Is the Ketogenic Diet or Lifestyle Maintainable? Asking for a friend

(Tom Seest) #1

My father-in-law will be wheeled into a surgical ward for open heart surgery this morning, and I find it disturbing, motivating, and somewhat depressing. I love my father-in-law as I love my own dad, and hope that the surgeons successfully put their high tech duct tape on the current problems.

My father-in-law successfully maintained a heart healthy diet for most of his life; given the definition by most heart advocate organizations. But, sadly, years of eating this diet, to lower his cholesterol (his father died with a heart attack), let to long term health challenges that are not easy to over come at his current age.

I find the entire episode disturbing because he hasn’t had any symptoms until now, and the symptoms he experienced were during extreme exertion. Surely, this condition is resolvable with lifestyle changes. But, my father-in-law trusts his doctors and surgeons, and I hope and pray for good long term outcomes for him.

But, his SAD diet is not maintainable. Someday, regardless of the procedures, medications and advice he receives, his SAD diet will eventually kill him.

Is the Ketogenic diet or lifestyle maintainable? Or, does it have long term health outcomes that are bad like the SAD diet. This question is often repeated, in the Vegan, Zero Carb, Low Carb, and Mediterranean diet communities. Sadly, given the current financial and ethical limits on nutritional and medical science, we may never know the answer.

But, are we really asking the correct question? Or, is the better question: Is a life full of bountiful health obtainable if I eat this way for now? Is it better? Am I open to making changes and adapting as new information available, and trying new things? Or, will I just be critical of everything, new or not, and treat symptoms with meds, therapies and procedures? We all have to make an honest assessment of ourselves, in this regard, or we will ultimately fail. It might be in our teens, it might be in our 30’s, our 50’s, or our 70’s, but ultimately, the status quo will fail.

But, my father-in-law has a big, giving heart and I’m confident he’s asked these questions of himself. He’s confident in his choices, whether correct or incorrect, and I honor his choices. While I may disagree with him presently, and while I may present him with information for him to consider for his future, I’m not going to argue with him regarding his choices. In my almost 30 years of marriage to his daughter, he has yet to argue with me, or question any of my decisions regarding my family or my health.

Unfortunately, most people aren’t like my father-in-law. Friendships come and go, over arguments about food choices, lifestyle choices, and it is sad.

Is the Keto Diet or Lifestyle maintainable for me? I don’t honestly know. I do know that it has saved my life, literally, at least twice during the last 3 years. I’ve recovered from the unrecoverable. I continue to exist. Will it always work for me? I don’t know. It’s not an answerable question.

I encourage you to be open to new ideas, new information, and make the best decisions you can. My father-in-law has made his, and you will have to make yours. And, you will live or die from your choices.

But, I honor your decisions and wish you the best of health.

#2

Tom, this is a wonderful write-up, thank you. I’m so sorry to hear of your father-in-law’s condition, and I hope he recovers quickly from surgery. I, too, had a father-in-law who meant as much to me as my own dad and it was devastating to me when he passed (also would have benefitted from this WOE, I have no doubt). Best wishes to your whole family. :heart:

(Tom Seest) #3

Thank you…I’m so sorry for your loss…

(Edith) #4

I have a similar quandary. My mother has developed an inflammatory problem that makes her very uncomfortable. Since keto is anti-inflammatory, I’ve been thinking about suggesting she give it a try.

Unfortunately, she is not a risk taker and I don’t know if she would be willing to go against the medical/dietary dogma. The other problem would be helping her keep her electrolytes up. I’m not sure how well that would go over. That requires ignoring the salt dogma as well.

I guess it doesn’t hurt to suggest and provide some info.

(Karen) #5

The deal on saturated fat and low carb diets from experts at the illustrious conference. Big names from various diet persuasions.

K

#6

For me, it has been. In nearly five decades of dieting, I’ve never kept to a diet longer than 6 months. And only then with the aid of appetite suppressants now banned by the FDA.

I’ve been doing a calorie restricted version of keto for about 18 months, and lazy keto for about 3 years before that. What makes it sustainable for me is that I no longer have a ravenous hunger all the time. And keto has also been far more effective at treating my T2 diabetes than insulin and metformin ever were.

Those are two strong reasons to motivate me to continue, even though it’s practically effortless at this point. Carb-heavy foods barely show up on my radar any more, just like before when I would run across foods I didn’t like. They’re just automatically filtered out and get no consideration.

