You know, sometimes the depth of my own confusion....and my own COMPULSIONS regarding eating...amazes even ME.
LOL.
A friend, this past week, talked about Ketostix.
And that started me on an "Odyssey of Discovery" about Ketostix, ketosis, and the whole low low carb thing.
I bought a book called "Keto Clarity" (I DON'T recommend it, by the way.... how's THAT for a switch?....because it will only screw with your head just like it did mine!) by Jimmy Moore.
The books SOUNDS like a dream come true. I mean, you can eat FAT! Yay! I'll be able to eat my Skippy! WOW! And look! He lost over 300 lbs!
But careful reading....and actually sitting down and designing a MENU....I saw differently.
Mr. Moore is the chief achitect of a blog called "Livin La Low Carb Vita" (basically all about living a very very LOW carb lifestyle) and has a lot of followers. He's really big in the low carb world. And his book "Keto Clarity" has gotten a lot of attention, because he went from like, 400 lbs down to goal weight eating SUPER low carb and....(get this...!)....
HIGH FAT.
Yep, high fat. He goes on and on about how fat has gotten a bad rap, it keeps us feeling fuller longer, yada yada. And how to truly enter heavy-duty ketosis you NEED to eat high fat and super low carb.
Now I agree that carbs are our enemy. Especially 'bad' carbs...you know...SLUDGE.
We all know that. Eating junk like cookies, cakes, candy and all of that is what PUT most of us here today. And many of us fell for the 'eat no fat but eat healthy' thing....where we ate a lot of FRUITS, but no fat, and still got fat! That's carbs at their worst.
High glycemic carbs are dangerous for people with lots of little fat cells like US. LOL.
BUT....he takes it to extremes. There's an old saying, "Don't throw out the baby with the bath water", and I think it applies in this case.
In the quest for weight loss, he went to SUPER low carb. Like, the man can't eat a piece of LETTUCE without worrying about the carbs in it.
Veggies are good for you. I'll never say differently. Now, that doesn't mean sugar-coated baked beans or Grandma's sweet potatoes with marshmallows....I'm talking fresh green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, salad fixings, mushrooms, zucchini, cucumbers, onions, the list goes on and on. There are so many wonderful varieties of veggies and they are all good for you! Just stay away from the corn drenched in butter sauce LOL.And yes, fat has gotten a bad rap. I always make sure to include my healthy fat every day, because it DOES keep me feeling fuller. It's that wonderful thing called 'satiety'.....it helps us to not look around for 'more'. And it TASTES good. AND it aids in digestion.
Incidentally, the Medifast 5/1 plan? Is NOT super low carb heavy-duty ketosis. It induces a MILD (emphasis on MILD!) form of ketosis that may or may NOT show up on those Ketostix everyone is so excited about.
And here's the other thing. Those Ketostix? They measure only ONE type of ketones. But according to Mr. Moore in Keto Clarity, we want the OTHER type of ketones.
Talk about confusing!
The type Ketostix measure is called Acetoacetic acids. But what Mr. Moore says we want to be seeing are called Beta-hydroxybutryate acids.
Two different things.
The good news is, if you show up on the Ketostix you will eventually be burning the 'good' ketones as well.
The bad news is, you MAY be burning the good ketones but don't KNOW IT! Because the good ketones DON'T SHOW UP on Ketostix strips.
And...more bad news...over TIME, since your body gets more and more efficient at burning the GOOD ketones, you could be in ketosis like KRAZY but you don't see it on the Ketostix AT ALL anymore.
Eating the same things!
So you think you're doing something wrong.
And even if it USED to show up on the Ketostix, it won't continue, the longer you stay on the plan. Because again, our bodies get more efficient at burning the good ones.
Confused yet? Boy at this point I was going, "say WHAT?"
But I persisted....you know me, I wanted to be open minded and learn all I could.
So how do you measure the 'good' ketones?
