People make unnecessary assumptions and that causes them problems. When I took active part in various Keto and LCHF communities, I volunteered to help with that. No, you can’t just eat bacon. No, carbohydrates aren’t forbidden, but merely limited. And so on.
I remember some active folks helping people who didn’t want to eat meat learn how to eat Keto without meat. Some of them even managed not to be stereotypical vegans. 😉
And I’ll tell you what I’ve told everyone who has "well, ackshually"d me about CICO: yes, but sugar seems to cause most people most of the time to struggle with limiting food intake, whereas fat tends to do the opposite for those folks, so eating more fat and very little sugar helps them play the game on easy mode. This is an effective way to transform eating habits. I was one of those people. Eat fat xor sugar, for the folks who understand Boolean.
And I’ll point out three things:
Studies that purport to study and debunk low carbohydrate eating routinely choose limits for carbohydrates higher than what Keto and LCHF folks actually eat, which renders those studies inconclusive with regard to Keto/LCHF. They’re debunking something else. Some of those studies, for the sake of simplicity, feed subjects fats in a way (typically large amounts from a single source) that no human would, which avoids the benefits of eating a variety of whole foods, which Keto and LCHF approaches recommend. (Even Protein Power, which incorrectly recommended increasing protein intake during the Atkins craze of the 1990s explicitly recommended switching from processed food to whole food.)
There’s no guarantee that the health problems introduced by extensive Keto/LCHF eating are worse than the health problems that accompany an extra 20-50 years of obesity. (Some studies, including one by Banting (I’m going by memory and will accept being wrong about this), indicated that at least some of the population can eat almost zero carbohydrates indefinitely with good health outcomes.) Neither “side” can be sure of its stance here, due to the practically difficulty of studying this question. In particular, cancer comes for us all, in one way or another. In many ways, life is becoming an exercise in ensuring that cancer gets you instead of some other disease. 🤷
Many folks, including me, report success using Keto/LCHF as an intervention rather than a lifestyle. I can report that I changed my eating habits radically so that now, even when I’m not attentively restricting carbohydrates, my default choices hurt my body less than they did before Keto/LCHF. I think that’s why I’ve regained 40 pounds instead of all of it.
I appreciate your lengthy comments (by social media standards) to explain what I’ve tried to explain before. Keto is a tool. For all keto’s supposed negatives, there’s twice as many confirmed negatives to being obese. “Keto as an intervention, not a lifestyle” is exactly how I use it. A few months of keto reverses (and can overshoot) a year of casual weight gain for me. And yes, I’m very well aware that the major cause of weight loss for me is likely cutting out potatoes, bread(ing), beer, and sweets in all their forms. At this point, I’m fairly stable in weight when left to my own choices. Not perfect, but not bad. I gain maybe 3-5 kilos a year but can drop ~6 in 3 months of keto.
But yes, eat veggies. I understand restricting carbs pushes people to get creative with alternative foods that are primarily protein in exciting new ways, but it gets taken to be an all-protein diet. It doesn’t help with the current protein-maxing trend where every damn food is made with 20g protein per serving. My style at home is just eat veggies, so much veg. Eat broccoli and cauliflower until I’m bored to tears. Then move onto the protein/fat sources and weirdly, I’m nowhere near as hungry anymore!
Keto is a tool that gives me progress and stability as needed.
People make unnecessary assumptions and that causes them problems. When I took active part in various Keto and LCHF communities, I volunteered to help with that. No, you can’t just eat bacon. No, carbohydrates aren’t forbidden, but merely limited. And so on.
I remember some active folks helping people who didn’t want to eat meat learn how to eat Keto without meat. Some of them even managed not to be stereotypical vegans. 😉
And I’ll tell you what I’ve told everyone who has "well, ackshually"d me about CICO: yes, but sugar seems to cause most people most of the time to struggle with limiting food intake, whereas fat tends to do the opposite for those folks, so eating more fat and very little sugar helps them play the game on easy mode. This is an effective way to transform eating habits. I was one of those people. Eat fat xor sugar, for the folks who understand Boolean.
And I’ll point out three things:
Studies that purport to study and debunk low carbohydrate eating routinely choose limits for carbohydrates higher than what Keto and LCHF folks actually eat, which renders those studies inconclusive with regard to Keto/LCHF. They’re debunking something else. Some of those studies, for the sake of simplicity, feed subjects fats in a way (typically large amounts from a single source) that no human would, which avoids the benefits of eating a variety of whole foods, which Keto and LCHF approaches recommend. (Even Protein Power, which incorrectly recommended increasing protein intake during the Atkins craze of the 1990s explicitly recommended switching from processed food to whole food.)
There’s no guarantee that the health problems introduced by extensive Keto/LCHF eating are worse than the health problems that accompany an extra 20-50 years of obesity. (Some studies, including one by Banting (I’m going by memory and will accept being wrong about this), indicated that at least some of the population can eat almost zero carbohydrates indefinitely with good health outcomes.) Neither “side” can be sure of its stance here, due to the practically difficulty of studying this question. In particular, cancer comes for us all, in one way or another. In many ways, life is becoming an exercise in ensuring that cancer gets you instead of some other disease. 🤷
Many folks, including me, report success using Keto/LCHF as an intervention rather than a lifestyle. I can report that I changed my eating habits radically so that now, even when I’m not attentively restricting carbohydrates, my default choices hurt my body less than they did before Keto/LCHF. I think that’s why I’ve regained 40 pounds instead of all of it.
I appreciate your lengthy comments (by social media standards) to explain what I’ve tried to explain before. Keto is a tool. For all keto’s supposed negatives, there’s twice as many confirmed negatives to being obese. “Keto as an intervention, not a lifestyle” is exactly how I use it. A few months of keto reverses (and can overshoot) a year of casual weight gain for me. And yes, I’m very well aware that the major cause of weight loss for me is likely cutting out potatoes, bread(ing), beer, and sweets in all their forms. At this point, I’m fairly stable in weight when left to my own choices. Not perfect, but not bad. I gain maybe 3-5 kilos a year but can drop ~6 in 3 months of keto.
But yes, eat veggies. I understand restricting carbs pushes people to get creative with alternative foods that are primarily protein in exciting new ways, but it gets taken to be an all-protein diet. It doesn’t help with the current protein-maxing trend where every damn food is made with 20g protein per serving. My style at home is just eat veggies, so much veg. Eat broccoli and cauliflower until I’m bored to tears. Then move onto the protein/fat sources and weirdly, I’m nowhere near as hungry anymore!
Keto is a tool that gives me progress and stability as needed.