The Research
So when I was introduced to the ketogenic diet by my daughter, of course, I did my proverbial eye roll and told my daughter she was insane. I immediately placed her idea in the out-on-the fringe category and changed the subject. However, what she did next was quite perplexing. She introduced me to medical research and evidence that supported this diet. Now, this was something in which I could sink my teeth. Having studied post-graduate myself, I knew that research could be flawed, skewed and manipulated, but what I read in numerous studies was that this was a diet, decades old, that was already being currently used in the treatment of seizure disorders. This peaked my interest and caused me to investigate further.
As I continued to research, I also learned that this was a diet specifically beneficial to people with my health problems, metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a triad of three specific symptoms; these are high blood pressure, insulin resistance (type 2 diabetes), and high triglycerides. It is typically exhibited in overweight individuals whose body type (morphology) carries fat around their mid-section (the Apple) and has a significant risk to the individual of heart disease and stroke especially if untreated. The answer to metabolic syndrome is to reduce triglycerides (presumably cut fat and simple carbs out of the diet) and lose weight as well as take your medication. Some people are able to reduce or reverse the effects of metabolic syndrome with diet and lifestyle changes which include weight loss. This was me, all over. Now, I was really, really interested.
The Highway of Triglyceride (or Don't Stroke Out!)
But the ketogenic diet wanted me to eat A LOT of fat and cut out my carbohydrate intake significantly while eating a moderate amount of protein. Was it a crazy plan? Eat MORE fat? I was already suffering from high triglycerides; how it that not going to kill me? I could not have been more mistaken! The key is in the carbs! The carbs are what will kill me. Our bodies LOVE the quick fix of carbs. We eat them and get instant energy to fight off the tigers and lions and bears and then what we don't use, our perfect bodies store in these little energy pods called fat. There are also these little energy pods in our blood stream, in the form of triglycerides that float around waiting to get used. Because we eat carbs, our bodies use this energy FIRST. Hence, the number of these little energy pods keep on growing (if we eat more that we need to fight off the vermin) and get stored in our midsection and our bloodstream.
After a while of eating carbs and not using it in energy (against the vermin or the treadmill), these little fat pods start to build up and we are a walking storage cabinet about to bust and our bloodstreams become a highway of too many floating pods, the triglycerides. All these triglycerides get tired of the traffic and start pulling over to the sides of the road...AKA the walls of the blood vessels and just hang out there. They start jamming up on the sides and then the side of the blood vessels get more and more congested until we develop a nice little compact yuk called PLAQUE. If you can imagine, when one or both sides of the road is congested with stopped pods all smushing together, they start to protrude out into the lanes of traffic. So now, instead of eight lanes of traffic, there is only four and as this process goes on there are only two lanes open for moving traffic. Now, when it gets to a complete traffic jam with no movement, guess what? You have just had a heart attack or a stroke. Why? Because also travelling with all these little energy pods are our red blood cells. They are rolling down the highways trying to deliver their oxygen to the cells and they get bogged down by all these dang pods on the highway. When there is a traffic jam caused by the pods, the poor red blood cells can't make their vital deliveries of oxygen to the tissues they are feeding and the tissues start to die (and maybe we do too). Bye, bye heart muscle or brain.
Get thee behind me, CARBS!
So what's a body to do? TAKE CARBS OUT OF THE EQUATION! If we deprive our bodies of carbs, then our body has to find a NEW energy source. What is the next in line? FAT. We eat fat and our bodies use it for energy. It starts using the little energy pods in our blood stream and starts pulling it out of the storehouses in our midsection. Yeah, our body is a carb junkie, looking for those "quick-fix" carbs but they are no where to be found. The master has stopped eating them. So, our body goes through a little "withdrawal" for a day or two and then it bucks up and uses the fat instead. This is the time when you have to endure feeling a little ill, when you first start on this diet. Just know, that your body is having to regroup and get used to another energy source and it is going a little bonkers trying to figure it all out. Call it Carb Rehab.
However, after that, sheer bliss! Now that our bodies have gone through the 12 step program of Carb addiction, it is ready to go on the path of fat metabolism. So our body starts to use fat, pulling from the blood stream and the midsection (or wherever else it has stored the stuff). In metabolizing fat, there are some leftovers. These leftovers are called ketones. Ketones will not hurt you. They are only an indication of your body using fat as the energy source. In other words, if you check your urine (or blood) for ketones, you know your body is on the right track using FAT FOR ENERGY! This metabolic state is called KETOSIS. Hence the name of this diet, KETO (ketone) GENIC (birth). We are now making Ketones.
Ketones, what is stopping me?
Now that we have this method of keeping our body in check, a visual test to determine whether we are in ketosis or not, how do we know if we can maintain it? The only method is to keep carbs restricted. From the very moment we over indulge in eating carbs, our bodies immediately revert to using them FIRST. We stop metabolizing fat, and are lured into the "quick fix" of carbs. We start using these carbs for energy, stop fat metabolism and restart fat storage. But I've been eating a lot of fats! Ok, now you are going to STORE those little pods like you used to because the body is back on the carb train. The bottom line is that you cannot "cheat just a little" on this diet. You sabotage yourself right out of fat burning and restart carb burning with fat storage. It can take days to get back into a fat metabolizing state again. And in fact, you will begin to store all that fat you have been eating. You will gain more weight and be more miserable.
My Passion (or OCD?)
Yes, I get very passionate about stuff that works and I end up being a serious salesman to change the world. This diet has very much changed my life in a matter of two weeks. I am down 10 pounds with no exercise at all. However, I am planning to begin incorporating exercise into my life, if for nothing else, you enhance my cardiovascular fitness and speed up the fat burning. This blog is my way of sharing. I plan to post my lifestyle changes and the benefits derived thereof. Follow me if you will. I hope it is an inspiring journey.
