Keto in prison

#1

Sooo… here’s a real challenge for my Ketonian family.

I have a relative in prison whom I dearly love (please don’t judge :neutral_face:) Besides getting off drugs and seriously changing his life, he’s trying to improve or at least maintain his health during the two remaining years he will be locked up. As you all can imagine, the diet in there isn’t exactly the healthiest and many, many of the guys in prison are diabetic. We send him a bit of money so he can buy some nuts, canned fish, sausages, etc. at the commissary.

He’s already cut way back on sugar and starches and lost 20 pounds in a couple of months, but he wants to take it further. He doesn’t want to lose more weight, just improve his diet. He’s 39 and generally pretty healthy.

So here’s two questions…

  1. I don’t think he can go full-on keto because of what’s available in there, but would at least aiming for lower carb – say, under 100 grams/day – be beneficial for his health?

  2. If he cuts back more on carbs, he’ll be eating a LOT of canned, high sodium foods from the commissary. Is there an upper limit on the amount of sodium he should get? Also, would he be getting too much protein? He can’t buy butter, only margarine. But we can send him olive oil in a bottle and coconut oil in capsules.

Here’s what he eats now:

BREAKFAST
1/2 cup oatmeal w 1 T peanut butter
hard boiled egg
coffee with skim milk (they don’t have full fat).

LUNCH
1 pack of water-packed tuna
1 small bag sunflower seeds

DINNER
Whatever meat-like product they serve, OR canned tuna, canned chicken, canned sardines.
small salad, bit of overcooked veggies
1/2 cup of rice or 2 corn tortillas
sometimes 1/2 cup of beans

Plus he eats 2 snacks a day of sausage and cheese, olives, or some nuts or canned smoked clams. He drinks only water, coffee and tea sweetened with stevia.

Any suggestions on how to improve this diet would be very welcome. Thanks!

Keto Complaint Department
(G. Andrew Duthie) #2

I don’t think I’d worry about the sodium…fears of salt are grossly overblown, and if he’s otherwise healthy, extra salt from eating canned foods is probably a pretty low priority on the scale of things to be concerned about.

Cutting carbs, even if he can’t get to keto levels, should at least keep things from getting worse, and may improve things. If he’s already dropped 20 lbs, that’s a good sign. If he’s not severely insulin resistant, he may well be able to get by with keeping carbs at levels that would not work for someone with IR.

I would tell him to skip the margarine and skim milk. The former isn’t a good source of fats at all, and the latter has more lactose per serving than is worth it. If you can send him olive oil and coconut oil, that’s great.

The other thing he may be able to do, if he’s allowed to, is intermittent fasting. That can help with maintaining insulin sensitivity, and given that he isn’t able to have full control over what foods are available, intermittent fasting may help him keep insulin under control.

Good on you helping him take care of his health. Here’s hoping he’s able to come out healthy and ready to make the most of his changed life.

(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #3

^^^what y’all both said. Sounds like a stellar plan. Yes, I’d do intermittent fasting if he is comfortable with it. Maybe that wouldn’t work there, but if it did, that’d be a great way to avoid some of the shitty choices.

#4

Thanks so much!

The IF is a great idea. He’s already doing an 18-hour fast every Friday because he is part of a Native American sweat lodge and all of them fast before the sweat.

#5

How long is he in for?

#6

I find the whole topic of carb-heavy meals inducing obesity or diabetes in prison very compelling. I’ve noticed a lot in the newspapers and medical studies referring to this problem lately. Here are a few examples.

An article on typical carb-heavy meals is a US prison:

A study on obesity in women’s prison:

An article on female prisoners demanding less carb-heavy meals:

#7

Two years.

(Patty W) #8

I’m sorry that your loved one & your family are going through a challenging time. I think it’s wonderful that he is willing to look at new ways to live his life so that he can be a healthier person, hopefully in all ways; and that he has a family that is willing to help him through that. We all have the option to make better choices as best we can in our diet, as well as other areas in our lives. Good luck to you all!

#9

Wow, those articles are interesting. I’m going to print them and send them to him. I also sent a friend of his in there (who was trained as a registered dietician out here in the real world) a copy of The Art and Science of Low Carb Living.

#10

Thank you for the kind words.

#11

Is it possible to buy a multivitamin at the commissary if it isn’t already provided?

#12

Yes, he can get One A Day or a Centrum mulitvitamin.

(eat more) #13

can he skip the oatmeal in the morning?

edit: i’ve been reading about meal timing
cortisol/blood glucose are already elevated in the morning and eating carbs first thing interrupts cortisol (with insulin)…which affects human growth hormone and ghrelin (at least i think i’m understanding it correctly lol)

#14

So interrupting the morning cortisol would be a good or bad thing? I’ve heard conflicting things saying ‘if you must eat carbs have them in the evening/morning’… confused.

(James storie) #15

Is there a limit to how many eggs they will let him have? I would skip the oatmeal and triple or quadruple the eggs, or more ( I love eggs! ). When it comes to the cortisol, the way I understand it is that it wakes the body up and gets everything going. So interrupting it in the morning is a bad thing. This is what it’s supposed to do.

#16

Oh I see… I’ll suggest he drop the oatmeal, but I don;t think he can get any more eggs, darn it. He could eat some summer sausage and cheese, though.

(eat more) #17

what he said about cortisol :slight_smile:
there’s also ghrelin (the hunger hormone) which is also higher in the morning…which stimulates growth hormone…which stimulates fat burning and muscle building.
insulin shuts the cortisol down which shuts the others down

i wish i had the dots connected better in my brain to explain it more clearly

#18

No worries, that makes perfect sense now to me, thanks!

(James storie) #19

That would work, but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t allow more eggs. They are so inexpensive. I guess it’s the fact that you have to keep them cold. You tell him we’re all rooting for him!

#20

Hey maybe he can trade his oatmeal to someone for an egg!

I will! I read him the first couple of comments over the phone and he was sooo grateful for the support, as am I. Will read him the rest tonight. :smiley: