10 ms·

As someone who has shifted to a sugar-free, high-fat lifestyle (keto diet), I can attest to the fact that sugar really is the ultimate evil in terms of health a

As someone who has shifted to a sugar-free, high-fat lifestyle (keto diet), I can attest to the fact that sugar really is the ultimate evil in terms of health and nutrition. I've lost about 100lbs in 2.5 years... The only thing that I really changed was doing a Keto diet. I've learned a lot about nutrition along the way, and it's amazing how bad nutrition info was when I was growing up.. Common Misconceptions I hear/see ALL THE TIME: 1) Fruit Juice is healthy. It's not. It is sugar-water. 2) A calorie is a calorie... No. Your body does not process all foods the same. A thousand calories of broccoli will effect your body VERY differently than a thousand calories of soda. Yes the energy-intake might be the same, but the resulting effects are very different. 3) Fats are bad. They are not. Your body uses fats for all sorts of processes, and most importantly, your body understands and can use fats. 4) Sugar is part of a healthy diet. Nope, sugar is not necessary in our diets at all. 5) Salt is bad. In moderation, salt and other electrolytes are actually needed by our bodies (unlike sugar). 6) Lack of exercise is the reason people get fat. No... Most people would have to run 10 miles per day to burn off the garbage they would eat in the morning (think of a young adult having an innocent bowl of cereal and OJ for breakfast). "People aren't obese because they eat too much and are lazy. People are lazy and eat too much because they are fat." Sugar and insulin and the whole endocrine system play a huge roll in how people feel physically and mentally eating sugary foods. So many more misconceptions out there... It's hard to find good info when you have Big Sugar, Big Food, and Big Beverage shoving bad information down the masses throats.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
donutdan4114 11y ago
If anyone has any questions about starting a keto diet (high-fat, mid-protein, low-carb), feel free to ask. :) Cannot recommend it enough. It simply just works..
- bosdev 11y ago
  Can you give some example meals you eat?
  - donutdan4114 11y ago
    Breakfast: 4 strips of bacon if I'm hungry.. Usually just skip breakfast and have 2 cups of coffee, extra cream, no sugar. Lunch: I eat broccoli and carrots with some dip. Salads are also good (avoid sugary dressings though!). Dinner: A meat and vegetable side. Tacos with low-carb wraps.. Pizza made of mozzarella cheese dough. Diet soda is okay on Keto. Obviously water is the best thing for you. My favorite site for getting tasty keto-friendly recipes: http://www.ruled.me/keto-recipes/ http://www.ruled.me/keto-recipes/
    - sageabilly 11y ago
      What's your daily caloric total? No breakfast plus just veg for lunch sounds like you're on an extremely low calorie diet, which will work for just about anyone regardless of if it's keto or not.
      - donutdan4114 11y ago
        It is very hard to hit 1800+ calories on a keto diet. You have to add a lot of fat to things. This means eating a little... Abnormally. Such as eating baked cheese, adding extra butter (any fat) to meals. Avocado is a great fat-packed vege. Lots of cream cheese..
        VLM 11y ago
        3 tbsp sour cream is one gram of tasty carb. Dairy isn't very paleo but I'll indulge sometimes. 1/4 cup of guacamole (depending what you added) is about 4 grams of carbs, probably affordable. Both are about 100 calories.
        mmebane 11y ago
        I've found the easiest way to maintain my macro ratios on Keto is to just drink heavy whipping cream for breakfast - it's almost pure fat, and 1/2 cup is about 400 kcal. It's slightly sweet and has little or no oily taste, so it goes down much easier than coconut oil or butter. Even when I'm adding it to coffee, I prefer it over butter. For a quick snacky lunch, I love celery and cream cheese or, depending on what mood I'm in, celery and mayo.
- theseatoms 11y ago
  How often do you eat donuts, Dan?
  - donutdan4114 11y ago
    Literally, never. But I do go to Dunkin' Donuts quite often and get my large iced coffee with 6 cream, less ice, and no sugar.
- blktiger 11y ago
  I'm glad it works for you, but everybody is different. It's a good idea to try multiple different diets to discover what works for your body.
  - donutdan4114 11y ago
    Indeed, everyone is different, and should consult a doctor before starting a diet. Keto is a very tough diet. However, scientifically speaking, keto will help pretty much anyone lose weight, it really works at the core level that our bodies work... In terms of how and why we burn body fat. It's certainly not for everyone, and you have to keep a really close eye on your macros, nutrients, vitamins, minerals...
- Someone1234 11y ago
  How expensive is it? I mean literally. A lot of these alternative diets seem to work but be far more expensive than eating crap, unless all you eat are veggies (which few like).
  - donutdan4114 11y ago
    I don't find it expensive at all. Couple things to point out: 1. You will eat less, snack less, and eat out less. 2. Vegetables are cheap. 3. Some meats are very cheap. Pork is super cheap right now. 4. Cheese/dairy is fairly cheap. This all depends on where you live and what kind of foods you want to eat. Steak is going to be more expensive than pork. Maybe dairy is more expensive where you live? Just depends... But the cost of fixing up your health later down the line will definitely be more expensive than just eating healthier early on.
  - ethanbond 11y ago
    I found that low-carb diets are way cheaper. There are two factors behind this (in my experience): 1) You eat way, way, way, way less food. I was intensely into keto at probably peak-appetite years (16 - 19 years old) and have since been maintaining a much lower basal carb intake (now 21 years old). A complete dinner used to be large pasta dishes with sausage, garlic bread, a few glasses of milk (I used to be a fanatic), etc., but in keto I'm totally satiated after two small salmon filets. Homefries, toast and a loaded three-egg omelet is actually less satiating for me than two fried eggs with some pepper, and I feel like crap after the former. I do have a hard time with vegetables because I don't shop often enough for them not to go to waste, but I'll usually handle that with a salad for lunch. 2) In the event that you really do need to eat very cheaply (Ramen level cheap), you can do that too. I've had periods where I'd rely on string cheese, peanut butter, and eggs almost exclusively. Not proud of it, but better than boxes of pasta IMO. If you put up with the initial withdrawals from sugar, "keto flu," you'll find that you'll eat less food and feel better.
    - tzs 11y ago
      > I do have a hard time with vegetables because I don't shop often enough for them not to go to waste, but I'll usually handle that with a salad for lunch. Have you tried frozen vegetables? Some of the "steam in bag" kind that are meant for the microwave actually come out quite tasty and are very convenient.
- tvon 11y ago
  Where do I start?
  - forgetsusername 11y ago
    Reddit's always good: For general Keto conversastion: https://www.reddit.com/r/keto https://www.reddit.com/r/keto For the scientifically inclined: https://www.reddit.com/r/ketoscience https://www.reddit.com/r/ketoscience For those focused on exercise while on the diet: https://www.reddit.com/r/ketogains/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ketogains/ For food suggestions: https://www.reddit.com/r/ketorecipes https://www.reddit.com/r/ketorecipes
  - donutdan4114 11y ago
    http://www.ruled.me/start-here/ http://www.ruled.me/start-here/
- porker 11y ago
  What is meant by a keto diet? Something that puts your body in ketosis? If so, how many days a week? I hear keto bandied about a lot, but not sure a) if everyone's talking about the same thing, b) the difference between it and paleo, and c) if it's actually healthy :)
