Comment by gregmac | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gregmac | Hacker News Reader

I started eating keto over a year ago, and found that I totally lost my appetite for sugary and other carb-based foods, so have just kept it up.

One thing that was eye opening to me was from paying close attention to food labels. I used to try to mostly eat "healthy", so I'd tend to buy the "low calorie" options. What surprised me was how basically they just substitute fat for sugar. Ceasar dressing normal has 1g carbs and 4g fat per Tbsp (45 cal), but low calorie is 4g carbs and 1.5g fat per Tbsp (30 cal). This adds up, and I think I was actually eating a pretty unhealthy balance of macronutrients (fat/protein/carbs) while thinking I was eating healthy, despite my BMI slowly creeping up over a decade to being middle of "overweight" (I'm now in the middle of "normal" range, just from changing my diet).

Well I think treating sugar like smoking is far too extreme, I do think the demonization of fat along with the addition of excess sugar to "healthy" food options is a terrible combination, and that needs to end.

I think it should be made clear that we simply don't know enough about keto yet to call it "healthy." More healthy than sugar over-consumption? Almost certainly. I will say that it allowed me to cut to under 10% bodyfat with almost no effort, so for that I think it is a valuable tool.

But I also found that I was not making progress in my athletic hobbies until I stopped eating keto. My progress visibly accelerated after I stopped. So I hesitate to recommend it as anything other than a short term body recomposition tool. Fat may not be evil, but carbs aren't either.

What kind of diet did you switch to when you moved away from keto?

Mainly whole foods. Almost entirely vegan. Quinoa, beans, fresh vegetables, whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta, avocados, olive oil, are my staples.

But I think the specific diet isn't that important. Cutting out the processed foods and high glycemic index sugars is the most important part.

I can echo this. I'm on keto right now and I have no trouble for most of the day. What troubles me is strenuous activity. I can still do it, but I take longer to recover. If I'm lifting, I rest twice as long between sets. I went for a run today that shouldn't normally give me trouble but I was knackered by the uphill stretches.

I don't mind much. I feel healthy, I'm losing weight and my mind feels focused the entire day.

That's temporary. It goes away during long term ketosis. I've been in ketosis for over a year and have found my endurance to be fine but my top end power to be decreased (cycling). I'm still competitive but I think if I was eating carbs I could add ~20% to my max power based on historical numbers.

Any tips on how to try keto as a mostly vegetarian individual? I am willing to eat eggs.

Since Keto is mostly fat that is pretty easy for vegetarians to source, no added sugar X nut butter and avocados sort out your fats.

For protein which in proper Keto should be kept at very moderate levels you can use any source of vegetarian protein you like, if you are willing to eat eggs it’s even better since you have a carb free source of protein.

I use soy protein isolate, virgin coconut oil and virgin olive as my staples. I also eat 3 eggs a day. I'm around 10% calories from fruit but zero starch. You can play around with what works best for you but the first question I wild ask is why do you want to do keto? I do it due to an idiosyncrasy between my diet and my genetics which causes unbearable inflammation if I eat lots of carbs and sugar like a normal western diet. If I didn't have ankylosing spondylitis there is no way I would be doing this.

After some back-and-forth, I've found that Keto is best for short periods of time, e.g., 1-3 month periods. Physical activity can feel quite strenuous, especially when you first start Keto, and your body isn't adapted to using fat as a fuel source.

It's an incredibly effective tool to help you re-imagine the composition of your diet. For example, after my first time doing Keto, I seriously considered which carb sources I wanted to re-introduce to my diet.

On one end, you have short-chained carbs (sugars), and on the other end, complex carbs. You also have processed foods (which have fortified micronutrients), and whole foods (naturally occurring micronutrients). I now stick to whole foods with complex carbs. You'll get more fiber this way, and complex carbs are a slower-burning food source that keep you feeling fuller, longer. I've re-introduced carbohydrates from things like beans, quinoa, and the occasional potato.

Like anything, Keto is a tool. It should not be considered a silver bullet since we don't know the long-term health consequences of long periods of Ketogenesis.

Isnt it obvious, Keto in the cold months and carbs in the hot months. Eating seasonally is key and you cant chase much or do much exercise in the dead of winter with snow and ice lying around. Its also why the Inuits have a keto diet and can survive the extreme cold.

But healthy keto is lot of veggies no? So winter keto is harder wouldnt it make sense eat carbs in winter?

