How a low carb, healthy fats, sorta keto diet changed my life & health
** This Health Section of the website is still being updated **
Page Contents
Introduction
Everyone is different, this is what works for me. It might not work for you. Foods that are bad for me might be fine for you. Don’t take this as a complete must-do plan. Most people report significant positive results in 2 to 5 months. There’s a lot here so if you’re short on time, focus on these things…
- A Lower Carb, Healthy Fats & Protein Diet can restore balance to the microbiome in your Gut. Everything relies on that. Once you regain the balance you will regain function (physical & mental) and lose weight if needed.
- Cut out all Seed Oils and highly processed junk foods. You can’t just add some healthy foods without eliminating what is slowly harming you. Tip the scales in your body's favor.
- Vitamin D with K2. Get outside in the sun, reflected sun off your yard is enough to boost your immune system & Melatonin production. (Don't take before bed)
- Watch the videos that cover Insulin Resistance & Cholesterol. These lay the groundwork for Intermittent Fasting. Eat less often and live longer/healthier. My goal was 2 meals a day in a 6-hour window.
This is a work in progress and is always being updated based on your feedback and new research.
The food pyramid is not the way to eat. It’s full of the wrong foods in the wrong proportions and created by special interests and biased food scientists (Looking at you Ancel Keys).
Here is a short 2:36 video on Big Fat Lies and how that got started.
We’ve gone from eating an occasional treat or dessert to having those ingredients in everything. Sugar belongs in treats eaten occasionally by reasonably healthy people, not pasta sauce, canned foods, cereals, and everything else in the supermarket aisle. Combine that with the hyper-processed “bottomless” foods like chips and crackers eaten between meals and you have the modern Standard American Diet (nicknamed SAD for a reason) with all the metabolic diseases that go with it. It is possible that you could only eat food "branded" as healthy, low calorie, low fat and STILL gain weight. Processed foods are designed to increase consumption, not to satiate and provide nutrition. It is not your fault.
A young person can eat pretty much anything and stay thin and grow. As you get older this catches up with you and if you keep eating junk, no amount of counting calories and exercise can make up for a bad diet. By “bad” I mean what we’ve been told to eat for decades. These videos on health, diet, and disease linked here sums it up.
Once your body is overwhelmed it will keep overproducing insulin and it goes downhill from there. I regained my insulin resistance through fasting and a proper diet.
I am not a doctor. Consult your physician but be aware some of the information goes against what many have been taught. Some of what they’ve been taught is thoroughly debunked in the videos. Pay particular attention to Ancel Keys and his original flawed study of replacing butter and animal fats with margarine and seed oils.
This isn’t a diet plan. It’s a lifestyle choice to fix the metabolic imbalance and reduce/delay future problems with brain function. You’ll lose weight easily over time as your body recovers. A Vegetarian version replaces beef and chicken with small fish. I follow a lower carb, healthy fats & animal protein version. After several months I reintroduced wine and the occasional dessert. I make my own sugar-free dessert versions as well.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice. Consult your physician.
Going Keto / Low Carb cold turkey isn’t a good idea. I've read the best suggestion is to first cut out the bad foods and eat the right foods for a couple of weeks. Get your carbs from whole foods, not processed junk. After that push back your breakfast an hour a day for a week, then another hour for the next week, and so on until you are skipping your early morning meal and doing 16:8 or 18:6 fasting. Eat your other 2 meals as normal within 6 to 8 hours and go 16 to 18 hours without a meal.
Denying foods you’ve eaten for years isn’t easy. You will get hungry at first spacing out meals. Withdrawal from constant damaging insulin spikes is real. It affects your moods. By phasing in changes you can make it easier. Start with the tips below as you do your own research. Small positive results will help motivate you. Eventually, you won't miss that 3rd meal.
June 2023 - Completed first difficult trail hike on the new knee. 2.5 hours. One of several hikes over the weekend. Proper footwear is critical. I like the Hoka brand. Shoes are one of those personal things in that what works for one person doesn't for another and even lines within one brand stand out or can stink so go to a running store and spend the time finding what works. Weight is up 5 pounds, most of that is muscle from other hard projects going on.
Previous Updates
Full knee replacement in December 2022 (covered elsewhere here) with all the problems that come with that. I started cutting out some of the junk this month. Pre-surgery I was only able to walk as much as it would take to mow the lawn then that was it for the day. I lost several pounds from all the post-op therapy and better diet choices but still partook in all the holiday foods. BP elevated but controlled.
January 2022: Followed the rest of the "Getting Started" above. I just didn't eat breakfast until I was hungry and delaying that a little longer each day was easy for me. Down 8 more pounds.
February 2022: Fully into Intermittent Fasting now with some days going 20 hours between meals. Total weight loss = 28 pounds
March 2022: Really dropping weight fast now. Hit my weight goal early. Total weight loss = 34 pounds.
April/May 2022: Total weight lost = 41 pounds
June 2022: Picking up more calories to slow weight loss now. Body weight leveling off to within a 3-4 pound range by the end of the month. Completely off any medication to control blood pressure. (followed my doctor's protocol to wean off over several months) Total weight lost since the previous fall = 49 pounds. Total lost since max lifetime weight = 60 pounds. BMI drop - 8.4.
July 2022: Caught "The Virus" early in the month - 15 days to feel like it was fully gone. Lingering issues on the operated joint. Some fog. I've been much sicker but this is like no other virus I've had before. It messes with things the Flu doesn't and for much longer. Even if you feel better issues can stick with you for a while.
September 2022: Eating as much as I want, 2 meals a day, lunch and dinner. 18:6 fasting now. Lunch at noon, dinner served at 5 often with some fruit or a reasonable keto-friendly dessert. Weight stable.
Exercise Progress 2022: From barely being able to walk around the block post-op I started measuring my walking pace with an app. I went from walking a mile in 30 minutes in early Spring to a sub-17 minute pace by late summer.
From “The Fasting Cure” by Upton Sinclair, 1911
"Fasting is the greatest remedy - the physician within."
- Philippus Paracelsus, one of the three fathers of Western medicine
"A little starvation can really do more for the average sick man than can the best medicines and the best doctors."
- Mark Twain
"Humans live on one-quarter of what they eat; on the other three quarters lives their doctor."
- Egyption pyramid inscription, 3800 B.C.
Yuka App - "Yuka deciphers product labels and analyzes the health impact of food products and cosmetics."
Great for quick scanning of barcodes of foods and products. Sometimes their weighted analysis is off like when they downgrade because of calories for oven-roasted nuts but they come close.
Map My Walk by Under Armor - There's a lot in here pushing for premium use but the free app is plenty for most people. Track your route, time, pace, calories burned, and more. It's what I used post knee surgery and to track my exercise results over time.