- embwbam 11y ago
  Would it be good for me to eat more fats if I'm not willing to go all the way to ketosis? I'm healthy, maybe 5 pounds overweight, I run, cycle and rock climb. I eat a good amount of vegetables and fruit, eggs, meat, decent amount of fat, and less carbs than the average American (but I still eat some: sandwiches, beans, corn chips, occasional pizza and dessert) Would it be healthy to eat more fats and less carbs? Or does it only help if you are very strict with it and get all the way to ketosis?
- SolaceQuantum 11y ago
  I'm thinking of starting a keto diet, but my only issue is that I'm northern Chinese. I feel like I'll be throwing away my culture, or what little I have from my parents (I'm Asian-american). Many of the dishes are designed with either noodles or steamed buns in mind. E.g. mopping up sauces or vinegars, dumplings, baozi, all the many kinds of noodle. How would you recommend eating asian and also keto? It seems really awkward to swear away dumplings for example, when dumpling making was an activity that brought my whole family together both in China and in America.
Diederich 11y ago
Everything you said. I've been treating sugar as personal health enemy #1 for quite a few years now. Note: I am deeply addicted to sugar. It has been absurdly and embarrassingly hard for me to abstain from high sugar foods. I can eat a healthy, high-protein meal, and be full. Yet 30 minutes later, I will feel hungry again. But checking in with my stomach: still full. I can eat a few grams of sugar and feel instantly full. I'm at work and can't take time to cite properly, but I have read some relatively new science about how they have identified some physical structures in the brains of people who are unusually drawn to sugar consumption. Like you, I have lost quite a bit of weight, and I do eat very little sugar these days. But it's seriously a daily struggle, and it feels so damn irrational at times.
- bosdev 11y ago
  It's 100% irrational. We just didn't evolve to exist in a world with refined sugar at every street corner. We aren't equipped to make good decisions about it easily, it is a constant battle between our long-term decision making and our natural quest for easy to digest energy.
- rhinoceraptor 11y ago
  Excess protein intake converts to glucose (via gluconeogenesis). Have you tried restricting protein and upping fat? Somewhere around 60/30/10 to 80/15/5 (fat, protein, carbs respectively) is very satiating.
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  I would suggest reading "Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease" by Robert Lustig. He goes into the science behind sugary diets and why they are truly so addicting. I'm talking about, more addicting than cocaine.
  - ant6n 11y ago
    That's a great title, and a fitting author's name (Lustig is German for funny).
  - 11y ago
fucking_tragedy 11y ago
#2 stems from the 'calories in/calories out' method of weight loss. It involves awareness of the amount of calories you eat and the amount of calories you burn. It's an adage to apply when trying to lose weight and just losing weight. It seems the same simplistic weight loss observation is being applied to nutrition, two vastly different things.
zelos 11y ago
A thousand calories of broccoli will effect your body VERY differently than a thousand calories of soda. To be fair, that's 3kg of broccoli ;-)
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  It's alright, it'll start to come out before you even finish that serving haha
- hammock 11y ago
  Five bunches of broccoli vs. five bottles of Coke.
chris_va 11y ago
(1) is technically incorrect. Humans have evolved to process fructose into triglycerides in the liver. This is different than getting a glucose spike in the bloodstream. (2) unfortunately reality is complicated. Most of what you care about is the glucose curve after consumption. You are correct in that different foods cause different curves. This will change per person, and some people will spike on soda, and some (smaller group)/actually will do the opposite on broccoli. It also depends on what else you eat around the same time. Interestingly, you can often see a change over time, or if you travel (presumably different gut bacteria) 4) there is a reason it tastes good. Getting fat is good for not starving in the winter, and it is easier to get energy quickly if you need it, but point taken.
- clentaminator 11y ago
  Is there a difference between natural fruit juice and the kind of "fruit juice" with high levels of marketing behind it e.g. Tropicana?
  - donutdan4114 11y ago
    Big Beverage fruit juice may have added sugar. Regardless, fruit juice (which is fruity sugar water with no fiber), is terrible for us. Fruit was given to us in a high-fiber package, and should be consumed that way. The fiber also ensure we don't over consume. You might be full after 1 apple, which is like 1/8th a glass of apple juice. So eating real fruit, you'll get less sugar, and the fiber helps with digestion and getting the other nutrients that are in fruit.
    - rMBP 11y ago
      Regarding "real fruit", how much sweeter is a tomato, an orange, or an apple today compared to past centuries? Haven't most if not all of the commonly available (popular) fruits today been refined through selective breeding to be more appealing to us? What was lost vs. gained in this process? (I have no idea, I'm not trying to be rhetorical. My guess is lots of more sweetness and perhaps less fiber, in a much larger fruit.)
    - 11y ago
niccaluim 11y ago
Amen. Seven months of no sugar (or flour) here. The first week was worse than quitting smoking, which ought to tell you something. Have lost 50 lbs since. And what do you know: now I have the energy to work out three times a week. (The majority of the weight loss was before I started exercising.)
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  Congrats! Weight loss will definitely slow as you work out and start to build up muscle too. I definitely feel way better off of sugar/carbs. Eating is a completely different ballgame now. On keto, you get fuller quicker, and when you're full.. you actually want to stop eating.. It's not like sugar addiction where you want MORE MORE MORE. Omnomomomom!!!! YES DESSERT PLEASE.. SURE I CAN FIT THAT IN MY STOMACH. Your stomach will literally shrink after a while too, so you will eat less.
wnevets 11y ago
> A calorie is a calorie... I really wish people would stop repeating this.
neohaven 11y ago
1) Actual pressed juice is fine. The matter gets confused when people don't realize that a glass of actual orange juice is 6+ oranges worth of juice. You wouldn't eat a dozen oranges without thinking about the caloric intake. But you'd drink a few glasses of OJ because it's not as filling. 2) Thermodynamics... That said, a thousand calories of soda is half a day's worth of energy in sugar form. Your body uses sugar first when available, as a general rule of thumb. If you ate any fat that day, it will use the sugar, store the fat. More efficient than turning the sugar to fat, which we are bad at. (Humans aren't great at ketogenesis.) 