Ketogenic Diet - Powerful Dietary Strategy for Certain Conditions

[Yas]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

There is an article published in Spanish SOTT about the myth of drinking a lot of water. For the ones who can understand it is here:

¿Cuánta agua debes beber? La respuesta no es 2 litros al día

He says that the recommendation to drink an specific amount of water isn't natural because we have our own homeostatic mechanism which has been refined over millions years and forcing ourselves to keep to the recommendations disrupts that natural "alarm". We have survived pretty well without taking water with us everywhere we go. I guess that mitosis helps us re-balance this natural mechanism so that our thirst becomes our best indicator of when we should drink water and how much.

He also says that some studies don't find much correlation between urine color and hydration. I think that it can be a general indicator, but urine color can change for other causes as well... so what he says is that we shouldn't obsess with it, unless we see something strange there.

He argues that drinking a lot of water can also interfere with digestion by diluting the acids needed for it. And he also says that there's plenty of water in food too, so if you have bone broth, for example, you're not only hydrating your body, but nurturing it.

He talks about overhydration too. If you have a low salt diet and you drink too much water, sodium levels in your blood can go down and produce negative effect in the long term. It can also alter other electrolytes balance as nickelbleu pointed out.

So he's conclusion is that we should follow our thirst, and I agree. As nickelbleu, I live in a place where it is usually very warm and I sweat a lot, so I usually take 2-3 litres per day, but I suppose that would be too much for a person living in another place with a different climate.

 

[Thaigrr]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

There is an article published in Spanish SOTT about the myth of drinking a lot of water. For the ones who can understand it is here:

¿Cuánta agua debes beber? La respuesta no es 2 litros al día

He says that the recommendation to drink an specific amount of water isn't natural because we have our own homeostatic mechanism which has been refined over millions years and forcing ourselves to keep to the recommendations disrupts that natural "alarm". We have survived pretty well without taking water with us everywhere we go. I guess that mitosis helps us re-balance this natural mechanism so that our thirst becomes our best indicator of when we should drink water and how much.

He also says that some studies don't find much correlation between urine color and hydration. I think that it can be a general indicator, but urine color can change for other causes as well... so what he says is that we shouldn't obsess with it, unless we see something strange there.

He argues that drinking a lot of water can also interfere with digestion by diluting the acids needed for it. And he also says that there's plenty of water in food too, so if you have bone broth, for example, you're not only hydrating your body, but nurturing it.

He talks about overhydration too. If you have a low salt diet and you drink too much water, sodium levels in your blood can go down and produce negative effect in the long term. It can also alter other electrolytes balance as nickelbleu pointed out.

So he's conclusion is that we should follow our thirst, and I agree. As nickelbleu, I live in a place where it is usually very warm and I sweat a lot, so I usually take 2-3 litres per day, but I suppose that would be too much for a person living in another place with a different climate.

I stopped drinking anything with meals years ago upon hearing this. Stomach upsets/indigestion have been very rare since. There could be a correlation.

The only exception I can think of is those long ago wine and cheese experiments in California! :P

 

[monotonic]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I think this discussion on hydration deserves it's own thread as a consensus. I find it quite concise and straightforward.

I think a Hydration wiki article would also be a good idea, to collect sources and the information we know about this topic. Please share sources and useful information so that someone can write it into the Wiki article here:

http://thecasswiki.net/index.php?title=Optimal_Hydration

Can someone with a good grasp on this topic please write an opening paragraph for the page? I can copy it to the wiki if you just post it here.

 

[dugdeep]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

ok thanks.

I've been eating only between 12pm and 6pm (not all days though) so many days there is a 18 hour fast with no food. Just to clarify you say "two meals a day (breakfast and dinner)" plus a fatbomb for lunch. Does the fatbomb not count as a meal? Also that could be a 14 hour fast, is that still IF?

Thanks for you help.

Jamie

The fat bomb does not count as a meal. A 14 hour fast is still IF, yes.

Yes, the fat bomb CAN count as a meal!!!!

I totally agree - a common misconception I have come across a few times in this thread. IF means NOTHING to eat (water or tea is ok) in the fasting period. Because fat will influence your metabolism too, just in a different way than carbs/ protein.

