I mean, I sure do like pizza and beer. But my personal experience is that low carb diets are awesome. I’ve done the keto diet probably about half a dozen times in my life, and (after ensuring my electrolytes stay balanced) it has consistently given me positive results.
I first tried it with the notion that fat and protienn were satiating, and therefore it would be easier to stick to a calorie deficit. Simple. I disregarded all the people who talked about “more mental energy” or whatever bullshit - I just wanted to lose fat. But the results blew me away.
Without counting calories and while eating lots of deliscious food, I lose fat basically without trying and get a six pack. My athletic performance isn’t diminished, and my hunger levels drop noticeably. Hunger itself feels less important, and my emotions in general become more positive - I am more likely to feel happy and grateful and to fall into flow states, and setbacks and bad moods bother me far less. I fall asleep easier and sleep more soundly. My skin looks better. And these effects persist as long as I am on the diet - it isn’t just “losing water weight” or whatever.
Why does it do this? I dunno. Just does. Typically I eat a diet with lots of veggies, beans, some meat, and the occasional pizza and beer night. But comparing a whole foods keto diet to a standard american diet of processed junk food, I’m gonna go ahead and say that keto will come out far ahead, and I’m not gonna let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Anecdotes are not evidence. Even from your own description it’s untenable to pin down what your diet even is, other than, “whatever you feel like eating.” In that sense it’s virtually indistinguishable from the standard American diet itself. Here is an actual nutritional expert on keto:
Should you try the keto diet?
It’s advertised as a weight-loss wonder, but this eating plan is actually a medical diet that comes with serious risks.
A ketogenic diet has numerous risks. Top of the list: it’s high in saturated fat. McManus recommends that you keep saturated fats to no more than 7% of your daily calories because of the link to heart disease. And indeed, the keto diet is associated with an increase in “bad” LDL cholesterol, which is also linked to heart disease.
Other potential keto risks include these:
Nutrient deficiency. “If you’re not eating a wide variety of vegetables, fruits, and grains, you may be at risk for deficiencies in micronutrients, including selenium, magnesium, phosphorus, and vitamins B and C,” McManus says.
Liver problems. With so much fat to metabolize, the diet could make any existing liver conditions worse.
Kidney problems. The kidneys help metabolize protein, and McManus says the keto diet may overload them. (The current recommended intake for protein averages 46 grams per day for women, and 56 grams for men).
Constipation. The keto diet is low in fibrous foods like grains and legumes.
Fuzzy thinking and mood swings. The brain works best when the energy source is sugar from healthy carbohydrates to function. Low-carb diets may cause confusion and irritability.
Those risks add up — so make sure that you talk to a doctor and a registered dietitian before ever attempting a ketogenic diet.
Or better yet, just don’t do it. It’s a dumb fad diet that needs to die.
Sure, the plural of anecdote isn’t data. But the existance of anecdotes is what drives scientific inquiry.
Anyway, the last time I was on the keto diet, I came down with a serious illness and underwent a battery of blood tests - essentially everything came back as totally normal, and healthier than an average adult. Turns out I had rocky mt spotted fever.
Rocky mt spotted fever generally comes from ticks, right? You’re lucky to be alive. Uhh, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I don’t know what I’m even getting from your comments other than them sounding like a lowkey cry for help. 🫣
Carbs are a great delivery mechanism for calories. So good, in fact, that the caveman part of your brain really insists on eating as much of them as you possibly can. Some people have problems getting the caveman part of their brain to shut the fuck up and consequently they eat too many carbs. They do that for so long that that end up having a foot amputated and die young of kidney failure.
Empty carbs, the carbs most people think of as carbs, are a terrible source of nutrition and are the primary reason most people are fat. Bread, skinned potatoes, pasta, corn, and sugar. That kind of shit. You know, the delicious carbs. The carbs that the caveman part of your brain really insists you eat more of. Cutting those from the diet helps regulate hunger for people who are calorie counting.
You can get 100% of your daily carbohydrate needs from green vegetables. You can do that pretty easily because you don’t actually need that many carbs.
That said, if you have a healthy relationship with food, are at a healthy weight, and your bloodwork doesn’t show any signs of metabolic syndrome or heart disease, keep on keeping on. Congratulations, you can eat whatever you want. Just understand that being adult, especially an adult in the US, that can tick all of those boxes is pretty rare and other people do have issues they’re trying to correct, and have to keep an eye on their diet. Generally, that means cutting out the fun carbs even if they’re not doing keto.
It would be a lot more accurate if you edited your comment so that every instance of “carbs” was replaced with “calories”. Cave-people had no way of knowing what any of the nutrients were in the foods they ate. Their enemy was starvation. Ours is the opposite, and all sources of calories contribute to weight gain. Sugars, fats, and salt are considered the three main villains in highly processed food addiction, not sugar alone. What you’re describing is known as the toxic food environment.
I worked as a pharmacy tech for a while, in a grocery store. My pharmacist had informed me that pharmacies, at least the ones in grocery stores, generally operate at a loss. So why keep them? I don’t know if there are any tax benefits of kickbacks, but what is known is that the regulars at the pharmacy were spending twice as much on groceries as everyone else. What were the lion’s share of medications in the pharmacy? Various heart disease and high blood pressure meds, stuff for diabetes, and various forms of ozempic-type meds. There were other things too of course, but you can see this pretty clear picture of, as before, a toxic food environment gently manipulating everyone into eating all the hyper-palatable foods that are making them sick, and then needing to get prescriptions for medications in the pharmacy at the same store where they are buying all of the things that are poisoning them into needing those meds in the first place. It’s pretty disgusting right?
