[mweibel]

I hear about keto so often that it must be the best thing ever, however I have no idea what it even is and I got curious!

Do you have some links/articles which describe what it is and what positive/negative things can come out of it?

[busymom0]

I have done Keto myself and personally I would not recommend it. I would actually love to do keto forever as I love eating meat but it will pretty much ruin most of your social eating out habits unless you are okay with not going out for things like Sushi (not eating rolls), ice cream etc. I also do powerlifting and my calorie requirements are much higher. Strength wise, my strength took a dip initially but it mostly came back after about 1-2 weeks. But my endurance was absolutely horrible (this is due to your body having to first convert the fats to glycogen, then using the energy instead of readily available carb sourced glycogen).

Anyway, I personally did it for about 2 months and even though I enjoyed it, I would not recommend it for most people. I tried it because I don't like dissing something without trying it first, so I put myself on Keto for 2 months to see what it was all about. I would recommend the same - try it for about 2 months and then decide it for yourself. Note that you will have to bear through the first 1-2 weeks of brain fogginess and low energy as your body adapts to it. But once that's over and you are in Ketosis, you will feel much better. Another thing to be careful about is that your body will go out of ketosis very easily if you eat carbs (ice cream for example). Don't use it as a way to lose body weight as most of the weight people lose is actually water weight due to the lack of carbs based glycogen.

I would recommend this Jeff Nippard's YouTube video on Keto too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxmVsT_ZeNs

[claroclinic]

Usually, the diet is also high in dietary fat, at least long term. In a more short-term diet, this is not always necessary. It’s possible to instead be fueled via your own fat stores, as long as you have excess weight to lose. https://medium.com/@jovialdiets1/complete-guide-for-keto-die...

[sma222k0n]

2 Months is absolutely nothing in Ketogenic diet, what you've likely experienced in those two months was mostly the transitioning side-effects from carbs to fat, it takes at least 6-12 months to be fully fat-adapted (mitochondrial changes) especially if you're an athlete.(See Ultra runner Zach Bitter)

[busymom0]

I guess you could be right but for me, I couldn't afford 6-12 months of low endurance as I was about to start a specific workout program which also needed me to be in caloric surplus and have high endurance. Maybe I would try it out again in the future.

But another main reason as I pointed out was that Keto was severely limiting my social eating habits. I personally did not do it for losing body fat, I did it mostly to see how it is. I still loved eating out with friends - things like sushi rolls, ice cream etc. Keto wasn't allowing me those things.

I would actually love to do keto because I love eating meat (steak), butter, avocados etc but right now isn't the right time for me from a social point of view.

[mikorym]

Given that the brain's main source of energy is sugar and the heart's main source of energy is fat, and the complexity of the body's organs, I think any type of diet that limits specific types of energy sources should carry disclaimers.

For example, if you are on a keto diet and your diet is well-defined, what are the risks? Fatigue is one thing, but organ damage or otherwise dangerous effects should be discussed frankly and clearly.

I have not really found resources that don't have inherent conflicts of interest.

People who study to become dieticians have a much more straightforward and high level approach, e.g.: "You have a iron deficiency and don't get in enough protein, and I would advise eating more red meat."

[glogla]

Brain uses both. There's an interesting talk [1] about how brain's ability to use glucose lowers before Alzhaimers disease and others. There seems to be some link between brain diseases and glucose metabolism.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxGiQ7YrUYE

[mweibel]

thanks for the interesting response and the link.

[glogla]

Lately there's been some product pushing from some companies, some "facebook keto" of people only eating fat, and some pushback from mainstream low-fat selling and plant-based food groups, calling it fad, etc. So the area is kind of confusing right now.

The best resource I think think of is Keto subreddit FAW which goes over the principles and some misconceptions and so on: https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq

Also, Keto is often done along with intermittent fasting, which is another popular thing, lately.

EDIT: the subreddit is also full of people talking about their success with Keto (meaning mosty obese and diabetc or prediabetic reversing their condition), but that might be survivorship bias - someone who failed or someone who had adverse effects might not post there.

My personal experience is that I lost quite a bit of weight on Keto, and experienced other effects like loss of cravings, more mental clarity, etc, in comparison to typical western diet - but that might be just me. My hypothesis is that some people handle carbs better than others, and Keto is good for the group which dosn't handle carbs very well.

EDIT2: There's also a lot of misconceptions about fat being the devil.

You know, given the trans-fats debacle - for decades, people were convinced that trans-fats were the good thing and you have to be monster to give your kids evil bad butter instead of healthy nice margarine - I am convinced that as a humanity, we don't know shit about nutrition, and basically just do what works for you. For some people, Keto is much better than the standard western diet.

[msiyer]

Elimination diets always show short-term results. If someone reduces burger consumption from 5 to 3 a day, he\she will definitely see good results. However, if we have to constantly trick our bodies (starvation) and walk a tightrope (need to avoid even the smallest amounts of carbs or else...) to just keep Keto on track, is it really natural?

[annamargot]

Define natural please. It’s my belief that industrialized food production has created unnatural availability of foods that largely use unnatural ingredients. Unnatural as in not found readily or at all in nature.

Are you defining natural as ‘conventional 21st century Western diet’? ie what everyone is doing around you.

[msiyer]

Since everything is sourced from nature, for argument's sake, even plastic can be called natural. However, as far as food is concerned, I have started treating foods that have been manipulated in any way by a human or a machine as unnatural.

All I am saying is that in my opinion Keto does not fit the definition of natural. I eat mostly fruits while I feed my dogs raw meat and organs only.

[Nasrudith]

Ironically such a diet in itself is deeply unnatural - hunter-gatherers would have starved if they attempted such a thing - there is a reason why they were nomadic and caused mass extinctions - they ate everything and depleted capacity to fuel their large brain and relatively big bodies. There is a reason cooking caught on and was used long before agriculture.

The point being that both natrual and unnatural are terrible heuristics. Your diet may be fundamentally good or deeply flawed but naturalness isn't why - nutrient balance, satiation, metabolic factors and similiar are why.

[msiyer]

I have seen results that are nothing less than a miracle. I know what works. I do not need a bunch of metrics to see if I am eating properly.

I have never seen an animal refusing to eat because it could not calculate the calories or nutrient balance. It is sad to see that with all the great progress we have made, we are losing touch with nature.