Guess what? You have to buy ANOTHER piece of equipment to measure the RIGHT kinds of ketones....some sort of breath tester or even a blood test. (I didn't even look into how expensive these two tests were, by this time I was getting a little disgusted).
....Oh, and it gets WORSE!
In addition to being SUPER low low carb (and I mean, less than 80 grams....preferably less than 50 grams...in fact the lower the better!)....you also had to watch your fat (the more the better) and your protein (which couldn't exceed a set amount .... I'll get to that).
As contrast, on our plan, you will be in ketosis (again, MILD ketosis) with 80 grams of carbs. And by the way I've gone as high as 100 grams of carbs and still been OK....bottom line, you don't have to go LESS than 80 grams on the TSFL plan.
And you do NOT have to worry about eating a lot of fat on our plan. Just your 0 to 2 healthy fats a day, depending on your lean choices. Nor do you have to monitor your protein grams.
On the Keto Clarity plan you have to track ALL three in detail. In fact there were people posting forum questions who were as low as 15 or 20 grams of carbs a day.
That's like eating NOTHING but fat and protein.
And in addition to being super low carb, Mr. Moore says you have to eat a 'lot' of fat. Very high fat helps ketosis. (Really? I thought it brought on a heart attack)....
Seriously I know fat has gotten a bad rap....but listen to what he recommends!
He recommends you fry everything in butter (preferably grass fed (???) butter...) Gimme a break...and/or coconut oil, and even advocates the use of what he calls 'fat bombs' (which are sandwiches made with full fat american cheese with full fat mayo in between).
(Sounds like something I eat when I'm bingeing and there's nothing left in the refrigerator).
His diet is a fat lovers DREAM. He kept saying 'Add fat if you're not in ketosis'.
So for awhile there I got all excited.
Hey, maybe I could have my Skippy and lose weight TOO!
So I read on.
Meanwhile, mind you, my head in the book, I'm trying to put together a menu as I'm reading....and on this menu I have now cut out any and all MF snacks and am even cutting out some MF meals, too many carbs according to him....
But WAIT! There's ANOTHER factor!
I have to count PROTEIN, too! Because according to him, if you exceed 2x your kilogram weight in protein (for a 150 lb woman this would be about 128 grams of protein) you could ALSO throw your body out of ketosis.
OMG.
Gimme a break.
Now I'm counting carbs, I'm counting FATs, and I'm counting PROTEIN. To ridiculous degrees.
And one last thing. (and here's where he REALLY lost me) LOL....
He advocates eating "only 2 times a day, preferably only once a day".
The man eats once a day. And he eats low carb and high fat and I guess 'moderate' protein would be the word (although believe me, it's hard, very hard, to do all three CORRECTLY).
So I looked at what he's eating and I added up the calories.
Here's where the rubber meets the road, folks.
Hmm.....guess what? He's eating around 1000 calories in that one meal (Oh - plus he 'snacks' on Almonds 'if needed'). So he's 130 lbs and eating, MAYBE, a max of 1400 calories. That's about right for a slow metabolism. I always use goal x 11, so we're talking 130 x 11 = 1430 calories a day.
So he's eating low calorie, too. Don't let him fool you!
Just because he's eating high fat doesn't mean he's eating 'whatever we wants'.
He's eating ONCE a day.
He swears that eating more often is 'too much trouble'.
I'm sorry, but I don't think eating 6x a day is all that difficult.
OK, so I have to open a MF bar. What's the big deal?
NOTHING was in his book about the metabolism getting 'revved higher' from eating small, frequent meals, either. He conveniently omits this.
'm sorry, but I don't think eating 6x a day is all that difficult. OK, so I have to open a MF bar. What's the big deal? NOTHING was in his book about the metabolism getting 'revved higher' from eating small, frequent meals. He conveniently omits this. 'm sorry, but I don't think eating 6x a day is all that difficult. OK, so I have to open a MF bar. What's the big deal? NOTHING was in his book about the metabolism getting 'revved higher' from eating small, frequent meals. He conveniently omits this. And he never gives a really good reason why eating more often is 'bad', other than to say
"It leads to 'thinking' about food too much."
