Ketogenic Diet - Powerful Dietary Strategy for Certain Conditions

[Mal7]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

There was a predominantly favourable (except for the Ministry of Health's contribution) news clip on the benefits of a high fat / low carbohydrate diet and endurance athletes broadcast on the evening news of one of the main New Zealand television channels today:

[. . .] researchers at the university [AUT - Auckland University of Technology] say it's time we stopped demonising fat and started embracing it. They say saturated fats are only bad when eaten with a lot of carbohydrates.

_http://www.3news.co.nz/Researchers-push-high-fat-diet-for-weight-loss/tabid/420/articleID/294228/Default.aspx

[Unfortunately I don't think the video will play to internet connections outside of New Zealand, but the article is more or less a transcript of what was said in the video.]

 

[Jacques]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

[Unfortunately I don't think the video will play to internet connections outside of New Zealand, but the article is more or less a transcript of what was said in the video.]

Was able to see the video.

 

[hlat]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I am through page 15 of 149 in this thread, so I've got a lot to go through.

For now I will ask, someone new to all these food ideas like me, what is the progression? First cut out dairy and gluten? I take it butter is ok though? And then cut out soy and corn?

 

[herondancer]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I am through page 15 of 149 in this thread, so I've got a lot to go through.

For now I will ask, someone new to all these food ideas like me, what is the progression? First cut out dairy and gluten? I take it butter is ok though? And then cut out soy and corn?

Hi hlat,

Cutting out gluten pretty much means cutting out all grains in the end, as they each contain their own version of gluten. The so-called 'gluten-free' grains just have much lower levels. So to ease your way out you can use buckwheat, quinoa, wild rice or amaranth. Still, they all have lectins and other anti-nutrients. Corn is problematic for other reasons beside these. It's one of the most common food allergens, so you might want to get rid of it just on those grounds. Soy is just plain EVIL. If you search for it on the forum, or check on Sott.net, you'll find lots of articles about why it's so bad for you. Even if they weren't that bad, almost 100% of soy and corn available in North America is gmo, so they're out for that reason.

You might want to start just with cutting gluten and let your body get used to that, then dairy, then sugar. When you're totally comfortable with the changes, you can look at going low-carb, then ketogenic. The key is to make the changes gradually so you don't end up feeling awful from more changes than your body can handle. Laura posted a pretty good program here. Keep reading the threads, and only make each change as you understand it.

Good luck, and keep us posted

 

[Brenda86]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

It's been a long time coming for me, but it all seems to be clicking recently and I am currently reading Primal Body, Primal Mind and trying to get through this thread too! Oh my goodness, I can hardly describe how amazed I am at the information that is flooding into my brain!

It was time to go grocery shopping and this time I finally avoided everything from the middle aisles (except coconut oil. I wanted lard, but the only kind they had they was also mixed with hydrogenated oil :O so I'll have to look around for that). I am not jumping straight into too low carb or keto yet because I am having to break my grain and sugar addiction first.

So this is day 2 and I have successfully avoided all grain, dairy and refined sugar (I say refined because I have had some fruit). My fiance said he will eat whatever I cook and, of course, my 2 year old will and she hates bread anyway. She will eat meat all day if I let her, haha. I am feeling the cravings, but not caving.

I am very interested in trying this bone broth I am reading about but I had not gotten to that yet when I went shopping. I will definitely be trying to find some bones here soon though. I am just reading everything and getting so excited for when I can go ketogenic.

I am wondering, though, as I am breastfeeding my 4 month old, are there any extra precautions I need to take? Should I wait to go keto until he is weaned or is it okay? Is there anything about this in the thread? I know it's been mentioned in the book about if you are pregnant not to make the switch until after but nothing about if breastfeeding.

And thanks everyone so so much for all the great information and work here.

 

[mcb]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

It's been a long time coming for me, but it all seems to be clicking recently and I am currently reading Primal Body, Primal Mind and trying to get through this thread too! Oh my goodness, I can hardly describe how amazed I am at the information that is flooding into my brain!

It was time to go grocery shopping and this time I finally avoided everything from the middle aisles (except coconut oil. I wanted lard, but the only kind they had they was also mixed with hydrogenated oil :O so I'll have to look around for that). I am not jumping straight into too low carb or keto yet because I am having to break my grain and sugar addiction first.

So this is day 2 and I have successfully avoided all grain, dairy and refined sugar (I say refined because I have had some fruit). My fiance said he will eat whatever I cook and, of course, my 2 year old will and she hates bread anyway. She will eat meat all day if I let her, haha. I am feeling the cravings, but not caving.

