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Even without the science... for me personally at 47 and a life long sugar addict (used to eat tablespoons of white sugar from pantry), a low carb (keto) diet ha

Even without the science... for me personally at 47 and a life long sugar addict (used to eat tablespoons of white sugar from pantry), a low carb (keto) diet has been a complete game changer. I kept my weight in check by doing 6 days of exercise a week, but I was on an energetic roller coaster. 3 months in, no sugar, no cravings (I crave oils sometimes) and damn I just feel well in a way I haven't for long before I can remember. My habits formed when young and when my body was more capable of handling high sugar. But after aging, insulin sensitivity declines, sugars have a more adverse effect, and feels like high sugar levels have just been feeding an imbalance in the GI tract. Reading into the peculiar new science of poop transplants it's been interesting to observe my body as a factory process and the quality of the output (poop) is an important great indicator of system health. Obvious to many, but was not to me for years. In parallel to improved gut health my focus and productivity are more predictable. I thought I'd never kick my addiction to sugar. After making the switch and viewing from a different perspective I'm shocked how where I live 95% of everything in the grocery store has sugar added.

ciconia 4y ago
Good for you. Strictly speaking, poop is not your body's output, it's your body's waste, and as such is indeed a good indicator of your body's efficiency in pulling out what it needs from the input. I guess your body's output is energy?
- thelittleone 4y ago
  Good point. Similar to a car. Fuel is necessary to create power (output) and the exhaust is the waste. Putting bad fuel in reduces power and bad exhaust can be a symptom.
  - cwillu 4y ago
    It's not the exhaust, that's what you exhale. It's more like disposable packaging. There isn't really a good analogy to fueling up a car; being fed by IV maybe?
- strainer 4y ago
  I would say there is no strictly speaking there without a strict context. Bear in mind the characteristics of different animals excrement is not designed to any specification, it evolves in the context of it altering the animals habitat to some extents. We specify 'waste' should alter our habitat to a minimal degree, but we cant say for sure it evolves to that effect. It can fertilize, it can create apparent immediate problems, but such apparent problems can have significant systematic roles. To me the term 'output' then is less potentially misleading than 'waste'. A bit like the distinction between a crop and a weed. Our naming of things encapsulates presumptions and intentions, which is fitting for design, but things that are not designed are liable to exceed expectations.
- ac29 4y ago
  > Strictly speaking, poop is not your body's output A significant fraction of poop is bacteria. Sources vary a bit, but for example, this study gives the fraction as ~55% of solid matter: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7359576/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7359576/ To the extent that your body contains a large bioreactor in the gut to maintain a population of beneficial microflora, you could argue poop thus is one of your bodies outputs (and yes, it contains waste products as well).
jokethrowaway 4y ago
Similarly, with ageing, I started having tons of small health issues + diarrhoea and blood in my faeces. I tried removing milk (I was eating milk with cereals in the morning) - which appeared to improve the situation (becoming less frequent) - but it turned out it worked only because I got rid of eating cereals in the morning and I can drink milk just fine. The doctor said nothing was wrong and that it was just stress and other BS. They told me my cholesterol was high and told me to avoid meat (I was basically on a pasta, meat and vegetables diet) and prescribed me statins to drop cholesterol. I ignored the advice and switched to a only meat diet; diarrhoea and blood disappeared completely in around 3 days and I started feeling way better. A lot of the small pains disappeared as well. The only cons I've experienced is that I have less energy for workouts (during the day I feel fine) and I switched from doing sets of 5 reps to set of 3. I should be eating roughly the same amount of calories but no carbs means no immediate energy to use. I'll be on this diet until I drop a few more kgs and then I'll try to up the calories (still only meat) and see if I can go back to 5 reps. If not I'll consider reintroducing some carbs before workouts (from fruit / vegetables, in moderation).
- nebfield 4y ago
  Were you tested for coeliac disease? Diagnosis can be difficult, and the standard blood tests don't always pick it up. It might be a good idea to avoid wheat, barley, rye, and oats to test for gluten sensitivity.
  - prirun 4y ago
    Oats don't contain gluten (Celiac disease), though they can have trace amounts if processed on the same equipment as wheat. That's the difference between regular oats and gluten-free oats.
- mtsr 4y ago
  Only meat diet has some very serious downsides, though. It’s very environmentally unfriendly and because of the high cost it’s available to a very few people. That makes it rather hard to recommend, regardless of potential health upsides.
mft_ 4y ago
How does keto work for you doing exercise? Do you have a routine or adaptation that works for you? I ask because I’ve tried keto a couple of times and usually gave up within a few weeks because it was incompatible with (energetic) cycling. The difference with huge - I was crawling up hills that usually I’d barely notice. I assume it’s because I’m very carb-adapted and/or my level of exercise intensity is too high for fat-burning anyway, but I’ve not found much about this online. (And here and there, I’ve found mention, even on the most vehemently anti-carb websites, of athletes needing supplemental carbs to exercise efficiently.)
- Semaphor 4y ago
  No first-hand experience, but maybe the Ketogains [0] subreddit will have relevant information? [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/ketogains/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ketogains/
- cbozeman 4y ago