But again, it’s not just carbs. If you look at the various sugar diets - those will actually cause rapid weight loss. They’re terrible diets, don’t do them, but they will result in probably even more short-term weight loss than keto. Neither are sustainable, see my comment here for more on keto. In short, keto is absolutely garbage and should be avoided.
I do not eat whatever I want, nor am I young. When I was 30, one of my family members had died of a heart attack at the age of 46. I was already working on shifting to a more vegan lifestyle after seeing one of those documentaries that showed what factory farms are like, but seeing a loved one die at such a young age and such a close age to where I was at the time added urgency in learning more about the nutritional side of things, which is what led to my following a generally whole-food plant-based diet. Easily one of the best decisions I have ever made in my entire life.
I’m going to believe metabolic doctors on this. No offense but a pharmacy tech, even a pharmacist, is not a metabolic doctor.
It would be a lot more accurate if you edited your comment so that every instance of “carbs” was replaced with “calories”.
This is factually false. Not all sources of calories are equal. It’s sugars that cause the “must have more” reaction in your brain. Fats and proteins do not do this.
Sugars in this case can come from a grape, a piece of candy, a bit of bread or pasta. Complex carbohydrates do this. They not only make you want more but cause a reaction in your body that prevents you from stopping even when you’re outrageously full.
Again, if you’re a healthy adult with a good relationship with food I’m happy for you. That’s not most people. You are not a doctor, you should not be attempting to stand in the way of people finding a healthy diet because you have baseless opinions on carbohydrates.
My role as a pharmacy tech had nothing to do with the validity of any statements regarding nutrition, nor were they meant to. It was simply an anecdote to emphasize the insidious nature of our toxic food environment. Also, while credentials matter, that’s also a genetic fallacy. The strength of a claim rests solely on the evidence to back it up.
I can’t speak for protein, but sugars, fats, and salts have all been shown to be addicting. It’s not just sugar. Also, that grape has fiber and phytonutrients, that’s actually a good source of carbs. Literally just a few nights ago I was snacking on grapes and then stopped long before I finished the bag - because I felt full.
My opinions are mostly inline with the scientific consensus, which holds the overall Mediterranean dietary pattern as the gold standard of health and longevity - of which whole-food plant-based diets are usually inline with. Can you show any valid authority on nutrition who uses keto as the basis of their dietary guidelines?
the presence or absence of carbs has a huge effect on whether or not fat and salt will make you diabetic or fat. keto works for that reason, and also for the satiation factor; fat is the most satiating macronutrient (although it’s certainly possible this varies by individual; i would still challenge you to overeat on keto to the point you gained substantial weight - i thought i’ve been overeating for weeks and it turns out i’ve lost 5 lbs 💀)
as with any diet, your health depends on still getting all of the critical nutruents you need (protein minimums, fat minimums, specific amino acids, vitamins, minerals), and some of that requires more management on keto (sodium, potassium, and magnesium usually require supplementation, ime; fiber is a good call as well, depending on your intake of leafy greens)
your link about keto just links to… this post, it seems like, so i can’t say anything in response to it. but keto is a sustainable and healthy long term diet. i have lived it for about 9 years. i would probably agree we have a toxic food environment (your guy was way too condescending and sarcastic for me to tolerate, sorry), but i would say keto is a very good diet for adapting in a healthy way to this toxic food environment
unfortunately, it would be difficult for me, personally, to follow an entirely plant based diet, partly based on satiety and partly because i’m allergic to soy. i also suspect i wouldn’t tolerate plant based carbs much better than i tolerate other carbs, as someone who suspects he’s been self-treating diabetes, possibly for a decade (rice and potatoes are plant based and they definitely still fuck me up lol)
additionally, i have concerns about your knowledge on the subject. satiety is a very important subject when it comes to food health, which we’ve discovered with recent studies and the advent of GLP-1s, and you don’t mention it at all in your post (especially given, you do talk about meds in your post?), so i don’t know if you really have all the knowledge you should when speaking on this subject. a pharmacy tech does not specialize in nutritional science (not that i do either, but i at least live and read about this shit)
finally, i will say that keto, while being a good diet you can do long term and healthily, is not for everyone. not everyone can survive the 2-4 week period of initially weaning yourself off carbs. that’s totally understandable, and for those people, it would be better to focus on whole food, nutritious meals, exercise, and calorie management, along with the advice of a doctor and any medications they may need. a plant based/whole food based diet may also help, but has similar compliance requirements and probably issues that keto does
at least keto lets you have treats, as long as they’re not carbohydrates lol
the presence or absence of carbs has a huge effect on whether or not fat and salt will make you diabetic or fat.
Prove it, show sources.
keto works for that reason, and also for the satiation factor; fat is the most satiating macronutrient
I don’t think feeling sick is the same thing as satiety. And again, please prove that “fat is the most satiating.” I want to see the science.