You should all be fine -- I don't remember any negative side effects at 72 g/d (the Life Without Bread target), although there were some immediate positive side effects when I did it!

I am very interested in trying this bone broth I am reading about but I had not gotten to that yet when I went shopping. I will definitely be trying to find some bones here soon though. I am just reading everything and getting so excited for when I can go ketogenic.

Enjoy it as it is. When you are just going off of grains I think you need adequate time to heal from that, first. The most obvious thing ketosis has done for me is bring my blood sugar issues under control. I don't feel anything from that. I only feel something when my blood sugar is high or low, and that doesn't happen as long as I behave myself.

I have been trying something a little different with the broth lately. I am only cooking for one, and up to now I was saving up bones for several weeks and then making a large batch of broth, which meant I had to freeze part of it. Now I just take whatever bones I have, after I have slow-cooked my meat, throw them back in a smaller crock pot along with saved veggie scraps from breakfast (that would otherwise go into the compost), and make broth with them. I have been making two batches using the same bones -- one that gels followed by one that doesn't, and then combining them. I use it up before I cook again.

With this arrangement I don't have broth available quite every day, but there is lots of stock from cooking as well and that is even richer. The key is to cook "meat on the bone" (a la Deep Nutrition) and then re-use the bones for broth afterward. It's pretty simple, and easy to work into my routine. Toward the end of the week I run out of that meat but I still have broth, and I fill in with things like grass-fed ground beef, which I also have at breakfast.

I am wondering, though, as I am breastfeeding my 4 month old, are there any extra precautions I need to take? Should I wait to go keto until he is weaned or is it okay? Is there anything about this in the thread? I know it's been mentioned in the book about if you are pregnant not to make the switch until after but nothing about if breastfeeding.

And thanks everyone so so much for all the great information and work here.

I think we have had some discussion about that. At the level of carbs you are at, I can't imagine it causing problems for most people. This is a very natural way of eating. Think about it -- people stuff themselves with grains and processed food and other industrial crud and come down with every disease imaginable, but they are afraid to try a natural human diet because it might make them sick. What a world we live in! Of course there are individual differences, and some people have more damage than others, so what works for one may not work for another. Try it and adjust as needed.

 

[Brenda86]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Thank you for the quick reply. :)

I definitely know I will need some time to heal as I make this first transition. It is quite possible we will already be in the start of the weaning process anyway before I am ready to take it further.

And yes, my thinking with eliminating grains and dairy is that I am not worried about that at all as far as the breastfeeding goes because I am eliminating very bad things from my diet. I will make sure I am fully informed and ready before going to the ketogenic diet for sure. :)

 

[Drazen]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I finished reading this thread recently so I will share with you some of my experience with paleo, keto diet so far.

I've started cutting out gluten, casein, msg 2 years ago. It was gradual transition with constipation, fatigue and loss of 5 kg which made me looking malnourished (was already skinny). After some longer period of adaptation weight started to slowly come up. I stopped eating any fruits last year. I realised also that buckwheat was probably contaminated with some gluten so that was out too. Only veggie that I consume ocassionally in small amounts for last 6 months is garlic.

My diet now consists of lard, bacon, eggs, pork, lamb and rarely beef meat with a fat to meat (calories) ratio closer to 4:1. I'm using Celtic Sea salt daily and mostly curcumin and black pepper as spices. I introduced bone broth in November last year and it's delicious. 2 cups of broth are daily consumed. I eat 2-3 times a day trying not to exceed 25 grams of proteins per meal. I don't weigh the meat portions anymore, already know approximately the size of meat pieces and amount of fat that goes with it.

With the beginning of February this year I entered ketosis that is continually maintained unlike before when I used to eat much more meat than it's advisable for ketosis maintenance. I don't have keto-meter, but acetone breath was a signal at first and later I was pretty much careful what, when and how I should eat.

Supplements that I take now are ascorbic acid, mg citrate and chloride, potassium chloride, alpha lipoic acid, zinc, selenium, fish oil and rarely iodine and b-complex vitamins. I'm doing resistance exercise once or twice a week for more than 2 months now and there is almost 2kg of musle mass that I gained which is a sort of miracle for me. I'm taking cold shower daily and I always feel energized after. I'm also using dmso cream (70:30) with aloe vera, once a week.

There are occasional light headaches and joints pain and I went to my doctor 2 days ago to schedule blood testing for iron loading, but he said that there is no need to test my ferritin levels among others so I will test it separately next week at one private clinic that I found.

I want to say thanks, to all of you, who are giving your energy and time in researching every corner of this subject.

