The worst, people! The WORST.

The keto diet is the worst diet for healthy eating, according to new rankings



And we all know how these experts are handling diabetes (exploding all over the globe) and heart health (heart disease itself has not decreased despite better trauma care helping survivability) and weight loss (looked at a crowd lately?) so we must listen to them.

I once visited a diabetes expert in his endocrinology specialty. His waiting room was FULL of people in walkers and wheelchairs, and ALL of them were overweight. When I was put in a waiting room, one wall was dominated by a big chart explaining how I needed three meals and two snacks so I could make sure to get enough carbohydrates. They prescribe insulin to cover all these carbs.

Per Dr. Bernstein's Law of Large Numbers, they can never get this "right" when their own pancreas couldn't.



The ladies in my office may stop paying the monthly fee for their NOOM app (total Conventional Wisdom with green light for whole grains, starchy veg, and sugary fruit) but with headlines like these how can they possibly think I'm not deranged?

The truth, of course, is:

• nutritional completeness - Every time I chart my nutrition on low carb, I'm off the charts. The latest on bio-availability of plant foods means no one is getting the protein, vitamins, and antioxidants claimed by lab tests.
• how easy the diet is to follow - when this is the ONLY diet I find easy to follow, and I've been doing some form of it since 2003
• potential for long- and short-term weight loss - just look at my stats
• safety and possible side effects - lawzy, like buying new clothes and remission of my autoimmune disorder?
• potential to help prevent illnesses like heart disease and diabetes - my A1C had been creeping up, while low carb dropped it like a rock and kept it there, likewise blood pressure and triglycerides

Jenny Craig is almost 100% processed food. And it's supposed to be better than keto!

How did humans survive out there all these centuries without factories making food in boxes? It's a Homo sapiens sapiens Paradox, I tells ya.



Wait for it...



See, if you eat veggies and fish on keto, they are probably covered in deadly and delicious BUTTER.

As Meme often documents, you look up a LOT of studies and the experts writing articles about the dangers of keto. You will find "financial support" from giant corporations who want to sell us Frankenfood, and from drug companies who want to sell us drugs for the symptoms of Frankenfood "nutrition."

It's what I call Shadow Science; an entire system of grants and bribes and heavily biased "peer review" which ignores actual results from both doctors and patients who have followed their advice and failed to find the touted benefits. By sheer weight of big name universities and their unfettered access to the giant megaphone of corporate media, the same-old/same-old gets repeated over and over, warning people that sure, keto is popular, but it's a fad diet that will KILL you.

Sadly, if I try to explain this, I'm the one who looks like a conspiracy nut.

Oh, people are impressed with my results. And with sixteen years in, I've silenced a lot of the people who whined, "But you have to stay on it." The people who got bariatric surgery? Some of them are dead. That was supposed to save their life, and no one believes my own conviction that instead, it killed them.

Keep listening to "experts," and don't listen to me; we'll see who has the last word. Only I love you people, who won't listen.

I won't be laughing.

The outcome was predetermined. It was essentially an opinion poll of a biased group (nutritionists). No research papers were studied or any data analyzed. Any eating plan that allows animal fat is considered dangerous. Whole grains are magical. Fiber is a necessary nutrient.
I've been low-carbing for almost 18 years and it has made me much healthier and physically active than low-fat, high whole grains, lots of veggies, counting calories eating plan did. Before low-carbing I was overweight, pre-diabetic, on quite a few drugs (including statins) for health problems. Now I'm 55 pounds lighter off the drugs, have great A1c and blood glucose levels, wonderful blood lipid values, have lots of energy (I bicycled over 10,000 miles last year), enjoy my food, don't spend hours cooking things that aren't very tasteful, etc.
High animal fat, no grains, low fiber, and eating until I'm full seems to agree with me.