… and some of that requires more management on keto …
At least you admit that people quite often experience deficiencies on keto, saves me the trouble of breaking out the studies. And yeah, regardless of which diet, the more fiber the better.
your link about keto just links to… this post
It linked to one of my earlier comments because I didn’t feel like saying all the same stuff over again.
unfortunately, it would be difficult for me, personally, to follow an entirely plant based diet, partly based on satiety and partly because i’m allergic to soy.
Yeah soy is a pretty common allergy, and a lot of plant-based proteins are based on it. There are challenges there, but also a myriad of other plant-based protein sources. Getting used to plant-based diets is hard for nearly everyone at first, but it gets easier with practice and frankly starts to feel liberating in a lot of ways when adjusted to. Learning how to make seitan, for instance, opens up a lot of options. And regarding plant carb difficulties, I would suggest studying the Mastering Diabetes program which I linked to in that other comment. The single most important thing for diabetes treatment is weight loss and maintaining a healthy bodyweight. This is why virtually every diet tribe can make claims that their diet “cures” diabetes (type 2 that is), and it’s because virtually any diet can result in weight loss for at least some people.
satiety is a very important subject when it comes to food health, which we’ve discovered with recent studies and the advent of GLP-1s, and you don’t mention it at all in your post
Not true, I talked about satiety in my other comment that I linked to. Whole-food plant-based diets are very satiating, and as I also said in that comment, vegans are consistently shown to have the lowest bodyweights of any dietary groups.
My comment about being a pharmacy tech was never intended to lend any credibility to my claims, it was just a personal anecdote to further highlight the insidious nature of our toxic food environment.
At any rate, here is another video from that “condescending and sarcastic guy.” It’s about naturally boosting glp-1 through diet. I would suggest not even watching it, and instead looking closely at all the scientific studies he cited.
“Interpretation: Both high and low percentages of carbohydrate diets were associated with increased mortality, with minimal risk observed at 50-55% carbohydrate intake. Low carbohydrate dietary patterns favouring animal-derived protein and fat sources, from sources such as lamb, beef, pork, and chicken, were associated with higher mortality, whereas those that favoured plant-derived protein and fat intake, from sources such as vegetables, nuts, peanut butter, and whole-grain breads, were associated with lower mortality, suggesting that the source of food notably modifies the association between carbohydrate intake and mortality.”
grilling me for sources when you link one study that doesn’t even mention keto is crazy. and it’s very hard to take you seriously when you keep linking a literal diet agency who profits off the exact narrative you’re pushing, it would be a LOT better if you stuck to your arguments alone and didn’t link them
(the presence or absence of carbs has a huge effect on whether or not fat and salt will make you diabetic or fat)
so the foundational lecture about this is “sugar: the bitter truth” by robert lustig (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM). regrettably, it’s a lecture which is 90 minutes long (and gets quite in the weeds with the biochem), so i’ll summarize it for you (although it’s a very good watch, he’s both smart and a fantastic speaker):
he shows the the link between fructose and metabolic syndrome / the obesity epidemic (also a note that fructose does not suppress ghrelin, the hunger hormone)
he shows that the relationship between coronary heart disease and dietary fat only works with the presence of sucrose (the original study showing this didn’t do the math correctly)
he shows that LDL is measured in two separate types, one which correlates with heart disease and one which doesn’t. he shows that the bad type of LDL raises in relationship to carbs.
overall, the argument lustig makes is that the healthiest diets are either (in energy) all carb or all fat. so, you’ll note that i’m not actually shit talking a (whole-foods*) plant-based diet. i think it’s probably good and just sounds really miserable to be on (same with any carb-based diet); but, in my opinion, healthiness is just about finding the type of misery you can live with. it turns out my preferred misery is no carbs. if yours is no fats, or only plants, i’m not gonna stop you. good for you
in fact, i think it’s significant to, here, point out that one could dovegetarian or vegan keto; and i don’t think many people would argue with you that a plant-based keto is probably healthier than an animal-based keto. it’s just really hard; and looking at the risks of metabolic syndrome that folks who typically go keto have to weigh (they have a typical profile of: not having good impulse control when eating, suffer from little satiation when eating high carb foods, tend to really enjoy junk food) - the animal-based keto wins out hugely as something that’s both healthier and practically maintainable
you wanna go tell people on keto to eat more greens? please, be my guest. i’ll join you
(fat is the most satiating macronutrient)
honestly, this seemed like conventional wisdom to me. i didn’t think we were going to argue about this- what’s more satiating, a shot of heavy cream or literally any carb of comparable energy level? but i also think this probably varies by individual (please note my quote from my last post “although it’s certainly possible this varies by individual”); however, for the average person, i think it’s probably difficult to overeat fats; and it’s easy enough for the average person to overeat carbs. these are basically stereotypical truths lmao
anyways, this does appear to be a generally supported statement, even if my personal experience leads me to think it’s probably still varies more by individual:
and a lot of it probably has to do with your statement:
I don’t think feeling sick is the same thing as satiety.
LMAO which is so funny because i’ve eaten a lot of carbs and a lot of protein and i just do not feel full compared to when i get a good dose of fat. and if that doesn’t do it for you, that’s cool! do what works for you. it just so happens keto works for some people, too. i really wish you would allow for different people having different experiences in your arguments
At least you admit that people quite often experience deficiencies on keto, saves me the trouble of breaking out the studies.
