Is it ketosis or just very low carbs which helps?

[ffskier]

To many factors to isolate. Going from eating ad libitum to being a disciplined eater can and does make a difference.

[scaperdude]

As has been discussed at length, plants contain many chemicals which have the potential to be harmful to us. I don’t know whether anyone has any thoughts on this?

Learn what plants are problematic, and don’t eat them - or at least not much of them. I eat cruciferous vegetables including kale salads and a nut mix I make all through keto, but I generally never have discernable digestive issues on anything other than lots of beans. If I eat beans, I generally lessen the gas issue by taking a gas enzyme to help digest the raffinose - that also seems to eliminate the burps. I also eat berries in my morning yogurt all through keto, and sometimes a grapefruit afterwards depending on whether I want to lose fat or not. Many people with oxalate sensitivity can have digestive symptoms such as acid reflux, heartburn, bloating, constipation, diarrhea and gas. Sounds like maybe you? Foods most people don’t think about such as lettuce and carrots have a considerable load of oxalates. Lettuce is about a third of spinach. Carrots and potatoes are common foods in stews and is a high oxalate combo. I eat very little lettuce anymore - I eat a kale salad now with my homemade MCT dressing. For some reason people give kale a bad rap, but it is much lower in oxalates than most other leafy greens. Kale does have a little raffinose, but nothing like beans. However, that said, like other cruciferous veggies it is goitrogenic so should be mostly avoided by people with thyroid issues unless cooked.

[cvkemp]

I grew up on the farm,I eat and ate all types of vegetables, fruits and nuts. I also eat lots of different types of meat and seafood.
I am someone that likes a variety of real food. I just keep away from highly processed, fast foods and artificial sweeteners. I even eat potatoes, and other starchy foods in small quantities. The key is to know thyself, no what triggers your body to have issues, and know what triggers you to overeat and have cravings.
Personally I believe there there are way too many people, so called experts and professionals that are crying wolf. Everybody is an individual, everyone has some strengths and weaknesses to different food items, or how that food is grown, processed or prepared.

[scaperdude]

I am someone that likes a variety of real food. I just keep away from highly processed, fast foods and artificial sweeteners. I even eat potatoes, and other starchy foods in small quantities. The key is to know thyself, no what triggers your body to have issues, and know what triggers you to overeat and have cravings.

You’re a man after my own heart. I like eating this way. It just takes a little time to prepare each meal. Something a lot of people don’t have patience for anymore. However, I still feel there are a few advantages to doing my intermittent fasting and keto in the fall. I think the autophagy has prevented me from having any saggy skin, and it is still really the main way I know of losing body fat - still after that elusive six pack…

[Pjam]

Learn what plants are problematic, and don’t eat them

Yes. That’s my quest also. Not always easy, requires lots of experimentation. I really wanted to eat some low carb veg, the cruciferous vegetables would be perfect, sadly that’s exactly the kinda thing I don’t process very well. FODMAPS I learnt. Bit by bit my list of veg is shrinking. You might be the same.
I do still cling on to the hope one can get over this and be able to reintroduce such offending items

[Shinita]

Meanwhile I just cut off my precious vegs I probably never can add them back as I lost about all desire to eat them (onion and tomato lasted longer but even they disappear slowly). I am fine with all except the carb part but vegs are quite carby (if one eats them like I did in the past) so tiny amounts or nothing for me. SO much better and cheaper too, vegs are super expensive unlike meat. Well the meat I like and eat. But even comparing it with some ruminant meat (luxury to me), the meat is valuable and the veg is just water and little else (in my eyes, at least). It’s hunger inducing while meat is satiating… (Of course there are cheaper vegs, we buy those as my SO needs vegs. I just like some crunchy slice of pepper or juicy cucumber sometimes, I consider their nutrition value about zero - and in the amounts I consume them,
it’s almost completely true - but they are joyful.)