3) Your body also understands sugar just as well. Blood glucose is an important bodily stat for good reason. Your body also uses protein and various trace elements in your diet, and it "understands" and "uses" all of them. Sugar is just more convenient to use than fat, so it uses that first and stores the fat. On ketosis, you just end up taking some of the stored (or dietary fat) and turning it to glucose in a hugely complicated process (think of it as "inefficiency in storage/packing/unpacking" the sugars into fats and back) and then using that to feed the ATP cycle to run the furnace. You don't run on fat. You store glucose as fat because high levels of glucose in the blood are bad. And then you store the fat outside the blood because that too, is poisonous in high amounts (see ketoacidosis). Your body is a fine-tuned machine that runs on pure glucose and happens to have a set of machinery that makes all animal/plant inputs (fats, sugars, protein, minerals, vitamins) into either A) machinery bits for maintenance or B) more glucose to burn. 4) Sugar (whether it is glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, maltose, w/e) is a functional way for a lot of things in nature to feed themselves, including us. Whether it is honey, the inside of an apple, or a grapevine, lots of things are full of easily digested sugars. Sugar, as much as you'd like to claim is "not necessary", is everywhere in nature, as it is a part of most living things. 5) Salt is bad, indeed. As a general notion, equilibrium should be attained in the body fairly easily. The bigger problem people don't think about is the K/Na ratio and such. As a general rule, salt is overused in our food. That one I agree with. No idea why you tacked on anything about sugar here. 6) Energy in, energy out. You're just a fancy (REALLY fancy) way of burning food slowly (given that you exhale some carbon in your food through CO2... and you used the O2 you breathed in to combust that food.) You happen to do useful work with the fact that you can invest a small amount of energy to gain a lot of it. It's a side effect. Locomotion and keeping the food-burning oven running and clean are the main reasons you use calories. The problem with the OJ glass at breakfast is detailed in 1) and has nothing to do with sugar and everything to do with the fact there's little finer and little satiation to orange juice so you drink far more calories than you'd ever eat from the actual fruit. We prepare foods for easy consumption, but a lot of food is made to be filling as a way to self-restrict. Our more basal impulses ("eat until you're full because there may not be more food for a while") are woefully maladapted to our world.
scoj 11y ago
This is so true. But it's also not surprising how long it takes things to go from science updates to general population "common knowledge". Also, I just can't help but notice your ironic username.
guiomie 11y ago
When you say sugar, you mean processed sugar right? My understanding is sugar in fruits is good for you...
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  The sugar in fruits is processed the same in our body as any other type of "refined" sugar. Whether that's table sugar, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, fructose, whatever other names it wants to go by. Eating an actual fruit though is healthier, because that sugar is packaged up in a wonderful fiber, nutrient-filled vessel. Basically, the delivery mechanism of the sugar is what really counts.
Laaw 11y ago
What blows my mind is that someone like you can see a sample size of one (you), pull like 15 different levers, and then proceed to "know" which of the levers actually worked, and which levers would work for everyone else. The sophilistic nature of your comment is astounding.
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  I wasn't really implying that everyone should start a ketogenic diet. Just stating the success that I've had with it, and also noting several common misconceptions that are still largely heard today.
  - Laaw 11y ago
    I didn't say you were implying anything, what I said was I find it astounding how little actual data you seem to have collected, compared to the sweeping conclusions you're drawing. I take issue with your condescending tone, because it doesn't fit whatsoever with your clear ignorance on the topic. I'm particularly sensitive to the topic of food, because people in your situation (who have found success but have no idea why) are immensely harmful to nutrition education. Comments like yours are precisely why there are so many misconceptions out there.
    - donutdan4114 11y ago
      I mean, it's just a comment on HN, I'm not writing a scientific journal article. Everything I stated in the original comment is information I have gathered and learned about over the years. Most people haven't read any books about nutrition and how the body works, where I have done a lot of independent research. So I probably know a little bit more about this stuff than the average person. I'm not saying I'm an expert by any stretch, but I'm sure a lot of people on HN could find this information useful, and a good starting point for their own independent research. And no, I can't site the sources directly, but if you have any specific points you'd like to point as being "errors", feel free to do so, as I'm sure others would be interested. Like any internet forum, you can always put your opinion in. However you have seemed to only attack my comment, rather than providing any real retort.
nickik 11y ago
What about something like Diat Coke? Could I still drink it, even when avoid other sugar? Because thats my coffee.
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  Technically speaking, on a low-carb diet, you can drink all the diet soda you want. Although you'd have to see how they effect your insulin levels and such, as some people are effected by it more than others. There's obviously a lot of other potential concerns regarding "artificial sweeteners"... But I'll take my chance with those over sugar.
bigtex 11y ago
While not on a keto diet, I am on a low-glycemic diet (also known on the web as the Trim Healthy Mama diet). Meals are either high fat and low to no carb or moderate carbs and low to no fat. You avoid all sugars but use alternatively like stevia, etc. I have lost over 35 lbs and kept it off to with no exercise. I mean I can eat on plan cheesecake as a meal and the next day lose weight. Also I don't count calories.
djsumdog 11y ago
There was an article up here about the problem with energy measurement in modern food sciences. Calories/KJs are poor measures of energy density in food. I have to agree with you. Over two years ago, a friend of mine got me interested in Keto. That 2nd week was kinda rough with my body going through sugar withdrawal, but after that it's been nothing but amazing. I rarely eat bread, pasta, potatoes, noodles etc. I went from nearly 70kg down to 61~62kg in a year, and have stayed around there for well over two years (I was down ti 59kg, but I think that was more muscle loss than fat loss). It's been life changing. I have better energy levels, am in a better mood, etc. It's not for everyone. I work at a desk all day and only cycle on the weekends. If you use a lot of energy (play sports everyday or are a runner), your body may need more carbs, but even then it should really be in the forms of fruits (high fibre, lower GI, lower insulin response), possibly starchy vegetables like corn and potatoes. There's a huge lack of education though on how much energy is in corn/potatoes or even peas/carrots. It's a lot! Even our oranges have been bread over the past few hundred years to be much much sweeter than they use to be. Corn use to have significantly more protein, but those varieties have been mostly bread out.
dpark 11y ago
> Most people would have to run 10 miles per day to burn off the garbage they would eat in the morning (think of a young adult having an innocent bowl of cereal and OJ for breakfast) How big is your bowl of cereal? 10 miles of running would be >1000 Calories burned. I don't think I've ever consumed 1000 Calories of cereal and juice in a sitting. I'm also pretty sure most people are not eating 1000 Calories for a typical breakfast.
- bonesinger 11y ago
  I think close to 1000 is pretty common for breakfast. I used to eat Dunkin Donuts a lot and I would see people order a Bagel with Bacon, Egg and Cheese on it. That is 470 calories. A side of hash browns is another 140. And then top of it off with a donut (350~) and an a large ice coffee (170) and you are over 1000 (I took the calorie # from DD website). Also a single serving of cereal is really small. Until I started using a food scale, I was routinely eating 2 servings of cereal (Multi-grain cheerios) which was about 250 calories.