Just wanted to reiterate that for all those who want to try IF.

Can you clarify this a bit, nicklebleu? I was under the impression that, because fat doesn't have an effect on insulin, it doesn't take one out of fasting mode (which is essentially ketosis). I've read a number of references to "fat fasting" in the past, where people eat fat to satiety, but don't eat any carb or protein, thereby remaining in their fasted state, reaping all the benefits of fasting while not being hungry. I'm wondering what the influence fat has on the metabolism you refer to that will take one out of fasting mode.

 

[theos]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Can you clarify this a bit, nicklebleu? I was under the impression that, because fat doesn't have an effect on insulin, it doesn't take one out of fasting mode (which is essentially ketosis). I've read a number of references to "fat fasting" in the past, where people eat fat to satiety, but don't eat any carb or protein, thereby remaining in their fasted state, reaping all the benefits of fasting while not being hungry. I'm wondering what the influence fat has on the metabolism you refer to that will take one out of fasting mode.

I've read the same thing as you, dugdeep. For example having butter tea or fatty broth would not be breaking a fast but then again people use the word fast pretty loosely at times. I'm guessing that the carbs from xylitol would knock the fatbomb out of the fasting category. Strictly speaking, I would consider a fast as only taking in water or plain, non-caloric beverages but I'm interested in how taking in fat influences the metabolism.

 

[Keyhole]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I've read the same thing as you, dugdeep. For example having butter tea or fatty broth would not be breaking a fast but then again people use the word fast pretty loosely at times. I'm guessing that the carbs from xylitol would knock the fatbomb out of the fasting category. Strictly speaking, I would consider a fast as only taking in water or plain, non-caloric beverages but I'm interested in how taking in fat influences the metabolism.

I considered fat bomb not to be suitable for fasting because of the protein in the eggs as well? If not, have you tried fatbomb with no sweetener? IMO the ghee and tallow one tastes a bit like fresh cream

 

[nicklebleu]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Well, we might get into semantics here a bit - but for me "fasting" is just that: fasting.

Maybe it depends on what you want to achieve with fasting. In "intermittent fasting" with the goal to reduce insulin sensitivity one aspect is the lack of carbs/ protein over a certain period of time to drop insulin levels enough to resensitize the insulin receptors. In that case fat with no carbs/ proteins probably does the trick.

However I think there is another aspect in IF - calorie reduction. From what I can see in the medical literature so far there is still this debate going on whether positive effects of IF are due to the change in the mixture of the different components in the food (C/P/F) or whether they simply are the consequence of a reduced caloric intake. If positive effects of IF are due to a reduction of calories rather than food composition, in this case fat would count in "breaking the fast".

In animal research the only thing that has consistently been shown to increase life span (and by inference maybe physical quality of life) has been caloric restriction. The data regarding isocaloric IF has been, as far as I know, ambiguous.

So to sum it up again, it might depend on what your goal is in fasting. But ingesting fat certainly triggers a whole cascade of metabolic and hormonal changes to digest, "upload" and process food in the body, so consequently the "resting state" of metabolism is changed.

That's my understanding at this point in time.

The thing here also is that we don't seem to understand the process, influencing factors and long-term effects of the KD very well. Research in this area has been very scarce and has only been ramped up in recent years, mainly in conjunction with research about drug-resistent epilepsy in children. But there are a lot of aspects I don't understand - like what influences ketone levels on a daily basis. I measure ketones fairly regularly and there are times I have a feel about where I am at, but other times I am completely in the dark (even though I have done that now for a few years). The other thing is why do certain people loose weight on a KD and others don't?

 

[nicklebleu]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Came across an interesting paper the other day:

The glucose ketone index calculator: a simple tool to monitor therapeutic efficacy for metabolic management of brain cancer
Joshua J Meidenbauer, Purna Mukherjee, and Thomas N Seyfried (corresponding author)

Background

Metabolic therapy using ketogenic diets (KD) is emerging as an alternative or complementary approach to the current standard of care for brain cancer management. This therapeutic strategy targets the aerobic fermentation of glucose (Warburg effect), which is the common metabolic malady of most cancers including brain tumors. The KD targets tumor energy metabolism by lowering blood glucose and elevating blood ketones (β-hydroxybutyrate). Brain tumor cells, unlike normal brain cells, cannot use ketone bodies effectively for energy when glucose becomes limiting. Although plasma levels of glucose and ketone bodies have been used separately to predict the therapeutic success of metabolic therapy, daily glucose levels can fluctuate widely in brain cancer patients. This can create difficulty in linking changes in blood glucose and ketones to efficacy of metabolic therapy.

