Ketogenic Diet - Powerful Dietary Strategy for Certain Conditions

[Miss.K]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

>snip<

"There is no free lunch" also applies here. You can't just start doing the ketogenic diet from zero. You can't pretend that you didn't spent your whole lifetime eating crap and getting exposed to the worst possible pollutants from our environment. One step a time. You might be surprised at your good pace once you start reading with an adventuring attitude and proceed with the diet experimentation and research. Or so it seems to me.

>snip<

I think it depends to some degree on how much outdated information we ask people to go through. Asking them to read the LWB and KD topics along with the associated books is no more than any of us has had to do. >snip<

I am ambivalent on this,
-On the one hand I see the value of going through the steps that has lead to current knowledge, as it adds knowledge that one will otherwise not have, and also to ask people to do advanced studies will make them smarter, and teach them how to figure out things themselves instead of being authoritarian followers who do as the master commander says.

-On the other hand I see that there's little time, and huge difference in the resources that people have, (being IQ level, time, money, language skills etc.) so asking everybody to do the same, will for some be almost a free lunch and for others close to impossible.

I'm thinking that if the ketogenic diet will possibly help people to survive probable coming ice age, alien diseases, etc. and make them better at coping with stress, and make them more able to think, and have mental and emotional equilibrium, it might be a good idea to make it as easy as possible for as many as possible to get the info as fast as possible.

I don't know, I understand that one will have to learn or die, and this is the way nature works, but I just saw a post by an old friend on facebook, that I haven't spoken to for many years, who became a vegan about 10 years ago, which started out with wanting to lose weight and be healthy, (and he also stopped smoking) who posted "cute" pictures of Obama with the comment "I love this man" -and I must say I was shocked as I wouldn't have expected that of him, from what I know of him back when I knew him, and I couldn't help thinking that perhaps if this diet would be easier to come by for people, the world wouldn't be so screwed up.
(of cause it might be totally unrelated, and he might have lost his mind no matter what he'd been eating)

Perhaps a diet book for dummies would be good, then people could pay money for it in order to not have free lunch? :)

 

[Laura]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

That's why we have the new Ketogenic Diet thread itself. It goes farther than the "Life Without Bread" thread which went farther than the "Ultra Simple Diet" and detox material. BUT there are posts in the LWB thread where we moved deeper and deeper into research, sorting out things like why you don't need to supplement Vitamin C on a ketogenic diet, and so forth. So I would say that at the very least, reading THIS thread is super important. You will learn a lot about what people eat, what issues they have had, how those issues were dealt with, and so much more. The EXPERIENCES of all the experimenters are recorded here and there really isn't any substitute for getting that information. You don't know when you or someone you know may have one of those issues and you will need to know an approximation of how it was solved.

 

[Gaby]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I went through Life Without Bread and Ketogenic threads twice already and found them to be priceless and irreplaceable. I think that going through them as a newbie will provide with much invaluable information for troubleshooting and experimenting. LWB has a lot of theory on it and so does the ketogenic thread.

Perhaps, the only thing lacking is the elimination diet to find out food sensitivities. I thought about it and tried to make a paleo modified version of the elimination diet so people can find out their sensitivities. It can be done after implementing changes described in LWB thread and just right before the Ketogenic diet. It goes like this:

PALEO ELIMINATION DIET

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,26898.msg373596.html#msg373596

Keep your carb intake below 70 grams while you do the paleo elimination diet. You might find it hard reaching 70 grams of carbs since your sole carb source will be vegetables.

Step 1. Eat fatty meats or organs, your bone broth and vegetables for 4 days. No eggs or butter! You can choose ghee butter instead to add to your bone broth or vegetables. Always start with a big breakfast (even if it looks line dinner to you).

No cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, onions or garlic for a period - later, you introduce the sulfur containing veggies - the reason being some people are sensitive to sulfite containing foods. No other condiments than rosemary, cilantro, ginger, turmeric, black pepper and sea salt and olive oil.

Step 2. After 4 days, reintroduce eggs and see what happens in the next 3 days. If there was a reaction, eliminate eggs for at least 6 months when you can test it again.

Step 3. Proceed to test butter and wait for a possible reaction for the next 3 days. Same concept, if there was a reaction, eliminate for 6 months. You can substitute with ghee butter if you find you can’t tolerate real butter.

Step 4 and so forth. Test for the sulfur containing veggies, and other food culprits you might suspect. For some of us the natural sweetener stevia is inflammatory. For most of us coconut oil –despite its great fat - is inflammatory as well, which makes sense, it is a tropical fruit which was not around on the Northern hemisphere or else. Others can’t tolerate some spices. Most people can’t tolerate nuts except for cashews and walnuts. Nuts are often as high or even higher in phytic acid than grains! Dark chocolate (85% at the very minimum) can be tested as well. You can test all these foods with the paleo elimination diet.