It’s still nice I have zero problem with vegs (except the carbs) so I can eat them on off days. Not like I want them but if there is some pork/veggie soup at a relative, I can eat it. With all the meat in it (it’s bony meat and no one else wants that, lucky me). I love the veg and meat flavored liquid, I am neutral with the actual veggie pieces and I don’t eat proper dense veggie dishes anymore.

The only veggie group that is in the past is the very very sugary ones. Like beetroot. Inedibly sweet. I used to eat it with vinegar and that helped for a while but not anymore.
Fruits are better as they are supposed to be sweet, the sugar doesn’t bother me as much. Except many fruits tend to be SUPER sugary and that makes them bordeline inedible. They are my darling fruits so it can’t stop me, merely make the amount tiny and that’s great.
I only lost my love towards vegs, never towards fruit. I just don’t need them anymore, that’s helpful. So not much desire for fruit - but they are still among the tastiest things ever Well, the good ones. Sometimes they reach good pork level in palatability and that is the highest level for me.

(Of course I managed to bring fruits here too… I tend to do this, I don’t plan it ever, it just happens. Fruits are amazing and I love to think and write about them. Eating is optional since I lost the actual desire to do so - usually - but I hardly can avoid that sometimes. I still have the “but it is there…” reason to consume certain things… But I can moderate myself so all is well.)

[cooked]

Just to round things off, don’t forget the headline hitting “Scientists find that…” reports stating that ‘Keto-like diets cause heart attacks’ and you read that it’s supposed to be about low-carb diets, meaning less than 400 g daily.

[Alecmcq]

There’s no really good term. “Zero carb” was, I believe, the first term, but the diet is not precisely zero-carb, because of glycogen in the meat. “Carnivore” isn’t precisely accurate, either, since dairy and coffee are consumed by a significant proportion of the carnivore community

If naming this fantastic way of eating is our worst problem, we are doing OK!

I prefer “carnivore”. Coffee: we all know coffee is not carni, but we accept that small compromise. Dairy? OK, it’s not meat, but it does emanate from an animal, so I am happy to include dairy in carnivore. But I think we all have to be wary of drinking regular milk. Cream and derivatives are OK, but straight milk? My vote is no.

I have never used “zero carb” as eating pretty much anything does have some carbs.

healthy carbs

What are they then?

Is it the low carb or the ketones? It’s both.

[Shinita]

Well, human carnivores still eat way less plants than animal carnivores For animals it doesn’t meat it’s 100% animal items (as it isn’t only meat, of course).
Dairy is totally carnivore, why wouldn’t it be? Isn’t it about animal items? Even animals eat eggs, some eats only that (how those snakes do it I wonder sometimes, they must have very different dietary needs. I would get problems on eggs).
Coffee is definitely not carnivore as it’s plant. It is there in some carnivore’s diet to make life easier and/or more enjoyable but they know they don’t do pure, 100% animal carnivore due to it. It’s fine, 100% is usually harder than 99.9% and the tiny extra may not do a difference if we only look at the negative effect… Similarly, some spices and non-sugary condiments isn’t frowned upon if one isn’t a purist

Fangs said to me once that zero carb means zero carb from plants And it made perfect sense to me. I eat 2-20, sometimes more carbs per day from my carnivore items. It’s sometimes quite far from zero but as I noticed, my body doesn’t care about animal carbs, only the non-animal ones (well the plant ones, I never even ate much from fungi so I don’t know how that feels).

[0cac544b99285298bde6]

For me,.healthy carbs are the unprocessed ones. Fruit, veg, nuts, oatmeal, legumes. All in their natural state.

[cvkemp]

I totally agree.

[Shinita]

My healthy carbs are animal sugars but the others have various levels. And amounts matter a lot. I can get away even with fruits (basically candy, well the worse type, full with sugar and that’s it. I always prefered fatty, protein rich candy. fruits are just very special) if I eat them very rarely and/or in super tiny amounts. Usually. I like a more fruity day here and then and while I can’t see them healthy and definitely not necessarily, I know my body can handle me being a bit reckless…