Can someone cleverer than me give their thoughts on this?

(Claire) #1

Hello, I’m not actually new but forgot my old username. The two main resources I follow for keto have always been 2KD and Ginger @ Keto In The UK - because I like sciencey realistic personable content.
Anyway, I don’t know if anyone else here follows Ginger but she posted this video yesterday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uySwjGAgOKU&t=447s which I’m still in the midst of watching but the notes on it are basically that strict keto is now bad and long term keto lowers metabolism. I also believe she talks about having carbs semi-regularly now as the way forward (I am obviously paraphrasing).
I just wondered what others thought who have better knowledge on me as it’s troubled me a little but I’m not managing to collect my thoughts on it very well.

Appreciate any one who takes the time!

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #2

Before you get too excited about it, read this:


Since you like ‘sciency’ content, check out the linked refs.

PS: I’ve been in continuous ketosis for 5 consecutive years. I eat sub-15 grams of carbs per day. I frequently eat sub-10 and occasionally sub-5. I never eat more - and don’t think doing so serves any useful purpose. My metabolism and energy are AOK, I eat 2300-2700 cals per day. I have the same weight and body composition I had at the age of 18. I have a full-time job that requires lots of physical and emotional energy. BTW I’m 76 years old.

(Robin) #3

I don’t read links about keto, good or bad. I know it is working for me. And I know where the standard American diet got me long term… needing medication and feeling like crap.

#4

Even with my limited knowledge it makes zero sense. And what would I do if not keto, eating carbs? I did that for decades, it’s clearly not my right path!

It may lower metabolism, sure if you starve. Don’t do it. WHY would the human body lower the speed of metabolism if we eat enough? My body works better than that.
It’s probably about all the people who automatically undereat on keto as their hunger and satiation signs work strangely. I heard about such cases, it’s not very rare. But we should avoid that and then it’s no problem.

I don’t watch many videos about keto and definitely not baselessly anti-keto ones… So I don’t know if they answer my question. Why would be keto bad? (It can be done horribly, sure as every woe with some freedom and keto is extremely free, one can do it zillion different ways, there are carnivores and vegans etc.) What essential nutrients doesn’t it contain? What toxins or other bad things it has in too big amounts? (Don’t tell me saturated fats… And it’s possible to do keto with very low saturated fat intake under some circumstances. I couldn’t do it as I couldn’t do low sat fat on ANY woe I am willing to do.) It just makes no sense. If one has problems with some common but easy to avoid keto staple, just do it differently, it’s still not a sure problem of keto. Not like I know particularly bad keto staples but I never researched keto rules and keto staples much, I eat in my own style and listen to my body. My body screams bloody murder if I go too far and/or too long from keto so keto it is :slight_smile: (I would leave keto if that would be my only option to survive and surely my body would calm down but I am not in such a forced situation.)

#5

Hi Claire.

I have doubts about keto longterm for myself. I use it to control blood glucose, because I’m afraid of one day becoming diabetic. At the moment, I know nothing better, though there’s something really bothering me.

But…

You need to see how it works for yourself. Every restrictive diet could potentially have a negative impact on one of us. For instance: suppose keto is bad for your kidneys (I’m not saying it is!). But: the main cause of kidney disease is diabetes. Keto can help lots of people control their blood glucose, therefore, avoid/treat diabetes therefore, potentially decrease the probability you’d develop kidney disease. Knowing your particular situation, you can adapt the diet to you, perhaps with some help from a doctor, if you’re following treatments, etc.

You’ll find two teams: the ones who are on keto and everything good that happens to them, it was keto who did it. It is like being part of some religion for them.

Team 2: they’re suspicious, or watched a video or read a blog of someone suspicious, then something bad happens… it was keto! Perhaps keto had nothing to do with it! Perhaps it was just genes, perhaps it was something they already had it and didn’t know it and keto was even keeping it from becoming worse.

We’ll never have answers to all of these questions about our health. Genes count for a lot. You have blue eyes, no matter what you eat.

So, keep a watch on your health. Keep an eye on your numbers, blood, urine tests. Be ready to be critical. Don’t automatically blame your diet, but also don’t assume it is perfect.

Besides eating, there are other things one can do to try to be healthy. It’ll help some. You can work on those, too, if you’re so inclined.

