and will burn net fat if in a deficit no matter what we eat (one should obviously eat a healthy diet for health reasons, though). Someone doing keto will eat far fewer carbs and thus mostly burn fat, but they don't lose for that reason, will gain if they eat fat in a surplus, and will burn the same amount of net fat as someone with an equal deficit not doing keto. So if they switch from keto to high carb, they will (other than water weight) not gain so long as they eat the right number of cals. No one at a deficit can't lose fat bc of insulin after eating carbs. For health reasons some people with insulin resistance or T2D might be better off cutting down on carbs and making sure to pair them with fiber and protein, of course.

    There are people here who do keto to lose but eat non keto at maintenance. Psulemon is one, and I tend to eat low carb when at a deficit and otherwise more moderate carb when not at a deficit. I tried keto for a while as an experiment when maintaining, and it didn't change the cals I maintained at.

    When I was first trying to get into a deficit, and now when I'm not doing a maintenance period, I am definitely lower carb. The cause/effect (for me is backward, though). I don't intentionally low carb for weight loss. I weight loss and if I'm going to give up food it's going to be the 'filler' parts of my meals. Which are... usually carbs. I'm also kind of fat heavy when doing the deficit. Because fat's satiating for me. Nowhere near keto diet levels though.

    (I know you aren't disagreeing, your post just made me consciously realize)

    Yeah, that's why I started going lower carb too. When I got thoughtful about what parts of my diet I ate more just because it was there, and that wasn't either amazingly tasty or filling for me, it was side starches (bread, rice), so I cut them out or cut way down on them, and will often sub fruit for a starch or just eat protein + lots of veg at a meal if I want lower cal. Fat isn't so sating for me, but it makes things tastier (including additions like nuts and seeds and avocado).
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    goodasgoldilox165 wrote: »
    Low carb/keto means so many things.
    If you stay away from the processed stuff (Atkins bars and other supposedly 'low carb'stuff) the way of eating is pretty healthy.

    I don't know exactly how it leads to weight-loss. It probably does reduce your calorie in-take because it is harder to overeat foods you have to buy fresh and prepare in a mindful way. (High carb snack foods are so accessible, you can eat them without thinking.) It also removes the attention you have to pay to food all day.

    Most snack foods are not so much "high carb" as "high fat and high carb."

    IMO, whether keto is healthy or not is not about avoiding "processed" things (plenty of processed foods fit with a keto plan), but what one does eat -- in particular, what are your sources of protein (do you include foods like fatty fish?), do you include lots of non starchy veg, do you eat healthy fats like olives/olive oil, nuts and seeds, avocado, etc. Basically similar things to what determines whether any other diet is healthy.

    I think keto often does work because it makes mindless eating harder, but that is the same for many other ways that people control cals.
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    tsazani wrote: »
    If you are overweight, obese, or T2D cutting carbs and fasting is your treatment.

    Keto is the most extreme way to cut carbs. Intermittant and 24-72 hr water fasting give your fatty liver and pancreas time to repair and heal.

    ALL overweight, obese, and T2D people have fatty liver which is the cause of insulin resistance. It's a simple process:

    years of excess carbs -> high basal insulin and spikes -> obesity -> fatty liver -> ever increasing insulin resistance -> T2D -> strokes, heart attacks, blindness, kidney failure, dementia, amputations, ED, cancer, etc -> early death

    The problem with keto is that it's very limiting and boring. Plus, carbs are delicious. I prefer to follow these guidlines:

    Phase 1 (Induction).  This phase allows for 20–25 grams of net carbs per day until you are 15 pounds (7 kg) from your goal weight.

     Phase 2. During this phase, you consume 25–50 grams of net carbs per day until you are 10 pounds (5 kg) from your goal weight.

     Phase 3. Your net carb allowance is raised to 50–80 grams per day until you have met your goal weight and maintained it for 1 month.

    Phase 4. During the final phase, you consume 80–100 grams of net carbs per day for ongoing weight maintenance.

    For T2Ds I recommend "eating to your glucometer".

    I must be a special snowflake. I'm overweight but my elevated liver enzymes went right back to normal after being treated for a tick-borne illness.

    Now that you highlight that line from him about "ALL overweight, obese, and T2D people have fatty liver" . . .

    Yeah, no. I was seriously overweight, hovering around and over class 1 obese level, for multiple decades.

    As a survivor of a cancer type that (if it metastasizes) will commonly metastasize to the liver, I was blood tested for liver function markers routinely for 10 years while still overfat/obese, plus had various scans several times that explicitly included assessment of the liver in the written report.

    The scans/tests were especially detailed shortly after my cancer diagnosis, when they were trying to figure out if I was already metastatic, because my tumors were numerous, pretty large, and there was lymph node involvement.

    After that, there were then blood tests at least once a year, sometimes more often; and several more scans.

    No sign or mention of liver disfunction, fatty liver, or anything of the sort - not once. Normal-range blood sugar levels the whole time, too.

    Maybe you and I, @kshama2001, can team up, maybe find others, and become a whole snowstorm of snowflakes? 🤣

    A "snowstorm of snowflakes"---I love it.

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