  - dpark 11y ago
    > I think close to 1000 is pretty common for breakfast. I used to eat Dunkin Donuts a lot and I would see people order a Bagel with Bacon, Egg and Cheese on it. That is 470 calories. A side of hash browns is another 140. And then top of it off with a donut (350~) and an a large ice coffee (170) and you are over 1000 (I took the calorie # from DD website). This is not a normal breakfast for anyone except the hyperobese or the hyperathletic. A bagel with bacon, egg, and cheese, plus hashbrowns, plus a donut, plus a sugary coffee? Yes, some people eat that much all the time, and yes, many people will eat that much occasionally. I don't think it's a typical-sized breakfast for most people, though. Most people I know don't even eat breakfast, and when they do, a donut+coffee is more realistic for calorie count. > Also a single serving of cereal is really small. Until I started using a food scale, I was routinely eating 2 servings of cereal (Multi-grain cheerios) which was about 250 calories. Yeah, cereal servings are unrealistically small. But still, a realistic serving is more like 250, not 750.
    - 11y ago
douche 11y ago
The thing I've loved about ketogenic diets when I've been on them is that I simply never get hungry. A couple eggs and a few strips of bacon for breakfast, and then I'll look up at sundown and realize I haven't eaten anything all day, and don't particularly feel the need to.
CalRobert 11y ago
It drove me crazy that people would damn near shame me in to drinking orange juice with breakfast. Might as well ahve been a slurpee. (Never mind that I skip breakfast 90% of the time anyway, and recent studies indicate this is just fine). Congrats on your accomplishment; long term weight loss is incredibly hard. I found the simplest way to do it was "eat low-calorie density foods, and only when you're hungry".
- dsmithatx 11y ago
  If it's fresh squeezed, not concentrated, and you drink a small amount it's probably the best source of potassium around. Even better than eating a banana I hear. I have heart palpitations when I get low potassium so, I eat a banana or have and orange to supplement.
emmab 11y ago
> I've lost about 100lbs in 2.5 years... Not all of us are trying to lose weight. I'm trying to maintain my weight and sometimes that involves forcing myself to eat.
inthewoods 11y ago
"2) A calorie is a calorie... No. Your body does not process all foods the same. A thousand calories of broccoli will effect your body VERY differently than a thousand calories of soda. Yes the energy-intake might be the same, but the resulting effects are very different." Honest question: I've seen conflicting answers on this - some sources I've read saying a calorie is a calorie - others that agree with you. Does anyone have a scientific or other reference?
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  Maybe start here: http://www.responsiblefoods.org/a_calorie_is_not_a_calorie http://www.responsiblefoods.org/a_calorie_is_not_a_calorie From Mr. Lustig himself: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lustig-md/sugar-toxic_b_2759564.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lustig-md/sugar-toxic_b...
stcredzero 11y ago
3) Fats are bad. The research on this is mixed, actually. More research is needed. AFAIK, the rest of your points are misconceptions. There was one Finnish study where the "eat all the salt you want" group had lower mortality than the salt moderation group. I highly recommend the "Healthcare Triage" YouTube channel as a source of info/infotainment.
bovermyer 11y ago
This, but I'd also add that the closer your food is to fresh and unpreserved, the more likely it is to be healthy for you. If you eat primarily fresh foods (note: I do not advocate the "raw" diet, for other reasons), then by happy coincidence you also remove a lot of the stuff that eventually kills us.
beaner 11y ago
The real question is how we got here in the first place. Wasn't it the opinion of some scientific body and/or government health entity that basically said "fat is bad" and set us on this 30-year craze? Where are the pitchforks against these organizations? "Big sugar" is their creation.
- kentor 11y ago
  It's explained in the article. The part about Ancel Keys.
pbreit 11y ago
It is absolutely maddening how sugary fruit juice is (soda, too). And it's completely unnecessary. We dilute our juices by at least 50% and it's still not enough. There's no way Coke & Pepsi will ever lighten up on the sugar short of regulation. As with smoke-free restaurants, the free markets will never deliver less sugary beverages no matter how much demand there is.
riot504 11y ago
Your premise is based off of losing 100lbs. If I lost 100lbs I would be a 71" male weighing 80lbs. I eat natural food e.g., whole milk, real butter, fatty meats, lemonade, tea, roasted veggies, along with snacks like everybody else but I exercise (moderately these days) and eat normal size portions. Being healthy is not rocket science.
InanityDept 11y ago
> 3) Fats are bad. So I subscribed to this for a few years. Cut out a lot of carbs, ate lots of meat, eggs, etc. And then watched my APO-B (and, by nature, LDL/VLDL) numbers skyrocket to worrisome levels. Turns out I am APOE-4 (or, more specifically, 3/4) and it's just not that simple. And it's not a rare thing either - 20%+ of people are likely to be 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4. That's a huge chunk of people to put at risk by all "modern" fad diets proudly proclaiming "fats are not bad for you". (In truth it's saturated fats that cause issues for APOE4 carriers, but most of what is said following "fats are not bad for you" are usually something along the lines of "so eat eggs, bacon, ground beef etc. every day. It's healthy!"
samfisher83 11y ago
The human body is pretty adaptable. This guy lost weight and mad his HDL and LDL just eating twinkies. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/ http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/
truckle 11y ago
There's a great Ketogenic Soylent recipe over at the DIY Soylent site: http://diy.soylent.com/recipes/keto-chow-104-master-rich-chocolate http://diy.soylent.com/recipes/keto-chow-104-master-rich-cho...
donniefitz2 11y ago
Same here. I lost 75 pounds on the keto diet. It's not so much a diet for me anymore, it's just how I eat. I wrote about my experience here: https://thedon.me/2015/10/07/i-lost-63-pounds-heres-how/ https://thedon.me/2015/10/07/i-lost-63-pounds-heres-how/
tzs 11y ago
> As someone who has shifted to a sugar-free, high-fat lifestyle (keto diet), I can attest to the fact that sugar really is the ultimate evil in terms of health and nutrition. It should be noted that the important thing here was probably shifting away from sugar, rather than shifting toward high fat. For example... > I've lost about 100lbs in 2.5 years... The only thing that I really changed was doing a Keto diet I've lost 86 pounds (39 kg) in the last 217 days (594 milliyears). The only thing I really purposefully changed initially was trying to keep daily calories from carbohydrates at under 40% of my total calories. I also tried to keep fat under 50%. As a side effect, I found myself satisfied with fewer calories, and so the weight started coming off. I mostly did this by making sure each individual food I ate was within my overall carb and fat limits. If I wanted something that was outside the range, I'd try to balance it out with other things in the same meal so that the meal as a whole would be within the limits. For the last meal or snack of the day that was relaxed and the requirement was just that the day as a whole be within limits.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

