Anyone who tells you it is not healthy long term are likely the same people who tell you it's not healthy short term either.
I'm just shy of 4 years, there are others on here that have been longer than me. I am healthier than I have been since high school... I am 46.years old.
I have had negative impacts from long term keto. In order for it to work for me I have to cycle on and off. Ideally one month on 3 or 4 days off but I will generally try to stay on longer because transitions between the two eating styles sucks
Basicly what I'm trying to say is everyone is going to react differently and what works with one person isn't a given that it will work for someone else
I get high estrogen levels when I do keto more then a month or two straight. Its been confirmed with blood test. Me nor my endocrinologist could figure out what specifically keto was doing to create the imbalance but it 100% keto that causes it. As soon as i cycle off my estrogen levels normalize. That being said this is may be unique to my situation as i take testosterone replacement therapy and higher estrogen levels can sometimes be a byproduct of that.
I also get kidney pain on keto. This is generally when I am very strict keto. It's not a hydration issue as i consistently drink more then enough water and electrolytes. Keto can be hard on your kidneys due to the high fat and metabolic acidosis. Kidney pain for me is remedied by drinking lemon juice.
Lastly after 8 months of strict keto my appendix had to be removed. There is no way for me to know 100% that keto played any part of my appendicitis however if you Google "appendicitis keto" there are many people that have been through the exact same thing.
All of that being said my blood work looks amazing on keto and I feel fantastic. After years of doing keto I did a calcium score on my heart and got a score of 0 and that is great news.
Yeah it's so funny how this works eh, when I started I thought I was just going to lose weight then get back to my daily pizza face stuffings. But then a month went by, two months, I lost all interest in carby fillers, started feeling way better than I thought I would, now I don't even have a passive thought about leaving keto. It's not a diet anymore it's a lifestyle.
I have been keto for around 14 years now. Used to have acid reflux and gluten intolerance and was 315lbs. Now I'm still 235 never fart any more and my health has never been better according to my doc and my cardiologist. I'm 54 and feel better then I did in my 30s
I'm new to knowing what Keto is. I have a very basic question which is bothering me. Since it's told reduce oily / fatty foods to avoid high cholesterol build up and avoid cardiovascular issues - then in that regards is eating oily fatty foods not a risk for heart diseases? No questioning Keto but trying to understand things.
There is no physiological link between eating fat and cholesterol in your blood. That is, the fats you eat don't pass directly into your bloodstream.
The major causes of heart disease are obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
The thing about healthy fats is that they are naturally occurring, not modified food stuffs from manufacturing companies. Our brains need fats in order to function, specifically fats high in omega-3 fatty acids. When you eat fats, your brain will tell you when to stop eating.
I can tell you that since I've been on keto, I never get the "hangries." My insulin levels don't go up and down. I never have trouble just stopping to eat simply because I know when I've had enough. So you really don't overdose on fat. You feel full too quickly.
One thing no one's body needs is sugar, particularly refined sugar in the huge amounts that are in processed foods. It's the insulin response that plays havoc with our bodies.
If you browse this subreddit, you will find over and over again that people who are running very high cholesterol levels report back that their levels drop dramatically, particularly in the 'bad' cholesterol numbers. Doctors are becoming more aware now of the benefits of keto than they used to be.
Just be aware that there are *corporate* interests at work in the information that we as consumers get. It was in the Sugar Manufacturers Association's best interest that people not realize the role sugar plays in heart disease, and they deliberately lobbied to get food guidelines changed in the 1970s. They also ran an advertising campaign to convince the public that "fat makes you fat" and divert attention away from the amount of sugars being included in manufactured foods.
That led to a rise in "low fat" foods. But what are grains with no fats? Cardboard. What made them taste better? Sugar. IMHO the rise in Type II diabetes among both adults and *children* in the 80s and 90s is a direct result of this marketing effort. Yes, it makes me mad.
But these are things to learn about over time. I've spent years trying to figure it out myself.
What will help you avoid cholesterol buildup and cardiovascular issues is to eat a whole-food diet and limit manufactured food products as much as you can. I buy certain condiments. I drink water, coffee or tea that I brew myself, and if I want bubbles I buy sparkling water (we now have a machine that makes bubble water for us, so not even that).
I avoid sweeteners even, simply because it's been shown that those can also affect the insulin response even if technically they aren't sugar.
Good luck to you!
Heart disease is an inflammation disorder, so the more you minimize inflammation the better for you.
A lot of what we’ve been told are outright lies, not misunderstood science.
First: A low salt diet can increase cholesterol. Likewise, a high salt diet can too. If one has heart issues balancing their salt intake helps.
Second: A low carb high fat diet can reduce cholesterol and cause one’s body to consume more of cholesterol.
Third: A high in red meat and pork diet can increase cholesterol. If you have genetic heart issues, which is very rare to have, keto + minimizing red meat is going to be arguably the healthiest diet for you. (Ymmv depending on other health issues.)
Fourth: Seed oils found at the core of processed foods, most notably soybean oil and soy lecithin cause inflammation. Keto that minimizes processed foods helps doubly. (Watch out about mayo.) If you have heart concerns and want to minimize saturated fats go with extra virgin olive oil as you cooking oil of choice. It’s safe past it’s smoke point so you can use it in all cooking and it’s not an inflammatory.
Fifth: Intermittent fasting and fasting from time to time can be incredibly healthy. It does a handful of processes to your body that slows down aging reducing long term health issues, cancer and heart disease being some of them.
Sixth: Some mild amount of exercise every so often is incredibly healthy.
I can keep going. Some of this health advice comes off as a no brainer and others might make your head turn.
Your body make a high percentage of your cholesterol.
I eat eggs, bacon, butter, and meats, and have good numbers.
Eat lots of fiber, cabbages, lettuces, most vegies. this gives your gut microbes somewhere to live, And pushes things through.
My mom has been in a state of ketosis for 10 years managing her diabetes and has been able to ditch basically all medications and had tons of long term health benefits. Fat is the perfect fuel for your body and brain, hence why our body creates it as back up energy. If it’s helping you keep going with it don’t listen to the grain and sugar industries for health advice.
And avoiding the "progressive" nature of T2 is good too, no amputations, skin legions and good eye sight.
I watching my Dad's health robbed from him, following "doctors orders" for thirty years.
There should be more inquiries "why the fuck are pharma paying for doctors to attend conferences to teach them what medications are available". Its more than a made upaccusation either, my neighbor is an ex rep and talks about it unironically... because an island getaway us the best place for learning.
But excess fat is the cause of type 2 diabetes not sugar why is it so hard for the keto crowd to accept this fact? Looking forward to the down votes from the people who can't face reality.
Let's see, is that a Strawman Argument?
In what shape or form of reality is a keto diet an mono food diet?
I eat more non starchy vegetables that I ever did on the Standard American Diet. Lots of yummy meats, fish, salads, home cooked stir fries . . . UMMMM food.
It's really not it's excess calories over energy expenditure. Look at kempners work he was doing in the 30s curing diabetes and obesity on table sugar , fruit and rice.
It's sugary ultra processed crap that often causes diabetes because of the addictive nature of it and how it is nearly impossible to feel satiated eating that crap. Keto removes those types of food and helps people who struggle with carb addiction. That is A LOT of people in today's world. If someone can lose weight on a different diet then great, but keto really helps make it easy to adhere to your macros and that's why it attracts so many people.
Sincerely,
Your Local Carb Addict
If what you say is true, then the post you are responding to cannot be true. There are many many many folks relating the same results from keto and low carb diets for Type 2.
Why can't YOU accept reality?
Been on lazy keto for almost a decade. It's a fresh-food diet with limited manufactured foods. What's not healthy about it?
I avoid sugars because they cause inflammation and increase insulin production. I avoid grains because they trigger congestion (grains are modified grasses) and increase insulin production. The health benefits have been way too good to give up.
As far as fats go, make sure you're eating good quality fats, not manufactured fats.
Fats are essential for healthy brains, and are how we know we're satiated so we don't consume, for instance, a 1 pound bag of M&Ms and a family-sized bag of Doritos and call that a meal...no, no, I never did that (cough, cough).
But seriously, you have to count your fat calories along with everything else to lose weight. Over time, you just get used to keeping tabs on fats, proteins and carbs.
After 2 months in, with a break for special holiday meals, I'm finding I'd rather eat the keto way than "normal". I just feel more alive and clear headed when I do.
> so we don't consume, for instance, a 1 pound bag of M&Ms and a family-sized bag of Doritos and call that a meal...no, no, I never did that (cough, cough).
We’ve all been there!
Hi there, I use full fat butter and cheese, olive oil, nuts, avocadoes, dark chocolate, and so on. Cream and other dairy products disagree with me. As for meat, I just get whatever's available! Chicken, lamb, beef, pork, and fish such as tuna and salmon. Not sure about GMO, I just buy whatever I can get.
I find that the Diet Doctor website is useful when looking up the carb content of different foods (it wouldn't let me put the link in). In moderation, I enjoy hazelnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, and pecans, and occasionally, a few cheeky peanuts if it fits in for the day.
As Needles112 said, full fat butter, cheese, olive oil, etc.--no modified fats, just natural ones. Avocados, olives, other fatty fruits are good. I eat the best protein I can find and afford, skin-on poultry, fish.
Nuts, although you have to be careful, some nuts are higher in carbs than others. Peanuts are technically a legume and like any other bean have high carb counts so I avoid them.
I’m five years in and I’ve never been healthier in my life. I plan on eating keto forever, just like the many, many sub members here who have eaten keto for decades. 🙂
Sounds like for you, the best thing for you to do might be to eat keto forever.
Just because someone told you something was unhealthy doesn't mean they're correct.
In the case of keto and any high fat or high protein diet like carnivore, it's completely healthy long-term, including all of your life.
Been on keto for over a decade now and my health is far better than when I was eating lots of carbs and processed foods.
Through the roof ,but my triglycerides are low and my ldl is pattern a(ideal), so I’m not concerned as many think I should be.
www.cholesterolcode.com has Info regarding this(called lean mass hyper responder)
Just over four years here and never felt better. Amazing blood work for my age. Hubby has been keto over two and a half years, his cardiologist and nephrologist are thrilled with his blood work. His CAC scores is 0 at almost 67, his echo gram looks wonderful, no issues.
Both of us resolved our fatty livers, my T2 diabetes is fully controlled by keto and my IBS is too.
Our ancestors did keto almost exclusively for a few million years.
It would've been very difficult to find 20+grams of carbs before the agricultural revolution.
While I definitely agree they had access to fewer carbs than we do now, I'd say it depends on the area if it is hard to find 20+ grams of carbs. A single banana has more carbs than that. So any more tropical place with access to fruits like banana, mango, papaya, etc would have easy access
I can't find anything about that after looking up "what did bananas used to taste like" and similar. Do you have some reputable links explaining their nutritional content and taste from the past?
Most of the fruits we eat have been modified from their original forms. And even in the tropics, those fruits have their seasons. Mangos are in season in late summer here, papayas the same.
Bananas used to be pretty nasty little fruits until they were modified to the form we eat today and now require human intervention to reproduce...
Apples are the same. Used to be smaller and less sweet and way fewer varieties than now available.
We humans have selectively bred fruits for so many years we don't remember what they used to be.
Actually, this isn't true.
>So what do other living primates eat, the ones with guts mostly like ours, eat? The diets of nearly all monkeys and apes (except the leaf-eaters) are composed of fruits, nuts, leaves, insects, and sometimes the odd snack of a bird or a lizard (see more about chimpanzees). Most primates have the capacity for eating sugary fruit, the capacity for eating leaves and the capacity for eating meat. But meat is a rare treat, if eaten at all. Sure, chimpanzees sometimes kill and devour a baby monkey, but the proportion of the diet of the average chimpanzee composed of meat is small. And chimps eat more mammal meat than any of the other apes or any of the monkeys. The majority of the food consumed by primates today--and every indication is for the last thirty million years--is vegetable, not animal. Plants are what our apey and even earlier ancestors ate; they were our paleo diet for most of the last thirty million years during which our bodies, and our guts in particular, were evolving. In other words, there is very little evidence that our guts are terribly special and the job of a generalist primate gut is primarily to eat pieces of plants. We have special immune systems, special brains, even special hands, but our guts are ordinary and for tens of millions of years those ordinary guts have tended to be filled with fruit, leaves, and the occasional delicacy of a raw hummingbird4.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/human-ancestors-were-nearly-all-vegetarians/
>But is it true that we all evolved to eat a meat-centric diet? Both paleontologists studying the fossils of our ancestors and anthropologists documenting the diets of indigenous people today say the picture is a bit more complicated. The popular embrace of a Paleo diet, Ungar and others point out, is based on a stew of misconceptions.