  You might find Dr. Dominic D'Agostino's websites or podcasts with various people instructive. He gained prominence after being amplified on an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, but long before that, he was developing ketogenic solutions for the ONF (Office of Naval Research), specifically using ketones and the ketogenic diet to allow SEALs to remain submerged for longer periods due to a synergistic effect with ketones and oxygen metabolism in the brain. His websites: https://health.usf.edu/medicine/mpp/faculty/ddagosti https://health.usf.edu/medicine/mpp/faculty/ddagosti https://ketonutrition.org/ https://ketonutrition.org/ He has specifically discussed how to solve the problem you had, but it's buried in one of his podcasts somewhere, and I haven't listened to them in ages.
- glenngillen 4y ago
  I’ve done marathon training while on keto. Obviously a much different power output need to cycling so take this with a grain of salt… it took me about a month to adjust. That first month had me really struggling to even do 50% of the training distance I was used to. And then it all just clicked suddenly. Not like I started improving again, literally went from struggling to straight back to race performance. One day I was struggling to do a slow 10km. A few days later I ran 35km near race pace. It was a very weird experience. I’ve been out of keto and training habit for a few months now (recovering from surgery) but I also seem to recall having a different sense of energy awareness while running. Like somewhere between the 30-40min range of a run I’d suddenly feel more awake and like I’d just had a coffee.
goodpoint 4y ago
> eat tablespoons of white sugar from pantry), a low carb (keto) diet You jumped from an extreme diet to the opposite. Some societies (mostly US) have a very unhealthy sugar addiction and it should be avoided. Equally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet is meant to ameliorate epilepsy and it's not a safe diet to be adopted without medical supervision or without a real need. It had been turned into an internet fad, like no-gluten diets and so on. Also, just because you feel better it does not mean something is healthy. EDIT: silent downvotes for saying this. Some cargoculting here...
- malfist 4y ago
  100% agree with you. If you listen to what food scientists are actually saying, they're almost always espousing fractional improvements with small tweaks to diets and the media runs with "You should stop eating X because Y" or "You should only eat Z" stories. Any dietitian will tell you, the key to a healthy diet is moderation and variety.
  - itsoktocry 4y ago
    >If you listen to what food scientists are actually saying "The science" again. Food scientists say all kinds of things, including promoting vegetarian or ketogenic diets. Which ones are the true scientists here? >Any dietitian will tell you, the key to a healthy diet is moderation and variety. What does "moderation" and "variety" mean in scientific terms? Global nutritional availability varies drastically across the globe, and I'm not just talking about poor versus rich countries.
    - malfist 4y ago
      >Food scientists say all kinds of things, including promoting vegetarian or ketogenic diets. Which ones are the true scientists here? Sure, but look at what they publish professionally in journals. It's never black or white. Ignore what they talk about from a personal perspective to journalists or on TV, that stuff isn't peer reviewed. >What does "moderation" and "variety" mean in scientific terms? Global nutritional availability varies drastically across the globe, and I'm not just talking about poor versus rich countries. Come on dude, being obtuse isn't helpful. I'm not going to argue semantics with an internet stranger. If you can't figure out what moderation and variety mean in this context, I'm not sure you're worth arguing with.
itsoktocry 4y ago
>Even without the science... for me personally at 47 and a life long sugar addict This is the tricky thing with a lot of health science., mainly diets or supplementation. In a random sample, and in aggregate, a lot of these things have little to no effect on the population studied, so we dismiss them. And yet, on an individual level people claim huge benefits. I fall into that latter group for some things myself. Our biology is complex. How do we reconcile this? Doctors don't want to be recommending snake-oil, and yet it's possible some of these things could work for "you".
memcg 4y ago
I have been following my version of low carb\keto for 17 months. I'm down 80 lbs from 325 lbs. I eat lots of eggs, meat and leafy greens. I use a breathalyzer to track ketones and blood test strips for glucose. My lab results at 3, 6 and 14 months show improvement. My A1C is back below diabetic levels. My father died at 68. I'm almost 67, so I want to find what works for me.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Sohcahtoa82 4y ago
> 3 months in, no sugar, no cravings I did keto for a year and the sugar cravings never stopped. :-\ I let myself have a donut 3 months in, and everyone on keto always tells me that after a few months, if you eat something sweet, you'll find it disgustingly sweet. Nope. As I ate that apple fritter, I was like "Oh my god this is so delicious, I've missed sugar so bad" In about 9 months, I had gone from 260 lbs to 205 lbs, but then COVID hit, I fell off the bandwagon, stopped going to the gym (I went to the one at the office), and very slowly rose back to the 250 lbs I am today. :-( I still generally avoid high-carb foods like pasta and bread, rarely eat sweets, and will use low-carb alternatives when possible, but I'm certainly not keto anymore.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  The "fall off the bandwagon" effect is huge. I find Keto to be one of the most tolerable long-term diets, but it is a long term diet. It's an unnatural restriction diet, and there is nothing at all durable about its effects.
- daxfohl 4y ago
  Mine went away at three months and came back three months later. Plus my dentist said the acid reflux was damaging my teeth. So gave up keto and binged for a few months. Now trying going dairy-free, which feels more sustainable and eliminates most of the things I'd binge on but leaves a couple options for when cravings start. So far so good, but I'm only at the three months mark so....
sizzle 4y ago
Thoughts on artificial sugars like Splenda or natural alternatives like Stevia that don’t spike blood sugar? What about Agave or lower glycemic index sweeteners. Finally, what about fruit? Isn’t Fructose really bad for your body, the science tells us?