donutdan4114 11y ago

If anyone has any questions about starting a keto diet (high-fat, mid-protein, low-carb), feel free to ask. :) Cannot recommend it enough. It simply just works..

bosdev 11y ago
Can you give some example meals you eat?
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  Breakfast: 4 strips of bacon if I'm hungry.. Usually just skip breakfast and have 2 cups of coffee, extra cream, no sugar. Lunch: I eat broccoli and carrots with some dip. Salads are also good (avoid sugary dressings though!). Dinner: A meat and vegetable side. Tacos with low-carb wraps.. Pizza made of mozzarella cheese dough. Diet soda is okay on Keto. Obviously water is the best thing for you. My favorite site for getting tasty keto-friendly recipes: http://www.ruled.me/keto-recipes/ http://www.ruled.me/keto-recipes/
  - sageabilly 11y ago
    What's your daily caloric total? No breakfast plus just veg for lunch sounds like you're on an extremely low calorie diet, which will work for just about anyone regardless of if it's keto or not.
    - donutdan4114 11y ago
      It is very hard to hit 1800+ calories on a keto diet. You have to add a lot of fat to things. This means eating a little... Abnormally. Such as eating baked cheese, adding extra butter (any fat) to meals. Avocado is a great fat-packed vege. Lots of cream cheese..
      - VLM 11y ago
        3 tbsp sour cream is one gram of tasty carb. Dairy isn't very paleo but I'll indulge sometimes. 1/4 cup of guacamole (depending what you added) is about 4 grams of carbs, probably affordable. Both are about 100 calories.
      - mmebane 11y ago
        I've found the easiest way to maintain my macro ratios on Keto is to just drink heavy whipping cream for breakfast - it's almost pure fat, and 1/2 cup is about 400 kcal. It's slightly sweet and has little or no oily taste, so it goes down much easier than coconut oil or butter. Even when I'm adding it to coffee, I prefer it over butter. For a quick snacky lunch, I love celery and cream cheese or, depending on what mood I'm in, celery and mayo.
theseatoms 11y ago
How often do you eat donuts, Dan?
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  Literally, never. But I do go to Dunkin' Donuts quite often and get my large iced coffee with 6 cream, less ice, and no sugar.
blktiger 11y ago
I'm glad it works for you, but everybody is different. It's a good idea to try multiple different diets to discover what works for your body.
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  Indeed, everyone is different, and should consult a doctor before starting a diet. Keto is a very tough diet. However, scientifically speaking, keto will help pretty much anyone lose weight, it really works at the core level that our bodies work... In terms of how and why we burn body fat. It's certainly not for everyone, and you have to keep a really close eye on your macros, nutrients, vitamins, minerals...
Someone1234 11y ago
How expensive is it? I mean literally. A lot of these alternative diets seem to work but be far more expensive than eating crap, unless all you eat are veggies (which few like).
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  I don't find it expensive at all. Couple things to point out: 1. You will eat less, snack less, and eat out less. 2. Vegetables are cheap. 3. Some meats are very cheap. Pork is super cheap right now. 4. Cheese/dairy is fairly cheap. This all depends on where you live and what kind of foods you want to eat. Steak is going to be more expensive than pork. Maybe dairy is more expensive where you live? Just depends... But the cost of fixing up your health later down the line will definitely be more expensive than just eating healthier early on.
- ethanbond 11y ago
  I found that low-carb diets are way cheaper. There are two factors behind this (in my experience): 1) You eat way, way, way, way less food. I was intensely into keto at probably peak-appetite years (16 - 19 years old) and have since been maintaining a much lower basal carb intake (now 21 years old). A complete dinner used to be large pasta dishes with sausage, garlic bread, a few glasses of milk (I used to be a fanatic), etc., but in keto I'm totally satiated after two small salmon filets. Homefries, toast and a loaded three-egg omelet is actually less satiating for me than two fried eggs with some pepper, and I feel like crap after the former. I do have a hard time with vegetables because I don't shop often enough for them not to go to waste, but I'll usually handle that with a salad for lunch. 2) In the event that you really do need to eat very cheaply (Ramen level cheap), you can do that too. I've had periods where I'd rely on string cheese, peanut butter, and eggs almost exclusively. Not proud of it, but better than boxes of pasta IMO. If you put up with the initial withdrawals from sugar, "keto flu," you'll find that you'll eat less food and feel better.
  - tzs 11y ago
    > I do have a hard time with vegetables because I don't shop often enough for them not to go to waste, but I'll usually handle that with a salad for lunch. Have you tried frozen vegetables? Some of the "steam in bag" kind that are meant for the microwave actually come out quite tasty and are very convenient.
tvon 11y ago
Where do I start?
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  Reddit's always good: For general Keto conversastion: https://www.reddit.com/r/keto https://www.reddit.com/r/keto For the scientifically inclined: https://www.reddit.com/r/ketoscience https://www.reddit.com/r/ketoscience For those focused on exercise while on the diet: https://www.reddit.com/r/ketogains/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ketogains/ For food suggestions: https://www.reddit.com/r/ketorecipes https://www.reddit.com/r/ketorecipes
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  http://www.ruled.me/start-here/ http://www.ruled.me/start-here/
porker 11y ago
What is meant by a keto diet? Something that puts your body in ketosis? If so, how many days a week? I hear keto bandied about a lot, but not sure a) if everyone's talking about the same thing, b) the difference between it and paleo, and c) if it's actually healthy :)
embwbam 11y ago
Would it be good for me to eat more fats if I'm not willing to go all the way to ketosis? I'm healthy, maybe 5 pounds overweight, I run, cycle and rock climb. I eat a good amount of vegetables and fruit, eggs, meat, decent amount of fat, and less carbs than the average American (but I still eat some: sandwiches, beans, corn chips, occasional pizza and dessert) Would it be healthy to eat more fats and less carbs? Or does it only help if you are very strict with it and get all the way to ketosis?
SolaceQuantum 11y ago
I'm thinking of starting a keto diet, but my only issue is that I'm northern Chinese. I feel like I'll be throwing away my culture, or what little I have from my parents (I'm Asian-american). Many of the dishes are designed with either noodles or steamed buns in mind. E.g. mopping up sauces or vinegars, dumplings, baozi, all the many kinds of noodle. How would you recommend eating asian and also keto? It seems really awkward to swear away dumplings for example, when dumpling making was an activity that brought my whole family together both in China and in America.