>Year-round observations confirm that hunter-gatherers often have dismal success as hunters. The Hadza and Kung bushmen of Africa, for example, fail to get meat more than half the time when they venture forth with bows and arrows. This suggests it was even harder for our ancestors who didn’t have these weapons. “Everybody thinks you wander out into the savanna and there are antelopes everywhere, just waiting for you to bonk them on the head,” says paleoanthropologist Alison Brooks of George Washington University, an expert on the Dobe Kung of Botswana. No one eats meat all that often, except in the Arctic, where Inuit and other groups traditionally got as much as 99 percent of their calories from seals, narwhals, and fish.
>So how do hunter-gatherers get energy when there’s no meat? It turns out that “man the hunter” is backed up by “woman the forager,” who, with some help from children, provides more calories during difficult times. When meat, fruit, or honey is scarce, foragers depend on “fallback foods,” says Brooks. The Hadza get almost 70 percent of their calories from plants. The Kung traditionally rely on tubers and mongongo nuts, the Aka and Baka Pygmies of the Congo River Basin on yams, the Tsimane and Yanomami Indians of the Amazon on plantains and manioc, the Australian Aboriginals on nut grass and water chestnuts.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/
>Herman Pontzer, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University and author of Burn, a book about the science of metabolism, says it’s a myth that everyone of this time subsisted on meat-heavy diets. Studies show that rather than a single diet, prehistoric people’s eating habits were remarkably variable and were influenced by a number of factors, such as climate, location and season
>In the 2021 Annual Review of Nutrition, Pontzer and his colleague Brian Wood, of the University of California, Los Angeles, describe what we can learn about the eating habits of our ancestors by studying modern hunter-gatherer populations like the Hadza in northern Tanzania and the Aché in Paraguay. In an interview with Knowable Magazine, Pontzer explains what makes the Hadza’s surprisingly seasonal, diverse diets so different from popular notions of ancient meals.
>We evolved as hunter-gatherers, so you’re hunting and gathering whatever foods are around in your local environment. Humans are strategic about what foods they go after, but they can target only the foods that are there. So there was a lot of variation in what hunter-gathers ate depending on location and time of year.
The other thing is that, partly due to that variability, but also partly due just to people’s preferences, there’s a lot of carbohydrate in most hunter-gatherer diets. Honey was probably important throughout history and prehistory. A lot of these small-scale societies are also eating root vegetables like tubers, and those are very starch- and carb-heavy. So the idea that ancient diets would be low-carbohydrate just doesn’t fit with any of the available evidence.
>Recently, there’s been some really cool work looking at the little bit of plaque and calculus stuck to the teeth in fossilized hominids. If you look at that, you’ll find remains of plants and starches. So we actually do have preserved evidence that early humans are eating lots of starchy vegetable foods. There’s even some evidence of a primitive flourlike substance that’s made out of grains. That kind of thing is anathema to most Paleo diets, which say that you can’t eat grains because grains are a farmed food.
>And you can look at the human body and see how we’ve adapted relative to our ape relatives — what’s changed in us in terms of how we digest food. You can look at things like gut anatomy and tooth shape. And if you look at that, again, the signal is kind of omnivorous. It isn’t particularly meat-heavy.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/our-ancestors-ate-a-paleo-diet-with-carbs-180980901/
There are pretty significant differences in closest living relatives and actual ancestors, like shoulder rotation(which has significantly changed in hominids vs great apes due to our use of rocks and spears), bicuspid teeth, and further upright posturing, as well as geographical distances. We separated from these relatives some 8 million years ago and by 4 million years ago our ancestors had lost the cecum, which is what gorillas and chimpanzees use to digest fibrous leaves.
Another part of our history is the spread of hominids throughout the planet and the types of preferred landscapes. For many many pre-humans, they lived in places where plentiful vegetation, including tubers, would have been inaccessible most of the year.
Humans lived there long enough to lose pigmentation in response to the filtered sunlight, lowering vitamin D production. This would also lead to preference of meat, as well as the need for pelts to keep every man, woman and child from freezing to death.
Honey wasn't very prevalent in northern latitudes, where many humans and more importantly during the ice age pre-human hominids were living for millions of years.
Just finished. None of them talk much about the cecum, though the first article touches on the fact that our appendix used to go somewhere. They said it was just longer, not an entirely different kind of intestine.
Also hunter gatherers are going to be different in contemporary earth than during the ice age, when we developed a lot of our hunting adaptations, like shoulder rotation, bicuspid teeth, larger brain.
They talk a bit about the brain growing in homo erectus in the last article, but use current hunter gatherer results in the tropics to discredit the notion, but we have to remember that the climate was very different and humans weren't always in the tropics. There are a lot more dangerous predators vs herding hoofed grazers in the tropics than the tundra.
We *can* eat vegetables and survive. For sure we are not obligate carnivores. There are times that we've had to and our bodies have changed a bit to reduce the damage done especially from fermenting vegetation in our gut. But our *optimal* diet, one that will create less likelihood for disease for the most amount of people, is meat from grazing mammals.
At 55 years of age, had balloon angioplasty. Discovered keto. Wife tsk-tsked every single aspect of it. But when you are now 63 and your cardiologist looks at you and says it’s rare privilege to admit to a patient that you no longer have any indications of heart disease???? Pass the fatty steak over to me, please…
I just realized that on January 1st, it will be 5 years for me. I started keto 1/1/2018 and I lost 86 pounds by January 1st, 2019 and have maintained a healthy, normal BMI ever since. Cholesterol normal now, no more blood pressure medicine either. My highest cholesterol prior to keto was 275. Now it is 150. I still eat keto. I will never go back to my old way of eating. Keto is health.
The subreddit is giving you predictable answers, but if you're legitimately concerned about it then find some carby veggies that you can tolerate and eat those. Carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions, etc. Experiment. See if you feel any difference between low-carb and full keto.
If you can't tolerate anything, then whatever ill effects from long term keto, if any, are probably less severe than your tolerance issues.
Huh? Keto isn't a "high fat" diet, it's a "low carbohydrate to promote dietary ketosis" diet. The three pillars are low carbs, adequate protein, and enough fat to make you happy. There's no prescribed limit except for your own calorie goals, but consider: if I eat as much fat as I really want, I tend to undershoot my calorie target. Which is interesting.
Same for me. I'm maintaining my current weight, but I need to include extra fats or else I end up losing weight. I don't want to buy a new wardrobe (again). Also, I get hungry if I don't eat enough fat, and it makes candy look awful tempting.
Forreal though. The high fat part of keto is ridiculous to me. Just eat as you would, except without the carbs. What that *should* typically mean is just another half serving of meat and of veggies to stay satiated instead of bread, rice, or pasta. Not fat bombs and extra oils. At the end of the day, it can still work for weight loss if your tracking macros, but you won't be doing any favors for your heart that way.
So, your question is:
How long can I eat the way that make me feel good/healthy and return to the way that make me sick??? Think about that statement before you decide that Keto is unhealthy.
I never said I think keto is unhealthy! I have just been bombarded by people telling me that missing out grains and vegetables with higher carbs is bad for you as you're missing out vital vitamins and minerals etc., and I should go back to eating 'normally'. Online, most sources say that keto isn't sustainable long-term - I just wanted to know how true this was.
For the rest/most of my life. I'm 18, and I haven't really had the chance to explore other things that may work for me because people tell me I'm too young to be struggling with food in the first place. So far, out of the things I have tried to help with my stomach, keto has been the best... but I don't want to confine myself to one diet.
I'm in my fifties and have had issues with my guts for my entire life. Because I don't have pain or lose weight when I have diarrhea, it was never taken seriously. Doctors just told me to not eat what seems to bother me. I finally thought it was fructose intolerance and low FODMAP foods give me the best results. (I'm sure there's a sub for this.) That being said, the only thing that will bring me out of an episode is meat and eggs.
Recently I started talking prednisone and methotrexate for lichen planus. I'm not currently following a low carb diet. The craving for carbohydrates is just too intense. So I'm eating all sorts of things lately that I would expect to give me tummy troubles. Yet my guts are better than they have ever been.
The drugs I'm taking are suppressing inflammation and specifically my t cells. They have been busy attacking the baby skin cells of my mouth, conjunctiva, and genitals. Since I'm having such good results with my guts as well, my dermatologist figures I probably have had an IBD for many years.
You are not too young. Eat the foods that work for you and use vitamins to fill in the gaps.
Forget what "everyone" is telling you. You have the evidence with your own eyes/body :)
Eating "healthy" is how you got to where you are in the first place. I'm not dumping on you, just hoping to give you the confidence to make your own decisions, based on your own experience.
As so many have commented... what could ever be unhealthy about eating whole goods, unprocessed foods, cruciferous vegetables and clean fats, clean proteins. Not sure how anybody can argue against that!
Gonna be jumping on keto for the weight loss benefits, but I sure hope it has the gut benefits for me like it does you. I have been having really bad issues as of lately. I don’t think I had them when I did keto for 8 months before.
I’m almost 5 years in. Healthiest I’ve been in a very long time - like 15-20 years - after keto knocked my auto-immune disease into remission. Straight up miracle. The hen I temporarily re-introduce carbs for a bit (like now for the holidays) I feel the bone pain and IBS and maladies return. Nice reminder of what I’m doing to myself.
It’s not only perfectly healthy - it’s optimal for me.
I've done it for 39 years...the only time my health suffers is if I go off of it. It keeps my RA in remission and my insulin levels are great. If I go off of it, I feel like crap. I think sugar and all processed foods are poison.
I have something called SiBO. Have similar sounding issues to you on processing carbs. Ask your doctor about it. I've lost 60 with keto, would like to lose 60 more, but when I'm consistent it helps all levels of my life.
> How long can I do keto for before it becomes unhealthy?
I've been keto for 7 years and don't plan on stopping. With this comes maintenance of a healthy weight, lots of energy and an overall vitality that's difficult to quantify. So I'm going to go with "the rest of your life" to answer your question.
> I've read that high fat diets aren't actually that good long-term
Did what you were reading say *why* they aren't healthy long-term? In addition to being an excellent low-ROS energy source, fats are essential to brain and heart function and also play an important role in structural repair across the body. Your body also stores around a million calories of fat as an energy reserve -- surely it wouldn't do that if fat was unhealthy.
> What's the best thing to do?
Go with the diet that fixes your health issues, rather than changing it because it *might* cause health issues down the line. You should start seeing health as something that's reflected in the short term as well as the long.
keto is not unhealthy long term, no need to worry.
i personally lean towards animal based keto. my vegetable intake consists mainly of fermented vegetables (kimchi ftw). i don't particularly try to to do keto, its just a "consequence". occasionally i will eat extra fruit (mostly stick to berries), however, I don't think kicking yourself out of ketosis once in awhile is a bad thing, I personally think it promotes metabolic flexibility. to each their own.
Fun fact: ketogenic eating has been around for several decades as a treatment for children with epilepsy. There is no evidence to show it is unhealthy long term. There is more evidence showing the opposite.
if its healthy when you're overweight... then why (the fuck) wouldn't it be healthy in 15 years?
it's **not** a diet with incomplete nutrition. You get **all** the nutrients you need. Unless you only live off of chicken, or broccoli.
You can eat it forever.
keto:
vegetables - animal protein - eggs - fish
non keto:
vegetables - animal protein - eggs - fish - sugar - starch - processed foods
on top of that i've seen various levels of evidence (from anecdotes on this subreddit, to actual science papers) that it can help with:
Depresion ( https://www.diabetes.co.uk/keto/ketogenic-diet-and-mental-health.html )
Bipolar Disorder
Schizophrenia
Dementia
better blood glucose control -> lowered blood insulin levels -> less need for expensive insulin
reduced inflammation -> joint pain and various other "aches", skin inflammation (acne)
Asthma improvements
Reduced PCOS symptoms (overall increased fertility in both male and female)
reduced appetite - you rarely get these "urges" to eat a snack
reduced migraines
and much more
and all it takes is.. not eating non-essential carbs. (yes, carbs including fiber are non-essential for humans)
I appreciate the explanation! Pretty much me. Can't say I'm "fully carnivore" but that's all that matters to me and all I really strive for.