Be suspicious of vloggers, bloggers, internet doctors who sell supplements. Never accept everything they say. This whole thing became a way for people to make a lot of money selling supplements. Ironically, they’re always criticizing Big Pharma, so they’re easy to spot.

(Stickin' with mammoth) #6

You are my spirit animal, Robin.

(Stickin' with mammoth) #7

See, I think you are living proof that people can find the absolute perfect fit for themselves on keto. It doesn’t mean that everybody needs to follow your specific protocol to the letter because, obviously, everyone’s coming from a different place, going to a different place, and riding in a different body, but you’ve set the bar for KCKO-ing until one arrives at the sweet spot. Well done, sir.

(Robin) #8

Are you calling me a Cheetah? :wink:

Oh wait… Cougar! Sheesh. Being clever is hard sometimes.

(Bob M) #9

It’s actually true for some of us, like me. I don’t think it’s a “religion” for me, though.

(Alec) #10

Did this Ginger explain why eating carbs maintains metabolism? Makes no sense to me. If the body needs carbs, it makes them. So the body actually does have carbs when it needs them, but it doesn’t need them orally.
Cheers
Alec

#11

So I’m tricky to judge since I wrecked my metabolic rate with fasting, BUT I started fasting because I stopped being able to lose fat even though I was doing everything right. I also heard of long term keto slowing down Thyroids and started looking into it, once I started asking around outside of keto circles I found a ton of people that did keto long term and had the same result.

Since I’m a bloodwork junkie for numerous reasons, I started looking back at my labs the from the last couple years and right in front of my face was my thyroid numbers slowly getting worse as time went on which made perfect sense. So that’s enough for me to believe it as it clearly happened to me. I do a hybrid of TKD/CKD now so I’m no longer worried about it, and reverse dieting got my metabolic rate back up and I’m good now.

(Bob M) #12

But there’s every reason to believe people on keto don’t have the same thyroid values. This, for instance:

I’ve been LC/keto for 9 years, and have reached the strongest that I’ve been in that time. I also have lost all the weight I gained while trying the Croissant Diet.

If my “thyroid values” were bad, would this happen?

(Stickin' with mammoth) #13

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(Jane) #14

Were you ClareBear? Anyway, welcome back!

#15

And we know that non-restrictive “eating everything” diets ruin health quite often. People eat so much bad things… It’s fine to cut off more or less bad (for us personally) food groups as long the rest will give us everything we need and the new diet suits us better.
Very restrictive diets should be done carefully. Except if it’s some popular style of carnivore, meat is nutritious enough to be enough for most people (not all would like that but the body would function okay), no essentials are left out, it’s cool (but nope, one still should be careful. it’s just not a worrying thought that something is left out as long as one eats enough and preferably not the worst quality stuff but it’s true for every diet)… Doing a vegan keto is loads more difficult I imagine.
But I am a tad biased :smiley: I still don’t say keto is for everyone, surely not. My SO couldn’t even do low-carb but he is thriving on his own low-meat HCHF and I trust him to do it for 7-8 more decades (we have plans). Each to their own.
And the human body is pretty resilient. We should find a great woe for us but I for one doesn’t worry about tiny details, my body will tell me if it wants something it doesn’t want to handle (but I need a pretty communicative, smart body for that, I am so lucky).
(Worrying at this point would harm my health, actually. I spent a lot of time on learning and experimenting, it won’t stop but it will slow down.)

I agree with a lot of things you wrote. It’s never good to be a blind fanatic or hater, accepting or rejecting things without enough info or thinking.

And I am healthy, probably certain problems require an even careful approach…

#16

And I’d be fine with that if mine sucked by normal lab range but I was still able to lose weight, but I wasn’t and when they were normal again I could. While lab ranges sometimes matter and sometime don’t, and (can) be different for people depending on a lot of things, WOE being one of them, it seems at least in my case and a bunch of others it wasn’t. When mine are in the high normal range I do night and day better.

That I think is individual, even when mine was bottomed out and I had a terrible time burning anything I was just barely out of lab range, like by .2 or something, which normally would be ignored. I’ve also had it cranked up too high and had hyperthyroid symptoms before I found my sweet spot. I have buddies with what I’d call terrible testosterone levels, they claim they feel fine, as I though I did when mine was way lower… then I had that (we’ll go with corrected) and I realized I forget what awesome felt like. We’re all WAY different when it comes to hormonal levels and how we feel.