Right, determined by a "panel of experts" who drank the cool aid and are scared whitless that their livelihoods are in jeopardy. The good news? Given the massive amount of positive n=1s from those who now are keto and low carb, and the awareness of greater clinical success by those medical practitioners with growing populations of healthy patients as evidence, these claims will diminish over time.

experts such as.... David Katz, Michael Greger, Stephen Guyenet, and a gaggle of RD's and other folks from Harvard....who must follow USDA guidelines and will never ever admit that low carb can work. I've watched the US News and World Report rankings forever...if you only ask folks wedded to the Dietary Guidelines, you will always get the same rankings, with Atkins/Keto/Dukan at the bottom.

This difference now is Social Media...where the truth is being shared and people realize that these rankings or the USDA guidelines ...don't work and then easily learn what does work.

Also noted on "the experts" many of the institutions used do have strong proponents of LC, professors like David Ludwig at Harvard, the fellow at Joslin Diabetes who wrote that NYT op-ed...but only the ones who tow the line are picked.

EDIT: Rob and I are on the same wave length...and typing at the same time. Morning All!

I tested everything I knew about food and health this past winter. My present diet was an act of desperation, because the combo of last year's horrible virus had hit me hard and completely taken down DH, who has CFS/ME. Caretaking combined with winter pushed me to the edge. We have a steep driveway I was negotiating in an inadequate economy sedan. It all had me on a thin edge. I started grabbing gluten free frozen meals and keeping the carbs under 100.

I would have been better off with my previous "sick diet" of cold cuts and ice cream.

The stress had ramped up my autoimmune issues. A couple of months of these organic and gluten-free meals blew up in a terrible way. (I discovered after the fact that they may be wheat gluten free, so I did dodge the horrible digestive issues of gluten, but corn is a cross-reactor, and who know what else lurked since they were, after all, processed food.)

The stress had worsened my psoriasis to psoriatic arthritis, swelling up the joint where the skin was worst. Now my poor food choices was making my internal organs feel the same way. I was feeling HORRIBLE. Literally like I was dying from the inside out -- speaking as someone who had endured bouts of endometriosis which the strongest painkillers couldn't touch and once had a tooth pulled with inadequate anesthetic.

This, my now-retired GP had warned me, was lupus. Now things had become actively life-threatening.

Since steroids had already stopped working, I knew all they had to offer was the immune-suppressing drugs they used on transplant patients. Mid-January, in crisis, I decided to eat only what I KNEW agreed with me. And go super-low-carb for the first time in a decade and a half of low carbing, since I'd started, and stayed on, 50 a day. But this was truly an emergency.

I fasted 3 days on green tea, salt, and coconut oil. I spent a week on fatty meat. Then I added, one at a time: eggs, cheese, dabs of sour cream, and finally guacamole. Stayed under 20, like Atkins Induction. I arrived at a month in with absolutely nothing else crossing my plate, and my worst symptoms dwindling.

I got up to seafood, greens, pickles, berries, melon, mushrooms, onions, good tomato sauce and occasional homemade coleslaw, all in small amounts. Almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and macadamias were okay. Cold cuts galore, and I found coconut wraps were awesome... but I went too far, and the fiber got me. I'll still eat them, but low fiber is what my body likes. Twice a day "sandwiches" were too much And now I know the warning signs.

Adding beyond that got me in trouble. ONE cashew made me sick to my stomach for two days. Well-meaning friends gifted me with gluten-free treats, and my skin flared up again. I handled a few bites of sweet potato and carefully vetted desserts (and I actually was happy to stop at that point) at Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, without issue. I now buffered such with lots of meat, cheese, seafood, and fatty sauces and dressings. Watched carefully for cravings, but things continued to improve. I felt both festive and healthy.

In other areas, I reduced stress. I found and got DH on the Dr. Sarah Myhill Protocol and he's improving. We both have signed up with the local "keto doctor," after finding a decent guy who told us he "didn't know enough about it" and fired us, then getting a total incompetent and firing her. The first appointment with Third Doctor went well for him, and I'm supposed to sign up with him this month.

I juggled the budget enough to afford a Ford Eco-Sport, the smallest SUV I could find. Wonder of wonders, a group effort fixed the worst part of the driveway and the new plow guy is much better than the last one. The relief is enormous.

I'm getting back to symptom free and I think I've got my boundaries drawn. To others, my menu seems so restricted, my choices dangerous, and myself, deprived. But I've "looked at food from both sides now."