😭 yeah salt management on keto is a pretty normal thing, it causes the phenomenon people often get when starting keto called “keto flu”, which is caused by the loss in water weight that you get on keto (also where your body buffers salts), as well. just like on vegan diets, you often need to supplement protein, but i’m not out here putting you on blast for that shit LMAO
The single most important thing for diabetes treatment is weight loss and maintaining a healthy bodyweight.
this is really funny because i’m not overweight. or, well, if you could 1.5 bmi out of the “healthy” range on the bmi scale? /shrug but i’m not like, obese like a lot of folks with diabetes are. i think i just ate like shit for too long as a teenager and ruined my ability to handle sugar. that didn’t go away because i lost weight and stopped eating sugar (i know this because i went off keto for some time and gave myself a bunch of scary-as-shit diabetes symptoms 💀)
your all-risk mortality study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30122560/
💀 💀 💀i run into this issue a lot when i’m trying to learn about keto, because i really don’t like the definition most studies use for it. most studies claim that keto is something like ~40% carbohydrate energy in the diet; which, if you ask anyone who ACTUALLY does keto, they will tell you that is FUCKED. we’re over here on like <10% from carbs, it is ALL fats and proteins. so i don’t think think this represents keto folks very well; it doesn’t include the diet demographics in any more detail than “carbohydrate amounts of <40%/50-55%/70%+”, and given it was published in 2018 and followed people for 25 years, which was long before keto was really blew up, so i doubt anyone on keto is actually represented in here at all, or at best, a severe minority
i want to close out by saying that the choice you’re framing here between “plant based diet” and “keto diet” isn’t a real choice. the choice most people who go on keto are making is between “horrible shitty diet that will kill you” and “keto”. plant-based, in itself, is a horribly unreliable guideline when even rice and potatoes can make you sick; there are plenty of processed “plant based” foods which are also just garbage. it’s just not a guideline that will work for many people in the keto group
you can (kind of) make a stronger argument by saying “whole food plant based diet”, but then you lose out a bunch of people who don’t have time to cook or don’t like plants very much; that, in combination with “rice and potatoes are still very sugary”, means that you actually have to have quite a restricted diet on top of it being “plant based” to execute it correctly
this is not the case with keto. no carbs. that’s it, that’s the rule
unfortunately, the long term evidence that keto is safe or unsafe is hard to come by. it’s not really been studied a lot; it’s still relatively new and the populations that they would study tend to drop the diet due to non-compliance (i.e. they wanna eat carbs). so yeah, like, maybe it would be more accurate to say “we don’t really know” rather than “it’s safe” or “it’s unsafe”. i think it’s fairly easy to say it’s better, even long term, than the shitty diet we would otherwise be eating, so i still generally advocate for it. i don’t think people should not do something that improves their overall health, just because it might be bad like 20-30+ years down the line. it will almost certainly be better than how they would get there otherwise
Carbs/fats/proteins are just the delivery of calories.
If you’re wondering we burn them in the order of protein > carbs > fats. That’s why we store them as fat, eat carbs before an athletic event, and eat protein after one.
I’m aware of the basics of macronutrient digestion and metabolism, and your description is… weird. Would you care to share a source on your claims?
It also needs to be noted, unless you’re eating nothing but supplements and highly processed powders, no one eats fat, or carbs, or protein. We eat foods, and virtually all foods contain all three macros in varying ratios. In the real world we get all three together every meal, and if you’re not, it means you’re following a diet that you probably shouldn’t.
no one eats fat, or carbs, or protein. We eat foods
Okay, but pork chops and pasta have very different proportions of the above. You can definitely structure your diet to weight towards one or the other.
In the real world we get all three together every meal, and if you’re not, it means you’re following a diet that you probably shouldn’t.
Angry JBP noises
More seriously, there’s plenty of dumb fad diets, to be sure. And now we’ve got a host of medications for basically shitting out all your calories faster than you can eat them to lose weight. But there’s definitely a problem in our general food delivery system, especially with regards to fats and sugars in fast foods.
Like, you can be blase about food composition. But there’s some shit that simply shouldn’t ever be in your diet (carbonated sodas, heavy preservatives in baked goods, lead). A lot of the “fad” aspects of diets tend to take these fundamentals and extrapolate them out to the extremes.
So you have people running away from freshly made rigatoni because it shares some of the fundamentals with fast food french fries.
If you’re bordering type 2 diabetes and carbs just make your blood sugar shoot up and crash down, reducing or eliminating carbs can get your shit back in check without medication, and make it much easier to reduce your calories (since you don’t feel compelled to stuff your face again because of shaky hands)
This was me, is me. I had to start a no grain diet to get my blood sugar down. Between that and exercise, I have avoided, so far, having to take meds for diabetes.
I am diabetic, but my average blood sugar is in the normal range without medication. If I eat wrong or get lazy, I have problems
Yeah, they really are. The only valid medical reason to ever use the keto diet is if you have severe epilepsy, and that is an intervention that is only supposed to be done short term, and under close medical supervision.