Diederich 11y ago

Everything you said. I've been treating sugar as personal health enemy #1 for quite a few years now. Note: I am deeply addicted to sugar. It has been absurdly and embarrassingly hard for me to abstain from high sugar foods. I can eat a healthy, high-protein meal, and be full. Yet 30 minutes later, I will feel hungry again. But checking in with my stomach: still full. I can eat a few grams of sugar and feel instantly full. I'm at work and can't take time to cite properly, but I have read some relatively new science about how they have identified some physical structures in the brains of people who are unusually drawn to sugar consumption. Like you, I have lost quite a bit of weight, and I do eat very little sugar these days. But it's seriously a daily struggle, and it feels so damn irrational at times.

bosdev 11y ago
It's 100% irrational. We just didn't evolve to exist in a world with refined sugar at every street corner. We aren't equipped to make good decisions about it easily, it is a constant battle between our long-term decision making and our natural quest for easy to digest energy.
rhinoceraptor 11y ago
Excess protein intake converts to glucose (via gluconeogenesis). Have you tried restricting protein and upping fat? Somewhere around 60/30/10 to 80/15/5 (fat, protein, carbs respectively) is very satiating.
donutdan4114 11y ago
I would suggest reading "Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease" by Robert Lustig. He goes into the science behind sugary diets and why they are truly so addicting. I'm talking about, more addicting than cocaine.
- ant6n 11y ago
  That's a great title, and a fitting author's name (Lustig is German for funny).
- 11y ago

fucking_tragedy 11y ago

#2 stems from the 'calories in/calories out' method of weight loss. It involves awareness of the amount of calories you eat and the amount of calories you burn. It's an adage to apply when trying to lose weight and just losing weight. It seems the same simplistic weight loss observation is being applied to nutrition, two vastly different things.

zelos 11y ago

A thousand calories of broccoli will effect your body VERY differently than a thousand calories of soda. To be fair, that's 3kg of broccoli ;-)

donutdan4114 11y ago
It's alright, it'll start to come out before you even finish that serving haha
hammock 11y ago
Five bunches of broccoli vs. five bottles of Coke.

chris_va 11y ago

(1) is technically incorrect. Humans have evolved to process fructose into triglycerides in the liver. This is different than getting a glucose spike in the bloodstream. (2) unfortunately reality is complicated. Most of what you care about is the glucose curve after consumption. You are correct in that different foods cause different curves. This will change per person, and some people will spike on soda, and some (smaller group)/actually will do the opposite on broccoli. It also depends on what else you eat around the same time. Interestingly, you can often see a change over time, or if you travel (presumably different gut bacteria) 4) there is a reason it tastes good. Getting fat is good for not starving in the winter, and it is easier to get energy quickly if you need it, but point taken.

clentaminator 11y ago
Is there a difference between natural fruit juice and the kind of "fruit juice" with high levels of marketing behind it e.g. Tropicana?
- donutdan4114 11y ago
  Big Beverage fruit juice may have added sugar. Regardless, fruit juice (which is fruity sugar water with no fiber), is terrible for us. Fruit was given to us in a high-fiber package, and should be consumed that way. The fiber also ensure we don't over consume. You might be full after 1 apple, which is like 1/8th a glass of apple juice. So eating real fruit, you'll get less sugar, and the fiber helps with digestion and getting the other nutrients that are in fruit.
  - rMBP 11y ago
    Regarding "real fruit", how much sweeter is a tomato, an orange, or an apple today compared to past centuries? Haven't most if not all of the commonly available (popular) fruits today been refined through selective breeding to be more appealing to us? What was lost vs. gained in this process? (I have no idea, I'm not trying to be rhetorical. My guess is lots of more sweetness and perhaps less fiber, in a much larger fruit.)
  - 11y ago

niccaluim 11y ago

Amen. Seven months of no sugar (or flour) here. The first week was worse than quitting smoking, which ought to tell you something. Have lost 50 lbs since. And what do you know: now I have the energy to work out three times a week. (The majority of the weight loss was before I started exercising.)

donutdan4114 11y ago
Congrats! Weight loss will definitely slow as you work out and start to build up muscle too. I definitely feel way better off of sugar/carbs. Eating is a completely different ballgame now. On keto, you get fuller quicker, and when you're full.. you actually want to stop eating.. It's not like sugar addiction where you want MORE MORE MORE. Omnomomomom!!!! YES DESSERT PLEASE.. SURE I CAN FIT THAT IN MY STOMACH. Your stomach will literally shrink after a while too, so you will eat less.

wnevets 11y ago

> A calorie is a calorie... I really wish people would stop repeating this.