Really? So I'm NOT thinking when I'm desperately trying to figure out how to eat using only 50 grams or less of carbs, 128 grams or less of protein, and special fats like grass-fed butter? And I'm running around buying full fat everything and "stop when you're full" (if I could stop when I was full I wouldn't have needed to diet in the FIRST PLACE) and "listen to your body and change as necessary" (again, our biggest problems here? Are we have a DISCONNECT in our bodies....we can't 'talk' to them...other than to hear them say 'eat eat eat' LOL) and yes, portions count (did you think they wouldn't? LOL)...and YES, drinking lots of water (that the ONE thing on which I agree with him!), and exercising, too (he swears if you aren't in deep ketosis maybe you're not working out hard enough!)
How could you have the ENERGY to work out? Especially living on ONE meal a day?
Oh yeah...he even has a chapter on Fasting. Says he tried an experiment on himself. Was going to go 3 weeks without eating a thing 'just to see what would happen'. And measured his blood sugar, which plummetted (gee, ya THINK?), and his ketones, which went up but not consistently....but he 'found he got too light headed after Day 3 so he stopped' and 'had a substantial meal after that'.
Yeah. He BINGED, guys. I can read 'binge' between the lines! LOL!
WOW.
Like I said, I know this is unusual for me but this is one time I'm telling you STAY AWAY from this book. It will only confuse and upset you, just like it did me.
When I came right down to it? I came up with two menus and compared them side by side. On one hand was his "Keto Clarity" plan. Eating once, maybe twice a day and being able to eat a (measly) 2 TBL Skippy peanut butter in my mealplan.
And on the other side was the TSFL / Medifast meal plan, the typical 5/1.
Guess which one let me eat more food?
Guess which one I'm going to STAY with?
Oh - and here's another thing. Those of you who get confused/upset/stressed out about 'Am I doing this right?'.....you should've seen HIS forum page. These poor people were going nuts trying to count carbs PLUS protein PLUS fat in the proper percentages and burn the 'right' ketones using the 'right' equipment he suggested and buying special grass-fed butter (are you kidding me?) and high fat everything and frying everything in coconut oil, etc......and the advice he was telling women of my age? In menopause or beyond who have trouble losing weight, have PCOS, metabolic syndrome, any of those conditions? Was go to even LOWER with the carbs.
Which meant they couldn't even eat a simple SALAD.
Gimme a break.
LOL.....The bottom line is,
"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't".
We all want a 'quick' weight loss. We want to click our fingers and make it so. We want to be able to WISH hard enough, and become a size 2.
But it doesn't work that way. It takes TIME and PATIENCE.
And look at it this way. You don't have to do a bunch of crazy calculations to stay OP.
All you have to do is eat your 5 MF meals and your L&G. That's all.
If you really aren't losing, yes, take a look at your daily carb totals and if they consistently exceed 100, maybe try and scale back on the MF snacks or use lower-glycemic veggies or something. Think higher fat, yes...NONFAT is no good, because 0 fat means more carbs, 9 times out of 10. But you don't have to go FULL fat, either. Lowfat is fine with your dairy....2% greek yogurt, part-skim ricotta, 2% shredded cheddar, like that. Easy does it.
But don't go overboard. And don't 'jump ship' simply because you aren't patient enough to see it through. Give yourself a FULL 30 DAYS 100% OP before you throw in the towel.
I promise you.....if you can get through a full 30 days OP, you WILL lose weight.
The program WORKS. It works the first time, the second time, as many times as you need to return to it. But it WORKS.
And it works because it's well designed and it's SAFE and it's nutritious. It's not 'all or nothing'. Personally, I think we NEED all three nutrients -- protein, fat, and carbs -- and personally, I think MF has it right. The percentages (if you're curious) of the 5/1 are about 40% protein, 40% carbs, 20% fat. And that WORKS.
