It’s the 50th episode of All Fired Up! and we are delving into the Keto Diet craze!! Join me and my fabulous guest Jessi Haggerty, RD and nutritionist, as we set the record straight on all of this ketosis nonsense. As Keto fever sweeps the planet, we really need to stick on our critical thinking hats. Just what is ketosis, and why is everyone trying to do it? Is it really the answer to life, the universe, and everything, or is it just another fad? (Spoiler alert: the answer begins with the letter F).
Show Notes
- Urgent call for action - In Sydney and Melbourne, the “Fast Track to Health” trial is about to kick off, and researchers are planning to subject adolescents to a starvation diet for an entire year. Please sign the petition to get this stopped!
- Jessi Haggerty, RD and nutritionist, has had a gutful of all of the ‘hot diets’ around in January. She has a special pet hate for the Whole 30, which she talked about on her podcast recently. The sister diet to the Whole 30 is the Keto diet! Keto is THE hot diet right now.
- Jessi wrote a great blog on this topic - a Dietitian’s take on the Keto diet - which is really awesome. Jessi’s intern did a lot of the writing and heavy lifting for this blog, so a shout out to her.
- The Keto diet has taken the low carb movement to the next level. It’s not like going low carb/high fat is new - we saw it in the 90’s with the Atkins diet. Well, the Keto diet is Atkins 2.0, but it’s even harsher than Atkins!
- Keto started as a medical solution for children with epilepsy. Paediatric dietitians help kids with epilepsy follow a very high fat, medium protein & very low carbohydrate diet. Dietitians typically recommend that 40-50% of our intake be carbohydrate based, on a keto diet this goes way down to about 5%. The primary reason for doing this for kids is seizure prevention. It is an extreme measure that is only used when the medications don’t work. Because doctors and parents know how difficult it is to stick to such an extreme diet. But this is a last ditch effort in a very difficult situation. And for these kids, the keto intervention only works about 50% of the time. The mechanism of why this type of intervention might work to reduce epileptic seizures is unclear.
- Somehow, this diet was adopted by the mainstream as a way to lose weight. Go figure!
- Some people talk about using Keto for disease management, but overwhelmingly people are using it as a weight loss/fat loss tool.
- Like any weight loss diet, keto has major downsides. Restriction like this is not fun for people, and can lead to disturbed eating patterns and even eating disorders. Metabolic disturbance is also a serious consequence of dieting.
- How on earth did this diet get so popular! It’s really big in gym culture in Australia - it’s just so popular.
- We just keep going for fewer and fewer carbs - what’s next!
- There is a difference between ketoacidosis and ketosis. Ketoacidosis can happen if you are diabetic and your blood sugars get very low. Ketosis is when your body doesn’t have enough sugar in your system to keep everything running efficiently, so your liver creates ketones to keep your body going. Ketones are your bodys’ ‘back up’ mechanism which makes sure you can survive, and find food again. Ketones are not your bodys preferred source of energy, they are a back up system to take care of you when you don’t have enough carbohydrates.
- ...And this is being sold as a ‘healthy diet’ for people!?
- We literally hear people bang on about ketosis as if it is a superior way of living.
- Just because our body can use alternative sources of fuel, doesn’t mean that we should or need to be aiming for it! You’re just putting stress on the body in the name of weight loss.
- What is the impact on the brain of starving it of glucose and carbohydrates? Brains love these!
- Jessi’s blog post brought the ire of people who have tried Keto and say that it has ‘worked for them’. Jessi challenges them - what do you mean by ‘worked’ - (it’s going to mean weight loss!).
- A lot of people told Jessi that it helped lower their blood sugar levels. Which if course will happen, because you’re not eating any carbohydrates!
- Fiona Willer talks about the concept of ‘metabolic austerity’, where when your body is really deprived of food, it isn’t even well enough to be sick…It doesn’t mean that the underlying health condition has improved, it’s just being suppressed.
- For every negative response to her blog, Jessi got 10 messages from people who said the Keto diet had major side effects - they couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t concentrate in classes etc. It chips away at you little by little.
- Of course, not being able to poo is a problem because not enough fibre! This is a big deal!
- People are voluntarily not pooing? No thanks!
- Plus, the bad breath thing. It’s a side effect of the ketones having that specific smell. Gross!
- Keto diets have become so popular in Australia, that in some rural and remote areas the pharmacies have sold out of urine strips, so people with actual health condition can’t monitor themselves. Because gym dudes want to check they’re in ketosis!
- To be so obsessed with wee and to forget all about poo, doesn’t seem right to me.
- This diet is so unsustainable. Getting and staying in ketosis is really difficult. A lot of people who are doing this are torturing themselves and not even getting into this ‘glorified state’. It’s a lot of work for very little benefit. We have no solid research that this diet is helpful at all, aside from the evidence for kids with epilepsy. We don’t even do this treatment for adults with epilepsy.
- The research is only short term. And we know from 70 years of weight research that weight loss is likely to be temporary only, and the impact on metabolism is quite scary potentially.
- Although Jessi wrote the blog a while ago, she is still getting comments! One comment said that Jessi is “drowning in carb-tard cognitive dissonance”! WTF!
- The Keto people are a bit us and them - what is a carb-tard! If they’re saying there is something wrong with people’s brains because they eat carbs - that’s the pot calling the kettle black!
- If this diet makes you feel restricted and you’re struggling, it’s probably not for you. If it works for you, that doesn’t mean that the entire body of science is wrong. If the majority of people aren’t doing well, that means something - go elsewhere! Selling this as if there is no risk is the real cognitive dissonance.
- Won’t it be nice when we can go back to the high carb fads again! There will always be a fad to talk about.
- Louise tells her story about being scammed out of $300 with a ‘keto ultra diet’ pill!
- There is a lot of privilege involved in selling ketosis. It’s paying a lot of money to starve yourself.
- If you are tempted to diet, take a step back and ask yourself - what is the problem I am trying to solve here? Is there even a problem? A lot of the time, nothing is wrong. And these weight loss ‘solutions’ create a whole world of problems. And take a close look at the science. And always go non diet!!!
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