neohaven 11y ago

1) Actual pressed juice is fine. The matter gets confused when people don't realize that a glass of actual orange juice is 6+ oranges worth of juice. You wouldn't eat a dozen oranges without thinking about the caloric intake. But you'd drink a few glasses of OJ because it's not as filling. 2) Thermodynamics... That said, a thousand calories of soda is half a day's worth of energy in sugar form. Your body uses sugar first when available, as a general rule of thumb. If you ate any fat that day, it will use the sugar, store the fat. More efficient than turning the sugar to fat, which we are bad at. (Humans aren't great at ketogenesis.) 3) Your body also understands sugar just as well. Blood glucose is an important bodily stat for good reason. Your body also uses protein and various trace elements in your diet, and it "understands" and "uses" all of them. Sugar is just more convenient to use than fat, so it uses that first and stores the fat. On ketosis, you just end up taking some of the stored (or dietary fat) and turning it to glucose in a hugely complicated process (think of it as "inefficiency in storage/packing/unpacking" the sugars into fats and back) and then using that to feed the ATP cycle to run the furnace. You don't run on fat. You store glucose as fat because high levels of glucose in the blood are bad. And then you store the fat outside the blood because that too, is poisonous in high amounts (see ketoacidosis). Your body is a fine-tuned machine that runs on pure glucose and happens to have a set of machinery that makes all animal/plant inputs (fats, sugars, protein, minerals, vitamins) into either A) machinery bits for maintenance or B) more glucose to burn. 4) Sugar (whether it is glucose, fructose, sucrose, lactose, maltose, w/e) is a functional way for a lot of things in nature to feed themselves, including us. Whether it is honey, the inside of an apple, or a grapevine, lots of things are full of easily digested sugars. Sugar, as much as you'd like to claim is "not necessary", is everywhere in nature, as it is a part of most living things. 5) Salt is bad, indeed. As a general notion, equilibrium should be attained in the body fairly easily. The bigger problem people don't think about is the K/Na ratio and such. As a general rule, salt is overused in our food. That one I agree with. No idea why you tacked on anything about sugar here. 6) Energy in, energy out. You're just a fancy (REALLY fancy) way of burning food slowly (given that you exhale some carbon in your food through CO2... and you used the O2 you breathed in to combust that food.) You happen to do useful work with the fact that you can invest a small amount of energy to gain a lot of it. It's a side effect. Locomotion and keeping the food-burning oven running and clean are the main reasons you use calories. The problem with the OJ glass at breakfast is detailed in 1) and has nothing to do with sugar and everything to do with the fact there's little finer and little satiation to orange juice so you drink far more calories than you'd ever eat from the actual fruit. We prepare foods for easy consumption, but a lot of food is made to be filling as a way to self-restrict. Our more basal impulses ("eat until you're full because there may not be more food for a while") are woefully maladapted to our world.

scoj 11y ago

This is so true. But it's also not surprising how long it takes things to go from science updates to general population "common knowledge". Also, I just can't help but notice your ironic username.

guiomie 11y ago

When you say sugar, you mean processed sugar right? My understanding is sugar in fruits is good for you...

donutdan4114 11y ago
The sugar in fruits is processed the same in our body as any other type of "refined" sugar. Whether that's table sugar, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, fructose, whatever other names it wants to go by. Eating an actual fruit though is healthier, because that sugar is packaged up in a wonderful fiber, nutrient-filled vessel. Basically, the delivery mechanism of the sugar is what really counts.

Laaw 11y ago

What blows my mind is that someone like you can see a sample size of one (you), pull like 15 different levers, and then proceed to "know" which of the levers actually worked, and which levers would work for everyone else. The sophilistic nature of your comment is astounding.

donutdan4114 11y ago
I wasn't really implying that everyone should start a ketogenic diet. Just stating the success that I've had with it, and also noting several common misconceptions that are still largely heard today.
- Laaw 11y ago
  I didn't say you were implying anything, what I said was I find it astounding how little actual data you seem to have collected, compared to the sweeping conclusions you're drawing. I take issue with your condescending tone, because it doesn't fit whatsoever with your clear ignorance on the topic. I'm particularly sensitive to the topic of food, because people in your situation (who have found success but have no idea why) are immensely harmful to nutrition education. Comments like yours are precisely why there are so many misconceptions out there.
  - donutdan4114 11y ago
    I mean, it's just a comment on HN, I'm not writing a scientific journal article. Everything I stated in the original comment is information I have gathered and learned about over the years. Most people haven't read any books about nutrition and how the body works, where I have done a lot of independent research. So I probably know a little bit more about this stuff than the average person. I'm not saying I'm an expert by any stretch, but I'm sure a lot of people on HN could find this information useful, and a good starting point for their own independent research. And no, I can't site the sources directly, but if you have any specific points you'd like to point as being "errors", feel free to do so, as I'm sure others would be interested. Like any internet forum, you can always put your opinion in. However you have seemed to only attack my comment, rather than providing any real retort.

nickik 11y ago

What about something like Diat Coke? Could I still drink it, even when avoid other sugar? Because thats my coffee.

donutdan4114 11y ago
Technically speaking, on a low-carb diet, you can drink all the diet soda you want. Although you'd have to see how they effect your insulin levels and such, as some people are effected by it more than others. There's obviously a lot of other potential concerns regarding "artificial sweeteners"... But I'll take my chance with those over sugar.

bigtex 11y ago

While not on a keto diet, I am on a low-glycemic diet (also known on the web as the Trim Healthy Mama diet). Meals are either high fat and low to no carb or moderate carbs and low to no fat. You avoid all sugars but use alternatively like stevia, etc. I have lost over 35 lbs and kept it off to with no exercise. I mean I can eat on plan cheesecake as a meal and the next day lose weight. Also I don't count calories.

djsumdog 11y ago

There was an article up here about the problem with energy measurement in modern food sciences. Calories/KJs are poor measures of energy density in food. I have to agree with you. Over two years ago, a friend of mine got me interested in Keto. That 2nd week was kinda rough with my body going through sugar withdrawal, but after that it's been nothing but amazing. I rarely eat bread, pasta, potatoes, noodles etc. I went from nearly 70kg down to 61~62kg in a year, and have stayed around there for well over two years (I was down ti 59kg, but I think that was more muscle loss than fat loss). It's been life changing. I have better energy levels, am in a better mood, etc. It's not for everyone. I work at a desk all day and only cycle on the weekends. If you use a lot of energy (play sports everyday or are a runner), your body may need more carbs, but even then it should really be in the forms of fruits (high fibre, lower GI, lower insulin response), possibly starchy vegetables like corn and potatoes. There's a huge lack of education though on how much energy is in corn/potatoes or even peas/carrots. It's a lot! Even our oranges have been bread over the past few hundred years to be much much sweeter than they use to be. Corn use to have significantly more protein, but those varieties have been mostly bread out.

dpark 11y ago

> Most people would have to run 10 miles per day to burn off the garbage they would eat in the morning (think of a young adult having an innocent bowl of cereal and OJ for breakfast) How big is your bowl of cereal? 10 miles of running would be >1000 Calories burned. I don't think I've ever consumed 1000 Calories of cereal and juice in a sitting. I'm also pretty sure most people are not eating 1000 Calories for a typical breakfast.