The idea being that in a low carb diet of less than 70 grams of net carbs per day, most people's immune system are already stable enough so that certain foods can be tested after just a few days of eliminating the usual suspects while eating only those foods that are very neutral. Once a person gets to know their sensitivities, they can proceed with the ketogenic thread and diet for more intense healing. Then after 6 months or so, they may find out that can tolerate foods much better. For instance eggs if they were previously allergic to them.

For me it looks like the most reasonable way to do it. By eliminating gluten and dairy and other toxic foods, and by doing the dietary principles described in LWB, a lot of people are already working in stabilizing an immune system that is overreacting in the form of food sensitivities. Newbies will feel less deprived and as they go along, they could try this "Paleo Elimination Diet" in preparation for the ketogenic diet. Eliminating food sensitivities that may remain, will make it much easier for them to do the ketogenic diet. After all, we are all most addicted to the very things that damage us the most. So these are some thoughts.

 

[anart]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I am ambivalent on this,
-On the one hand I see the value of going through the steps that has lead to current knowledge, as it adds knowledge that one will otherwise not have, and also to ask people to do advanced studies will make them smarter, and teach them how to figure out things themselves instead of being authoritarian followers who do as the master commander says.

-On the other hand I see that there's little time, and huge difference in the resources that people have, (being IQ level, time, money, language skills etc.) so asking everybody to do the same, will for some be almost a free lunch and for others close to impossible.

I'm thinking that if the ketogenic diet will possibly help people to survive probable coming ice age, alien diseases, etc. and make them better at coping with stress, and make them more able to think, and have mental and emotional equilibrium, it might be a good idea to make it as easy as possible for as many as possible to get the info as fast as possible.

Perhaps a diet book for dummies would be good, then people could pay money for it in order to not have free lunch? :)

Perhaps those who are willing to actually do the work of reading about it, and applying it will survive and those who don't won't. It's not rocket science - it comes down to whether a person values knowledge enough to actually work for it or not. In the time you've spent arguing that it should be easier, you could have already made it through quite a bit of the thread.

 

[Scottie]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Perhaps those who are willing to actually do the work of reading about it, and applying it will survive and those who don't won't. It's not rocket science - it comes down to whether a person values knowledge enough to actually work for it or not. In the time you've spent arguing that it should be easier, you could have already made it through quite a bit of the thread.

Ya know, we've been tossing around the idea of a "diet book for dummies" for awhile now. The more I think about it, the worse the idea seems to me.

The bottom line is that darn near NO ONE will change their diet unless they understand why they're doing it. And the only way they can understand why they are doing it is to, um, understand why they are doing it. And that means reading, reading, reading...

I mean, just look at how hard it is to get somebody to understand that fruit is NOT okay because fructose is just as bad as sucrose. "But fruit is different! It's good for you!"

Or look at how hard it is to give up all grains, and gluten, and dairy, and and and...

Many of us have gone through a gradual process: first we stopped gluten, then dairy, then we went paleo, then keto. That is a vast oversimplification of the process, too...

For someone on a crap diet, there is simply no way that I can conceive of where they'll just read a 150 page book and go, "Oh, okay, I'll go keto now." The resistance to giving up even 1 type of food is often enormous. And, if global conditions continue to worsen, everyone is going to want their "comfort foods" even more, which will make the process that much more difficult.

Worse yet, it's pretty clear that the adjustment process must necessarily be gradual for most people, or severe detox/adjustment reactions can occur. Even if a person reads all the relevant threads here on the forum, that doesn't mean they can just start a ketogenic diet the next day.

And then of course there is the fact that no one wants to read anything in the first place, because it isn't in bite-size format. Well, heck, it's like saying, "Can't you make a 15 minute video that will teach me everything I need to know about designing, building, and flying rockets?"

I don't mean to say, "If you've missed the boat, you're screwed!" But we know that food shortages/price spikes are already happening, and that such conditions are generally followed by disease. There is no time to waste, and there is no magic bullet. One really does need to be aware of all the minor details, and there is no shortcut to stuff a large amount of knowledge into one's brain, and then start applying it.

It is necessarily hard work!

 

[mcb]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

...
And then of course there is the fact that no one wants to read anything in the first place, because it isn't in bite-size format. Well, heck, it's like saying, "Can't you make a 15 minute video that will teach me everything I need to know about designing, building, and flying rockets?"
...

I can imagine such a video. You show someone who clearly doesn't know what they are doing designing, building, and flying a rocket. No details are required.

Then you show it coming back down on their head. Maybe we need something like that? Oooh. It could be animated.

