I can’t remember the first time I heard about the keto diet, but ever since then it has fascinated me. Did you know that our body can run on an entirely different system than glucose (i.e. carbohydrates)? We are told in biology at school that our body runs on energy and energy is glucose which comes from plants (or carbohydrates). But it turns out there is an entirely different system in the mix.
I have wanted to try keto for a long time. It’s not something you should try when you are pregnant, trying to get pregnant or breastfeeding. Unfortunately that was what I spent most of my 30s doing. Yes, that’s what happens when you have 4 kids! Plus part of me didn’t want to to do it. I love carbs. I like oats. I like sweet potato. I like milk in tea.
But when I turned 40 and stopped breastfeeding there were no more excuses.
It was keto time.
What is keto?
Keto is a high fat diet. But this description is deceptive. Keto is not about drinking oil and eating sticks of butter. It is about reducing the glucose (i.e. carbohydrates) you eat through your diet so that your body is forced to stop using the glucose system and start using another system. The amount of carbs varies for different people but anywhere from 10-50g of carbs is usually in the ballpark. (FYI a regular banana has around 25g of carbohydrates; the milk in your tea has around 2-3g).
Once carbs are restricted your body starts to make ketones (where the name keto comes from) which can be used for fuel throughout the body.
There are two ways you can deprive your body of glucose and force it to switch to keto. The first is by eating nothing or fasting (think desert-island with nothing but water). The second is by restricting glucose in the food you eat (by eating more fat and less carbohydrates).
From an evolutionary perspective the desert-island situation makes intuitive sense. Your body needs to be able to switch systems to access its energy reserves in the form of body fat. At the same time you need to be sharp and focused to find more food. This is why people report feeling amazing (as I did) when there body is using ketones for fuel.
Achieving ketosis by restricting glucose in your diet is less intuitive as you must get more of your energy from fat. Most people look horrified when I explain this to them. They imagine drinking oil, chewing on butter, sipping cream and living off bacon. This is unfair on two accounts. Firstly a proper keto diet is very different to this; secondly fat isn't all bad!
Fat deserves a reputation makeover. We have to remember that fat is something humans have been eating for centuries, in the form of meat, eggs, dairy produce, all of which are nutritious whole foods.
Every cell of our body is lined with fat to enable fat soluble substances to pass into and out of the cells (e.g. hormones, vitamins, nutrients). Without fats we would not function. The brain is made up of almost 60% fat, the nerve cells are lined with fat to enable correct and fast transmission of electrical messages. Fats needed to produce bile acids needed for digestion, sex hormones, stress hormones, and vitamin D.
What did I eat during my keto experiment?
Most people want to know exactly what I ate on my keto experiment. So here it is.
Lunch: I ate some protein (tinned salmon, leftover roast beef) with salad vegetables (lettuce, cucumber, capsicum). Basically whatever was leftover in the fridge.
Dinner: I ate meat and 3 veg. I think it was fish with broccoli and zucchini one night. Maybe tinned salmon and vegetables another night. To be honest I can’t really remember. It wasn’t a huge departure from normal.
Snack: The only 'weird' thing I ate during my experiment was a hot chocolate fat bomb. This was a mix of coconut cream, cocoa, butter and coconut oil. I added a teaspoon of stevia too – not something I would normally do, but I had to get in the groove of being keto, right? My rationale for having a hot chocolate fat bomb was (1) I was hungry, (2) I was experimenting in the name of science to feedback to my wonderful nutrition clients, (3) I was not trying to lose weight. Would I do it again? No thank you.
How did I know I was in ketosis?
I used at home blood and urine test strips.
I learnt a lot from trying keto: what did I learn?
Discovery number 1:
The absolute high point of my discoveries was that I felt empowered. No longer did I feel controlled or burdened by food. I just wasn’t interested in food. Maybe interested isn’t the right word. I wasn’t driven by food. I wanted to eat at meal times, but I wasn’t internally debating what to eat and when to eat it. Food was just food. It is hard to describe, but it was quite a liberating feeling. I could tell when my ketones dropped because I felt hungry. My brain was interested in food again.
Discovery number 2:
My second discovery was that coffee is not for me. I know I am caffeine sensitive – coffee makes me bounce of the walls with the excitement of life. But what I found while doing keto is that coffee triggers my liver to release glucose like it is going out of fashion. This was a disappointing finding, but hugely insightful. I am not going to give up coffee – life is about moderation – but I am going to drink a bit less.
Discovery number 3:
My final discovery was that going keto was not hard. I didn’t need supplements. I didn’t get keto flu or headaches or feel sick. I felt just fine. I even did a HIIT class, played tennis and a tennis final.
Is keto safe?
Nutritional ketosis where your blood ketones are in the range of 0.5 to 3.0 is perfectly safe for most people. It is a normal part of how the body works. Many people will wake up with very low levels of ketones in their blood (say 0.1).
Ketones can be dangerous for a small subset of the population (there is plenty of information on the internet about this so I won't say more).
I would always recommend someone gets professional advice before starting keto as keto ‘done wrong’ is a recipe for all sorts of problems (e.g. high cholesterol).
What do I think about keto?
There is no doubt that your body prefers glucose. The second glucose goes into your mouth again your body switches to using glucose for energy. However the ketone system is there as a back up and it works pretty well.
Hormesis is the idea that a little bit of stress on the body is a good thing. It helps the body to grow back stronger than before. This is sort of how exercise works. You exert your muscles doing exercise, they break down and then they grow back stronger. Similarly, perhaps there is a benefit to stressing your body by depriving it of glucose for a bit so that when it comes back to the glucose system it works better?
When did you last use your ketone system? The fact is that in our modern carbohydrate fuelled food environment we run our bodies using the glucose systems pretty much 24/7.
This means there is a good chance many of us have never even used this other keto system. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is undecided. But evolution suggests that using ketones for energy would have been a commonly used backup system when food was scarce.
Diabetes is a modern phenomenon – it is raging through the world. This is a disease of a failing glucose system.
There is good evidence for using the keto diet for specific conditions (like refractory childhood epilepsy). The evidence for use of keto diet as the status quo is less clear.
Where do I land on this?
Maybe having a break from the carbohydrate/glucose system is something our bodies need every now and then? But whether we do it through carbohydrate restriction of desert-island fasting remains to be answered in my opinion.
Want to know more?
If keto is something that interests you I am offering a $100 discount on 90 minute consultations between now and the end of March 2022 on how to 'keto right'. Click here to book and write keto as your 'reason for booking' to get your $100 off.
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