I'll stay here, thank you very much! LOL!
KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON!
LOL.
A friend, this past week, talked about Ketostix.
And that started me on an "Odyssey of Discovery" about Ketostix, ketosis, and the whole low low carb thing.
I bought a book called "Keto Clarity" (I DON'T recommend it, by the way.... how's THAT for a switch?....because it will only screw with your head just like it did mine!) by Jimmy Moore.
The books SOUNDS like a dream come true. I mean, you can eat FAT! Yay! I'll be able to eat my Skippy! WOW! And look! He lost over 300 lbs!
But careful reading....and actually sitting down and designing a MENU....I saw differently.
Mr. Moore is the chief achitect of a blog called "Livin La Low Carb Vita" (basically all about living a very very LOW carb lifestyle) and has a lot of followers. He's really big in the low carb world. And his book "Keto Clarity" has gotten a lot of attention, because he went from like, 400 lbs down to goal weight eating SUPER low carb and....(get this...!)....
HIGH FAT.
Yep, high fat. He goes on and on about how fat has gotten a bad rap, it keeps us feeling fuller longer, yada yada. And how to truly enter heavy-duty ketosis you NEED to eat high fat and super low carb.
Now I agree that carbs are our enemy. Especially 'bad' carbs...you know...SLUDGE.
We all know that. Eating junk like cookies, cakes, candy and all of that is what PUT most of us here today. And many of us fell for the 'eat no fat but eat healthy' thing....where we ate a lot of FRUITS, but no fat, and still got fat! That's carbs at their worst.
High glycemic carbs are dangerous for people with lots of little fat cells like US. LOL.
BUT....he takes it to extremes. There's an old saying, "Don't throw out the baby with the bath water", and I think it applies in this case.
In the quest for weight loss, he went to SUPER low carb. Like, the man can't eat a piece of LETTUCE without worrying about the carbs in it.
Veggies are good for you. I'll never say differently. Now, that doesn't mean sugar-coated baked beans or Grandma's sweet potatoes with marshmallows....I'm talking fresh green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, salad fixings, mushrooms, zucchini, cucumbers, onions, the list goes on and on. There are so many wonderful varieties of veggies and they are all good for you! Just stay away from the corn drenched in butter sauce LOL.And yes, fat has gotten a bad rap. I always make sure to include my healthy fat every day, because it DOES keep me feeling fuller. It's that wonderful thing called 'satiety'.....it helps us to not look around for 'more'. And it TASTES good. AND it aids in digestion.
Incidentally, the Medifast 5/1 plan? Is NOT super low carb heavy-duty ketosis. It induces a MILD (emphasis on MILD!) form of ketosis that may or may NOT show up on those Ketostix everyone is so excited about.
And here's the other thing. Those Ketostix? They measure only ONE type of ketones. But according to Mr. Moore in Keto Clarity, we want the OTHER type of ketones.
Talk about confusing!
The type Ketostix measure is called Acetoacetic acids. But what Mr. Moore says we want to be seeing are called Beta-hydroxybutryate acids.
Two different things.
The good news is, if you show up on the Ketostix you will eventually be burning the 'good' ketones as well.
The bad news is, you MAY be burning the good ketones but don't KNOW IT! Because the good ketones DON'T SHOW UP on Ketostix strips.
And...more bad news...over TIME, since your body gets more and more efficient at burning the GOOD ketones, you could be in ketosis like KRAZY but you don't see it on the Ketostix AT ALL anymore.
Eating the same things!
So you think you're doing something wrong.
And even if it USED to show up on the Ketostix, it won't continue, the longer you stay on the plan. Because again, our bodies get more efficient at burning the good ones.
Confused yet? Boy at this point I was going, "say WHAT?"
But I persisted....you know me, I wanted to be open minded and learn all I could.
So how do you measure the 'good' ketones?
Guess what? You have to buy ANOTHER piece of equipment to measure the RIGHT kinds of ketones....some sort of breath tester or even a blood test. (I didn't even look into how expensive these two tests were, by this time I was getting a little disgusted).