KETO is what is setting me free.

And good morning all from the Midwest! All of us on this forum really do have a heart for people who want to change their lives for the better as the new decade rolls in. Reliable guidance in dietary advice is still hard to find.
Yes and no. I've been doing some online investigation on keto supplements--apparently a hot topic since celebrities have been touting them (always a bad sign!)

As usual, a good idea (keto) gets invaded by bad ideas (quick and easy! buy this pill! eat what you want! etc.) I remember the introduction and demise of Atkins products that turned out to be most UNhelpful. There are dozens of "keto" pills out there, with "secret" ingredients that are "ours only." Ads throw around abbreviations like BHB (I can't spell it out from memory) and insist that you "don't have to give up carbs."

Let's hope more people DO find this excellent site instead. (And contribute a few bucks to keep it going--hint hint--less than you'd spend on those keto pills!)

The next challenge, even for people who pick low-carb or keto as a possibility, is getting over the "quick and easy" notion. We see them come and go a lot on this forum at this time of year. "It doesn't work for me!--and it's been two weeks!" Yes. We know.

Well, I'm still here. Might say I'm back. But nevertheless, I know where my baseline is, and where reliable evidence and information can be found. That's just the beginning of making it "work for me."

Thanks everybody for hanging around! Happy 2020.

P. S. Cross-posting with WereBear--a textbook case, if you will, for how difficult health management can be, and how you can figure it out with patience and N=1 trial and error. Best wishes WB for the new year.

I've posted this before and I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but things are changing! Really. I see my adult kids (ages 21 and 23). They'll check out what the reddit subforums (subfora?) are saying before they click on some US News & World Report ranking.

My daughter (very Type A) now works in a job down in DC where she is among the movers and shakers. They're all on keto. What's more, the young people have all got an awareness of carb bloat and sugar inflammation. Apparently, "carb baby" is an expression that means your jeans are tight from eating too much crap.

Heck, just this week, the NY Times, which is really struggling for credibility with young people, is running a no sugar challenge and actually ran a somewhat fair article about keto. The kids know that the food pyramid is nonsense. It seems to me that young people tend to be either vegans or carnivorous keto. And I don't think veganism is sustainable for most people.

So now we have "carb shaming"?!

Anyway, glad to hear from the field that younger people are catching on. I suppose the old adage "don't believe everything you read" translates well into don't believe everything you hear on the news, read on the tweets, see on Facebook. I don't know Reddit, although I read about it all the time. Trying to keep the noise away.

I prefer the science behind Dr Westman. Keto works better than low fat diets AND improves the health markers.

Any diet that allowed bread, rice etc was a big fat failure for me.

"Carb baby" also shows up on the face as puffy eyelids, sometimes the whole face, often the day after a a large pasta meal. I also believe that North American babies with "baby fat" are really just inflamed carb babies. Newborns born to non-obese mothers have firm and skinny legs & arms, and stay firm until they start eating pablum and other carby solid foods.

Fun fact: in the last year or so, Google searches for the ketogenic diet (the "worst ranked" diet) have been at around 30 times the number of searches for the Mediterranean diet (the "best ranked" diet).

https://trends.google.com/trends/ex...6,%2Fm%2F02c7v1

Power to the people, tbh.

And what is the Mediterranean Diet? Is it big plates of pasta or fish and veg. Dr. Westman has said if you think your doctor would be opposed to his clinic diet, tell him instead you are on the Mediterranean Diet. They'll love it. No need to tell them you use lard and pork (prominent part of some Italian dishes).

Last year the DASH Diet was at the top of many of their rankings (and still is this year!) but the magazine moaned that few had even heard of it..including doctors.

Dr. William "Wheatbelly" Davis points out that "LESS BAD is not necessarily GOOD"



I already see how this happens with the Mediterranean Diet.



He continues with examples. (I love that "logic of nutrition" phrase.)

Dr. Davis is correct when he says this.

Somebody needs to contact Virta Health and let them know the Keto diet is #24 in Best Diabetes Diets. It was a tie with the SlimFast Diet.