At best keto as a general diet generally shows to result in rapid weight loss for only about a year at most, before it plateaus. Odds are any results that come from it are only because the person dropped a few high caloric foods. If your plate is usually full of meat and Mac and Cheese, and you replace that with more meat and, I dunno, buttered veggies, then you’re probably eating less calories overall. That would explain the plateau too, because being in a calorie deficit is a state of starvation, and even unconsciously we have a tendency to seek out ways to calm our cravings. That’s why plant-based diets are the most effective and consistent for weight loss, because they are naturally lower in overall calories while also providing foods that are known to be satiating.
Obesity in and of itself is the primary driver of type 2 diabetes, and overconsumption of fats - especially saturated fats - are drivers of insulin resistance. So while keto might provide short term symptom relief since your body doesn’t have to process sugars, it is about the worst thing you could do for yourself to treat the illness, because you are making the underlying cause worse in the long run, as well as driving progression of cardiovascular disease. Effective, sustainable treatment of type 2 diabetes has to involve, first most chiefly, overall weight loss; but you also need to lower total fat intake, as well as replacing the harmful fats like butter, lard, coconut and palm oils, as well as meat and dairy, with good fats like canola and olive oil, and whole food sources of good fats like nuts and seeds, and avocado.
You can find a solid, real scientifically backed program for both type 2 and type 1 diabetes treatment here.
I want it to be understood, I am not interested in internet arguments when it comes to this subject matter. This is not banal identity politics. This is life and death. I have seen too many loved ones die and all from poor lifestyle habits, including type 2 diabetes. It doesn’t need to fucking happen, and I am sick of people flippantly advocating for something that is quite literally the opposite of everything that nutritional science has found to be truly effective. It is grossly irresponsible. Keto is just one more re-branding of a long history of failed anti-carb diets. They never have worked, they never will work, and the only job they need to do is sow enough doubt in people’s minds to get them to keep eating all of the things that are killing them. It is the tobacco industry playbook plain and simple.
I have diabetes and I have this guide to carbs and healthy eating. It’s 45-60g carbs per meal I think, and the portions are hilarious. It’s like 1/100th of a bagel or something.
A regular sized bagel is 60g of carbs, more or less. My dietician had me target 60-75 grams of carbs per meal with a total daily target of 225-245 for my type 2 diagnosis.
All of the anti-carb diets are a joke. Carbs are fucking great.
I mean, I sure do like pizza and beer. But my personal experience is that low carb diets are awesome. I’ve done the keto diet probably about half a dozen times in my life, and (after ensuring my electrolytes stay balanced) it has consistently given me positive results.
I first tried it with the notion that fat and protienn were satiating, and therefore it would be easier to stick to a calorie deficit. Simple. I disregarded all the people who talked about “more mental energy” or whatever bullshit - I just wanted to lose fat. But the results blew me away.
Without counting calories and while eating lots of deliscious food, I lose fat basically without trying and get a six pack. My athletic performance isn’t diminished, and my hunger levels drop noticeably. Hunger itself feels less important, and my emotions in general become more positive - I am more likely to feel happy and grateful and to fall into flow states, and setbacks and bad moods bother me far less. I fall asleep easier and sleep more soundly. My skin looks better. And these effects persist as long as I am on the diet - it isn’t just “losing water weight” or whatever.
Why does it do this? I dunno. Just does. Typically I eat a diet with lots of veggies, beans, some meat, and the occasional pizza and beer night. But comparing a whole foods keto diet to a standard american diet of processed junk food, I’m gonna go ahead and say that keto will come out far ahead, and I’m not gonna let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Anecdotes are not evidence. Even from your own description it’s untenable to pin down what your diet even is, other than, “whatever you feel like eating.” In that sense it’s virtually indistinguishable from the standard American diet itself. Here is an actual nutritional expert on keto:
Or better yet, just don’t do it. It’s a dumb fad diet that needs to die.
Sure, the plural of anecdote isn’t data. But the existance of anecdotes is what drives scientific inquiry.
Anyway, the last time I was on the keto diet, I came down with a serious illness and underwent a battery of blood tests - essentially everything came back as totally normal, and healthier than an average adult. Turns out I had rocky mt spotted fever.
Rocky mt spotted fever generally comes from ticks, right? You’re lucky to be alive. Uhh, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I don’t know what I’m even getting from your comments other than them sounding like a lowkey cry for help. 🫣
Carbs are a great delivery mechanism for calories. So good, in fact, that the caveman part of your brain really insists on eating as much of them as you possibly can. Some people have problems getting the caveman part of their brain to shut the fuck up and consequently they eat too many carbs. They do that for so long that that end up having a foot amputated and die young of kidney failure.
Empty carbs, the carbs most people think of as carbs, are a terrible source of nutrition and are the primary reason most people are fat. Bread, skinned potatoes, pasta, corn, and sugar. That kind of shit. You know, the delicious carbs. The carbs that the caveman part of your brain really insists you eat more of. Cutting those from the diet helps regulate hunger for people who are calorie counting.
You can get 100% of your daily carbohydrate needs from green vegetables. You can do that pretty easily because you don’t actually need that many carbs.
That said, if you have a healthy relationship with food, are at a healthy weight, and your bloodwork doesn’t show any signs of metabolic syndrome or heart disease, keep on keeping on. Congratulations, you can eat whatever you want. Just understand that being adult, especially an adult in the US, that can tick all of those boxes is pretty rare and other people do have issues they’re trying to correct, and have to keep an eye on their diet. Generally, that means cutting out the fun carbs even if they’re not doing keto.
