"Keto diet" has fruit, sweet potatoes, and low-fat cheese on it ?!?

(Jeanne Wagner) #1

Yesterday, we got a new lady started in my department. She’s from AARP, who places retired people in jobs. We rely on these folks to help us at our front desk. You’d be amazed that the sheer experience these folks have! We consider them a blessing. Anyway…

I was out doing my lunch-time walk and some of our peeps had already sat down to eat their lunch, including this new lady. When I came in after my walk, they immediately started telling me she was eating keto too and if I didn’t mind, would I tell them how much weight I had lost so far? So I’m like ‘sure, 30 lbs’ . Then I look at what she is eating. A plate with a sweet potato, fruit, and she’s munching on a cheese string stick. This puzzled me. Big time. I’m thinking maybe this is a branch of Keto I don’t know about (not really, but I’m trying to give her the benefit of the doubt). Meanwhile I pull out my dish of ribeye steak, shrimp, and asparagus, all on a bed of cauliflower, topped off with homemade alfredo sauce. Like, the most delicious meal in the universe. So we get to talking, and I find out she had heard about the diet to lose weight and a friend of hers gave her this Keto 2-week diet plan. wtf??? I told her that if she went off keto she’d gain the weight back. And she said ‘even if I ate healthy?’ At this point you can almost knock me over with a feather. I’m wracking my brain trying to figure out how she doesn’t know a damned thing about keto yet claims to be eating keto. But she isn’t clearly after looking at the plate she has in front of her. She was saying things about low fat eating and I said noooo, you need to go higher fat. She said that will clog your arteries. I’m dying over here.

Long story short, she’s going to bring in her diet plan on Monday so I can look at it. I just want to see if it has a title, and what the heck is on it. In the meantime, I told her to go to Dr. Ken Berry’s facebook page since he’s been killing it with informational videos and he has tons of great links in a pinned post at the top of his page.

This will definitely be updated, but I had to say something here. I’m still reeling.

(Brian) #2

Yeah, sometimes a person has to wonder where this stuff comes from. It sounds a lot more like paleo than keto. (??)

(Jeanne Wagner) #3

Yes I did ask her for her to clarify if it was keto or paleo. She insisted it was keto. I’m drawing a blank.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #4

I had a similar experience with a coworker.

She just started Keto and proceeded to give me a resource where I could get exogenous ketones that are “getting her into ketosis” and then she sat down to eat a ton of strawberries and milk chocolate covered almonds.

Okay, not quite as off as sweet potatoes, but still liable to prevent actual ketosis. And what she’s testing for is simply the exogenous ketones she’s taking orally, not ones she’s producing.

#5

The only thing I can come up with - if it’s a legit plan - is that it’s a two-week stint to prepare folks for keto? So ease down the carbs, and build up to higher fat?
(in my world, low fat cheese is not ever legit, but some folks do have trouble digesting the fats early on)
Otherwise, it’s just bs, and you’ve done what you can.

(Jeanne Wagner) #6

Madeleine that is another thing I thought, an ‘easing into it’ protocol. I don’t know that that’s a good protocol, though. Still haven’t seen the plan. Hopefully she’ll remember it on Monday. :+1:

(Jeanne Wagner) #7

Annie, I would consider the chocolate covered almonds and strawberries worse than a small sweet potato. But neither all that great no matter.

Using exogenous ketones in such a way as she is is another example of the high level of ignorance out there. The proper knowledge isn’t yet widespread enough. These things get misinterpreted as legit.

(Linda) #8

Our local news station did a small segment on keto yesterday. They didn’t impart anything useful at all. Except the part about having to watch the carbs in your TOOTHPASTE and saying it gives you bad breath. Nothing at all about the normalizing effect on blood sugars for the T2 folks or any other positive benefits on metabolic health. Yoicks. We’ve got a long way to go.

(Jeanne Wagner) #9

Oh nooo… Well I’m there with you, I’ve seen those types of things on tv too. I’m absolutely sure that they are told to give that kind of message. The media is very powerful. Their advertisers rule them. You can be certain they are not about to offend their advertisers.

(Empress of the Unexpected) #10

I can’t wait for an update!!

(Ashley) #11

I’m excited for an update. Hoping you can show her some things. Maybe bring her a guided eat this and not that keto type of foods that are acceptable.

#12

I’ve more than once been told “That’s not Keto”, even though the food item might have no carbs at all. There are a lot of definitions out there. The one I run into most is that keto means “healthy” LCHF food items such as grass-fed beef and free-range chickens. To them, any other kind of beef or chicken is not keto.

My response to them is always that the definition of a keto WOE is that it keeps your body in ketosis. That’s where the the name comes from. And that’s what differentiates it as a subset of low carb diets.

But that means some fruit and sweet potatoes might work as part of someone’s keto WOE. Everyone has a different tolerance for carbs. In general, though, not a good idea. And some people won’t be able to tolerate them at all.

But if someone has little idea of what keto really means, definitely not a good idea. To me, a “2-week” challenge or intro to keto should be the strict limit of 20 net carbs, to make sure someone will be in ketosis. After that, they can increase it to see if more carb intake causes problems.

(cheryl) #13

I thought so too. I probably would have just let her enjoy her sweet potato. I kind of miss a good soft baked sweet potato myself :drooling_face:

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #14

Might be one of the vegetarian keto plans. They are pretty high in high fiber foods, with only cheese and no other meat product that would be my best guess.

And not everyone requires 20 carbs to be in ketosis, some can tolerate more and be able to measure a good ketone level.

(Jeanne Wagner) #15

True, and she wasn’t terribly obese, I’d say simply overweight. She may be more insulin sensitive than not. We’ll find out Monday hopefully what that plan is… The thing is though, she is of the low-fat camp, thinking that fats clog your arteries. I don’t think that’s keto thinking.

(Alec) #16

I think to do keto you pretty much have to believe that eating fat does not clog your arteries (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean!!). If you did believe that, you would not be eating fat, right?

I bet there are some folks out there trying to do low fat keto! :joy::rofl::joy::thinking:

My first reaction to the OP was:

  1. Low fat cheese is an abomination of the devil. Has anyone actually eaten low fat cheese that tasted any good? We make it… I wouldn’t recommend it.
  2. As keto becomes more mainstream (and it is inching there!), there will be all sorts of people who don’t have a clue setting themselves up as keto diet experts and selling their services. This sounds like one of the early starters to me.

I am just so glad I bumped into this forum before I read much else on keto. This is the perfect place to learn: there is truth, wisdom, different opinions, science, experiments, balance, sometime craziness, lots of people willing to advise and help and teach, and people willing to point to evidence and studies. All I can say is thank you to the dudes for gathering us here. :sunglasses::sunglasses:

(Ashley) #17

Maybe show her some articles and videos that describes it being good. Some people are visual and it’s easier to get if there’s “doctors” or “nutritionists” saying it’s good.

(Alec) #18

Nah, send her in our direction, we’ll soon sort her out! :rofl::rofl::rofl:

(Ashley) #19

Fair enough lol! I concur!

(Ken) #20

This is just the beginning. And it’s not the first example. What I’m talking about is the distortion and corruption of a concept to the point it’s no longer valid or scientific. What is starting to happen to the Keto concept is the same thing that has happened to Paleo. In both cases it appears to be aimed at the Carb component, convincing people they can eat carbs of types and amounts above the low level necessary for Lipolysis.