My biggest issue these days is that I still have bad eating habits. I eat at habitual times (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and still habitually make larger plates of food than I need. I haven’t made the leap to “foods are fuel, and nothing more”.

(Jeff Gilbertson) #7

My mother in law has macular degeneration and rheumatoid arthritis.

Both of these conditions can be helped by eating ketogenic.

I’ve tried a couple times to talk to her about this, but, she thinks I’m nuts “Why would you want to cut out a whole food group (carbs)?”

I’ve mentioned the same to her daughter (my wife, obviously).
She knows it’s the truth, and has tried to talk to her mom a few times, too, with no success.

Her mom is of the generation that believes EVERYTHING the person in the white coat says.

So, she’ll continue to eat oatmeal almost every morning, and continue to eat bread products, and try to avoid fats, etc, etc, and she’ll die 10-15 years prematurely whilst suffering pain and blindness the last portion of her life.

It saddens me, and it angers me.

This is the second time I’ve had to go through this.
The first time was with my dad.

I kept trying to get him to eat low carb as I saw his weight continue to climb.

I can only think of twice in my life when he raised his voice in anger to me.
The second time was when he told me to stop talking to him about diet.

So, I stopped.

He died of a stroke about three years later at age 76.

It’s just SO frustrating to see people you love suffer, and know that it doesn’t have to be that way.

But, it’s their decision and their consequences.

Still, I try to give diet consult when it seems like there’s a “window of opportunity.”
Sadly, that doesn’t happen very often.

(Edith) #8

Yes, I was talking to my son about that just the other day. I told him you can tell when someone is possibly receptive to the diet conversation and when someone is not.

According to my brother, our mom is desperate, so maybe she will be receptive. I will probably bring a copy of Keto Clarity. It is definitely written for the lay person and maybe if she reads it, she will understand the possible benefits.

Like I mentioned before, it can’t hurt to try, even if I can only get in one attempt.

(Maha) #9

Yes, it’s sustainable if you get off of carbs and processed foods. If not, then it’s difficult to sustain because your body continues to crave them. Better to fight those cravings once and get rid of them than to maintain them and keep fighting them.

As for the health aspect, if you consider that for millions of years our ancestors ate a keto diet, and we are their descendants, then yes, it’s healthy. If keto wasn’t the way we were intended to eat, the human race would have died out ages ago. This carb heavy diet we have today is recent, it’s the fad diet, not the other way around.

I always find it amusing when other people say or think the keto diet is bad for you. I wonder to myself, what part? Eating whole foods? Not eating processed foods? Not drowning yourself in sugar? I really want to know what part is bad for you. I remember watching a documentary about polar bears and how they had to eat this vast amount of fat in the summer to sustain them in the winter. Although we’re not polar bears, we are mammals like them…why would animals eating fat be okay but not for humans? If one thinks logically about questions like this, it makes sense that keto is a healthy and sustainable way of eating (individual tweaks may be necessary).

Good luck to you and your FIL. I hope you’re able to convince him to give this way of eating a try. Maybe just start with the big ticket items, like removing processed foods and sugar, then work from there. Suggest he read Why We Get Fat and the Obesity Code. Those two books are excellent for explaining the science.

(Kirk) #10

Tom, that was a great, insightful post. I very much hope your father-in-law makes it.

I survived an unexpected heart attack four years ago. I had run a couple 5ks that week, walked seven miles in deep snow bow-hunting, and led an attack on a large fire as Chief the day before. I was heavier by about 40 pounds, but in good shape and eating paleo for a couple years. It turned out the carbon monoxide from some smoke inhalation thickened my blood enough to clot at an unexpected plaque in a coronary artery. I got away with one stent and a new lease on life. (There was the small issue of two arrests and defibs, but thats water under the bridge now.)

You just never know with this stuff, but I’m sold on low carb being the best direction I,can take. I’m below my high school weight, stronger than ever in my life and still an active firefighter at 62.

(Jackie ) #11

I totally hear what you’re saying. My partner (who is only in his 40’s) just had a stent put in his heart due to clogged arteries. His “white coats” have him on a strict low fat, no red meat diet. But he continues to eat 8 slices of bread a day and has a voracious appetite.

It’s hard to convince them of the science and logic after years of mis-truths and false assumptions have convinced everyone that fat makes you fat, fats cause heart disease and HF causes high cholesterol.