I have had great success being in ketosis and becoming a healthier person over the last 7-8 months.
My daughter who is 12 is getting pretty well overweight and her mother is very skeptical of my WOE and therefore does not wan’t to let her child try it.
Is there any research on the effects of kids using this WOE to become more healthy?
Mom wants to ask the pediatrician, but I have a feeling I know how that will go…
Thanks for any advice and help
The pediatrician is going to balk. I’ll caution you right now. My son was on the verge of obesity at 8. At 9 we pulled grain out of his diet and he stopped gaining weight. At 17 he’s on something approximating keto - higher fat lower carb but still eats fruit daily (limited servings) and drinks whole milk.
Pull her off all added sugar and grain. Let he keep drinking milk and make sure she gets plenty of protein. She will likely start to lose and her tastes will change. But don’t force feed her excess fat to meet an 80% fat macro. Let her appetite be the guide. Just pulling out grain and added sugar will help with her leptin and ghrelin start to function way better.
Photo attached to show your wife
Your best option would be, without creating a sense of pressure, guilt, or shame about her weight, to educate her about the health risks from overweight, what causes it, and some general strategies to help counteract it.
Those include developing habits of regular physical activity, reducing time spent just staring at a screen of some kind, learning what kinds of food are not healthy, learning how to navigate social pressures and handling relationships with peers, and developing a healthy relationship with food as a source of nutrition and energy, and not as a drug to treat negative emotions.
Basically just non-judgemental information and guidance about how to be her healthiest self for the long term.
It is SO much better if you get a handle on this stuff at age 12 than waiting until you are 22 or 42 or 62. I wish I could send a letter back to my 12-year-old self about establishing the right habits then.
How does your daughter feel about it? You can’t force the issue if she doesn’t want it for sure. Kids will eat away from the house. I think there’s been plenty of kids who’ve been helped with getting healthy and loosing weight. I have seen some pictures here on the forum. It’s so much better than dieting which many teenage girls get into. It’s always the right time to introduce healthy eating habits. No one hesitated to do that with the healthy high carb model. When we’re born we are keto. Parents introduce carb foods and of course if we do that too early the child gets sick. Kind of an omen for the future, right? 
I agree if you pull the processed foods, sugar and grains she could still have a wide variety of foods. Be prepared to cook and make sure she has tasty lunches and snacks. If she feels deprived you could cause a slew of other problems from secret eating, eating guilt and shame, body image issues, etc. It’s a super delicate time for a girl anyway. She probably already doesn’t feel adequate and she’s going into the seventh grade (the hardest). The last thing you want is for her to feel like you guys think she’s fat and to feel monitored every time she takes a bite of food.
We practiced zero sugar and healthy whole food and everyone in the family ate the same thing. Nobody was singled out or given a “special” eating plan. I didn’t expect my son to eat anything I wouldn’t and was prepared to eat healthily as well, to set a solid example.
Children have thrived on real food for over a million years. A high carb diet is a relatively new concept in the human evolutionary timeline. I think if you exchange processed foods for single item, whole foods yours will thrive as well.
Dr. Zoe Harcombe describes carbohydrate as a non-essential nutrient. She says:
The lower limit of dietary carbohydrate compatible with life apparently is zero, provided that adequate protein and fat are consumed.
Educate
I have a 12 year old and mom is non-keto
So I share my knowledge and love of good food.
She wants Cheetos … I teach her about Brie and Gruyere
She wants chips … I teach her about spicy pork rinds and prosciutto … with lettuce and EVOO mayo
She wants dip … I teach her about goat cheese and EVOO
She wants a burger, I teach her about ribeye and tenderloin
She wants sushi, I teach her sashimi
She wants to know why her teachers and friends at school think she’s crazy for saying that eating fat makes you lose fat… I tell her to share my experience losing 95lbs and she can take a picture of me lifting with her phone to show.
It’s a process and every idea is a seed.
Mine still misses her Nutella… but choczero is a step in the right direction.
And if mom objects, just tell her that growing needs protein, nutrients and energy. Fat energy is “just as good” as carb energy - so let’s focus on getting her eating protein and green veggies
He does! All the time he tells us how grateful he is that we changed his diet. At the time he wasn’t happy about it but as a teen who feels good about himself, he knows NOW it was worth changing the habits.
Is he eating you out of house and home? These teenage boys can really pack it away!
It is amazing how much food he can put away and stay that lean. But if he started sugar and grain again, he’d blow right up. That’s how I KNOW it’s not calories in, calories out! He eats plenty of calories!
Thanks everyone!
One on my own concerns is that I have read how this WOE has changed menstruation in some women.
My daughter has not had her first yet, but I’m sure it will be soon. can this WOE be problematic in that respect?
Thanks again everyone!
If you pull out grain and sugar and mostly processed food, she will be in much better health overall, so I don’t know how there would be a problem. Honestly, if she is overweight, I am surprised she hasn’t started menstruating by 12 because obesity often leads to early menstruation.
As long as she gets enough protein and fat, she’ll be fine.
This is not caloric restriction
