Am I making my health worse?

(Allie) #13

The meds will be messing with you more than keto will.

#14

Define “all this fat”.

For me, the simple definition of keto is “Minimal carbs, adequate proteins, fats as needed (for satiation).”

You do need to target a minimum amount of protein (in grams), primarily based on your lean body mass, but after that, it should be whatever additional proteins and fat you need to satisfy your hunger.

(David ) #15

Sounds good just not used to all the butter and bacon and olive oil. I appreciate all of your input.

(Joey) #16

As long as you’re seriously restricting your dietary carbs, you need to fuel your body’s energy needs from somewhere. There’s only so much protein that can be tolerated (or is healthy) … the rest must necessarily come from (healthy) fat sources.

One’s sense of satiety is how you get the best indication of how much fat is the “right amount.” Too little and your metabolism will begin to wind down in starvation mode. Too much, and you’ll feel stuffed beyond appetite comfort.

Listen to your body’s signals. It’ll likely take some time to adjust so bear with it and be patient with yourself. :vulcan_salute:

#17

I’ll admit to using my fair share of butter when I cook some vegetables, but most of the bacon I eat is crisp, so much of the fat is gone. I don’t use olive oil at all because it gives me gastric issues.

So the only time I really add fat purposefully is cooking those veggies.

(UsedToBeT2D) #18

Blood sugars down, losing weight (fat), sounds like the right track. I say nothing wrong with Keto diet. 5 weeks? Really? Give it at least a year. Its too early to worry. It would be crazy to go back to what was killing you.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #19

And besides, protein, under normal circumstances, is not used as a source of energy. Including it in the calorie count is a holdover from 150 years ago, when all they could do was count calories. They barely knew the difference between carbohydrate, fat, and protein, much less what they did in the human body.

We should be measuring foods by how much ATP they produce, anyway; not how much heat they release when burnt.

(Joey) #20

Fair enough. Although I understood it to be a minor source of dietary energy. And, in a pinch, one’s body can cannibalize stored proteins to produce energy to keep the metabolic lights on.

But without dietary protein, we wouldn’t last long. As such, it’s an “essential” macro-nutrient (we must consume). Moreover, there’s a healthy range outside of which we find ourselves in nutritional trouble.

Didn’t want to leave it out of the dietary mix given the context of the conversation.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #21

That’s fine. It just sounded as though you were talking about the contribution of protein to metabolic energy, rather than its usual structural use. Protein is necessary for two reasons: first, to replace nitrogen lost to excretion; and second, there are amino acids that the body requires but cannot synthesise. Likewise there are also essential fatty acids.

There is, however, no essential form of carbohydrate, given that all carbohydrates (except certain sugars) are simply glucose arranged in various ways. And the body doesn’t need dietary glucose, because it can synthesise the small amount it actually needs.

(Alec) #23

Given this history, why would anyone believe a thing that Willett says in support of the low fat diet (which he does regularly). Nutritional science seems to conveniently leave out and forget about the declarations of conflicts of interest and biases. I am pleased that when we watch low carb videos, the start is frequently a declaration of interests.

About two thirds of the committee that create the nutritional guidelines are vegans or vegetarians, when the general public % is more like 5%. I am unclear why this incredible bias is allowed to remain: who picks these people?

#24

The devils advocate would say because these people are more educated on nutrition and biochemistry than the general public so they “should” know the “right” thing to do! Commence throwing rotten vegetables (was playing devil’s advocate, it should be true but I do not believe it). In reality how many obese nutritionists and Phds do you know? Probably not many because as Taubes notes in his new book The Case for Keto which I am currently reading, lean people are not thinner fat people and fat people are not simply lean people who ate to much. Lean people are the ones who can eat carbs and this insulin and other mechanisms work to burn them off and whatever it is that makes a fat man enter a bakery when he smells donuts does not work in the same way on them.

@PST there was a very good 2Keto Podcast or a couple of them where Richard got off Metformin and had his insulin measured over a series of months. Insulin is measured in a lab and I believe fluctuates. This is different than measuring glucose.If you have good insurance you may want to ask your doctor to measure it. He found that his insulin levels still remained higher than they should even though his glucose level was stable. He ended up back on Metformin. I remember this being around April 2018 or 2019

As for the OP.I know someone who at age 78 or so had to have bypass. He is a TOFI T2 and had been since his 50s. He thought he ate well, eating the egg whites instead of the yolk, walked miles a day, and took sulfurnureas as well as statins and BP meds. During his recovery he barely ate and was intorduced to low carb (he could not quite manage Keto). Within three months of surgery he was off all diabetes medication although he still took BP and other heart related medications. One morning he accidentally took a left over sulfanurea because someone had moved it over next to his other medications. His glucose went to 65! He was more careful after that. I really think you should let your doctor know that your numbers have changed. He may want to see you earlier to make adjustments. I would not make them on your own but I would contact him and see what he suggests. As for A1C, it may take a full 3 months to go down completely, since it is a measure of where blood cells have been for the last 3 months or so although individuals vary. Blood cells live for an average of 3 months. Note that incident with the bypass happened in early 2017, he still walks every day for an hour 5 years later and still eats mostly low carb. He is still on BP medicine and other heart meds but never went back on sulfaneureas

(Alec) #25

They must believe this and so must the people that pick them. Or maybe there are other 3rd party forces at work here? The commercial and religious interests in these arenas are very powerful.

History will judge them poorly.

#26

I was interested enough in this to follow up so I could read the whole story, but I could not find any references to Dr. Willett taking sugar money. I think there may be confusion here between Dr. Willett, who is still at Harvard, and an earlier generation of researchers who prepared an article for the New England Journal of Medicine in 1965 without disclosing funding from the Sugar Association. Those guys were dead before the scandal broke. Willett can be criticized for offering only mealy mouthed criticism, but I don’t know of evidence that he was ever on the take.

(Joey) #27

Your clarification is supported by this article, in which the author draws a distinction between Willett himself as opposed to those who received financial support from the industry (whom Willett was discussing)…

#28

By the way, has anyone ever seen Steve Phinney and Walter Willett in the same room? Could it be one guy working both sides of the fat/sugar controversy under different names? We should ask Senator Angus King to investigate.

(Alec) #29

Paul is rarely wrong on these things but given the timing discrepancy, he could well be this time. I am 100% prepared to climb off my soapbox and withdraw my specific comment on the current Willett if that reference proves incorrect.

I might go and take a look into who supports the Harvard based epidemiology factory.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #30

You are right, it was Frederick Stare, chairman of the Department of Nutrition, not Walter Willett, that I was thinking of. I have emended my earlier post. Walter Willett is Stare’s successor at the Department of Nutrition.

The Sugar Association memos were unearthed by Cristin Kearns Couzens, D.D.S., who caught up with Gary Taubes in 2011 and got his help in publicising those memos. Her story is here, and an article she and Taubes wrote summarising the discovery is here.

#31

What is even stranger is Willett seems to be coming around https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/114/6/1873/6369073?login=false
as I mentioned when someone posted this awhile back, who would think you would see Willett and Westman on the same paper

(Alec) #32

Willett is no angel. None of this is conclusive, but it does pose some serious questions. I am not a fan.

https://www.fabresearch.org/viewItem.php?id=12377

(Sharon Spaans) #33

Either stay on Keto or better yet do the CARNIVORE DIET- your numbers will improve much better and faster and you will feel a lot better. Dr. ken Berry has many you tube videos