Ketogenic Diet

I've been on it for 13 years and don't count calories, just getting that out there. The most successful people on keto generally are doing it for health issues, like myself. A side effect of a ketogenic diet is satiety, which is hormonal for the vast majority and once the sugar is gone out of the diet cravings (hunger) basically disappears and the reason I don't count calories and actually I sometimes have to remind myself that I need to eat and it effects most people on a ketogenic diet, but not all. Anyway, if going on a ketogenic diet is just for weight loss and not for health the chances people commit to forgoing all starchy carbs, which happens to be all the tasty junk and fast food and statistics show that most people, close to 90% can't and don't. Even a whole food diet is for most people too much to ask and refined and processed foods generally kill that process as well.

I do Keto more toward the Carnivore diet. The reason is not that I was not losing just find counting calories, but after a few months of counting calories eating heavily toward plants and fruit with some meats, my HbA1C was in the pre-diabetic range. Having seen what diabetes does to people who are managed the conventional way, basically eating as I was and eventually using medicine to intervene, I did not want that for myself. I went Keto, and within 2 weeks my blood sugar tests taken throughout the day we all in the normal range. While they were higher first thing in the morning due to the dawn effect, they were still within the normal range. Even my post-meal numbers were down well into where they should be. After 4 weeks the MySugar App estimated my HbA1C as 5.3. When I had is actually tested several months later, it was 5.2, so I am sticking with Keto. With that, my overnight fast is between 16-20 hours. Weight loss has been good, and very quickly after starting Keto my blood pressure dropped to the point I had to stop two of the three blood pressure meds I was on, and even that one fairly frequently dropped my blood pressure to 107/60 or even lower. That has stayed consistent for the last 9 months, so yet another reason to stick with Keto. Other unexpected benefits, my joint pain, while not gone, has reduced a huge amount. That also happened within a month or so. While weight loss may have been part of it, my weight at that point had not dropped as much as it has now. My mood is more stable as well. My brain fog is gone which may be the Keto diet or deciding to stop taking the statin my doctor had me on. I don't know for sure. Lastly, my tooth sensativity is gone. I really didn't expect that, but it is a happy change.

Having said all that, Keto is not for everyone. There are many ways to eat nutritionally. To my knowledge, all of them including Keto will ideally involve cooking your own food from whole ingredients rather than buying premade stuff. I am guessing a big part of the benefits of all of them comes from that aspect of getting back to more whole foods and away from processed, especially ultra-processed foods.