Methods

A program was developed (Glucose Ketone Index Calculator, GKIC) that tracks the ratio of blood glucose to ketones as a single value. We have termed this ratio the Glucose Ketone Index (GKI).

Results

The GKIC was used to compute the GKI for data published on blood glucose and ketone levels in humans and mice with brain tumors. The results showed a clear relationship between the GKI and therapeutic efficacy using ketogenic diets and calorie restriction.

Conclusions

The GKIC is a simple tool that can help monitor the efficacy of metabolic therapy in preclinical animal models and in clinical trials for malignant brain cancer and possibly other cancers that express aerobic fermentation.

To visualize this see the graphic included in the text:

{Sorry, don't seem able to display the picture correctly, maybe one of the mods can fix this?}

If you want to read the full article, it can be assessed here

The gist of it is, that it might be more helpful to measure the ratio between glucose levels and BOHB levels (both in mmol/l), which ideally would be between 1 and 2. Of course the two are somewhat connected: generally the higher your BOHB levels, the lower your glucose and vice versa. But apparently this is not always the case.

I think I'll start measuring the ratio and see where that leads.

Edit=Fixed Image URL

 

[latulipenoire]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

It means take your body weight in pounds and drink half that amount in fluid ounces. So for 68 kg you would drink approx. 75 fluid ounces of water per day. Personally I drink a lot more than that (as much as a gallon or more per day on physically active days), but I've had kidney stones before because of dehydration so it's partly preventative and partially to 'super-hydrate' as discussed by Dr. McGuff and Dr. Darden in their books on exercise. As for sodium, you'll be wanting about 3g or so per day. Broth helps a lot because it takes a lot of salt for it to taste good, at least it does for me anyway.

I also have had kidney stones and urinary infection twice in the past three years, hopefully the changes in my diet should take care of these!

I used to drink HUGE amounts of water when I ate HUGE amounts of carbs. Had to as I was always thirsty. I probably used to drink about a gallon a day, every day. I've now been in ketosis for over 4 years, and am very rarely thirsty. I drink barely a liter a day. When I was still adapting to a ketogenic diet, I was taking quite a bit of supplements, so that helped drink more water. But since I don't take many supplements now, I only drink when I'm thirsty, which is rare. When I smoke, I'll take a couple of sips after I'm done, and that's how it adds up to maybe a liter a day.

Another good way to get more salt, is to eat egg yolks. I eat two every day. You can really pile up a whole lot of salt, and it doesn't taste too salty.

Yes, it seems that smoking is good for hydration, as you said! I'll try to eat more egg yokes as well!

He argues that drinking a lot of water can also interfere with digestion by diluting the acids needed for it. And he also says that there's plenty of water in food too, so if you have bone broth, for example, you're not only hydrating your body, but nurturing it.

He talks about overhydration too. If you have a low salt diet and you drink too much water, sodium levels in your blood can go down and produce negative effect in the long term. It can also alter other electrolytes balance as nickelbleu pointed out.

So he's conclusion is that we should follow our thirst, and I agree. As nickelbleu, I live in a place where it is usually very warm and I sweat a lot, so I usually take 2-3 litres per day, but I suppose that would be too much for a person living in another place with a different climate.

Thanks for sharing these tips, guys!

 

[s-kur]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Hello guys! I'm writing an article on ketogenic diet in Russian and I would like to ask you for help. I want to elaborate some moments as follows:

What is the limit of protein intake (in one meal) in order to not be kicked out of ketosis?
Does olive oil convenient for frying? (Sally Fallon in the Nourishing Traditions points that it might be used of mid temperatures)

 

[Keyhole]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Hello guys! I'm writing an article on ketogenic diet in Russian and I would like to ask you for help. I want to elaborate some moments as follows:

What is the limit of protein intake (in one meal) in order to not be kicked out of ketosis?
Does olive oil convenient for frying? (Sally Fallon in the Nourishing Traditions points that it might be used of mid temperatures)

From what I understand (I may be wrong) but the limit recommended is a maximum of 25th protein (which is roughly 100g of lean meat) in one serving. This is because any more than 25g at once can turn into sugar through glucanogenesis. However on the health and wellness podcast it was said that a little excess protein doesn't always turn into sugar.