It would be a lot more accurate if you edited your comment so that every instance of “carbs” was replaced with “calories”. Cave-people had no way of knowing what any of the nutrients were in the foods they ate. Their enemy was starvation. Ours is the opposite, and all sources of calories contribute to weight gain. Sugars, fats, and salt are considered the three main villains in highly processed food addiction, not sugar alone. What you’re describing is known as the toxic food environment.
I worked as a pharmacy tech for a while, in a grocery store. My pharmacist had informed me that pharmacies, at least the ones in grocery stores, generally operate at a loss. So why keep them? I don’t know if there are any tax benefits of kickbacks, but what is known is that the regulars at the pharmacy were spending twice as much on groceries as everyone else. What were the lion’s share of medications in the pharmacy? Various heart disease and high blood pressure meds, stuff for diabetes, and various forms of ozempic-type meds. There were other things too of course, but you can see this pretty clear picture of, as before, a toxic food environment gently manipulating everyone into eating all the hyper-palatable foods that are making them sick, and then needing to get prescriptions for medications in the pharmacy at the same store where they are buying all of the things that are poisoning them into needing those meds in the first place. It’s pretty disgusting right?
But again, it’s not just carbs. If you look at the various sugar diets - those will actually cause rapid weight loss. They’re terrible diets, don’t do them, but they will result in probably even more short-term weight loss than keto. Neither are sustainable, see my comment here for more on keto. In short, keto is absolutely garbage and should be avoided.
I do not eat whatever I want, nor am I young. When I was 30, one of my family members had died of a heart attack at the age of 46. I was already working on shifting to a more vegan lifestyle after seeing one of those documentaries that showed what factory farms are like, but seeing a loved one die at such a young age and such a close age to where I was at the time added urgency in learning more about the nutritional side of things, which is what led to my following a generally whole-food plant-based diet. Easily one of the best decisions I have ever made in my entire life.
I’m going to believe metabolic doctors on this. No offense but a pharmacy tech, even a pharmacist, is not a metabolic doctor.
This is factually false. Not all sources of calories are equal. It’s sugars that cause the “must have more” reaction in your brain. Fats and proteins do not do this.
Sugars in this case can come from a grape, a piece of candy, a bit of bread or pasta. Complex carbohydrates do this. They not only make you want more but cause a reaction in your body that prevents you from stopping even when you’re outrageously full.
Again, if you’re a healthy adult with a good relationship with food I’m happy for you. That’s not most people. You are not a doctor, you should not be attempting to stand in the way of people finding a healthy diet because you have baseless opinions on carbohydrates.
My role as a pharmacy tech had nothing to do with the validity of any statements regarding nutrition, nor were they meant to. It was simply an anecdote to emphasize the insidious nature of our toxic food environment. Also, while credentials matter, that’s also a genetic fallacy. The strength of a claim rests solely on the evidence to back it up.
I can’t speak for protein, but sugars, fats, and salts have all been shown to be addicting. It’s not just sugar. Also, that grape has fiber and phytonutrients, that’s actually a good source of carbs. Literally just a few nights ago I was snacking on grapes and then stopped long before I finished the bag - because I felt full.
My opinions are mostly inline with the scientific consensus, which holds the overall Mediterranean dietary pattern as the gold standard of health and longevity - of which whole-food plant-based diets are usually inline with. Can you show any valid authority on nutrition who uses keto as the basis of their dietary guidelines?
the presence or absence of carbs has a huge effect on whether or not fat and salt will make you diabetic or fat. keto works for that reason, and also for the satiation factor; fat is the most satiating macronutrient (although it’s certainly possible this varies by individual; i would still challenge you to overeat on keto to the point you gained substantial weight - i thought i’ve been overeating for weeks and it turns out i’ve lost 5 lbs 💀)
as with any diet, your health depends on still getting all of the critical nutruents you need (protein minimums, fat minimums, specific amino acids, vitamins, minerals), and some of that requires more management on keto (sodium, potassium, and magnesium usually require supplementation, ime; fiber is a good call as well, depending on your intake of leafy greens)
your link about keto just links to… this post, it seems like, so i can’t say anything in response to it. but keto is a sustainable and healthy long term diet. i have lived it for about 9 years. i would probably agree we have a toxic food environment (your guy was way too condescending and sarcastic for me to tolerate, sorry), but i would say keto is a very good diet for adapting in a healthy way to this toxic food environment
unfortunately, it would be difficult for me, personally, to follow an entirely plant based diet, partly based on satiety and partly because i’m allergic to soy. i also suspect i wouldn’t tolerate plant based carbs much better than i tolerate other carbs, as someone who suspects he’s been self-treating diabetes, possibly for a decade (rice and potatoes are plant based and they definitely still fuck me up lol)
additionally, i have concerns about your knowledge on the subject. satiety is a very important subject when it comes to food health, which we’ve discovered with recent studies and the advent of GLP-1s, and you don’t mention it at all in your post (especially given, you do talk about meds in your post?), so i don’t know if you really have all the knowledge you should when speaking on this subject. a pharmacy tech does not specialize in nutritional science (not that i do either, but i at least live and read about this shit)
finally, i will say that keto, while being a good diet you can do long term and healthily, is not for everyone. not everyone can survive the 2-4 week period of initially weaning yourself off carbs. that’s totally understandable, and for those people, it would be better to focus on whole food, nutritious meals, exercise, and calorie management, along with the advice of a doctor and any medications they may need. a plant based/whole food based diet may also help, but has similar compliance requirements and probably issues that keto does
at least keto lets you have treats, as long as they’re not carbohydrates lol
Prove it, show sources.
