I am tired of people pushing low carb/keto type diets

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people like myself with family history of diabetes, obesity, cancer and CV disease.

Well both of my parents have/had diabetes. My dad even died of it. Both parents and one sister obese. And my half-sister sister died of cancer. I just saw the doctor 3 days ago and my blood test showed my diabetes risk to be way lower than other patients' risk. The doctor was surprised. I really doubt whole food carbs are a risk factor for these.

my weight and blood sugars didn't stabilize until after I gave up [strictly limited] the refined or high-glycemic index carbs. YMMV.

In the last 5 weeks I've lost 5 kilos. I didn't use a low-carb diet. I just used calorie counting.

^^^

My reaction was exactly the same when I was uninformed. I believed ketogenic diet was just another fad, but after I got interested in nutrition and did extensive research I now admit I was wrong. Ketogenic diet is one of the healthiest options not just for weight loss, but for health in general, including mental health. In my case it helped with depression and productivity issues.

Starch is just another form of glucose, polysaccharide, almost the same as sugar, that's why potato is called junk food.


Keto is not about making losing weight easier, basically you switch to metabolic state which burns fats as a fuel instead of stashing it into adipose tissues.

You actually should eat fiber on keto, dietary fiber doesn't count as carbs. On keto you cut only net carbs (total - fiber). So most vegetables are perfectly fine, especially leafy, green, rich in fiber.



For many people simply eating keto is enough. Metabolic pathways and fat metabolism regulation allow our body to regulate weight more efficiently with less or none caloric deficit, but it depends on genetics and other factors.

I never was really overweight and didn't have any intention to loose weight, started keto for mental clarity and more energy, but lost about 10 kg anyway without caloric deficit.

I want to add I totally get why you feel annoyed. I'm guilty of being too "pushy" about keto sometimes. But the only reason is it works and people who do keto feel amazing and want to share this "secret" to better life.

Plus there is a lot of hype around keto and some companies and lifestyles gurus use it as buzzword, misleading and scamming people, there are a lot of shady products and programs with aggressive marketing and ads.

You don't need any special products or supplements, don't need to pay anybody to participate in some program to succeed with keto.

No, you don't get it. I'm not annoyed because people are "pushy," I'm annoyed because they are WRONG and saying stuff that is dumb. Like you justifying calling potatoes junk food by comparing the starch to sugar. Ridiculous! You do realize that a potato isn't made entirely of starch, don't you? That is has fiber, protein, and vitamins that sugar does not have? If you want to compare potato starch to sugar, fine. But sugar is not comparable to potatoes.

Also I DO NOT think that keto is "just another fad." I said in my original post that it works for some people. Kindly stop projecting ideas onto me. It's the nutritional ignorance that's the fad, if anything.

You seem to have contradicted yourself in your previous post: "Ketogenic diet is one of the healthiest options not just for weight loss" at the beginning of the post and "Keto is not about making losing weight easier" closer to the end.

People want things simple. Simple, not accurate, fair … or healthy.

They are not wrong and this stuff is not dumb.

Junk food like donuts has fiber, protein and some vitamins and micro elements as well, in fact usually more b-12, magnesium and iron then potato, but also tons of sugar.

Spinach has fiber, protein, tons of vitamins and microelements and nearly zero carbs.

Sugar and starch are very close from metabolic point of view. Potato definitely is healthier then donuts, but also it is definitely on a negative side of healthiness spectrum. It is junk food compared to spinach for example.



There is no contradiction, the main mechanism behind ketogenic diet is metabolic state which makes you lose fat, not just making it easier to lose weight through caloric restriction.