 

[PerihelionX]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

After learning about the ketogenic diet and evils of gluten and repeatedly hearing other people's stories I finally made the jump to go wheat and gluten free. It's only been about a week and I already feel great! I feel sharper, less fatigued, and more motivated. If this keeps up I'm going to ease off rice as well. I'm not sure if I can give up fruit but if I continue to feel this good I just might.

 

[Nienna]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

After learning about the ketogenic diet and evils of gluten and repeatedly hearing other people's stories I finally made the jump to go wheat and gluten free. It's only been about a week and I already feel great! I feel sharper, less fatigued, and more motivated. If this keeps up I'm going to ease off rice as well. I'm not sure if I can give up fruit but if I continue to feel this good I just might.

Going off of the gluten is great. But don't try changing your diet completely without reading the full threads of Life Without Bread, and, if you want to go ketogenic, then this entire thread.

There was a lot of things that happened to a lot of people that are discussed and things found out about. Doing something without learning why you are doing it, and how to do it, is not a good thing.

We have seen it over and over that someone just jumps in without doing the reading and problems start.

 

[PerihelionX]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

After learning about the ketogenic diet and evils of gluten and repeatedly hearing other people's stories I finally made the jump to go wheat and gluten free. It's only been about a week and I already feel great! I feel sharper, less fatigued, and more motivated. If this keeps up I'm going to ease off rice as well. I'm not sure if I can give up fruit but if I continue to feel this good I just might.

Going off of the gluten is great. But don't try changing your diet completely without reading the full threads of Life Without Bread, and, if you want to go ketogenic, then this entire thread.

There was a lot of things that happened to a lot of people that are discussed and things found out about. Doing something without learning why you are doing it, and how to do it, is not a good thing.

We have seen it over and over that someone just jumps in without doing the reading and problems start.

Good advice. I'm just doing gluten for now. I'm going to take it slow and ease in as far as is comfortable while paying attention to my body.

 

[darksai]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I went for a Shiatsu session, the first since my diet changes (and doing regular EE ;) ), and my practitioner almost couldn't believe I'm the same the person. She even said afterwards that she thought when I walked in, that "this isn't (Saieden), it looks like his younger brother!" It was quite hard not to laugh out loud too much at her amazement throughout the session

Admittedly, I transitioned faster than what is recommended, though it wasn't too negative since I have virtually no pharmaceutical history, had cut out almost all refined sugar and had started to lower the amounts of carbs I'd dish up for myself. She described my transition as though my engine was in reverse and I slammed into first without slowing down which is true and although my body is still in a bit of shock from that, it's generally ok (on her standards, so nothing critically bad)

According to her, which correlates very well with my experience (she's good, her readings are often very accurate without any prior knowledge), basically where I'm at now is that my liver is still detoxing while starting to produce glucose slowly and my metabolism is starting rev up on the ketosis power, or the start of the snowball effect as she put it. She suggested a kinesiologist to help speed up the food testing process (I can't remember if I mentioned this or not first), which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, so I'll be reporting again after that too.

By this time next week, I'll be in total independence with regards to both food and supplements. Been sponging off my mom's so far, which she doesn't mind, but I know now from food, good and bad, when I spend my own money on things I'm far more likely to make the most of them. It's strange, in a way, because it doesn't come from a sense of "well I spent the cash, I should eat it" so much as taking the money that I have and making it worth something for a purpose, like once having invested in the intent tangibly, that intent to some degree takes a kind of life it's own and eases the strain on the willpower. For example, I now have almost no trouble (at all) getting up timely, at 4:30 every weekday, because that bacon, egg and lard supply isn't going to cook itself, and having put it there myself, it's my responsibility to see that it gets cooked.

Also I would like to apologize for somewhat abusing this post of Laura's. I Haven't read the whole of the Life Without Bread thread, very little of this one, am only on chapter 5 of the book, and had really only read The Ultramind Solution and many of the SotT articles on the topic. I used plenty of justification for this, and while some might be considered reasonable, they are justifications nonetheless for not being totally patient, reading the material and instead basically gleaning off the core concepts and findings of all the hard work, blood, sweat and tears that I know I can't even imagine that went into the trial and error period. Reading about the dramatic change, and seeing myself fail at being able to focus consistently over and over again, I got to a point where I wanted the fatigue spells, etc, to just GO AWAY, and NOW. After procrastinating about it for 2 months since being on a stable and substantial income.

On the other hand...

THANK YOU ALL

Special thanks to Atreidas for The List, as it has helped and continues to help me tremendously with not only food but also the Struggle Between Yes and No in other aspects of life. I would like to suggest that this post be added to The Important Threads List, it's wonder to me that it hasn't been already.