....Oh, and it gets WORSE!
In addition to being SUPER low low carb (and I mean, less than 80 grams....preferably less than 50 grams...in fact the lower the better!)....you also had to watch your fat (the more the better) and your protein (which couldn't exceed a set amount .... I'll get to that).
As contrast, on our plan, you will be in ketosis (again, MILD ketosis) with 80 grams of carbs. And by the way I've gone as high as 100 grams of carbs and still been OK....bottom line, you don't have to go LESS than 80 grams on the TSFL plan.
And you do NOT have to worry about eating a lot of fat on our plan. Just your 0 to 2 healthy fats a day, depending on your lean choices. Nor do you have to monitor your protein grams.
On the Keto Clarity plan you have to track ALL three in detail. In fact there were people posting forum questions who were as low as 15 or 20 grams of carbs a day.
That's like eating NOTHING but fat and protein.
And in addition to being super low carb, Mr. Moore says you have to eat a 'lot' of fat. Very high fat helps ketosis. (Really? I thought it brought on a heart attack)....
Seriously I know fat has gotten a bad rap....but listen to what he recommends!
He recommends you fry everything in butter (preferably grass fed (???) butter...) Gimme a break...and/or coconut oil, and even advocates the use of what he calls 'fat bombs' (which are sandwiches made with full fat american cheese with full fat mayo in between).
(Sounds like something I eat when I'm bingeing and there's nothing left in the refrigerator).
His diet is a fat lovers DREAM. He kept saying 'Add fat if you're not in ketosis'.
So for awhile there I got all excited.
Hey, maybe I could have my Skippy and lose weight TOO!
So I read on.
Meanwhile, mind you, my head in the book, I'm trying to put together a menu as I'm reading....and on this menu I have now cut out any and all MF snacks and am even cutting out some MF meals, too many carbs according to him....
But WAIT! There's ANOTHER factor!
I have to count PROTEIN, too! Because according to him, if you exceed 2x your kilogram weight in protein (for a 150 lb woman this would be about 128 grams of protein) you could ALSO throw your body out of ketosis.
OMG.
Gimme a break.
Now I'm counting carbs, I'm counting FATs, and I'm counting PROTEIN. To ridiculous degrees.
And one last thing. (and here's where he REALLY lost me) LOL....
He advocates eating "only 2 times a day, preferably only once a day".
The man eats once a day. And he eats low carb and high fat and I guess 'moderate' protein would be the word (although believe me, it's hard, very hard, to do all three CORRECTLY).
So I looked at what he's eating and I added up the calories.
Here's where the rubber meets the road, folks.
Hmm.....guess what? He's eating around 1000 calories in that one meal (Oh - plus he 'snacks' on Almonds 'if needed'). So he's 130 lbs and eating, MAYBE, a max of 1400 calories. That's about right for a slow metabolism. I always use goal x 11, so we're talking 130 x 11 = 1430 calories a day.
So he's eating low calorie, too. Don't let him fool you!
Just because he's eating high fat doesn't mean he's eating 'whatever we wants'.
He's eating ONCE a day.
He swears that eating more often is 'too much trouble'.
I'm sorry, but I don't think eating 6x a day is all that difficult.
OK, so I have to open a MF bar. What's the big deal?
NOTHING was in his book about the metabolism getting 'revved higher' from eating small, frequent meals, either. He conveniently omits this.
'm sorry, but I don't think eating 6x a day is all that difficult. OK, so I have to open a MF bar. What's the big deal? NOTHING was in his book about the metabolism getting 'revved higher' from eating small, frequent meals. He conveniently omits this. 'm sorry, but I don't think eating 6x a day is all that difficult. OK, so I have to open a MF bar. What's the big deal? NOTHING was in his book about the metabolism getting 'revved higher' from eating small, frequent meals. He conveniently omits this. And he never gives a really good reason why eating more often is 'bad', other than to say
"It leads to 'thinking' about food too much."