 

[Turgon]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

That's why we have the new Ketogenic Diet thread itself. It goes farther than the "Life Without Bread" thread which went farther than the "Ultra Simple Diet" and detox material. BUT there are posts in the LWB thread where we moved deeper and deeper into research, sorting out things like why you don't need to supplement Vitamin C on a ketogenic diet, and so forth. So I would say that at the very least, reading THIS thread is super important. You will learn a lot about what people eat, what issues they have had, how those issues were dealt with, and so much more. The EXPERIENCES of all the experimenters are recorded here and there really isn't any substitute for getting that information. You don't know when you or someone you know may have one of those issues and you will need to know an approximation of how it was solved.

Yes! I've been keeping up with the Ketogenic Diet thread intermittently but have been focused solely on LWB and it's been incredible. Just about EVERY problem I've had lowering carbs and increasing fats, the energy issues, feeling 'not myself' and a lot of the side-effects of the changes have been covered to some degree or another by other members and discussed. It's been invaluable as sometimes I get a few more pages through the thread and a question or problem I've been having is pretty much answered. That's happened more times than I can count.

I think the whole 'not enough time' when it comes to these diet changes is a waste of time in itself. I'm not stressing about catching up anymore but instead am making changes slowly and learning along the way.

And going through it this way rather than fast tracking has actually given me a better understanding where most of my health problems actually come from and tackling that at the same time (Thanks Psyche for the link to the adrenal thread - I'm having major aha moments reading it) I was completely against these diet changes for the longest time, kicking and screaming along the way and contemplated going back to being a carbivore more than a few times out of frustation, but as I continue reading and understanding for myself why these changes are so important it really creates inner-resolve and fortitude to stick with it and not let anyone else tell you differently.

 

[Miss.K]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Thank you everyone for clarification,
-my thoughts were not so much for myself, but more to avoid people getting confused and getting sick by combining banana shakes and loads of fat.
Didn't mean to argue, I could just understand how someone could get confused.

I myself don't understand many parts of what I read, but find that as long that I stick to fatty meat, things work pretty well. (if I don't things don't work so well) So for me it works, even though I don't really understand the science behind it.
(I still do read, hoping that some part of me will understand what I don't understand)

 

[Gaby]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I think the whole 'not enough time' when it comes to these diet changes is a waste of time in itself.

IMO, that is very important. Keeping an adventuring attitude helps to keep the best possible pace for yourself. You are much more receptive to the new knowledge and you get more eager to apply changes to one's dietary and lifestyle choices, making the whole journey much more satisfying, enjoyable and productive, despite time constraints and the signs of the times all around us.

It is a like a non-linear change. Who knows, each person might be surprised to realize how much more progress and understanding they can get this way. Something that is not possible if you are "stressed out" about it.

 

[nicklebleu]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I think that a very important point has been raised in the last few posts - one that I have been struggling to solve for myself for a long time.

The background to this is that I have a very good friend who asks me lots of questions - about everything. So in the last few years I have tried to give him the best answers I can, to research and try to back up all what I am saying and doing with scientific or historical facts. But somehow it seems to me that we haven't really covered much ground. He is very good a pricking arguments apart and showing the weak sides of an argument and in the past I have always tried to gain more knowledge, to refute every last bit of contradiction and fill all the gaps.

But I have become tired of that game and I have thought for a long time about how to proceed. My problem was that I was under the impression that he was "asking a question" and thus I needed to give him an answer. However I have more and more come to the conclusion that he is not * really * asking a question. He is a sparring partner - and while this has some benefit for myself, like thinking my own position over more precisely, it hasn't advanced his point of view significantly. He goes back to the same points, is sophistically arguing and counter-arguing and I have grow tired about it, because he doesn't seem to put any effort into the questions himself. When I tell him to read such and such book, which is able to give an opinion on many things much more in detail and with much more data and expertise that I am able to, he says that I should be able to explain it "in a nutshell" if I understood it well myself. He certainly has a point here, but I am on the journey myself, and lots of things that I "know" are half-baked and a work in progress. He does occasionally read a book, but is also a generalised sceptic, who will not accept anything that is not undermined with cold hard facts - which knowing the state of our science is often difficult or impossible. One might get a trend, a hunch, but no smoking gun.

I have now resolved myself to tell him that unless he doesn't put some effort in and reads the books that I won't endlessly discuss the same topics over and over again with him.

My point is - after this rather lengthy deviation - that one has to distinguish between someone who ASKS and someone who "asks". The former will take a clue and start researching the topic on his own, while the latter will want a "15 minute video" that brings all the pertinent facts "in a nutshell". But I think the same as some others who have posted before (especially Mr. Scott) that for certain topics one needs to put in some conscious effort and hard work. Because when you do that, the things you learn become your own and part of you, it is not just like some commodity that is ingested, partly digested and then excreted.

Not entirely sure if I have been able to convey my thoughts coherently enough for other to understand what I mean ...

