Ketovore, anyone?

I guess we have to pick our poison because I can find a boatload of "studies" that show eggs are bad... or good. Bacon bad... or good. Plant-based food bad... or good. Seafood bad... or good. Fiber bad... or good (see your link). And same for red meat which has kept people alive and healthy for tens of thousands of years.

The 2022 Journal of American College of Cardiology stated that a whopping 93.2% of Americans are NOT metabolically healthy (ie, at the cellular level). And an astounding 70+ percent of Americans are now overweight or obese, something that was a rarity a few short decades ago. I say it's the food supply along with the tremendous amount of misinformation promulgated by the government and various academic studies, many of which are funded by the large food conglomerates.

 

For those interested in giving this diet a try here's a few hints to help you get started and avoid mistakes.
As Jenny Mitich mentions (see video below) it is not a low-carb high-protein diet.
It is in fact a low-carb, high-fat, moderate protein diet.

Since it minimizes carb intake fat becomes the source of fuel while the protein remains the building blocks of muscles, body structure, organs, etc.

So it's critical to dramatically increase your animal fat intake:
- ribeye steaks
- ground beef (80/20 or even the cheaper 70/30)
- fatty fish (ie, salmon, sardines)
- pork (ie, bacon, ribs)

As she says you can also add fat (ie, butter, ghee, lard, tallow) into the cooking of the meat.
Remember, when eating the correct fats (ie, animal fats) you're not going to get fat by eating fat.

 

Read the article by Michelle Yates and I'm not persuaded to her cause, although the point is made here (and in many other places) that she is not just a dietitian but a Registered Dietitian™. One of her big bugaboos is saturated fats and to back up her position she quotes the dietary guidelines of the government. The same guidelines that have contributed to an obesity epidemic, rampant diabetes even in young people, fatty liver problems in teens, and steadily increasing heart disease despite the lowering of the dreaded LDL cholesterol. While the US has the most expensive healthcare in the world by far, we are somehow only ranked #48 in life expectancy.

Anyway, here's my personal experience:
• effortlessly dropped about 25 lbs of weight and have easily maintained at that level
• reduced waist circumference by about 2½ inches
• lowered triglycerides from the high 200's down to 70
• raised HDL (the "good" cholesterol) which was stuck at 29/30 for years up to 66
• am solidly Insulin Sensitive as opposed to the very dangerous Insulin Resistant
• intermittant infection in my eyes, which I had for many years, has completely disappeared
• hair is growing in a way that it hasn't for ages
• enlarged prostate has been steadily shrinking
• inflammation in my system is down as confirmed by CRP (C-Reactive Protein test)
• reduced HbA1c from a pre-diabetic 6.0 to 5.4

In short the ketovore/carnivore diet has been berry berry good to me, and I feel healthier and more energetic than I have in years. Maybe all of the above would have happened anyway on a vegan, low-fat diet? Then again, maybe not. Of course your mileage may vary, but don't assume government quoting Registered Dietitians™ always know what's best for you.

 

Prior to going ketovore/carnivore I pretty much followed the general guidelines of the USDA Food Pyramid (see below) and ate the standard American diet. That consisted of shitloads of carbohydrates, tons of sugar, ultra-processed foods, junk takeout (ie, Mickey D's, Taco Bell, KFC, Chick-fil-A, etc.) and some fruit, limited vegetables, occasional seafood, and meat. I loved that the emphasis of the food pyramid was the supporting base which was grains and cereals since I craved all forms of flour such as breads, pasta, pancakes, biscuits, french toast, cookies, pizza, cake, pie, donuts, etc. Besides the grains used to make those I also regularly ate rice and oatmeal and mixed in occasional eggs and lots of dairy (ie, milk, butter, boatloads of cheese).

My schedule was to have a sweet fruit juice in the morning plus some fruit, take a couple vitamin supplements, skip lunch, and eat a big dinner (always with some applesauce, another fruit juice, and usually a sweet dessert). Limiting myself to essentially one main meal per day was my strategy to avoid gaining weight, most definitely not for health reasons.

All in all with hindsight I see it was a horrendous diet, I was metabolically unhealthy, and FINALLY realized it was leading me down the eventual path of diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, autoimmune problems, and basically what heart surgeon Dr. Philip Ovadia describes as "Poor health has become widespread, so common in our society that we accept it as normal." Probably the main things that prevented more serious illness was that I never smoked cigarettes, rarely drank alcohol, and exercised regularly. Then a combination of factors came into play ─ my wife went carnivore and I soonafter stumbled upon a number of Dr. Ovadia's comments on Twitter such as:

"Exercise is helpful and exercise has benefits but ultimately exercise alone won't overcome a bad diet."
"Half of the patients I operate on have normal to low cholesterol levels."
"Insulin resistance is a much bigger risk factor for heart disease than LDL cholesterol."
"88 percent of adults in the US are in poor metabolic health."

These concepts were challenging to me because they were not the normal health propaganda I'd heard all my life. That pushed me to give ketovore/carnivore a serious try and the rest, as they say, is history. Or to use a phrase from The Rocky Horror Picture Show it definitely takes a bit of a mindflip... and a willingness to challenge and question sacred dietary notions we've accepted since birth (even those espoused by Registered Dieticians™).