Fasting will stimulate autophagy better than caloric restriction. The body responds differently to complete lack of food. Moreover, the metabolic state induced by a ketogenic diet is very similar to that induced by fasting, except for the lack of food.
Well, fat loss takes the time it takes. If you look at the stories of people who lost large amounts of fat on a ketogenic diet, you will notice that the first 100 lbs. came off much faster than the last 10. And restricting calories only takes us so far, since the body responds to short rations by greatly slowing non-essential processes (hair, nails, the reproductive system) and lowering the basal metabolic rate until the emergency is over. By contrast, give your body enough food, and it will speed up the metabolism and find things to do with the extra energy. And it will be a lot more willing to part with its excess fat reserves.
We’ve all had to cope with that. Nutrition science is really bad, partly because it’s so difficult and expensive to do right. Also, medicine is a lot more authority-based than harder sciences, such as physics, so once an idea becomes entrenched, it is very hard to dislodge. And even in physics, as Max Planck observed, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
The key to a ketogenic diet is lowering insulin by greatly restricting carbohydrate intake. Insulin is the major hormone involved in causing the body to store fat, and carbohydrate in the diet causes the greatest insulin response. This makes sense because carbohydrate is basically glucose, and excess glucose in the blood is highly damaging. Unfortunately, over time, so is the elevated insulin required to deal with a high-carb diet.
Protein is protein. We need a certain amount of it daily, and some people need more than others. In the absence of carbohydrate, the insulin response is minimal, or rather, the insulin response is matched by a corresponding glucagon response, so the body remains in a ketotic state.
Fat is the source of the body’s energy on a ketogenic diet, and the insulin response to it is negligible, so it is a safe source of energy, not to mention the fact that it can be metabolised without the damaging oxidative stress of glucose. It is also more energy dense than carbohydrate so it takes far less to provide the same amount of energy.
So to be sure we are getting enough energy, we control carbohydrate, prioritise protein, and fill in with fat. Eating to satiety is very different from eating to a caloric target, for the reasons already mentioned. Many forum members have reported that as long as they intentionally restricted calories, they did not shed fat. Their fat loss began only when they started eating more, not less. So listen to your body, and give it what it needs.
Basically, a ketogenic diet is practically the reverse of what the U.S. government has been telling us to eat since the early 1980’s. Don’t fear fat; fear carbohydrate instead. Sugar, pasta, grains, and starches are not health foods, they are fattening. Eat more meat. Cholesterol is too important to the body to be the cause of cardiovascular disease. LDL levels may be markers of disease, but not the root cause, and manipulating a marker has no effect on the actual disease.