With regards to olive oil, I don't think it is recommended to heat it in any way because it goes rancid very quickly due to it not being saturated. i am sorry i cannot give you the scientific detail because i am currently at work.

 

[s-kur]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Hello guys! I'm writing an article on ketogenic diet in Russian and I would like to ask you for help. I want to elaborate some moments as follows:

What is the limit of protein intake (in one meal) in order to not be kicked out of ketosis?
Does olive oil convenient for frying? (Sally Fallon in the Nourishing Traditions points that it might be used of mid temperatures)

From what I understand (I may be wrong) but the limit recommended is a maximum of 25th protein (which is roughly 100g of lean meat) in one serving. This is because any more than 25g at once can turn into sugar through glucanogenesis. However on the health and wellness podcast it was said that a little excess protein doesn't always turn into sugar.

With regards to olive oil, I don't think it is recommended to heat it in any way because it goes rancid very quickly due to it not being saturated. i am sorry i cannot give you the scientific detail because i am currently at work.

Thanks, Keyhole! I wanted just to approve the information I have, because I saw several options of answers on these questions and wanted elaborate a bit.

 

[Yas]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Hello guys! I'm writing an article on ketogenic diet in Russian and I would like to ask you for help. I want to elaborate some moments as follows:

What is the limit of protein intake (in one meal) in order to not be kicked out of ketosis?
Does olive oil convenient for frying? (Sally Fallon in the Nourishing Traditions points that it might be used of mid temperatures)

From what I understand (I may be wrong) but the limit recommended is a maximum of 25th protein (which is roughly 100g of lean meat) in one serving. This is because any more than 25g at once can turn into sugar through glucanogenesis. However on the health and wellness podcast it was said that a little excess protein doesn't always turn into sugar.

With regards to olive oil, I don't think it is recommended to heat it in any way because it goes rancid very quickly due to it not being saturated. i am sorry i cannot give you the scientific detail because i am currently at work.

Thanks, Keyhole! I wanted just to approve the information I have, because I saw several options of answers on these questions and wanted elaborate a bit.

Hi s-skur,

There are different views on the subject of protein, but there has been some discussion in this thread before, look here:

http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,28799.msg504728.html#msg504728
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,28799.msg505159.html#msg505159
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,28799.msg505717.html#msg505717

About Olive Oil, cooking with it isn't good. For what I know, vegetable oils in general aren't good for cooking because their molecules aren't stable enough to keep the structure in high temperatures. So they disrupt and that isn't good. There's also a lot in this thread about that. You might find it if you put keywords such as "oil for cooking" or something like that ;)

My 2 cents...

 

[lilyalic]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Hi guys, I'm wondering if anyone could give me some guidance..

I've been working in the airport for over a month now, starting at 04:00am - 11:00am, I wouldn't eat in the morning (2:30am) and would eat when I got home, then about 4 hours afterwards as I'd have to go to sleep around 6/7/8pm. I'm not sure how to change the routine of when I eat, but I'm pretty sure the lack of sleep and change in patterns is lowering my blood sugar, sometimes when I get home from work I feel "out of it" and really dizzy.. I think it is all throwing me out of Keto and putting a lot of stress on my body. I'm finding it hard to deal with normal everyday tasks at home, getting easily agitated.

I still only have two meals a day, with plenty of fat from the fat-bombs. There's not much wrong with my digestion, I've gone through all the detoxing and come out with a much healthier gut! I think now it's just the sleep and eating issues.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

 

[truth seeker]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

If I understood what you've written, it sounds as if you're going about 15 hours without eating (8pm - 11am). Is this correct? Can you take some food with you to work? Also, while I realize you've just started this job, is it possible for you to find a way to change your work schedule a bit (like push it back a couple/few hours)?