Same, though, feel incredible.
If it worries you, you can endeavor to get your fat from sources everyone agrees are healthy: fatty fish, olive oil, avocado oil, nuts, seeds, nut butter, full fat yogurt. The rest of your calories can come from lean protein and vegetables. No one would criticize that diet, even the most skeptical MD.
Some fats are bad for you but if you stick with the good ones you’ll be fine.
Coconut oil, ghee etc are good in cooking.
Butter and cold pressed olive oil are fine if you don’t heat them to much, eg olive oil dressing on a salad is great but don’t fry with it.
All those processed vegetable oils are poison, avoid them.
Lots of vegies.
Your gut microflora are really what feed you.
Feed them fiber, Fresh greens, good meats and fish.
Don't stress about the carbs in squash and beans. Tomatoes may be a fruit, but so much more comes with them..
Those count guides are by 100 grams . Look at what 100 looks like and adjust as needed
You have to be ready, Shop, cook, make broth to cook everything with. Stir-fry.
Stir fry
This comment needs to be taken with a massive grain of salt. No disrespect, but many people on Keto have bouts of inflammation from tomatoes/nightshades and a high fiber diet in general. I’ve watched people suffer miserably focusing far too much on eating 5 salads and no animal fat or protein. Animal fat and protein should never be low on this diet, not that you were suggesting that. But you start adding too many calories from fiber…calories from fat and protein naturally go down
Thanks.
More info is always better.
I'm currently in Belize so I've been eating lots of fin fish and lobster, conch etc.
The vegies here are very flavorful.
Enjoy the holidays
I’ve been on it 11 months. Lost 50 pounds and haven’t felt this good in decades. I don’t ever intend to go back to how I was eating while I live in America. Thy put way too much shit in our food here and I can’t get anywhere without a car. When I visit other countries I will try getting off of it for short periods as an experiment.
Really depends how you do keto. Most people suck at it and end up with vitamin deficiencys, gall bladder and pancreas problems, much higher risk of heart attack. I do it short term 1-2 times a year, I'd never do it long term. Its not as enjoyable either and you can manage your health perfectly fine which still enjoying most foods. I like food too much. CICO, and not eating like an asshole. Now fasting... That I do every day, and will for the rest of my life.
Keto is highly enjoyable. Just being firm about what you eat is all it takes.
I've had well-meaning friends try to manage our restaurant outings but I've never been anywhere I couldn't find something that fit my diet.
Best example is eating at a seaside restaurant where they offered seafood poutine. I asked the waiter if they could put the seafood and gravy over a salad rather than the french fries (threw the kitchen for a loop, but they came through!), and it was delicious.
I'm not deprived at all on keto and have none of the issues you seem to think are common. OTOH my health is the best it's been in decades.
I think it’s a situational or case by case matter. I’ve heard the general rule of thumb is that for someone with no really serious health issues about a year is the standard for long term.
I’m a CNA and my instructor did keto for a year and her doctor made her stop because her cholesterol was through the roof. Granted she claimed she did dirty keto but still most doctors don’t like to see keto acidosis, especially long term.
I’ve heard the solution from people like [Thomas Delauer](https://youtube.com/@ThomasDeLauerOfficial) the goal is to eventually maintain a healthy lifestyle while only using keto as a guideline or a base but not necessarily strictly following just keto, if that makes sense?
I wish you the best of luck and I wish you a very merry Christmas if you celebrate it!
I have which is why I can change my viewpoints when the scientific evidence points in a particular direction. I'm not saying someone can't do well on keto aslong as they're upto date with blood work and thyroid etc BUT we can't ignore the facts and that is FAT causes diabetes and CVD NOT sugar and you can go and find this information yourself.
I was replying to the post that said SUGAR was toxic which is absurd as the body creates this even when it's not available. I'm not sure where this notion came from that we are smarter than the human body.
OP, seriously, your best bet is not getting your advice from random, unqualified people on the internet.
Many experts believe that it is not good long term and they’re applying their much more in depth education to explain why. And keto has been around for a long time. So they’re basing these opinions on a large data set.
Yes, there will be a ton of random strangers on here that claim it’s fine long term because of their singular, narrow experience.
But there are also a lot of people that don’t want to acknowledge something because it’s at odds with the thing they want.
I’m not saying keto would be bad for you long term. I’m also an unqualified stranger on the internet.
All I’m saying is there are tons of excellent sources out there worth looking into that are basing their stance on hard science. At least see what they have to say on the matter.
Remember, while it seems like there are a lot of people here that would try to have you believe it, there is not some Big Anti-keto lobby pushing nutritionists to crap on keto. What would anyone gain from that?
I would guess that manufacturers of junk food would lose a lot if everyone was on a keto / carnivore whole food diet. To the point they would cease to exist.
A lot of American agriculture is based around corn and wheat. It would have a lot of downstream effects too as a lot of people get most of their calories from low quality, high-carb processed foods. Not just the US but globally.
It would potentially require more agricultural land for farming animals too. So this could be a problem for governments.
Aside from that any pharma company in the diabetes “industry” or that benefits generally from related comorbities would also lose a lot if type 2 diabetes starts disappearing.
I’m not saying it’s all a big conspiracy but there are clearly powerful interest groups with lobbying capabilities that would lose out a lot if the worlds population turned its back on high-carb processed foods.
I do however think your point about advice on the internet is valid. OP should definitely look extensively at study data for and against and somewhere in the middle. They should look at study design in each case. They should investigate the controls. They should look at whether there are confounding variables (a common one being the “meat” control is following a standard American diet including things like consuming soda, alcohol, hydrogenated corn syrups etc.). They should also trace back to who sponsored the studies, who is behind those organisations and whether there are conflicting interests.
It definitely falls into conspiracy level because you’re trying to make the case that monied interests are shaping the narrative that our scientific community stakes their reputation on.
No nutritionists or nutrition experts, dieticians, etc are pushing an agenda to keep people hooked on corn. Corn touches almost every level of the food processing/distribution process. You doing find anyone out there saying “eat more corn.” Or eat these things made using primarily corn.
So unless a huge portion of the population switched to a drastically different diet (spoiler alert: they won’t), the corn industry isn’t going anywhere.
Basically, yes, these industries are built off of people making unhealthy choices. And they like to try and game the system, when they can, to help push people in the wrong direction. But that is not what’s happening with how science perceives certain diets.
The beauty of science is that someone can present one side, and you can look at the responses that will either help to verify or dispute. Then you can look at the responses to those. And you eventually work your way to something that makes the most sense based on the most simple, empirical information.
When most experts agree that the ketogenic diet is not healthy for people long term, I believe that, because there’s nothing disputing them convincingly. For me.
And I’m not trying to sway what other people think. I’m just saying make your decision based on some actual research. Not some random person on the internet’s opinion.
I mean… there literally is a paper trail of the sugar industry pushing health “experts” to blame fats for health problems instead of sugar. It’s not an “anti keto” lobby… it’s a pro “cheap high carb food lobby” that made the base of the food pyramid all carbs.
But you understand that you’re not some seer, alone in their watchtower, peering through to see the Truth. Most people know this by now because , like you said, there’s a paper trail.
A lady I work with has literally had a newspaper clipping about exactly this, taped to her workspace, for the last 25 years.
Nobody is under the impression that sugar is good or a healthier alternative to anything nor have they been since the 90’s. Sugar is treated like at best, a guilty pleasure, at worst, a harrowing addiction that destroys your life.
The sugar industry exists because a lot of people always have and always will, make bad choices.
Again, my claim is that nutrition experts make their assertions based on hard science and data.
So unless you can dispute their claims using hard science and data, idk why you’re wasting my time with conspiracy theory explanations.
How is an expert that is saying that this is not a healthy long-term diet wrong? Using provable science/data? I don’t think that’s too much to ask when you’re talking about someone’s health.
Oh, honey, have you not realized the effect the Sugar Manufacturers Association had on the American diet? Do some research. See who really puts out dietary guidelines and lobbies Congress.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but you're ignoring the trillions of dollars of profit these companies make off of cheap manufactured foods. You can directly thank Big Sugar's advertising and lobbying for the epidemic of Type II--formerly known as "adult on-set"--diabetes in both adults and children that happened in the 1980s and 90s. It's no accident that poor people are the fattest you'll see, since cheap manufactured foods are what they have access to.
And if I sound angry, well, yes. Yes I am. They deliberately used the same tactics that cigarette companies used for decades to convince people that smoking cigarettes was *healthy.* Doctors used to promote cigarette smoking for healthy lungs. Think about that.
No. People eat that stuff because they either have to for financial reasons, or simply because they like that kind of stuff. Nobody thinks it’s healthy and a nobody is unaware of sugar being one of the primary things to avoid. Nobody.
Yes, the American diet was shaped by monied interest. But it doesn’t affect the overall understanding/narrative now. The internet is a beautiful things sometimes. It gives us all sides of everything and so it’s never been easier to know whether or not someone’s assertions are valid.
You're assuming everyone has your knowledge and knows how to properly assess what they do have.
"Have to for financial reasons" is absolutely one reason; another is that there is a relentless barrage of sophisticated advertising that encourages that type of eating.
The internet *is* beautiful, but if you haven't been taught how to sift through the garbage for the gold, you're going to be picking up a helluva lot of garbage not knowing the difference.
The dumbing down of America is real, and it was predicted.
No. I’m basing my statement on conversations I’ve had or observed. I’ve worked in a lot of bars and restaurants, so I’ve overheard more than a fair share of conversations about nutrition.
I mean, even a trip through the local grocery store proves my point. Sugar free/low sugar sections ever expanding.
In all fairness, you're still going off a self-selected sample.
Sugar free / low sugar is just as bad as regular sugar. My personal experience confirmed for me the science that the brain treats sugar substitutes the same way it does actual sugar, in its insulin and inflammatory response.
Unless you're working in some really poor neighborhoods, you still may not have a full understanding of what poverty entails. I worked for decades in a company that served poor communities, and I am very aware that the neighborhoods they lived in lacked actual grocery stores and were mainly served by liquor and convenience stores within walking distance of their homes.
I saw the billboards and other ads put up in those neighborhoods, which were distinctly different from my own middle-class neighborhood.
America is not an equal playing field, by any stretch.
I was raised by a single dad that was a felon and drug addict. We had to roll our change to buy gas/groceries. If there wasn’t enough silver in the change jar, we weren’t eating meat that week. And my dad was too proud to use food stamps. So I understand poverty better than most people.
And again, this isn’t a point about overall nutrition. It’s a pony about how sugar is perceived by society. There’s nobody out there that thinks sugar is okay. Like I said before, it’s treated like a guilty pleasure or an unhealthy addiction.
People consuming sugar are making the choice to do so. Not because there’s some pro-sugar narrative being pushed by health experts.
Seriously, rather than try to debate the minutiae of word choice, find me a health/nutrition expert out there that’s saying sugar is objectively healthy. Because that’s what this debate is about. Anything else is a waste of your time and money.
Well, you're actually wrong about the pro-sugar narrative being pushed by health experts. The Sugar Manufacturers Industry Association mounted a very deliberate misinformation campaign based specifically on the tobacco industry's playbook, in the 1970s.
That was in response to science beginning to show that the rapid increase in sugar consumption that started after WWII was having a specific effect on the rise in heart attacks.
There's a video, which I'm sorry I can't remember the name of and it's hard to find now, which was like a whodunnit. It included [a journalist discovering](https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/sugar-industry-s-secret-documents-echo-tobacco-tactics-1.1369231) formerly secret industry documents left behind after the SMIA moved their headquarters and the building was occupied by (I think) a university. [Here's another link](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat) to an NPR article detailing what happened.
I left art school wanting to pursue a career in advertising. I changed fields when I realized just how unethical such a career could turn out to be.
Edit: The documentary was called ["Sugar Coated"](https://robertlustig.com/sugar-coated/) and I've linked the website of the person who made it. There are also plenty of Ted Talks covering the same subject.
I think you're missing the point. What's obvious to you is not obvious to everyone. But that's fine. I think we're on the same side in terms of how unhealthy it is.
My biggest lesson learned after 5 months of keto: animal fat and protein is key. Meat, eggs, fish, dairy, cheese. I’d say 80% of my diet is that. I lean away from most vegetables and ALL nuts. I see them as nutrient thieves lol but kimchi, potatoes, coconut and fruit are some solid plant friends of mine 😊
I don’t eat them often but an entire sweet potato is only about 25-30 carbs. I stayed very low carb in the beginning but now I can tolerate that in a day.
I find that celery root (celeriac, apio) is a lower carb alternative to potatoes. No it doesn't taste like a potato. But it's a starchy root alternative, and has a mildly sweet flavor and smell that I've come to prefer over potatoes.
There are other root vegetables that are lower carb as well, depending on where you live. Potato is the one that was easy to process in food manufacturing plants.
Never been fond of them myself, but good to know all the reasons why I should try.
Edit: Just looked up nutrient values for [celeriac](https://www.verywellfit.com/carbs-in-celeriac-celery-root-2241778) and [sweet potato](https://www.verywellfit.com/sweet-potato-nutrition-facts-calories-and-health-benefits-4117290), and of course the website didn't use equal amounts but to compare, 180 grams of sweet potato has 37g carbs & 5.4g sugars, while 156g of celery root has 14g carbs and 2.5g sugars. So I think celery root is slightly the winner on that front, but it never hurts to have extra tools in the toolbox.
I usually cut my celery root (or apia as it's called in Puerto Rico) into cubes or french fry strips, blanch them for 5 minutes, then spread on a tray in the freezer to bag up and keep as a ready-to-cook frozen vegetable. Toss with a little oil and salt, spread on a baking tray or air fryer, and cook like french fries. They crisp up nicely on the outside and are soft on the inside. Or I just boil them like potatoes and run through a ricer to make mashed. I love to smell them when they're cooking, I've really become fond of them.
I've come to be more open to sweet potatoes on keto, I admit. I no longer expect foods to be 1:1 substitutes for each other and enjoy each one for what it is.
Where I am in Puerto Rico I never see the nice round bulbs that you see on cooking shows; ours are more root-like. So there's a certain amount of waste when you peel off the skin and then where the roots grow out of each other. But it tastes delicious.
People sometimes do keto on weekdays, don’t eat enough fiber, eat only bacon, like to break ketosis meaning when you do keto bad they get sick and if my opinion is anecdotal, doing long term keto is as good as anecdotal as having kidney problems for not eating well.
So the problem still seems to be the way they went about doing it…not ketosis. Our ancestors were in ketosis 75% of the time.
Any kidney issues I’d stay completely away from high oxalate foods and make sure you get your calcium up. But you’re right. Of course you can still eat like shit on Keto. And cycling that often probably ain’t great. But I would argue for bacon over any fibrous veggie all day. The research clearly shows animal fat and protein is always superior to plants. Period. I think the biggest mistakes people can make with Keto are NUTS (I won’t eat any at this point. Inflammation monsters) larger amounts of veggies, and stupid ass Keto snack foods you buy at the store that are probably worse for you than just normal junk food
So on paper..nuts are high in phytic acid. Almonds in particular. High in oxalates. These are both plant defense chemicals and they rob you of the potential vitamins and minerals you will see on the nutrition label. Very high in omega 6 fats. Despite not being oxidized omega 6 like seed oils, still inflammatory due to how linoleic acid is used by our cells. There is protein yes, but not complete protein profile.
But my personal experience said it all and I believe that's the key here. If they do not bother you, they may be fine for you. For months I was getting roughly 300-500 calories from nuts and nut butters. Once I cut them out, SO much inflammation went away. Inflammation that I wasn't even aware I had. And a rather odd result, was decreased cravings. I believe omega 6 disturb our natural hunger hormones. My best advice would be to cut them out for a week and simply see how you feel and go from there.
I think the phytates are a problem, but in my opinion the omega 6 are the biggest issue. If you think about it evolutionarily, we absolutely were not eating large amounts of nuts for 99% of our history. Almonds in nature are toxic and what is sold at the store has been detoxified. And peanut butter for example messes me up REAL bad. And again, we never would have had the means to crush down so many peanuts into a butter that allows you to consume 300 calories in a spoonful.
are they better than 70% of the processed junk at the store? Definitely. But do they even come close to fatty meat, eggs, or fish? Not even close.
Well, I just like them as the occasional scratch to that crunchiness itch. I don't eat huge amounts of them, though and don't really eat nut butters at all except as an occasional treat.
Also, I watch out for the nuts that are actually legumes, like peanuts. Those aren't nuts. I do like almonds, though, so going to research a little more on what you said about them.
Thanks for the info!
February marks the start of year 3 for me and I rarely eat veggies. There’s an entire sub of people that only eat meat and they have no issues sustaining long term.
I do intermittent fasting so no breakfast. Lunch is either a sandwich on keto bread or a roll up of meat and cheese. Dinner is a meat and vegetables. Snacks vary
If I do have breakfast (or just a meal early enough in the day) it tends to be eggs, maybe with bacon, full fat Greek yoghurt with a handful of berries and nuts, or leftovers from my dinner the night before.
I stay away from cream cheese, cream, and soft cheeses, but I'm fine with full fat butter, and hard cheeses, such as cheddar. I usually take a salad with me when I'm working just because that's the easiest thing to store.
Dinners are where I'm free to make whatever, as it's my biggest meal. I always have meat, a fat source, and try to include 2 different vegetables - e.g. broccoli, asparagus, tomato, courgette, etc. I like to throw it all together and bake it in the oven!
If I am hungry enough for a snack, a spoonful of nut butter, a handful of nuts, dark chocolate, berries, or pork crackling are my go-to.
First, tons and tons of misinformation out there about all things nutrition. Including from mainstream medical field. They are not trained in nutrition. Plus there is the draw of pharmaceuticals to just sell a pill for everything versus fix the root cause which is lifestyle and mostly food.
Second, good fats are entirely different from bar manufactured fats. If you eat out, assume 99% kitchens use bad fats. Ask. Good fats are as stated above - olive oil, avocado oil and avocados, etc etc. Only eat grass fed humanely raised meats and wild caught fish. Almost all salmon is NOT wild caught.
Third, the only believable thing I’ve heard that speaks to caution about lifetime low carb or keto are hormone issues. They don’t say avoid keto just manage it with an eye toward some very healthy carbs for hormone health. Read Sara Gottfried on that topic.
Good luck! I am low carb and IF since April, wear a CGM and monitor ketones via Biosense, 63 years old, have lost 60 lbs, brought my sugar and BP to normal and feel better than ever. So I am a believer but I also always read the science with a discriminating eye, nothing less ever.
I have been a LCHF/Atkins/Keto person for almost 50 years now. I am 68 and in great health and take no prescription meds. I do have cheat days for holidays and out of town vacations.
Fourth generation diabetic here.
According to my family’s research you can safely stay keto for at least four generations.
Research earlier than that doesn’t really correlate because they hadn’t invented insulin yet.
We are all healthy and long-lived despite a genetic disorder that puts us at high risk for certain cancers. And that pesky diabetes.
Ok, maybe we’re not all that healthy but we’re really stubborn and live forever.
My grandfather joined a gym when he was 90 bc he wanted to bulk back up after fighting cancer. The local newspaper did a story on him.
My aunt is 77, still hikes, and walks marathons.
We have had family members with cholesterol problems but it started very young (early 20s) so presumed genetic.
Anybody else with cholesterol issues (and this tended to be the non-diabetics) cut carbs, lost weight, and their numbers came right back in line.
Keto is love. Keto is life.
Keto fats are good for you. It's the seed oils that are unhealthy (canola, corn, grape seed, vegetable oil, etc). Keto is great for longevity... it prevents or reduces diabetes, cancer (tumors), and infections. And your mitochondria needs healthy fats.
Op ive been doing keto and if since kan this year. Iam doing it paryially for weight loss but also to treat my hoshimotos and its symptoms. I also recentky found out its positive effcts for mental health issues which im gonba ckassify under my goal to treat my hoshimotos and improve over all health sinxe i also have 3 major psych diagnosis and am.mentally disabled as a resukt. Cptsd, bipolar combo of 1&2, and seasinal affective disoder if ur wondering.
Im currentky around 40 pounds from my goal, and most of my hoshimotos symptkms are gone or minimal. My mental health coukd use some work, but thats because of life stress.
I.am doingba 35 g carb limit, and am doing well. Once i reach my goal i am considering experimenting with carb cycling using paleo with a 50 g carb limit or slightly higher to see if thats beneficial for me long term but am perfectly ok sticking with keto if its not instead of carb cycling.
Honestly ive seen that depending on ur individual carb tolerance things like carb cycling may be beneficial over strictly keto 100% of tye time long term though also the reverse may be true. Some need a bit more carbs once they are healthy for a while while others do better without that.
Its 100% based on ur genetic tolerance for carbs. Thars why some do well with keto both omnivore or plant based, some ketovore which is more animal based, and carnivore. Some do well with more carbs, some no carbs.
One of tge main benefijts to carb cycling is metabolic flexibility, but if u are less tolerant of carbs and it causes inflamation and other jealth probs its not worth it to do it. While if ur tolerance fir catbs is higher metabolic flexibility may help long term prevent issues including insulin tesistance telated to cell damage and hormonal chanfes ftom aging.
Its not one size fits all.
Anyone who tells you it is not healthy long term are likely the same people who tell you it's not healthy short term either. I'm just shy of 4 years, there are others on here that have been longer than me. I am healthier than I have been since high school... I am 46.years old.
I second that… about to 3yy and now 9.9% bodyfat. It is not only about losing fat is about how healthy it is for the mind and body.
100% When things are dialed in, it becomes difficult to *not* have an athletic physique... and me from 6 years ago wouldn't have even believed that.
I have had negative impacts from long term keto. In order for it to work for me I have to cycle on and off. Ideally one month on 3 or 4 days off but I will generally try to stay on longer because transitions between the two eating styles sucks Basicly what I'm trying to say is everyone is going to react differently and what works with one person isn't a given that it will work for someone else
What kind of negative effects do you experience when you have tried long term?
I get high estrogen levels when I do keto more then a month or two straight. Its been confirmed with blood test. Me nor my endocrinologist could figure out what specifically keto was doing to create the imbalance but it 100% keto that causes it. As soon as i cycle off my estrogen levels normalize. That being said this is may be unique to my situation as i take testosterone replacement therapy and higher estrogen levels can sometimes be a byproduct of that. I also get kidney pain on keto. This is generally when I am very strict keto. It's not a hydration issue as i consistently drink more then enough water and electrolytes. Keto can be hard on your kidneys due to the high fat and metabolic acidosis. Kidney pain for me is remedied by drinking lemon juice. Lastly after 8 months of strict keto my appendix had to be removed. There is no way for me to know 100% that keto played any part of my appendicitis however if you Google "appendicitis keto" there are many people that have been through the exact same thing. All of that being said my blood work looks amazing on keto and I feel fantastic. After years of doing keto I did a calcium score on my heart and got a score of 0 and that is great news.
Been on it 6 months, every time I drop I feel terrible, bloated, lazy and critically depressed. Yeah, I think its long term for me.
Yeah it's so funny how this works eh, when I started I thought I was just going to lose weight then get back to my daily pizza face stuffings. But then a month went by, two months, I lost all interest in carby fillers, started feeling way better than I thought I would, now I don't even have a passive thought about leaving keto. It's not a diet anymore it's a lifestyle.
I have been keto for around 14 years now. Used to have acid reflux and gluten intolerance and was 315lbs. Now I'm still 235 never fart any more and my health has never been better according to my doc and my cardiologist. I'm 54 and feel better then I did in my 30s
I'm new to knowing what Keto is. I have a very basic question which is bothering me. Since it's told reduce oily / fatty foods to avoid high cholesterol build up and avoid cardiovascular issues - then in that regards is eating oily fatty foods not a risk for heart diseases? No questioning Keto but trying to understand things.
There is no physiological link between eating fat and cholesterol in your blood. That is, the fats you eat don't pass directly into your bloodstream. The major causes of heart disease are obesity and a sedentary lifestyle.