ciconia 4y ago

Good for you. Strictly speaking, poop is not your body's output, it's your body's waste, and as such is indeed a good indicator of your body's efficiency in pulling out what it needs from the input. I guess your body's output is energy?

thelittleone 4y ago
Good point. Similar to a car. Fuel is necessary to create power (output) and the exhaust is the waste. Putting bad fuel in reduces power and bad exhaust can be a symptom.
- cwillu 4y ago
  It's not the exhaust, that's what you exhale. It's more like disposable packaging. There isn't really a good analogy to fueling up a car; being fed by IV maybe?
strainer 4y ago
I would say there is no strictly speaking there without a strict context. Bear in mind the characteristics of different animals excrement is not designed to any specification, it evolves in the context of it altering the animals habitat to some extents. We specify 'waste' should alter our habitat to a minimal degree, but we cant say for sure it evolves to that effect. It can fertilize, it can create apparent immediate problems, but such apparent problems can have significant systematic roles. To me the term 'output' then is less potentially misleading than 'waste'. A bit like the distinction between a crop and a weed. Our naming of things encapsulates presumptions and intentions, which is fitting for design, but things that are not designed are liable to exceed expectations.
ac29 4y ago
> Strictly speaking, poop is not your body's output A significant fraction of poop is bacteria. Sources vary a bit, but for example, this study gives the fraction as ~55% of solid matter: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7359576/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7359576/ To the extent that your body contains a large bioreactor in the gut to maintain a population of beneficial microflora, you could argue poop thus is one of your bodies outputs (and yes, it contains waste products as well).