bonesinger 11y ago
I think close to 1000 is pretty common for breakfast. I used to eat Dunkin Donuts a lot and I would see people order a Bagel with Bacon, Egg and Cheese on it. That is 470 calories. A side of hash browns is another 140. And then top of it off with a donut (350~) and an a large ice coffee (170) and you are over 1000 (I took the calorie # from DD website). Also a single serving of cereal is really small. Until I started using a food scale, I was routinely eating 2 servings of cereal (Multi-grain cheerios) which was about 250 calories.
- dpark 11y ago
  > I think close to 1000 is pretty common for breakfast. I used to eat Dunkin Donuts a lot and I would see people order a Bagel with Bacon, Egg and Cheese on it. That is 470 calories. A side of hash browns is another 140. And then top of it off with a donut (350~) and an a large ice coffee (170) and you are over 1000 (I took the calorie # from DD website). This is not a normal breakfast for anyone except the hyperobese or the hyperathletic. A bagel with bacon, egg, and cheese, plus hashbrowns, plus a donut, plus a sugary coffee? Yes, some people eat that much all the time, and yes, many people will eat that much occasionally. I don't think it's a typical-sized breakfast for most people, though. Most people I know don't even eat breakfast, and when they do, a donut+coffee is more realistic for calorie count. > Also a single serving of cereal is really small. Until I started using a food scale, I was routinely eating 2 servings of cereal (Multi-grain cheerios) which was about 250 calories. Yeah, cereal servings are unrealistically small. But still, a realistic serving is more like 250, not 750.
  - 11y ago

douche 11y ago

The thing I've loved about ketogenic diets when I've been on them is that I simply never get hungry. A couple eggs and a few strips of bacon for breakfast, and then I'll look up at sundown and realize I haven't eaten anything all day, and don't particularly feel the need to.

CalRobert 11y ago

It drove me crazy that people would damn near shame me in to drinking orange juice with breakfast. Might as well ahve been a slurpee. (Never mind that I skip breakfast 90% of the time anyway, and recent studies indicate this is just fine). Congrats on your accomplishment; long term weight loss is incredibly hard. I found the simplest way to do it was "eat low-calorie density foods, and only when you're hungry".

dsmithatx 11y ago
If it's fresh squeezed, not concentrated, and you drink a small amount it's probably the best source of potassium around. Even better than eating a banana I hear. I have heart palpitations when I get low potassium so, I eat a banana or have and orange to supplement.

emmab 11y ago

> I've lost about 100lbs in 2.5 years... Not all of us are trying to lose weight. I'm trying to maintain my weight and sometimes that involves forcing myself to eat.

inthewoods 11y ago

"2) A calorie is a calorie... No. Your body does not process all foods the same. A thousand calories of broccoli will effect your body VERY differently than a thousand calories of soda. Yes the energy-intake might be the same, but the resulting effects are very different." Honest question: I've seen conflicting answers on this - some sources I've read saying a calorie is a calorie - others that agree with you. Does anyone have a scientific or other reference?

donutdan4114 11y ago
Maybe start here: http://www.responsiblefoods.org/a_calorie_is_not_a_calorie http://www.responsiblefoods.org/a_calorie_is_not_a_calorie From Mr. Lustig himself: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lustig-md/sugar-toxic_b_2759564.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lustig-md/sugar-toxic_b...

stcredzero 11y ago

3) Fats are bad. The research on this is mixed, actually. More research is needed. AFAIK, the rest of your points are misconceptions. There was one Finnish study where the "eat all the salt you want" group had lower mortality than the salt moderation group. I highly recommend the "Healthcare Triage" YouTube channel as a source of info/infotainment.

bovermyer 11y ago

This, but I'd also add that the closer your food is to fresh and unpreserved, the more likely it is to be healthy for you. If you eat primarily fresh foods (note: I do not advocate the "raw" diet, for other reasons), then by happy coincidence you also remove a lot of the stuff that eventually kills us.

beaner 11y ago

The real question is how we got here in the first place. Wasn't it the opinion of some scientific body and/or government health entity that basically said "fat is bad" and set us on this 30-year craze? Where are the pitchforks against these organizations? "Big sugar" is their creation.

kentor 11y ago
It's explained in the article. The part about Ancel Keys.

pbreit 11y ago

It is absolutely maddening how sugary fruit juice is (soda, too). And it's completely unnecessary. We dilute our juices by at least 50% and it's still not enough. There's no way Coke & Pepsi will ever lighten up on the sugar short of regulation. As with smoke-free restaurants, the free markets will never deliver less sugary beverages no matter how much demand there is.

riot504 11y ago

Your premise is based off of losing 100lbs. If I lost 100lbs I would be a 71" male weighing 80lbs. I eat natural food e.g., whole milk, real butter, fatty meats, lemonade, tea, roasted veggies, along with snacks like everybody else but I exercise (moderately these days) and eat normal size portions. Being healthy is not rocket science.

InanityDept 11y ago

> 3) Fats are bad. So I subscribed to this for a few years. Cut out a lot of carbs, ate lots of meat, eggs, etc. And then watched my APO-B (and, by nature, LDL/VLDL) numbers skyrocket to worrisome levels. Turns out I am APOE-4 (or, more specifically, 3/4) and it's just not that simple. And it's not a rare thing either - 20%+ of people are likely to be 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4. That's a huge chunk of people to put at risk by all "modern" fad diets proudly proclaiming "fats are not bad for you". (In truth it's saturated fats that cause issues for APOE4 carriers, but most of what is said following "fats are not bad for you" are usually something along the lines of "so eat eggs, bacon, ground beef etc. every day. It's healthy!"

samfisher83 11y ago

The human body is pretty adaptable. This guy lost weight and mad his HDL and LDL just eating twinkies. http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/ http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/11/08/twinkie.diet.professor/

truckle 11y ago

There's a great Ketogenic Soylent recipe over at the DIY Soylent site: http://diy.soylent.com/recipes/keto-chow-104-master-rich-chocolate http://diy.soylent.com/recipes/keto-chow-104-master-rich-cho...

donniefitz2 11y ago

Same here. I lost 75 pounds on the keto diet. It's not so much a diet for me anymore, it's just how I eat. I wrote about my experience here: https://thedon.me/2015/10/07/i-lost-63-pounds-heres-how/ https://thedon.me/2015/10/07/i-lost-63-pounds-heres-how/

tzs 11y ago

> As someone who has shifted to a sugar-free, high-fat lifestyle (keto diet), I can attest to the fact that sugar really is the ultimate evil in terms of health and nutrition. It should be noted that the important thing here was probably shifting away from sugar, rather than shifting toward high fat. For example... > I've lost about 100lbs in 2.5 years... The only thing that I really changed was doing a Keto diet I've lost 86 pounds (39 kg) in the last 217 days (594 milliyears). The only thing I really purposefully changed initially was trying to keep daily calories from carbohydrates at under 40% of my total calories. I also tried to keep fat under 50%. As a side effect, I found myself satisfied with fewer calories, and so the weight started coming off. I mostly did this by making sure each individual food I ate was within my overall carb and fat limits. If I wanted something that was outside the range, I'd try to balance it out with other things in the same meal so that the meal as a whole would be within the limits. For the last meal or snack of the day that was relaxed and the requirement was just that the day as a whole be within limits.