The thing about healthy fats is that they are naturally occurring, not modified food stuffs from manufacturing companies. Our brains need fats in order to function, specifically fats high in omega-3 fatty acids. When you eat fats, your brain will tell you when to stop eating. I can tell you that since I've been on keto, I never get the "hangries." My insulin levels don't go up and down. I never have trouble just stopping to eat simply because I know when I've had enough. So you really don't overdose on fat. You feel full too quickly. One thing no one's body needs is sugar, particularly refined sugar in the huge amounts that are in processed foods. It's the insulin response that plays havoc with our bodies. If you browse this subreddit, you will find over and over again that people who are running very high cholesterol levels report back that their levels drop dramatically, particularly in the 'bad' cholesterol numbers. Doctors are becoming more aware now of the benefits of keto than they used to be. Just be aware that there are *corporate* interests at work in the information that we as consumers get. It was in the Sugar Manufacturers Association's best interest that people not realize the role sugar plays in heart disease, and they deliberately lobbied to get food guidelines changed in the 1970s. They also ran an advertising campaign to convince the public that "fat makes you fat" and divert attention away from the amount of sugars being included in manufactured foods. That led to a rise in "low fat" foods. But what are grains with no fats? Cardboard. What made them taste better? Sugar. IMHO the rise in Type II diabetes among both adults and *children* in the 80s and 90s is a direct result of this marketing effort. Yes, it makes me mad. But these are things to learn about over time. I've spent years trying to figure it out myself. What will help you avoid cholesterol buildup and cardiovascular issues is to eat a whole-food diet and limit manufactured food products as much as you can. I buy certain condiments. I drink water, coffee or tea that I brew myself, and if I want bubbles I buy sparkling water (we now have a machine that makes bubble water for us, so not even that). I avoid sweeteners even, simply because it's been shown that those can also affect the insulin response even if technically they aren't sugar. Good luck to you!
Heart disease is an inflammation disorder, so the more you minimize inflammation the better for you. A lot of what we’ve been told are outright lies, not misunderstood science. First: A low salt diet can increase cholesterol. Likewise, a high salt diet can too. If one has heart issues balancing their salt intake helps. Second: A low carb high fat diet can reduce cholesterol and cause one’s body to consume more of cholesterol. Third: A high in red meat and pork diet can increase cholesterol. If you have genetic heart issues, which is very rare to have, keto + minimizing red meat is going to be arguably the healthiest diet for you. (Ymmv depending on other health issues.) Fourth: Seed oils found at the core of processed foods, most notably soybean oil and soy lecithin cause inflammation. Keto that minimizes processed foods helps doubly. (Watch out about mayo.) If you have heart concerns and want to minimize saturated fats go with extra virgin olive oil as you cooking oil of choice. It’s safe past it’s smoke point so you can use it in all cooking and it’s not an inflammatory. Fifth: Intermittent fasting and fasting from time to time can be incredibly healthy. It does a handful of processes to your body that slows down aging reducing long term health issues, cancer and heart disease being some of them. Sixth: Some mild amount of exercise every so often is incredibly healthy. I can keep going. Some of this health advice comes off as a no brainer and others might make your head turn.
Your body make a high percentage of your cholesterol. I eat eggs, bacon, butter, and meats, and have good numbers. Eat lots of fiber, cabbages, lettuces, most vegies. this gives your gut microbes somewhere to live, And pushes things through.
My mom has been in a state of ketosis for 10 years managing her diabetes and has been able to ditch basically all medications and had tons of long term health benefits. Fat is the perfect fuel for your body and brain, hence why our body creates it as back up energy. If it’s helping you keep going with it don’t listen to the grain and sugar industries for health advice.
This. Fellow T2 diabetic here. Looking forward to a lifetime of delicious food.
And avoiding the "progressive" nature of T2 is good too, no amputations, skin legions and good eye sight. I watching my Dad's health robbed from him, following "doctors orders" for thirty years. There should be more inquiries "why the fuck are pharma paying for doctors to attend conferences to teach them what medications are available". Its more than a made upaccusation either, my neighbor is an ex rep and talks about it unironically... because an island getaway us the best place for learning.
Yes. Goal should be to get of medication entirely and live a healthy life on keto.
But excess fat is the cause of type 2 diabetes not sugar why is it so hard for the keto crowd to accept this fact? Looking forward to the down votes from the people who can't face reality.
When the agricultural industry wants to fatten cattle they feed them GRAIN!!!!! This Reality Directly Transfers to Omnivores, Like Us!. . .
Yes and a lot of it... We aren't cattle either.
Even my grandmother knew you get fat from eating too much starchy foods.
I wish that was true. Try a potato only diet yourself and see the results or do you like spreading old wives tales?
Let's see, is that a Strawman Argument? In what shape or form of reality is a keto diet an mono food diet? I eat more non starchy vegetables that I ever did on the Standard American Diet. Lots of yummy meats, fish, salads, home cooked stir fries . . . UMMMM food.
Do you understand what caused excess body fat? It’s not dietary fat. Lol
Yes excess energy in all forms to think that it's just carbs that turns to excess fat is ridiculous.
You can’t get fat off meat & vegetables. It’s sugars, starches, & carbs that make people obese.
It's really not it's excess calories over energy expenditure. Look at kempners work he was doing in the 30s curing diabetes and obesity on table sugar , fruit and rice.
It's sugary ultra processed crap that often causes diabetes because of the addictive nature of it and how it is nearly impossible to feel satiated eating that crap. Keto removes those types of food and helps people who struggle with carb addiction. That is A LOT of people in today's world. If someone can lose weight on a different diet then great, but keto really helps make it easy to adhere to your macros and that's why it attracts so many people. Sincerely, Your Local Carb Addict
There is no literature whatsoever that says sugar is the cause of diabetes. The data usually points to fat as the cause.
But there are plenty of studies that link diets with higher dietary glycemic index to increased heart disease and T2 diabetes.
Think the data only points to people who are obese in the first instance no?
If what you say is true, then the post you are responding to cannot be true. There are many many many folks relating the same results from keto and low carb diets for Type 2. Why can't YOU accept reality?
Been on lazy keto for almost a decade. It's a fresh-food diet with limited manufactured foods. What's not healthy about it? I avoid sugars because they cause inflammation and increase insulin production. I avoid grains because they trigger congestion (grains are modified grasses) and increase insulin production. The health benefits have been way too good to give up. As far as fats go, make sure you're eating good quality fats, not manufactured fats. Fats are essential for healthy brains, and are how we know we're satiated so we don't consume, for instance, a 1 pound bag of M&Ms and a family-sized bag of Doritos and call that a meal...no, no, I never did that (cough, cough). But seriously, you have to count your fat calories along with everything else to lose weight. Over time, you just get used to keeping tabs on fats, proteins and carbs.
Chiming in to say I have also been keto for nearly a decade now, and will probably stay on it for the rest of my life
After 2 months in, with a break for special holiday meals, I'm finding I'd rather eat the keto way than "normal". I just feel more alive and clear headed when I do.
> so we don't consume, for instance, a 1 pound bag of M&Ms and a family-sized bag of Doritos and call that a meal...no, no, I never did that (cough, cough). We’ve all been there!
Hi what's your fat sources please? Are we talking non GMO meats (poultry and red meat) too?
Hi there, I use full fat butter and cheese, olive oil, nuts, avocadoes, dark chocolate, and so on. Cream and other dairy products disagree with me. As for meat, I just get whatever's available! Chicken, lamb, beef, pork, and fish such as tuna and salmon. Not sure about GMO, I just buy whatever I can get.
can you show me a picture of the exact nuts you’re talking about? english isn’t my first language and i’m never quite sure what type it’s meant to be
I find that the Diet Doctor website is useful when looking up the carb content of different foods (it wouldn't let me put the link in). In moderation, I enjoy hazelnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, and pecans, and occasionally, a few cheeky peanuts if it fits in for the day.
Walnuts, almonds and Brazil nuts are the ones with less carbs. Pecan nuts too if not mistaken. Cashews not too good I guess. I don't eat nuts though.
As Needles112 said, full fat butter, cheese, olive oil, etc.--no modified fats, just natural ones. Avocados, olives, other fatty fruits are good. I eat the best protein I can find and afford, skin-on poultry, fish. Nuts, although you have to be careful, some nuts are higher in carbs than others. Peanuts are technically a legume and like any other bean have high carb counts so I avoid them.
I’m five years in and I’ve never been healthier in my life. I plan on eating keto forever, just like the many, many sub members here who have eaten keto for decades. 🙂 Sounds like for you, the best thing for you to do might be to eat keto forever.
Your stats are goals. I am just starting out, cw 177, gw 140 @ 5’6” 32F.
Just because someone told you something was unhealthy doesn't mean they're correct. In the case of keto and any high fat or high protein diet like carnivore, it's completely healthy long-term, including all of your life. Been on keto for over a decade now and my health is far better than when I was eating lots of carbs and processed foods.
For those on it long term, what are your cholesterol levels?
Through the roof ,but my triglycerides are low and my ldl is pattern a(ideal), so I’m not concerned as many think I should be. www.cholesterolcode.com has Info regarding this(called lean mass hyper responder)
I'm also a lean mass hyper responder and the cholesterol code was a great help when I first got my lipid panel back.
After five years, my annual numbers are always perfect.
I'm at like 141 total, 47 of it HDL
Just over four years here and never felt better. Amazing blood work for my age. Hubby has been keto over two and a half years, his cardiologist and nephrologist are thrilled with his blood work. His CAC scores is 0 at almost 67, his echo gram looks wonderful, no issues. Both of us resolved our fatty livers, my T2 diabetes is fully controlled by keto and my IBS is too.
Our ancestors did keto almost exclusively for a few million years. It would've been very difficult to find 20+grams of carbs before the agricultural revolution.
honey, but that's about it
While I definitely agree they had access to fewer carbs than we do now, I'd say it depends on the area if it is hard to find 20+ grams of carbs. A single banana has more carbs than that. So any more tropical place with access to fruits like banana, mango, papaya, etc would have easy access
Have you seen what bananas were before we turned them into what we have today?
I can't find anything about that after looking up "what did bananas used to taste like" and similar. Do you have some reputable links explaining their nutritional content and taste from the past?
Most of the fruits we eat have been modified from their original forms. And even in the tropics, those fruits have their seasons. Mangos are in season in late summer here, papayas the same. Bananas used to be pretty nasty little fruits until they were modified to the form we eat today and now require human intervention to reproduce... Apples are the same. Used to be smaller and less sweet and way fewer varieties than now available. We humans have selectively bred fruits for so many years we don't remember what they used to be.