I don’t think feeling sick is the same thing as satiety. And again, please prove that “fat is the most satiating.” I want to see the science.
At least you admit that people quite often experience deficiencies on keto, saves me the trouble of breaking out the studies. And yeah, regardless of which diet, the more fiber the better.
It linked to one of my earlier comments because I didn’t feel like saying all the same stuff over again.
Yeah soy is a pretty common allergy, and a lot of plant-based proteins are based on it. There are challenges there, but also a myriad of other plant-based protein sources. Getting used to plant-based diets is hard for nearly everyone at first, but it gets easier with practice and frankly starts to feel liberating in a lot of ways when adjusted to. Learning how to make seitan, for instance, opens up a lot of options. And regarding plant carb difficulties, I would suggest studying the Mastering Diabetes program which I linked to in that other comment. The single most important thing for diabetes treatment is weight loss and maintaining a healthy bodyweight. This is why virtually every diet tribe can make claims that their diet “cures” diabetes (type 2 that is), and it’s because virtually any diet can result in weight loss for at least some people.
Not true, I talked about satiety in my other comment that I linked to. Whole-food plant-based diets are very satiating, and as I also said in that comment, vegans are consistently shown to have the lowest bodyweights of any dietary groups.
My comment about being a pharmacy tech was never intended to lend any credibility to my claims, it was just a personal anecdote to further highlight the insidious nature of our toxic food environment.
At any rate, here is another video from that “condescending and sarcastic guy.” It’s about naturally boosting glp-1 through diet. I would suggest not even watching it, and instead looking closely at all the scientific studies he cited.
And again to drive the point home, you cannot call a diet that increases all-cause mortality healthy.
grilling me for sources when you link one study that doesn’t even mention keto is crazy. and it’s very hard to take you seriously when you keep linking a literal diet agency who profits off the exact narrative you’re pushing, it would be a LOT better if you stuck to your arguments alone and didn’t link them
(the presence or absence of carbs has a huge effect on whether or not fat and salt will make you diabetic or fat) so the foundational lecture about this is “sugar: the bitter truth” by robert lustig (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM). regrettably, it’s a lecture which is 90 minutes long (and gets quite in the weeds with the biochem), so i’ll summarize it for you (although it’s a very good watch, he’s both smart and a fantastic speaker):
overall, the argument lustig makes is that the healthiest diets are either (in energy) all carb or all fat. so, you’ll note that i’m not actually shit talking a (whole-foods*) plant-based diet. i think it’s probably good and just sounds really miserable to be on (same with any carb-based diet); but, in my opinion, healthiness is just about finding the type of misery you can live with. it turns out my preferred misery is no carbs. if yours is no fats, or only plants, i’m not gonna stop you. good for you
in fact, i think it’s significant to, here, point out that one could do vegetarian or vegan keto; and i don’t think many people would argue with you that a plant-based keto is probably healthier than an animal-based keto. it’s just really hard; and looking at the risks of metabolic syndrome that folks who typically go keto have to weigh (they have a typical profile of: not having good impulse control when eating, suffer from little satiation when eating high carb foods, tend to really enjoy junk food) - the animal-based keto wins out hugely as something that’s both healthier and practically maintainable
you wanna go tell people on keto to eat more greens? please, be my guest. i’ll join you
(fat is the most satiating macronutrient) honestly, this seemed like conventional wisdom to me. i didn’t think we were going to argue about this- what’s more satiating, a shot of heavy cream or literally any carb of comparable energy level? but i also think this probably varies by individual (please note my quote from my last post “although it’s certainly possible this varies by individual”); however, for the average person, i think it’s probably difficult to overeat fats; and it’s easy enough for the average person to overeat carbs. these are basically stereotypical truths lmao
anyways, this does appear to be a generally supported statement, even if my personal experience leads me to think it’s probably still varies more by individual:
and a lot of it probably has to do with your statement:
i want to close out by saying that the choice you’re framing here between “plant based diet” and “keto diet” isn’t a real choice. the choice most people who go on keto are making is between “horrible shitty diet that will kill you” and “keto”. plant-based, in itself, is a horribly unreliable guideline when even rice and potatoes can make you sick; there are plenty of processed “plant based” foods which are also just garbage. it’s just not a guideline that will work for many people in the keto group
you can (kind of) make a stronger argument by saying “whole food plant based diet”, but then you lose out a bunch of people who don’t have time to cook or don’t like plants very much; that, in combination with “rice and potatoes are still very sugary”, means that you actually have to have quite a restricted diet on top of it being “plant based” to execute it correctly
this is not the case with keto. no carbs. that’s it, that’s the rule
unfortunately, the long term evidence that keto is safe or unsafe is hard to come by. it’s not really been studied a lot; it’s still relatively new and the populations that they would study tend to drop the diet due to non-compliance (i.e. they wanna eat carbs). so yeah, like, maybe it would be more accurate to say “we don’t really know” rather than “it’s safe” or “it’s unsafe”. i think it’s fairly easy to say it’s better, even long term, than the shitty diet we would otherwise be eating, so i still generally advocate for it. i don’t think people should not do something that improves their overall health, just because it might be bad like 20-30+ years down the line. it will almost certainly be better than how they would get there otherwise
Carbs/fats/proteins are just the delivery of calories.