And to reiterate:

READ THE ENTIRE THREAD AND THE RECOMMENDED BOOKS BEFORE INSTITUTING CHANGES IN YOUR LIFE OR THE LIVES OF YOUR FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!

I got off lucky, with only 1-2 weeks of occasional brain fog-ache and hunger pangs and some minor symptoms, largely because I'm young, live in a relatively clean air city, and the what I mentioned above. If you're new, DO NOT DO WHAT I DID!! While I'm far from being in any position to give any personal or diagnostic advice, I can give some of the general kind from what I have learned about the Keto-Transition Adventure so far:

[list type=decimal]
[*]READ, READ and READ.
[*]Only do ONE major/staple dietary food change at time.
[*]Expect to feel WORSE before feeling better for EACH CHANGE.
[*]READ, READ and READ
[/list]

 

[3DStudent]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I bought a ketone blood meter and strips but only got around to using it a few weeks ago. I recorded my blood ketone levels for six days after dinner, except the first day. My protein and carb intake is pretty much the same every day, as I weigh my food. I'm under 10 carbs and eat about 1g/kg body weight for protein.

5/12: Breakfast 8:15 a.m. Tested: 1:55 p.m. (5.5 hrs) Result 4.5 mmol/L (note: hadn't eaten lunch upon testing)
5/13: Dinner: 5:55 p.m. Tested: 7:02 p.m. (1 hr) Result: 4.0 mmol/L
5/14: Dinner: 6:15 p.m. Tested: 7:48 p.m. (1.5 hrs) Result: 4.4 mmol/L
5/15: Dinner: 7:25 p.m. Tested: 8:31 p.m. (1 hr) Result: 4.0 mmol/L
5/16: Dinner: 6:25 p.m. Tested: 8:09 p.m. (1.75 hrs) Result: 3.8 mmol/L
5/17: Dinner: 5:42 p.m. Tested: 7:26 p.m. (1.75 hrs) Result: 5.3 mmol/L

So it's good to have somewhat objective evidence I'm in ketosis. It seems the numbers vary a little, but so did the times that I ate dinner. I tried to take the test an hour after eating. I thought maybe I would take some measurements throughout one day. I was using two fingers as lancing sites, because I'm a little needle-phobic and would put the setting on the mildest prick setting and not draw enough blood. You want to make sure you have about a pea sized bead of blood before you touch it to the strip, because if it doesn't read, it's kind of wasteful at $2-5 per strip.

 

[mcb]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I bought a ketone blood meter and strips but only got around to using it a few weeks ago. I recorded my blood ketone levels for six days after dinner, except the first day. My protein and carb intake is pretty much the same every day, as I weigh my food. I'm under 10 carbs and eat about 1g/kg body weight for protein.

5/12: Breakfast 8:15 a.m. Tested: 1:55 p.m. (5.5 hrs) Result 4.5 mmol/L (note: hadn't eaten lunch upon testing)
5/13: Dinner: 5:55 p.m. Tested: 7:02 p.m. (1 hr) Result: 4.0 mmol/L
5/14: Dinner: 6:15 p.m. Tested: 7:48 p.m. (1.5 hrs) Result: 4.4 mmol/L
5/15: Dinner: 7:25 p.m. Tested: 8:31 p.m. (1 hr) Result: 4.0 mmol/L
5/16: Dinner: 6:25 p.m. Tested: 8:09 p.m. (1.75 hrs) Result: 3.8 mmol/L
5/17: Dinner: 5:42 p.m. Tested: 7:26 p.m. (1.75 hrs) Result: 5.3 mmol/L

So it's good to have somewhat objective evidence I'm in ketosis. It seems the numbers vary a little, but so did the times that I ate dinner. I tried to take the test an hour after eating. I thought maybe I would take some measurements throughout one day. I was using two fingers as lancing sites, because I'm a little needle-phobic and would put the setting on the mildest prick setting and not draw enough blood. You want to make sure you have about a pea sized bead of blood before you touch it to the strip, because if it doesn't read, it's kind of wasteful at $2-5 per strip.

Those are very good readings. I would guess that your fasting glucose is also at a good level. The ketone level seems to depend on both diet (i.e. ketogenic diet) and glucose status/metabolic health (as well as time of day -- later tends to be higher).

 

[Gaby]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Those are very good readings. I would guess that your fasting glucose is also at a good level. The ketone level seems to depend on both diet (i.e. ketogenic diet) and glucose status/metabolic health (as well as time of day -- later tends to be higher).

And fasting glucose levels should be ideally 85 at the most.

Thanks for reporting 3D student, those levels are very very good, and the ratio doable: under 10 grams of carbs and 1 grams of protein per kilo :)