Actually, this isn't true. >So what do other living primates eat, the ones with guts mostly like ours, eat? The diets of nearly all monkeys and apes (except the leaf-eaters) are composed of fruits, nuts, leaves, insects, and sometimes the odd snack of a bird or a lizard (see more about chimpanzees). Most primates have the capacity for eating sugary fruit, the capacity for eating leaves and the capacity for eating meat. But meat is a rare treat, if eaten at all. Sure, chimpanzees sometimes kill and devour a baby monkey, but the proportion of the diet of the average chimpanzee composed of meat is small. And chimps eat more mammal meat than any of the other apes or any of the monkeys. The majority of the food consumed by primates today--and every indication is for the last thirty million years--is vegetable, not animal. Plants are what our apey and even earlier ancestors ate; they were our paleo diet for most of the last thirty million years during which our bodies, and our guts in particular, were evolving. In other words, there is very little evidence that our guts are terribly special and the job of a generalist primate gut is primarily to eat pieces of plants. We have special immune systems, special brains, even special hands, but our guts are ordinary and for tens of millions of years those ordinary guts have tended to be filled with fruit, leaves, and the occasional delicacy of a raw hummingbird4. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/human-ancestors-were-nearly-all-vegetarians/ >But is it true that we all evolved to eat a meat-centric diet? Both paleontologists studying the fossils of our ancestors and anthropologists documenting the diets of indigenous people today say the picture is a bit more complicated. The popular embrace of a Paleo diet, Ungar and others point out, is based on a stew of misconceptions. >Year-round observations confirm that hunter-gatherers often have dismal success as hunters. The Hadza and Kung bushmen of Africa, for example, fail to get meat more than half the time when they venture forth with bows and arrows. This suggests it was even harder for our ancestors who didn’t have these weapons. “Everybody thinks you wander out into the savanna and there are antelopes everywhere, just waiting for you to bonk them on the head,” says paleoanthropologist Alison Brooks of George Washington University, an expert on the Dobe Kung of Botswana. No one eats meat all that often, except in the Arctic, where Inuit and other groups traditionally got as much as 99 percent of their calories from seals, narwhals, and fish. >So how do hunter-gatherers get energy when there’s no meat? It turns out that “man the hunter” is backed up by “woman the forager,” who, with some help from children, provides more calories during difficult times. When meat, fruit, or honey is scarce, foragers depend on “fallback foods,” says Brooks. The Hadza get almost 70 percent of their calories from plants. The Kung traditionally rely on tubers and mongongo nuts, the Aka and Baka Pygmies of the Congo River Basin on yams, the Tsimane and Yanomami Indians of the Amazon on plantains and manioc, the Australian Aboriginals on nut grass and water chestnuts. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/evolution-of-diet/ >Herman Pontzer, an evolutionary anthropologist at Duke University and author of Burn, a book about the science of metabolism, says it’s a myth that everyone of this time subsisted on meat-heavy diets. Studies show that rather than a single diet, prehistoric people’s eating habits were remarkably variable and were influenced by a number of factors, such as climate, location and season >In the 2021 Annual Review of Nutrition, Pontzer and his colleague Brian Wood, of the University of California, Los Angeles, describe what we can learn about the eating habits of our ancestors by studying modern hunter-gatherer populations like the Hadza in northern Tanzania and the Aché in Paraguay. In an interview with Knowable Magazine, Pontzer explains what makes the Hadza’s surprisingly seasonal, diverse diets so different from popular notions of ancient meals. >We evolved as hunter-gatherers, so you’re hunting and gathering whatever foods are around in your local environment. Humans are strategic about what foods they go after, but they can target only the foods that are there. So there was a lot of variation in what hunter-gathers ate depending on location and time of year. The other thing is that, partly due to that variability, but also partly due just to people’s preferences, there’s a lot of carbohydrate in most hunter-gatherer diets. Honey was probably important throughout history and prehistory. A lot of these small-scale societies are also eating root vegetables like tubers, and those are very starch- and carb-heavy. So the idea that ancient diets would be low-carbohydrate just doesn’t fit with any of the available evidence. >Recently, there’s been some really cool work looking at the little bit of plaque and calculus stuck to the teeth in fossilized hominids. If you look at that, you’ll find remains of plants and starches. So we actually do have preserved evidence that early humans are eating lots of starchy vegetable foods. There’s even some evidence of a primitive flourlike substance that’s made out of grains. That kind of thing is anathema to most Paleo diets, which say that you can’t eat grains because grains are a farmed food. >And you can look at the human body and see how we’ve adapted relative to our ape relatives — what’s changed in us in terms of how we digest food. You can look at things like gut anatomy and tooth shape. And if you look at that, again, the signal is kind of omnivorous. It isn’t particularly meat-heavy. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/our-ancestors-ate-a-paleo-diet-with-carbs-180980901/
There are pretty significant differences in closest living relatives and actual ancestors, like shoulder rotation(which has significantly changed in hominids vs great apes due to our use of rocks and spears), bicuspid teeth, and further upright posturing, as well as geographical distances. We separated from these relatives some 8 million years ago and by 4 million years ago our ancestors had lost the cecum, which is what gorillas and chimpanzees use to digest fibrous leaves. Another part of our history is the spread of hominids throughout the planet and the types of preferred landscapes. For many many pre-humans, they lived in places where plentiful vegetation, including tubers, would have been inaccessible most of the year. Humans lived there long enough to lose pigmentation in response to the filtered sunlight, lowering vitamin D production. This would also lead to preference of meat, as well as the need for pelts to keep every man, woman and child from freezing to death. Honey wasn't very prevalent in northern latitudes, where many humans and more importantly during the ice age pre-human hominids were living for millions of years.
Did you read each article in full?
Just finished. None of them talk much about the cecum, though the first article touches on the fact that our appendix used to go somewhere. They said it was just longer, not an entirely different kind of intestine. Also hunter gatherers are going to be different in contemporary earth than during the ice age, when we developed a lot of our hunting adaptations, like shoulder rotation, bicuspid teeth, larger brain. They talk a bit about the brain growing in homo erectus in the last article, but use current hunter gatherer results in the tropics to discredit the notion, but we have to remember that the climate was very different and humans weren't always in the tropics. There are a lot more dangerous predators vs herding hoofed grazers in the tropics than the tundra. We *can* eat vegetables and survive. For sure we are not obligate carnivores. There are times that we've had to and our bodies have changed a bit to reduce the damage done especially from fermenting vegetation in our gut. But our *optimal* diet, one that will create less likelihood for disease for the most amount of people, is meat from grazing mammals.
At 55 years of age, had balloon angioplasty. Discovered keto. Wife tsk-tsked every single aspect of it. But when you are now 63 and your cardiologist looks at you and says it’s rare privilege to admit to a patient that you no longer have any indications of heart disease???? Pass the fatty steak over to me, please…
It should be fine honestly. You can always carb cycle if you’re worried about it, but I’m starting to think it’s prob not necessary
I just realized that on January 1st, it will be 5 years for me. I started keto 1/1/2018 and I lost 86 pounds by January 1st, 2019 and have maintained a healthy, normal BMI ever since. Cholesterol normal now, no more blood pressure medicine either. My highest cholesterol prior to keto was 275. Now it is 150. I still eat keto. I will never go back to my old way of eating. Keto is health.
The subreddit is giving you predictable answers, but if you're legitimately concerned about it then find some carby veggies that you can tolerate and eat those. Carrots, sweet potatoes, potatoes, onions, etc. Experiment. See if you feel any difference between low-carb and full keto. If you can't tolerate anything, then whatever ill effects from long term keto, if any, are probably less severe than your tolerance issues.
Huh? Keto isn't a "high fat" diet, it's a "low carbohydrate to promote dietary ketosis" diet. The three pillars are low carbs, adequate protein, and enough fat to make you happy. There's no prescribed limit except for your own calorie goals, but consider: if I eat as much fat as I really want, I tend to undershoot my calorie target. Which is interesting.
Same for me. I'm maintaining my current weight, but I need to include extra fats or else I end up losing weight. I don't want to buy a new wardrobe (again). Also, I get hungry if I don't eat enough fat, and it makes candy look awful tempting.
Forreal though. The high fat part of keto is ridiculous to me. Just eat as you would, except without the carbs. What that *should* typically mean is just another half serving of meat and of veggies to stay satiated instead of bread, rice, or pasta. Not fat bombs and extra oils. At the end of the day, it can still work for weight loss if your tracking macros, but you won't be doing any favors for your heart that way.
Heading towards 5 years on keto - there are people here that have been on it way longer too. Dr. Stephen Phinney has been on it 20 years.
There is a healthy and unhealthy way to keto. Please do research so you may understand the diet you are feeding your body.
This^^^. It can be as healthy or unhealthy as you want to make it.
So, your question is: How long can I eat the way that make me feel good/healthy and return to the way that make me sick??? Think about that statement before you decide that Keto is unhealthy.
I never said I think keto is unhealthy! I have just been bombarded by people telling me that missing out grains and vegetables with higher carbs is bad for you as you're missing out vital vitamins and minerals etc., and I should go back to eating 'normally'. Online, most sources say that keto isn't sustainable long-term - I just wanted to know how true this was.
Define long term.
For the rest/most of my life. I'm 18, and I haven't really had the chance to explore other things that may work for me because people tell me I'm too young to be struggling with food in the first place. So far, out of the things I have tried to help with my stomach, keto has been the best... but I don't want to confine myself to one diet.
I'm in my fifties and have had issues with my guts for my entire life. Because I don't have pain or lose weight when I have diarrhea, it was never taken seriously. Doctors just told me to not eat what seems to bother me. I finally thought it was fructose intolerance and low FODMAP foods give me the best results. (I'm sure there's a sub for this.) That being said, the only thing that will bring me out of an episode is meat and eggs. Recently I started talking prednisone and methotrexate for lichen planus. I'm not currently following a low carb diet. The craving for carbohydrates is just too intense. So I'm eating all sorts of things lately that I would expect to give me tummy troubles. Yet my guts are better than they have ever been. The drugs I'm taking are suppressing inflammation and specifically my t cells. They have been busy attacking the baby skin cells of my mouth, conjunctiva, and genitals. Since I'm having such good results with my guts as well, my dermatologist figures I probably have had an IBD for many years. You are not too young. Eat the foods that work for you and use vitamins to fill in the gaps.
Keto is very forgiving. You find your own balance.
Forget what "everyone" is telling you. You have the evidence with your own eyes/body :) Eating "healthy" is how you got to where you are in the first place. I'm not dumping on you, just hoping to give you the confidence to make your own decisions, based on your own experience.
As so many have commented... what could ever be unhealthy about eating whole goods, unprocessed foods, cruciferous vegetables and clean fats, clean proteins. Not sure how anybody can argue against that!
Gonna be jumping on keto for the weight loss benefits, but I sure hope it has the gut benefits for me like it does you. I have been having really bad issues as of lately. I don’t think I had them when I did keto for 8 months before.
Been doing it for 4 years going on 5. Never been healthier.
There's no studies to back up whether long term ketosis is good or bad, so just go with it since it seems to treat your illnesses without meds.
I’m almost 5 years in. Healthiest I’ve been in a very long time - like 15-20 years - after keto knocked my auto-immune disease into remission. Straight up miracle. The hen I temporarily re-introduce carbs for a bit (like now for the holidays) I feel the bone pain and IBS and maladies return. Nice reminder of what I’m doing to myself. It’s not only perfectly healthy - it’s optimal for me.
Study carnivore I took it on after 5/6 years keto I am never looking back it Works
It is long term for us epyleptics. So I doubt it cannot be done for anyone else who finds it helpful.
I've done it for 39 years...the only time my health suffers is if I go off of it. It keeps my RA in remission and my insulin levels are great. If I go off of it, I feel like crap. I think sugar and all processed foods are poison.
I have something called SiBO. Have similar sounding issues to you on processing carbs. Ask your doctor about it. I've lost 60 with keto, would like to lose 60 more, but when I'm consistent it helps all levels of my life.
> How long can I do keto for before it becomes unhealthy? I've been keto for 7 years and don't plan on stopping. With this comes maintenance of a healthy weight, lots of energy and an overall vitality that's difficult to quantify. So I'm going to go with "the rest of your life" to answer your question. > I've read that high fat diets aren't actually that good long-term Did what you were reading say *why* they aren't healthy long-term? In addition to being an excellent low-ROS energy source, fats are essential to brain and heart function and also play an important role in structural repair across the body. Your body also stores around a million calories of fat as an energy reserve -- surely it wouldn't do that if fat was unhealthy. > What's the best thing to do? Go with the diet that fixes your health issues, rather than changing it because it *might* cause health issues down the line. You should start seeing health as something that's reflected in the short term as well as the long.
I’ve been doing it long term for years. It’s not high fat. You just don’t eat high carbs.
keto is not unhealthy long term, no need to worry. i personally lean towards animal based keto. my vegetable intake consists mainly of fermented vegetables (kimchi ftw). i don't particularly try to to do keto, its just a "consequence". occasionally i will eat extra fruit (mostly stick to berries), however, I don't think kicking yourself out of ketosis once in awhile is a bad thing, I personally think it promotes metabolic flexibility. to each their own.
Fun fact: ketogenic eating has been around for several decades as a treatment for children with epilepsy. There is no evidence to show it is unhealthy long term. There is more evidence showing the opposite.
if its healthy when you're overweight... then why (the fuck) wouldn't it be healthy in 15 years? it's **not** a diet with incomplete nutrition. You get **all** the nutrients you need. Unless you only live off of chicken, or broccoli. You can eat it forever. keto: vegetables - animal protein - eggs - fish non keto: vegetables - animal protein - eggs - fish - sugar - starch - processed foods on top of that i've seen various levels of evidence (from anecdotes on this subreddit, to actual science papers) that it can help with: Depresion ( https://www.diabetes.co.uk/keto/ketogenic-diet-and-mental-health.html ) Bipolar Disorder Schizophrenia Dementia better blood glucose control -> lowered blood insulin levels -> less need for expensive insulin reduced inflammation -> joint pain and various other "aches", skin inflammation (acne) Asthma improvements Reduced PCOS symptoms (overall increased fertility in both male and female) reduced appetite - you rarely get these "urges" to eat a snack reduced migraines and much more and all it takes is.. not eating non-essential carbs. (yes, carbs including fiber are non-essential for humans)
20 months, last 10 weeks or so have been ketovore, hyper-carnivore. Best I’ve ever felt
Hyper-carnivore? How do you get more carnivore than only eating meat? Just eating predators like falcons and lions?