jokethrowaway 4y ago

Similarly, with ageing, I started having tons of small health issues + diarrhoea and blood in my faeces. I tried removing milk (I was eating milk with cereals in the morning) - which appeared to improve the situation (becoming less frequent) - but it turned out it worked only because I got rid of eating cereals in the morning and I can drink milk just fine. The doctor said nothing was wrong and that it was just stress and other BS. They told me my cholesterol was high and told me to avoid meat (I was basically on a pasta, meat and vegetables diet) and prescribed me statins to drop cholesterol. I ignored the advice and switched to a only meat diet; diarrhoea and blood disappeared completely in around 3 days and I started feeling way better. A lot of the small pains disappeared as well. The only cons I've experienced is that I have less energy for workouts (during the day I feel fine) and I switched from doing sets of 5 reps to set of 3. I should be eating roughly the same amount of calories but no carbs means no immediate energy to use. I'll be on this diet until I drop a few more kgs and then I'll try to up the calories (still only meat) and see if I can go back to 5 reps. If not I'll consider reintroducing some carbs before workouts (from fruit / vegetables, in moderation).

nebfield 4y ago
Were you tested for coeliac disease? Diagnosis can be difficult, and the standard blood tests don't always pick it up. It might be a good idea to avoid wheat, barley, rye, and oats to test for gluten sensitivity.
- prirun 4y ago
  Oats don't contain gluten (Celiac disease), though they can have trace amounts if processed on the same equipment as wheat. That's the difference between regular oats and gluten-free oats.
mtsr 4y ago
Only meat diet has some very serious downsides, though. It’s very environmentally unfriendly and because of the high cost it’s available to a very few people. That makes it rather hard to recommend, regardless of potential health upsides.

mft_ 4y ago

How does keto work for you doing exercise? Do you have a routine or adaptation that works for you? I ask because I’ve tried keto a couple of times and usually gave up within a few weeks because it was incompatible with (energetic) cycling. The difference with huge - I was crawling up hills that usually I’d barely notice. I assume it’s because I’m very carb-adapted and/or my level of exercise intensity is too high for fat-burning anyway, but I’ve not found much about this online. (And here and there, I’ve found mention, even on the most vehemently anti-carb websites, of athletes needing supplemental carbs to exercise efficiently.)

Semaphor 4y ago
No first-hand experience, but maybe the Ketogains [0] subreddit will have relevant information? [0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/ketogains/ https://old.reddit.com/r/ketogains/
cbozeman 4y ago
You might find Dr. Dominic D'Agostino's websites or podcasts with various people instructive. He gained prominence after being amplified on an episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, but long before that, he was developing ketogenic solutions for the ONF (Office of Naval Research), specifically using ketones and the ketogenic diet to allow SEALs to remain submerged for longer periods due to a synergistic effect with ketones and oxygen metabolism in the brain. His websites: https://health.usf.edu/medicine/mpp/faculty/ddagosti https://health.usf.edu/medicine/mpp/faculty/ddagosti https://ketonutrition.org/ https://ketonutrition.org/ He has specifically discussed how to solve the problem you had, but it's buried in one of his podcasts somewhere, and I haven't listened to them in ages.
glenngillen 4y ago
I’ve done marathon training while on keto. Obviously a much different power output need to cycling so take this with a grain of salt… it took me about a month to adjust. That first month had me really struggling to even do 50% of the training distance I was used to. And then it all just clicked suddenly. Not like I started improving again, literally went from struggling to straight back to race performance. One day I was struggling to do a slow 10km. A few days later I ran 35km near race pace. It was a very weird experience. I’ve been out of keto and training habit for a few months now (recovering from surgery) but I also seem to recall having a different sense of energy awareness while running. Like somewhere between the 30-40min range of a run I’d suddenly feel more awake and like I’d just had a coffee.

