Is keto diet overrated?

[Guest Dr. No]

Who tried keto diet here? Is it effective?

[Guest Ketones Are Good]

I see no need to get attached to some established diet like one may get sold on some political party.  

 

The disdain of carbohydrates by the keto-fanatics is unjustified.  There are complex carbohydrates that should be included in any highly healthy diet.

 

What should occupy us is our metabolism.  When our body runs exclusively on glucose because we eat all the time, including carbohydrates with high glycemic index, the pancreas must release much insulin to get the excess sugar out of the blood and into our tissues and liver as fat .  With time the tissues become less sensitive to the insulin, raising the demand of this hormone, until the blood sugar levels stay too high (diabetes).  

 

Our tissues should become as sensitive to insulin as possible, so that this hormone stays low in the blood.  This is achieved by cutting down of glucose-producing food, one advantage of the keto-diet.  If there is not enough glucose to feed us,  the liver produces ketones that do the same job.

 

But there is another mechanism that is highly effective in fixing our metabolism:  this is fasting.   In the absence of food, when all of it has been digested,  there is no more income of glucose, and our body has to start feeding from the ketones produced from our fat.  This starts after 10, 12 hours since our last meal.  

 

There are many ways of fasting,  for different purposes,  but one that we all can easily do is the "intermittent fasting",  where we skip one meal before or after our sleep and spend like 16 hours without food.  This keeps our metabolism in top shape,  regardless of eating carbohydrates,  and good metabolism equates with good health.   A meal typically skipped is breakfast,  contrary to all the theories that "breakfast is the most important meal",  and after getting up in the morning we eat nothing,  maybe only drinking coffee,  and go about our most demanding activities without any lack of energy.  On the contrary, it seems that we do our most demanding work better when we are running on ketones.