 

[clerck de bonk]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Not entirely sure if I have been able to convey my thoughts coherently enough for other to understand what I mean ...

I understand You to a T and it is important to understand what exactly asking is.

 

[Laura]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Not entirely sure if I have been able to convey my thoughts coherently enough for other to understand what I mean ...

I understand You to a T and it is important to understand what exactly asking is.

It reminds me of the gal who once asked me to boil down everything I had learned in over 40 years to 25 words or less and after a minute or two I knew the answer: "If you think there is a free lunch in the universe, YOU are lunch."

They all want stuff for free or with little effort like your guy using the paramoralistic "you should be able to explain it "in a nutshell" if you understand it well" nonsense. Life isn't black and white and if complex topics could really be "explained in a nutshell", then everyone would have Ph.D.s for free and they would be worth nothing.

 

[nicklebleu]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

"If you think there is a free lunch in the universe, YOU are lunch."

Love that!

 

[mcb]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

...I have more and more come to the conclusion that he is not * really * asking a question. He is a sparring partner...

A desire to answer questions or otherwise help can make it harder to see. Best to keep a careful eye on why we want to help.

 

[Gawan]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Perhaps those who are willing to actually do the work of reading about it, and applying it will survive and those who don't won't. It's not rocket science - it comes down to whether a person values knowledge enough to actually work for it or not. In the time you've spent arguing that it should be easier, you could have already made it through quite a bit of the thread.

Ya know, we've been tossing around the idea of a "diet book for dummies" for awhile now. The more I think about it, the worse the idea seems to me.

The bottom line is that darn near NO ONE will change their diet unless they understand why they're doing it. And the only way they can understand why they are doing it is to, um, understand why they are doing it. And that means reading, reading, reading...

I mean, just look at how hard it is to get somebody to understand that fruit is NOT okay because fructose is just as bad as sucrose. "But fruit is different! It's good for you!"

Or look at how hard it is to give up all grains, and gluten, and dairy, and and and...

Many of us have gone through a gradual process: first we stopped gluten, then dairy, then we went paleo, then keto. That is a vast oversimplification of the process, too...

For someone on a crap diet, there is simply no way that I can conceive of where they'll just read a 150 page book and go, "Oh, okay, I'll go keto now." The resistance to giving up even 1 type of food is often enormous. And, if global conditions continue to worsen, everyone is going to want their "comfort foods" even more, which will make the process that much more difficult.

Worse yet, it's pretty clear that the adjustment process must necessarily be gradual for most people, or severe detox/adjustment reactions can occur. Even if a person reads all the relevant threads here on the forum, that doesn't mean they can just start a ketogenic diet the next day.

And then of course there is the fact that no one wants to read anything in the first place, because it isn't in bite-size format. Well, heck, it's like saying, "Can't you make a 15 minute video that will teach me everything I need to know about designing, building, and flying rockets?"

I don't mean to say, "If you've missed the boat, you're screwed!" But we know that food shortages/price spikes are already happening, and that such conditions are generally followed by disease. There is no time to waste, and there is no magic bullet. One really does need to be aware of all the minor details, and there is no shortcut to stuff a large amount of knowledge into one's brain, and then start applying it.

It is necessarily hard work!

It definitely is and thanks for summarizing it. What I thought often about, without this network and constant input of other beside knowledge and forming a goal or an ideal it is pretty difficult to resist, when everyone else is eating delicious bread, sweets and so on around you. At least this was my experience and where then the knowledge comes in, what this supposedly delicious stuff is doing to my body. Otherwise this or any diet is just a new years resolution which seems to be exciting at the beginning but will get daunting in the long run. At least that's how I see it.

But I have become tired of that game and I have thought for a long time about how to proceed. My problem was that I was under the impression that he was "asking a question" and thus I needed to give him an answer. However I have more and more come to the conclusion that he is not * really * asking a question. He is a sparring partner - and while this has some benefit for myself, like thinking my own position over more precisely, it hasn't advanced his point of view significantly. He goes back to the same points, is sophistically arguing and counter-arguing and I have grow tired about it, because he doesn't seem to put any effort into the questions himself. When I tell him to read such and such book, which is able to give an opinion on many things much more in detail and with much more data and expertise that I am able to, he says that I should be able to explain it "in a nutshell" if I understood it well myself. He certainly has a point here, but I am on the journey myself, and lots of things that I "know" are half-baked and a work in progress. He does occasionally read a book, but is also a generalised sceptic, who will not accept anything that is not undermined with cold hard facts - which knowing the state of our science is often difficult or impossible. One might get a trend, a hunch, but no smoking gun.

Eventually just give general answers (maybe, it could be...) or and no energy in a way that the discussion begins anew. I think it goes in a direction what Megan suggested what are you trying to achieve in these discussion, because there are always two :).