goodpoint 4y ago

> eat tablespoons of white sugar from pantry), a low carb (keto) diet You jumped from an extreme diet to the opposite. Some societies (mostly US) have a very unhealthy sugar addiction and it should be avoided. Equally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet is meant to ameliorate epilepsy and it's not a safe diet to be adopted without medical supervision or without a real need. It had been turned into an internet fad, like no-gluten diets and so on. Also, just because you feel better it does not mean something is healthy. EDIT: silent downvotes for saying this. Some cargoculting here...

malfist 4y ago
100% agree with you. If you listen to what food scientists are actually saying, they're almost always espousing fractional improvements with small tweaks to diets and the media runs with "You should stop eating X because Y" or "You should only eat Z" stories. Any dietitian will tell you, the key to a healthy diet is moderation and variety.
- itsoktocry 4y ago
  >If you listen to what food scientists are actually saying "The science" again. Food scientists say all kinds of things, including promoting vegetarian or ketogenic diets. Which ones are the true scientists here? >Any dietitian will tell you, the key to a healthy diet is moderation and variety. What does "moderation" and "variety" mean in scientific terms? Global nutritional availability varies drastically across the globe, and I'm not just talking about poor versus rich countries.
  - malfist 4y ago
    >Food scientists say all kinds of things, including promoting vegetarian or ketogenic diets. Which ones are the true scientists here? Sure, but look at what they publish professionally in journals. It's never black or white. Ignore what they talk about from a personal perspective to journalists or on TV, that stuff isn't peer reviewed. >What does "moderation" and "variety" mean in scientific terms? Global nutritional availability varies drastically across the globe, and I'm not just talking about poor versus rich countries. Come on dude, being obtuse isn't helpful. I'm not going to argue semantics with an internet stranger. If you can't figure out what moderation and variety mean in this context, I'm not sure you're worth arguing with.

itsoktocry 4y ago

>Even without the science... for me personally at 47 and a life long sugar addict This is the tricky thing with a lot of health science., mainly diets or supplementation. In a random sample, and in aggregate, a lot of these things have little to no effect on the population studied, so we dismiss them. And yet, on an individual level people claim huge benefits. I fall into that latter group for some things myself. Our biology is complex. How do we reconcile this? Doctors don't want to be recommending snake-oil, and yet it's possible some of these things could work for "you".

memcg 4y ago

I have been following my version of low carb\keto for 17 months. I'm down 80 lbs from 325 lbs. I eat lots of eggs, meat and leafy greens. I use a breathalyzer to track ketones and blood test strips for glucose. My lab results at 3, 6 and 14 months show improvement. My A1C is back below diabetic levels. My father died at 68. I'm almost 67, so I want to find what works for me.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Sohcahtoa82 4y ago

> 3 months in, no sugar, no cravings I did keto for a year and the sugar cravings never stopped. :-\ I let myself have a donut 3 months in, and everyone on keto always tells me that after a few months, if you eat something sweet, you'll find it disgustingly sweet. Nope. As I ate that apple fritter, I was like "Oh my god this is so delicious, I've missed sugar so bad" In about 9 months, I had gone from 260 lbs to 205 lbs, but then COVID hit, I fell off the bandwagon, stopped going to the gym (I went to the one at the office), and very slowly rose back to the 250 lbs I am today. :-( I still generally avoid high-carb foods like pasta and bread, rarely eat sweets, and will use low-carb alternatives when possible, but I'm certainly not keto anymore.

matthewdgreen 4y ago
The "fall off the bandwagon" effect is huge. I find Keto to be one of the most tolerable long-term diets, but it is a long term diet. It's an unnatural restriction diet, and there is nothing at all durable about its effects.
daxfohl 4y ago
Mine went away at three months and came back three months later. Plus my dentist said the acid reflux was damaging my teeth. So gave up keto and binged for a few months. Now trying going dairy-free, which feels more sustainable and eliminates most of the things I'd binge on but leaves a couple options for when cravings start. So far so good, but I'm only at the three months mark so....

sizzle 4y ago

Thoughts on artificial sugars like Splenda or natural alternatives like Stevia that don’t spike blood sugar? What about Agave or lower glycemic index sweeteners. Finally, what about fruit? Isn’t Fructose really bad for your body, the science tells us?