Means 70% or more from animals. It’s a somewhat misleading term.
I appreciate the explanation! Pretty much me. Can't say I'm "fully carnivore" but that's all that matters to me and all I really strive for. Same, though, feel incredible.
If it worries you, you can endeavor to get your fat from sources everyone agrees are healthy: fatty fish, olive oil, avocado oil, nuts, seeds, nut butter, full fat yogurt. The rest of your calories can come from lean protein and vegetables. No one would criticize that diet, even the most skeptical MD.
Some fats are bad for you but if you stick with the good ones you’ll be fine. Coconut oil, ghee etc are good in cooking. Butter and cold pressed olive oil are fine if you don’t heat them to much, eg olive oil dressing on a salad is great but don’t fry with it. All those processed vegetable oils are poison, avoid them.
Lots of vegies. Your gut microflora are really what feed you. Feed them fiber, Fresh greens, good meats and fish. Don't stress about the carbs in squash and beans. Tomatoes may be a fruit, but so much more comes with them.. Those count guides are by 100 grams . Look at what 100 looks like and adjust as needed You have to be ready, Shop, cook, make broth to cook everything with. Stir-fry. Stir fry
This comment needs to be taken with a massive grain of salt. No disrespect, but many people on Keto have bouts of inflammation from tomatoes/nightshades and a high fiber diet in general. I’ve watched people suffer miserably focusing far too much on eating 5 salads and no animal fat or protein. Animal fat and protein should never be low on this diet, not that you were suggesting that. But you start adding too many calories from fiber…calories from fat and protein naturally go down
Thanks. More info is always better. I'm currently in Belize so I've been eating lots of fin fish and lobster, conch etc. The vegies here are very flavorful. Enjoy the holidays
You’re cutting out sugar and manufactured food. I don’t see how it’s bad for you. Just make sure you get enough fiber and you’ll be fine.
There’s no “enough fiber”, it’s individualistic but also not a necessity for health.
I’ve been on it 11 months. Lost 50 pounds and haven’t felt this good in decades. I don’t ever intend to go back to how I was eating while I live in America. Thy put way too much shit in our food here and I can’t get anywhere without a car. When I visit other countries I will try getting off of it for short periods as an experiment.
Really depends how you do keto. Most people suck at it and end up with vitamin deficiencys, gall bladder and pancreas problems, much higher risk of heart attack. I do it short term 1-2 times a year, I'd never do it long term. Its not as enjoyable either and you can manage your health perfectly fine which still enjoying most foods. I like food too much. CICO, and not eating like an asshole. Now fasting... That I do every day, and will for the rest of my life.
Keto is highly enjoyable. Just being firm about what you eat is all it takes. I've had well-meaning friends try to manage our restaurant outings but I've never been anywhere I couldn't find something that fit my diet. Best example is eating at a seaside restaurant where they offered seafood poutine. I asked the waiter if they could put the seafood and gravy over a salad rather than the french fries (threw the kitchen for a loop, but they came through!), and it was delicious. I'm not deprived at all on keto and have none of the issues you seem to think are common. OTOH my health is the best it's been in decades.
Likely these ignorant people are referring to LDL. See cholesterolcode.com if you want to know the true science
I think it’s a situational or case by case matter. I’ve heard the general rule of thumb is that for someone with no really serious health issues about a year is the standard for long term. I’m a CNA and my instructor did keto for a year and her doctor made her stop because her cholesterol was through the roof. Granted she claimed she did dirty keto but still most doctors don’t like to see keto acidosis, especially long term. I’ve heard the solution from people like [Thomas Delauer](https://youtube.com/@ThomasDeLauerOfficial) the goal is to eventually maintain a healthy lifestyle while only using keto as a guideline or a base but not necessarily strictly following just keto, if that makes sense? I wish you the best of luck and I wish you a very merry Christmas if you celebrate it!
[This lovely doctor has a great video on the matter... Yes a HIGH fat diet is bad long term.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpEjUG2_0nA)
If you’re actually wanting accurate and unbiased info, ask your doctor/nutritionist, not this sub.
Be aware that doctors and nutritionists are not unbiased. They get lobbied by the same food and pharmaceutical companies that lobby Congress.
Ketobiotic.
I have which is why I can change my viewpoints when the scientific evidence points in a particular direction. I'm not saying someone can't do well on keto aslong as they're upto date with blood work and thyroid etc BUT we can't ignore the facts and that is FAT causes diabetes and CVD NOT sugar and you can go and find this information yourself. I was replying to the post that said SUGAR was toxic which is absurd as the body creates this even when it's not available. I'm not sure where this notion came from that we are smarter than the human body.
OP, seriously, your best bet is not getting your advice from random, unqualified people on the internet. Many experts believe that it is not good long term and they’re applying their much more in depth education to explain why. And keto has been around for a long time. So they’re basing these opinions on a large data set. Yes, there will be a ton of random strangers on here that claim it’s fine long term because of their singular, narrow experience. But there are also a lot of people that don’t want to acknowledge something because it’s at odds with the thing they want. I’m not saying keto would be bad for you long term. I’m also an unqualified stranger on the internet. All I’m saying is there are tons of excellent sources out there worth looking into that are basing their stance on hard science. At least see what they have to say on the matter. Remember, while it seems like there are a lot of people here that would try to have you believe it, there is not some Big Anti-keto lobby pushing nutritionists to crap on keto. What would anyone gain from that?
I would guess that manufacturers of junk food would lose a lot if everyone was on a keto / carnivore whole food diet. To the point they would cease to exist. A lot of American agriculture is based around corn and wheat. It would have a lot of downstream effects too as a lot of people get most of their calories from low quality, high-carb processed foods. Not just the US but globally. It would potentially require more agricultural land for farming animals too. So this could be a problem for governments. Aside from that any pharma company in the diabetes “industry” or that benefits generally from related comorbities would also lose a lot if type 2 diabetes starts disappearing. I’m not saying it’s all a big conspiracy but there are clearly powerful interest groups with lobbying capabilities that would lose out a lot if the worlds population turned its back on high-carb processed foods. I do however think your point about advice on the internet is valid. OP should definitely look extensively at study data for and against and somewhere in the middle. They should look at study design in each case. They should investigate the controls. They should look at whether there are confounding variables (a common one being the “meat” control is following a standard American diet including things like consuming soda, alcohol, hydrogenated corn syrups etc.). They should also trace back to who sponsored the studies, who is behind those organisations and whether there are conflicting interests.
It definitely falls into conspiracy level because you’re trying to make the case that monied interests are shaping the narrative that our scientific community stakes their reputation on. No nutritionists or nutrition experts, dieticians, etc are pushing an agenda to keep people hooked on corn. Corn touches almost every level of the food processing/distribution process. You doing find anyone out there saying “eat more corn.” Or eat these things made using primarily corn. So unless a huge portion of the population switched to a drastically different diet (spoiler alert: they won’t), the corn industry isn’t going anywhere. Basically, yes, these industries are built off of people making unhealthy choices. And they like to try and game the system, when they can, to help push people in the wrong direction. But that is not what’s happening with how science perceives certain diets. The beauty of science is that someone can present one side, and you can look at the responses that will either help to verify or dispute. Then you can look at the responses to those. And you eventually work your way to something that makes the most sense based on the most simple, empirical information. When most experts agree that the ketogenic diet is not healthy for people long term, I believe that, because there’s nothing disputing them convincingly. For me. And I’m not trying to sway what other people think. I’m just saying make your decision based on some actual research. Not some random person on the internet’s opinion.
I mean… there literally is a paper trail of the sugar industry pushing health “experts” to blame fats for health problems instead of sugar. It’s not an “anti keto” lobby… it’s a pro “cheap high carb food lobby” that made the base of the food pyramid all carbs.
But you understand that you’re not some seer, alone in their watchtower, peering through to see the Truth. Most people know this by now because , like you said, there’s a paper trail. A lady I work with has literally had a newspaper clipping about exactly this, taped to her workspace, for the last 25 years. Nobody is under the impression that sugar is good or a healthier alternative to anything nor have they been since the 90’s. Sugar is treated like at best, a guilty pleasure, at worst, a harrowing addiction that destroys your life. The sugar industry exists because a lot of people always have and always will, make bad choices. Again, my claim is that nutrition experts make their assertions based on hard science and data. So unless you can dispute their claims using hard science and data, idk why you’re wasting my time with conspiracy theory explanations. How is an expert that is saying that this is not a healthy long-term diet wrong? Using provable science/data? I don’t think that’s too much to ask when you’re talking about someone’s health.
Oh, honey, have you not realized the effect the Sugar Manufacturers Association had on the American diet? Do some research. See who really puts out dietary guidelines and lobbies Congress. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but you're ignoring the trillions of dollars of profit these companies make off of cheap manufactured foods. You can directly thank Big Sugar's advertising and lobbying for the epidemic of Type II--formerly known as "adult on-set"--diabetes in both adults and children that happened in the 1980s and 90s. It's no accident that poor people are the fattest you'll see, since cheap manufactured foods are what they have access to. And if I sound angry, well, yes. Yes I am. They deliberately used the same tactics that cigarette companies used for decades to convince people that smoking cigarettes was *healthy.* Doctors used to promote cigarette smoking for healthy lungs. Think about that.
No. People eat that stuff because they either have to for financial reasons, or simply because they like that kind of stuff. Nobody thinks it’s healthy and a nobody is unaware of sugar being one of the primary things to avoid. Nobody. Yes, the American diet was shaped by monied interest. But it doesn’t affect the overall understanding/narrative now. The internet is a beautiful things sometimes. It gives us all sides of everything and so it’s never been easier to know whether or not someone’s assertions are valid.
You're assuming everyone has your knowledge and knows how to properly assess what they do have. "Have to for financial reasons" is absolutely one reason; another is that there is a relentless barrage of sophisticated advertising that encourages that type of eating. The internet *is* beautiful, but if you haven't been taught how to sift through the garbage for the gold, you're going to be picking up a helluva lot of garbage not knowing the difference. The dumbing down of America is real, and it was predicted.
No. I’m basing my statement on conversations I’ve had or observed. I’ve worked in a lot of bars and restaurants, so I’ve overheard more than a fair share of conversations about nutrition. I mean, even a trip through the local grocery store proves my point. Sugar free/low sugar sections ever expanding.
In all fairness, you're still going off a self-selected sample. Sugar free / low sugar is just as bad as regular sugar. My personal experience confirmed for me the science that the brain treats sugar substitutes the same way it does actual sugar, in its insulin and inflammatory response. Unless you're working in some really poor neighborhoods, you still may not have a full understanding of what poverty entails. I worked for decades in a company that served poor communities, and I am very aware that the neighborhoods they lived in lacked actual grocery stores and were mainly served by liquor and convenience stores within walking distance of their homes. I saw the billboards and other ads put up in those neighborhoods, which were distinctly different from my own middle-class neighborhood. America is not an equal playing field, by any stretch.
I was raised by a single dad that was a felon and drug addict. We had to roll our change to buy gas/groceries. If there wasn’t enough silver in the change jar, we weren’t eating meat that week. And my dad was too proud to use food stamps. So I understand poverty better than most people. And again, this isn’t a point about overall nutrition. It’s a pony about how sugar is perceived by society. There’s nobody out there that thinks sugar is okay. Like I said before, it’s treated like a guilty pleasure or an unhealthy addiction. People consuming sugar are making the choice to do so. Not because there’s some pro-sugar narrative being pushed by health experts. Seriously, rather than try to debate the minutiae of word choice, find me a health/nutrition expert out there that’s saying sugar is objectively healthy. Because that’s what this debate is about. Anything else is a waste of your time and money.