No, ketogenic diets are mainly fats and protein. Ketosis is the burning of fats which happens when you water only fast. You can live on a diet which is 100% fat, you cant live on a 100% protein diet or a 100% carb diet. Its also why the body stores excess energy in what ever form it was eaten in, as fat. Periodic water only fasting is also the balance to todays modern lifestyles where we have so much food to choose from. Water only fasting, not only starves bacterial colonies in the body, it also helps to starve viruses and parts of the immune system become more effective than during the times when we can eat. The main known risk of water only fasting is diabetic ketoacidosis.

The eight teaspoons of sugar in a can of coke can reduce the hormone Testosterone in young teenage males by 25% within 2hours. The study only concentrated on Testosterone, but it would be interesting to find any studies, if they exist in the public domain, that shows what other effects sugar has on hormone levels, besides insulin and its increased risk of diabetes.

> you cant chase much or do much exercise in the dead of winter with snow and ice lying around.

I take it you don't enjoy snowshoeing or XC skiing? I really enjoy aerobic activities in the cold. In the heat? Not so much...

What if you live in the tropics?

I think the demonisation of fat might be partly a linguistic problem. “fat” is a derogatory term for someone who is overweight, but it also happens to describe an important component of food, so the (incorrect) connection forms itself: eating fat = getting fat. This isn't the case in all languages, though I don't know if that actually has meant Germany or wherever cares less about fat content.

Maybe we should call it "lipids"? Not sure if that's the same.

I've always preferred the French nomenclature: carbohydrates are glucides and fats are lipides.

Fun fact: German shares that linguistic property with English. But I agree with your point.

There seems to be two major camps when it comes to weight loss: this confused thinking of lowering fats to lose weight (as you mention), and conversely, CICO (calories-in, calories-out).

In Western diets, it is all too easy to binge on processed carbs. For people struggling to manage weight, that is usually the main issue. Diets such as Keto or Paleo tend to restrict processed foods which make it hard or nearly impossible to consume processed carbs.

Restrictions from these diets naturally lead to CICO. The body only cares to consume so much whole foods -- you can eat a very large quantity of vegetables before hitting an equivalent amount of calories from processed foods (like potato chips, etc). These diets are essentially an "easy" framework (easy conceptually, challenging in practice for some due to cravings) for following CICO and reducing calories.

German is a bad example, "fett" means "fat" in both senses of the word. But still, people don't care so much about nutrition in general over here.

Ah, oops. I guess I didn't talk much about weight when I was learning German :)

My wife and I are doing IF (OMAD - One Meal A Day). And obviously don't eat junk food, sugar etc.

For me the biggest surprise was how little food we actually need. I remember myself few years ago eating a breakfast in the morning, then coffee with a muffin or donut first thing at work, then huge lunch, then another snack, then huge dinner at home (of course! just came from work - need to treat myself) and then maybe another snack before going to bed. Can't even imagine how many calories and sugars we were consuming each day. We were literally overeating every single day.

Now we eat only once a day, avoid junk food and sugars, feel awesome, look and feel much better. And it works for us even with quite intensive hiking trips and with gym/exercises.

> I used to try to mostly eat "healthy", so I'd tend to buy the "low calorie" options.

It amazes me how many people make this mistake.

I mean, the industry only spends hundreds of millions pushing this impression, so...

Sure, but nobody sees cigarette adds, and actually says "I smoke because it makes me look cool". Nobody sees beer ads and says "I drink because it makes pretty girls hang out with me". Yet many many people say "I buy the diet food because I am watching my weight".

Generally speaking, people are pretty good at rationally analyzing advertisements. The ads may still be effective, but almost nobody believes them at face value. Except for diet/low-fat/natural products. It's like people turn off their bullshit detectors for them. I just don't understand why.

Sugars affect your gut biome which in turn affect the hormones your body produces which affect your insulin, cravings and hunger.

I've been trying out carnivore diet for a couple of months. I went from years of yo-yo dieting and pathological binge eating to effortlessly losing 10% of my bodyweight. I think my psychology got rewired somehow, I don't know how else to explain such a drastic change in behavior.

I just finished a month of carnivore and have stopped doing it, as my life had become a living hell from my frequent and urgent trips to the bathroom. Other than that, it was good for my waistline.

That happens a lot, specially in places selling healthy snacks.

I used to work for one of them at certain point and the secret sauce was mostly using tons sugar and/or salt to increase sales. Unless one puts a lot of effort (which can be quite expensive when running a business), healthy food doesn’t sell well.

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