Instead of keto wouldn't it be better for me to just lose weight by eating less calories than I burn?

why do you think it would be better?

every time you eat more than some minimal amounts of carbs, our body switches to glycolysis, insulin response kicks in, it triggers our body to store part of every meal you eat as body fat every time.

even when you restrict calories you store some fat every time you eat.

while in glycolysis our body needs minimal amounts of fat for maintenance only. glucose is utilised as energy source.

while in glycolysis, to burn some meaningful amount of fat your body needs to overcome several stages: deplete glucose in your bloodstream, deplete glycogen stores, it tries to stay in glycolysis by burning some protein from muscle tissues and generate glucose through gluconeogenesis.

at every stage it attempts to ask for more carbs by making you hungry and/or attempts to conserve energy by making you feel exhausted and sleepy.

in ketosis your body uses fat for energy, it doesn't stash most of it into adipose tissues every time you eat, when dietary intake of fat depletes is keeps consuming fat from your adipose tissues. it doesn't make you feel tired and hungry every time your blood sugar drops, this process is seamless.

our body has strong bias to switch to glucose metabolism whenever it is consumed and hesitant to switch back to ketosis, because glucose metabolism is part of emergency response system regulating blood glucose levels to avoid negative consequences of hyperglycaemia.

this is very simplified and probably not 100% correct, as I'm not nutrition expert.

How can the body be storing fat when the body is already using more than it's consuming?

If my body uses 2,000 calories per day and I eat 1,500 calories, will it store 500 calories of fat and use another 1,000 calories of fat? That would be like Robbing Peter to pay Paul.Yes, hunger happens to people regardless. Feeling moderate hunger when you haven't eaten for a few hours or before meal time is a normal response, not a sign of I'll health. Believe me I've tried low carving, it doesn't stop hunger.

Meanwhile, a normal diet doesn't cause me to feel exhausted or sleepy. I sleep at night and have no trouble staying awake during the dayUnless you eat more calories of low carb food than your body is using. Eating many calories of low carb food will make you gain weight just as easily as you would gain weight from too many calories of high carb food.

Meanwhile if someone on a low carb diet eats less calories than their body is using, they'll lose weight for exactly the same reason as someone on a normal diet who eats less calories than their body is using would.

Your body doesn't decide if it needs to store fat every evening after doing numbers, this is continuous process. Every time you eat carbs it accumulates fat and needs to switch gears to extract it later. It stores fat every time you eat.

How much your body uses is assumed ephemeral number. When you have less energy your body will attempt to conserve energy and use less. e.g. you may assume your body uses 2000 kcal per day and you eat 1500 calories, but every time your blood sugar drops you become slightly less active and in the end of the day it's possible your body actually used 1300 calories and accumulated 200kcal worth of fat. this is what happens to a LOT of people trying to lose weight through caloric restriction only.

Unless you force your body to suffer through all stages of glycolysis you will not burn any meaningful amounts of fat. You will need starve or actively burn your glucose exercising to force your body to switch to burning fat. How does your body burn fat in this case? It is basically fasting or stress induced ketosis anyway.


Not really. When you are in keto, your body constantly munching on your body fat, if your body needs 3500kcal or whatever, it seamlessly consumes 3500 kcal as dietary fat, protein and body fat. there is no actual need to feel hunger except habitual hunger and sweet cravings, which have nothing to do with energy deficit.

Low carbing, when you are not in ketosis should make you feel hungry, you are supposed to metabolise glucose for energy, but you create deficit.


You need reference points to claim this. I didn't feel exhausted or sleepy on normal diet, but I had no reference to compare. After doing keto my scale shifted and previous "normal" is now "sluggish and foggy".


It is much-much harder to gain weight on keto. Fat digestion and metabolism are regulated differently from glucose.

Ketogenic diet doesn't boil down to caloric arithmetic. Metabolic state is different.

Then how come I consistently lose weight on 1,500 calories per day?


I've tried both and I had the same amount of energy. I didn't lose weight on either of them except when I restricted.

YMMV. Did you do strict keto or low carb? Some people I know who claimed keto didn't feel any different followed some misleading guides or didn't in fact limit carbs below the required threshold.