I have thus far lost 90lbs on what would be called “ketovore” diet. It’s a ketogenic diet heavy on meat and its associated fats, fish, dairy, eggs, limited green veggies, and low glycemic fruit. I have completely cut out all added sugars, seed oils, grains, and starchy vegetables. I fry with avacado oil, butter, or tallow, and sautee in olive oil. I drink water exclusively. My doctor has taken me off my Statin, my blood pressure meds, my blood thinner, and my reflux meds. I go in next week to the sleep doc to get assessed and schedule a sleep study to see if I can get rid of the CPAP. I’ve been speed walking a lot, climbing stairs, walking on the treadmill. My resting BP is mid one-teens over low/mid 70s.
On January 8th, I started with a standard low-calorie starvation diet upon which I had lost 60lbs years ago, which all came back. On this diet, I lost 32lbs by early March, and then plateaued, even though I was following the diet exactly. I wanted to know why. So I did a deep-dive on YouTube, and discovered ketosis. Ketosis essentially is switching your body’s primary energy source from glucose to lipids (fats). In ketosis, your body burns fat for energy. Rather than listening to “influencers” I gravitated toward doctors, metabolic scientists, endocrinologists, cardiologists, etc. I haven’t kept track, but I would estimate that between listening to lectures by doctors and audio-books by doctors, I’ve consumed upwards of 300 hours on the subject. I became obsessed with knowing the metabolic functions of the body in relation to the macronutrients.
Some takeaways… Obesity is not a disease, it’s a symptom of a disease - the disease being metabolic dysfunction. It’s a hormonal response to abusive consumption of highly processed foods, fructose, seed oils, and the overconsumption of carbohydrates. Insulin is the key. Insulin resistance and its twin, hyperinsulinemia are at the core of all metabolic dysfunction, and the symptoms of what they call “metabolic syndrome” are not limited to obesity. Other symptoms are high blood pressure, atherosclerosis (heart disease) Type-2 Diabetes, Stroke, Some auto-immune diseases, chronic systemic inflammation, sexual dysfunction, mitochondrial dysfunction, and even dementia/Alzheimer’s.
Insulin drives energy into the cells - drives glucose into the fat cells to store energy there in a process called lipogenesis. The human bloodstream can only accommodate about a teaspoon of Glucose. It needs to be burned, or stored. After the body’s energy requirements are met, Insulin knocks on the fat-cell door, and says, “here is energy for you to store. Turn it into fat for later.” The natural, normal process would see insulin spike after carb intake, do its job sending glucose into the energy needs of the body, and then store the excess into the fat cells for later use. Then insulin lowers… But in the standard American diet, before that insulin can go back down to its nominal level, another carb snack is consumed, sending the insulin back up to a level even higher than before. Then another carb meal, and again throughout the day. The average person’s insulin levels never see their baseline. They go to bed in a state of elevated insulin.
Here’s the biggest problem. When you go to the doctor at 25, 35, 45, they’ll measure your Glucose and give you a clean bill of health. They see your glucose levels as normal. But that is because your insulin is doing its job, keeping your bloodstream from being overrun with sugar. BUT, what that Glucose measurement does not tell the doctor is that the amount of insulin that it requires for you to keep the sugars in check is much much larger than it was when you were young. That is because of insulin resistance. Over time, when the fat cells get filled to the bursting point, they begin to down-regulate - basically shut off the insulin receptors. They refuse the signal from the insulin telling to cell to store fat, so the insulin requirements keep going up and up. By the time the doctor detects elevated glucose in the blood, you’ve been in a state of insulin resistance for 10, 20, 30 years. THAT’S when the doctor decides to intervene, but by then, you’re already suffering from metabolic syndrome.
The good news is it can ALL be undone. That’s not to say the permanent damage hasn’t been done, but by eliminating carbs/sugars/seed oils/starches, you can repair your insulin resistance, and eliminate the systemic inflammation that leads to all the chronic diseases we associate with “aging”. Type-2 Diabetes can be reversed. There is tons of information out there.
I would recommend two sources off the top of my head… Dr. Benjamin Bikman, author of “Why We Get Sick.” He’s a cellular biologist who has basically dedicated his career to metabolic science. He has a YouTube series called “Metabolic Classroom” that I have found very worthwhile. Also, Dr. Robert Lustig, author of “Metabolical” has many worthwhile lectures on YouTube. As a clinician, he was a pediatric endocrinologist who launched research into obesity because of a type of obesity children were suffering after cancer treatment. His path led him down a hormonal rabbit hole that led him to discover Leptin resistance as a result of insulin resistance. He is hyper anti-fructose.
A few more takeaways… avoid the center of the grocery store. Shop around the edges… produce, meat, dairy. If it comes in a box or bag with a bar code, be suspicious… “high fructose cord syrup, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, soy lecithin, carrageenan, mono- and diglycerides, carboxymethylcellulose, polysorbate” - just a tiny fraction of the bad things that we should never ever consume.