If you’re wondering we burn them in the order of protein > carbs > fats. That’s why we store them as fat, eat carbs before an athletic event, and eat protein after one.
That’s not true. Learn more about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citric_acid_cycle if you want to understand.
I’m aware of the basics of macronutrient digestion and metabolism, and your description is… weird. Would you care to share a source on your claims?
It also needs to be noted, unless you’re eating nothing but supplements and highly processed powders, no one eats fat, or carbs, or protein. We eat foods, and virtually all foods contain all three macros in varying ratios. In the real world we get all three together every meal, and if you’re not, it means you’re following a diet that you probably shouldn’t.
I misspoke, it’s not an order as one after another. It’s how fast you digest to get the calories from it.
If you ate something with all 3 you would break it down “in order” because you metabolize one faster.
Water content also plays a role in time.
Okay, but pork chops and pasta have very different proportions of the above. You can definitely structure your diet to weight towards one or the other.
Angry JBP noises
More seriously, there’s plenty of dumb fad diets, to be sure. And now we’ve got a host of medications for basically shitting out all your calories faster than you can eat them to lose weight. But there’s definitely a problem in our general food delivery system, especially with regards to fats and sugars in fast foods.
Like, you can be blase about food composition. But there’s some shit that simply shouldn’t ever be in your diet (carbonated sodas, heavy preservatives in baked goods, lead). A lot of the “fad” aspects of diets tend to take these fundamentals and extrapolate them out to the extremes.
So you have people running away from freshly made rigatoni because it shares some of the fundamentals with fast food french fries.
And I would take the pasta over the pork chops any day, although they would be whole grain pasta.
They’re really not, but not everyone needs them.
If you’re bordering type 2 diabetes and carbs just make your blood sugar shoot up and crash down, reducing or eliminating carbs can get your shit back in check without medication, and make it much easier to reduce your calories (since you don’t feel compelled to stuff your face again because of shaky hands)
This was me, is me. I had to start a no grain diet to get my blood sugar down. Between that and exercise, I have avoided, so far, having to take meds for diabetes.
I am diabetic, but my average blood sugar is in the normal range without medication. If I eat wrong or get lazy, I have problems
Yeah, they really are. The only valid medical reason to ever use the keto diet is if you have severe epilepsy, and that is an intervention that is only supposed to be done short term, and under close medical supervision.
At best keto as a general diet generally shows to result in rapid weight loss for only about a year at most, before it plateaus. Odds are any results that come from it are only because the person dropped a few high caloric foods. If your plate is usually full of meat and Mac and Cheese, and you replace that with more meat and, I dunno, buttered veggies, then you’re probably eating less calories overall. That would explain the plateau too, because being in a calorie deficit is a state of starvation, and even unconsciously we have a tendency to seek out ways to calm our cravings. That’s why plant-based diets are the most effective and consistent for weight loss, because they are naturally lower in overall calories while also providing foods that are known to be satiating.
Obesity in and of itself is the primary driver of type 2 diabetes, and overconsumption of fats - especially saturated fats - are drivers of insulin resistance. So while keto might provide short term symptom relief since your body doesn’t have to process sugars, it is about the worst thing you could do for yourself to treat the illness, because you are making the underlying cause worse in the long run, as well as driving progression of cardiovascular disease. Effective, sustainable treatment of type 2 diabetes has to involve, first most chiefly, overall weight loss; but you also need to lower total fat intake, as well as replacing the harmful fats like butter, lard, coconut and palm oils, as well as meat and dairy, with good fats like canola and olive oil, and whole food sources of good fats like nuts and seeds, and avocado.
You can find a solid, real scientifically backed program for both type 2 and type 1 diabetes treatment here.
I want it to be understood, I am not interested in internet arguments when it comes to this subject matter. This is not banal identity politics. This is life and death. I have seen too many loved ones die and all from poor lifestyle habits, including type 2 diabetes. It doesn’t need to fucking happen, and I am sick of people flippantly advocating for something that is quite literally the opposite of everything that nutritional science has found to be truly effective. It is grossly irresponsible. Keto is just one more re-branding of a long history of failed anti-carb diets. They never have worked, they never will work, and the only job they need to do is sow enough doubt in people’s minds to get them to keep eating all of the things that are killing them. It is the tobacco industry playbook plain and simple.
I have diabetes and I have this guide to carbs and healthy eating. It’s 45-60g carbs per meal I think, and the portions are hilarious. It’s like 1/100th of a bagel or something.
That’s a pretty absurd amount of bagel to eat. XD
Here is a really good program for treatment of both type 1 and 2 diabetes. If you follow it you might actually be able to eat a whole bagel.
Checks out, if your bagel weighs more than 4.5-6kg
Sounds about right for average US bagel size.
I’ve never seen a bagel under 20kg so that makes sense.
A regular sized bagel is 60g of carbs, more or less. My dietician had me target 60-75 grams of carbs per meal with a total daily target of 225-245 for my type 2 diagnosis.