Really? So I'm NOT thinking when I'm desperately trying to figure out how to eat using only 50 grams or less of carbs, 128 grams or less of protein, and special fats like grass-fed butter? And I'm running around buying full fat everything and "stop when you're full" (if I could stop when I was full I wouldn't have needed to diet in the FIRST PLACE) and "listen to your body and change as necessary" (again, our biggest problems here? Are we have a DISCONNECT in our bodies....we can't 'talk' to them...other than to hear them say 'eat eat eat' LOL) and yes, portions count (did you think they wouldn't? LOL)...and YES, drinking lots of water (that the ONE thing on which I agree with him!), and exercising, too (he swears if you aren't in deep ketosis maybe you're not working out hard enough!)
How could you have the ENERGY to work out? Especially living on ONE meal a day?
Oh yeah...he even has a chapter on Fasting. Says he tried an experiment on himself. Was going to go 3 weeks without eating a thing 'just to see what would happen'. And measured his blood sugar, which plummetted (gee, ya THINK?), and his ketones, which went up but not consistently....but he 'found he got too light headed after Day 3 so he stopped' and 'had a substantial meal after that'.
Yeah. He BINGED, guys. I can read 'binge' between the lines! LOL!
WOW.
Like I said, I know this is unusual for me but this is one time I'm telling you STAY AWAY from this book. It will only confuse and upset you, just like it did me.
When I came right down to it? I came up with two menus and compared them side by side. On one hand was his "Keto Clarity" plan. Eating once, maybe twice a day and being able to eat a (measly) 2 TBL Skippy peanut butter in my mealplan.
And on the other side was the TSFL / Medifast meal plan, the typical 5/1.
Guess which one let me eat more food?
Guess which one I'm going to STAY with?
Oh - and here's another thing. Those of you who get confused/upset/stressed out about 'Am I doing this right?'.....you should've seen HIS forum page. These poor people were going nuts trying to count carbs PLUS protein PLUS fat in the proper percentages and burn the 'right' ketones using the 'right' equipment he suggested and buying special grass-fed butter (are you kidding me?) and high fat everything and frying everything in coconut oil, etc......and the advice he was telling women of my age? In menopause or beyond who have trouble losing weight, have PCOS, metabolic syndrome, any of those conditions? Was go to even LOWER with the carbs.
Which meant they couldn't even eat a simple SALAD.
Gimme a break.
LOL.....The bottom line is,
"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn't".
We all want a 'quick' weight loss. We want to click our fingers and make it so. We want to be able to WISH hard enough, and become a size 2.
But it doesn't work that way. It takes TIME and PATIENCE.
And look at it this way. You don't have to do a bunch of crazy calculations to stay OP.
All you have to do is eat your 5 MF meals and your L&G. That's all.
If you really aren't losing, yes, take a look at your daily carb totals and if they consistently exceed 100, maybe try and scale back on the MF snacks or use lower-glycemic veggies or something. Think higher fat, yes...NONFAT is no good, because 0 fat means more carbs, 9 times out of 10. But you don't have to go FULL fat, either. Lowfat is fine with your dairy....2% greek yogurt, part-skim ricotta, 2% shredded cheddar, like that. Easy does it.
But don't go overboard. And don't 'jump ship' simply because you aren't patient enough to see it through. Give yourself a FULL 30 DAYS 100% OP before you throw in the towel.
I promise you.....if you can get through a full 30 days OP, you WILL lose weight.
The program WORKS. It works the first time, the second time, as many times as you need to return to it. But it WORKS.
And it works because it's well designed and it's SAFE and it's nutritious. It's not 'all or nothing'. Personally, I think we NEED all three nutrients -- protein, fat, and carbs -- and personally, I think MF has it right. The percentages (if you're curious) of the 5/1 are about 40% protein, 40% carbs, 20% fat. And that WORKS.
I'll stay here, thank you very much! LOL!
KEEP ON KEEPIN' ON!
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