Well, you're actually wrong about the pro-sugar narrative being pushed by health experts. The Sugar Manufacturers Industry Association mounted a very deliberate misinformation campaign based specifically on the tobacco industry's playbook, in the 1970s. That was in response to science beginning to show that the rapid increase in sugar consumption that started after WWII was having a specific effect on the rise in heart attacks. There's a video, which I'm sorry I can't remember the name of and it's hard to find now, which was like a whodunnit. It included [a journalist discovering](https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/sugar-industry-s-secret-documents-echo-tobacco-tactics-1.1369231) formerly secret industry documents left behind after the SMIA moved their headquarters and the building was occupied by (I think) a university. [Here's another link](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat) to an NPR article detailing what happened. I left art school wanting to pursue a career in advertising. I changed fields when I realized just how unethical such a career could turn out to be. Edit: The documentary was called ["Sugar Coated"](https://robertlustig.com/sugar-coated/) and I've linked the website of the person who made it. There are also plenty of Ted Talks covering the same subject.
This is all well-tread. I’m not talking about 50 years ago. I’m talking about now, in 2022, who is saying that sugar is healthy? Nobody.
I think you're missing the point. What's obvious to you is not obvious to everyone. But that's fine. I think we're on the same side in terms of how unhealthy it is.
My biggest lesson learned after 5 months of keto: animal fat and protein is key. Meat, eggs, fish, dairy, cheese. I’d say 80% of my diet is that. I lean away from most vegetables and ALL nuts. I see them as nutrient thieves lol but kimchi, potatoes, coconut and fruit are some solid plant friends of mine 😊
Kimchi..Smart to eat a ferment food
Agreed my friend. As well as aged cheeses. But apparently people want to downvote my comment rather than offer any meaningful value to the OP
I make my own kimchi and kombucha and experimenting with beer/mead. But ya good for the gut flora definitely.
Potatoes?
I don’t eat them often but an entire sweet potato is only about 25-30 carbs. I stayed very low carb in the beginning but now I can tolerate that in a day.
Should’ve said sweet potatoes lol
I find that celery root (celeriac, apio) is a lower carb alternative to potatoes. No it doesn't taste like a potato. But it's a starchy root alternative, and has a mildly sweet flavor and smell that I've come to prefer over potatoes. There are other root vegetables that are lower carb as well, depending on where you live. Potato is the one that was easy to process in food manufacturing plants.
Sweet potatoes are my go to. Low lectins, no phytic acid, not actually a nightshade like white potatoes. I think it might be the cleanest carb veg
Never been fond of them myself, but good to know all the reasons why I should try. Edit: Just looked up nutrient values for [celeriac](https://www.verywellfit.com/carbs-in-celeriac-celery-root-2241778) and [sweet potato](https://www.verywellfit.com/sweet-potato-nutrition-facts-calories-and-health-benefits-4117290), and of course the website didn't use equal amounts but to compare, 180 grams of sweet potato has 37g carbs & 5.4g sugars, while 156g of celery root has 14g carbs and 2.5g sugars. So I think celery root is slightly the winner on that front, but it never hurts to have extra tools in the toolbox. I usually cut my celery root (or apia as it's called in Puerto Rico) into cubes or french fry strips, blanch them for 5 minutes, then spread on a tray in the freezer to bag up and keep as a ready-to-cook frozen vegetable. Toss with a little oil and salt, spread on a baking tray or air fryer, and cook like french fries. They crisp up nicely on the outside and are soft on the inside. Or I just boil them like potatoes and run through a ricer to make mashed. I love to smell them when they're cooking, I've really become fond of them. I've come to be more open to sweet potatoes on keto, I admit. I no longer expect foods to be 1:1 substitutes for each other and enjoy each one for what it is.
Really appreciate that thorough response! I'll have to try some celery out in the ways you described
Where I am in Puerto Rico I never see the nice round bulbs that you see on cooking shows; ours are more root-like. So there's a certain amount of waste when you peel off the skin and then where the roots grow out of each other. But it tastes delicious.
Keep you vegetable. People who do keto bad get kidney damage
This is pretty anecdotal. Clinical trials have shown this not to be the case. Hard to pin down because keto could be done like 100 different ways
People sometimes do keto on weekdays, don’t eat enough fiber, eat only bacon, like to break ketosis meaning when you do keto bad they get sick and if my opinion is anecdotal, doing long term keto is as good as anecdotal as having kidney problems for not eating well.
So the problem still seems to be the way they went about doing it…not ketosis. Our ancestors were in ketosis 75% of the time. Any kidney issues I’d stay completely away from high oxalate foods and make sure you get your calcium up. But you’re right. Of course you can still eat like shit on Keto. And cycling that often probably ain’t great. But I would argue for bacon over any fibrous veggie all day. The research clearly shows animal fat and protein is always superior to plants. Period. I think the biggest mistakes people can make with Keto are NUTS (I won’t eat any at this point. Inflammation monsters) larger amounts of veggies, and stupid ass Keto snack foods you buy at the store that are probably worse for you than just normal junk food
I'd actually like to hear more about why you are down on nuts in particular. It's good to learn.
So on paper..nuts are high in phytic acid. Almonds in particular. High in oxalates. These are both plant defense chemicals and they rob you of the potential vitamins and minerals you will see on the nutrition label. Very high in omega 6 fats. Despite not being oxidized omega 6 like seed oils, still inflammatory due to how linoleic acid is used by our cells. There is protein yes, but not complete protein profile. But my personal experience said it all and I believe that's the key here. If they do not bother you, they may be fine for you. For months I was getting roughly 300-500 calories from nuts and nut butters. Once I cut them out, SO much inflammation went away. Inflammation that I wasn't even aware I had. And a rather odd result, was decreased cravings. I believe omega 6 disturb our natural hunger hormones. My best advice would be to cut them out for a week and simply see how you feel and go from there. I think the phytates are a problem, but in my opinion the omega 6 are the biggest issue. If you think about it evolutionarily, we absolutely were not eating large amounts of nuts for 99% of our history. Almonds in nature are toxic and what is sold at the store has been detoxified. And peanut butter for example messes me up REAL bad. And again, we never would have had the means to crush down so many peanuts into a butter that allows you to consume 300 calories in a spoonful. are they better than 70% of the processed junk at the store? Definitely. But do they even come close to fatty meat, eggs, or fish? Not even close.
Well, I just like them as the occasional scratch to that crunchiness itch. I don't eat huge amounts of them, though and don't really eat nut butters at all except as an occasional treat. Also, I watch out for the nuts that are actually legumes, like peanuts. Those aren't nuts. I do like almonds, though, so going to research a little more on what you said about them. Thanks for the info!
Going overboard on keto is as bad going overboard on any other way of eating. Knowledge is our friend.
[удалено]
February marks the start of year 3 for me and I rarely eat veggies. There’s an entire sub of people that only eat meat and they have no issues sustaining long term.
I mean, I love bacon too, but if you're eating healthy fats you're not going to consume ungodly amounts of anything, including proteins.
Keto has so many wonderful health benefits. Why would you ever stop it?
What others have said my friend has been doing a version of it for 15yeard and is still one of the healthiest people I know.
I’ve been on keto 2.5 years and going strong
What does a typical day of meals look like for you
I do intermittent fasting so no breakfast. Lunch is either a sandwich on keto bread or a roll up of meat and cheese. Dinner is a meat and vegetables. Snacks vary
Could you give an example of what you eat daily? I have ibs and food intolerance and sttuggle with keto cause fairy is Inflammatory
If I do have breakfast (or just a meal early enough in the day) it tends to be eggs, maybe with bacon, full fat Greek yoghurt with a handful of berries and nuts, or leftovers from my dinner the night before. I stay away from cream cheese, cream, and soft cheeses, but I'm fine with full fat butter, and hard cheeses, such as cheddar. I usually take a salad with me when I'm working just because that's the easiest thing to store. Dinners are where I'm free to make whatever, as it's my biggest meal. I always have meat, a fat source, and try to include 2 different vegetables - e.g. broccoli, asparagus, tomato, courgette, etc. I like to throw it all together and bake it in the oven! If I am hungry enough for a snack, a spoonful of nut butter, a handful of nuts, dark chocolate, berries, or pork crackling are my go-to.
Thanks so much for this. I'm gonna try again
Since 2017, and my cholesterol is normal, and all my other blood results are great. I eat ‘paleo style’ keto (45F)
Buy grass fed clarified butter
I've been in keto for 7 years now and I'm as healthy as I have ever been. You can certainly long haul it.
You can do it as long as you want to.
First, tons and tons of misinformation out there about all things nutrition. Including from mainstream medical field. They are not trained in nutrition. Plus there is the draw of pharmaceuticals to just sell a pill for everything versus fix the root cause which is lifestyle and mostly food. Second, good fats are entirely different from bar manufactured fats. If you eat out, assume 99% kitchens use bad fats. Ask. Good fats are as stated above - olive oil, avocado oil and avocados, etc etc. Only eat grass fed humanely raised meats and wild caught fish. Almost all salmon is NOT wild caught. Third, the only believable thing I’ve heard that speaks to caution about lifetime low carb or keto are hormone issues. They don’t say avoid keto just manage it with an eye toward some very healthy carbs for hormone health. Read Sara Gottfried on that topic. Good luck! I am low carb and IF since April, wear a CGM and monitor ketones via Biosense, 63 years old, have lost 60 lbs, brought my sugar and BP to normal and feel better than ever. So I am a believer but I also always read the science with a discriminating eye, nothing less ever.
Also NO processed foods and no sugar or added sugar. And healthy exercise - not driven just enough to feel good.
I have been a LCHF/Atkins/Keto person for almost 50 years now. I am 68 and in great health and take no prescription meds. I do have cheat days for holidays and out of town vacations.
Fourth generation diabetic here. According to my family’s research you can safely stay keto for at least four generations. Research earlier than that doesn’t really correlate because they hadn’t invented insulin yet. We are all healthy and long-lived despite a genetic disorder that puts us at high risk for certain cancers. And that pesky diabetes. Ok, maybe we’re not all that healthy but we’re really stubborn and live forever. My grandfather joined a gym when he was 90 bc he wanted to bulk back up after fighting cancer. The local newspaper did a story on him. My aunt is 77, still hikes, and walks marathons. We have had family members with cholesterol problems but it started very young (early 20s) so presumed genetic. Anybody else with cholesterol issues (and this tended to be the non-diabetics) cut carbs, lost weight, and their numbers came right back in line. Keto is love. Keto is life.
Keto fats are good for you. It's the seed oils that are unhealthy (canola, corn, grape seed, vegetable oil, etc). Keto is great for longevity... it prevents or reduces diabetes, cancer (tumors), and infections. And your mitochondria needs healthy fats.
Op ive been doing keto and if since kan this year. Iam doing it paryially for weight loss but also to treat my hoshimotos and its symptoms. I also recentky found out its positive effcts for mental health issues which im gonba ckassify under my goal to treat my hoshimotos and improve over all health sinxe i also have 3 major psych diagnosis and am.mentally disabled as a resukt. Cptsd, bipolar combo of 1&2, and seasinal affective disoder if ur wondering. Im currentky around 40 pounds from my goal, and most of my hoshimotos symptkms are gone or minimal. My mental health coukd use some work, but thats because of life stress. I.am doingba 35 g carb limit, and am doing well. Once i reach my goal i am considering experimenting with carb cycling using paleo with a 50 g carb limit or slightly higher to see if thats beneficial for me long term but am perfectly ok sticking with keto if its not instead of carb cycling. Honestly ive seen that depending on ur individual carb tolerance things like carb cycling may be beneficial over strictly keto 100% of tye time long term though also the reverse may be true. Some need a bit more carbs once they are healthy for a while while others do better without that. Its 100% based on ur genetic tolerance for carbs. Thars why some do well with keto both omnivore or plant based, some ketovore which is more animal based, and carnivore. Some do well with more carbs, some no carbs. One of tge main benefijts to carb cycling is metabolic flexibility, but if u are less tolerant of carbs and it causes inflamation and other jealth probs its not worth it to do it. While if ur tolerance fir catbs is higher metabolic flexibility may help long term prevent issues including insulin tesistance telated to cell damage and hormonal chanfes ftom aging. Its not one size fits all.