I have conversations about all sorts of diets. I had one with my neighbours about keto. I’m not an expert, however I do work with a team of fantastic experts in weight loss, nutrition, diabetes, menopause and gut health.
What I’ve learnt about is this? I think I’ve got this right. Our bodies burn what we eat as fuel, it burns the carbs first and then it burns the fat and that’s what keto is trying to get. If you don’t give your body any carbs then it will burn the fat. Sounds great right?
There’s a number of issues around this, in order for this to work you have to eat less than 20g of carbs every day. Obviously that’s potatoes, bread, rice, noodles and pasta out, right?
This also, of course, includes alcohol, all wine, ciders, beers and spirits, I’m afraid all have carbs. It gets a bit worse actually... vegetables contain carbohydrate, as does fruit. This means not only could you not eat the pasta, the noodles, the potatoes, the bread or the rice. You’d have to consume a very small amount of alcohol, very small amount of vegetables and perhaps no fruit at all. This doesn’t sound great to me at all.
If you eat more carbohydrates than the 20g recommended then all the fat you are consuming will be stored as energy for later use as fat on your body. Of course, on a keto diet you consume a lot of fat.
Now I pay a lot of attention to the experts who tell me the importance of gut health. In order to have good health, where a large proportion of your immune system sits, you need fibre. You need different varieties of fruits, vegetables and you guessed it, carbohydrates. So the big question is if you’re on keto, how are you going to get enough fibre for your gut health? Health specialists are telling us we need 30g of fibre a day, it would be impossible to consume this without consuming carbohydrates.
I’ve never understood why it is that people are down on carbohydrates. It’s there isn’t it? That the body will burn those before? It burns the fat? That’s okay that’s more than fine. It’s a balance that you want.
If carbohydrates , are so devastating to our weight. How do we explain the amount of bread eaten by the French, the amount of rice eaten by the Spanish and the amount of pasta eaten by the Italians? None of these countries have anywhere near the obesity issue that the UK has. If you’re still not convinced, have a look at the people of Japan or China or Thailand, have a look at the amount of rice they are consuming. You can clearly see they have not got the obesity issue that we have.
You could well lose weight short term on a keto diet, I would not advise it for the sake of your health, no way! But even if you did lose weight short term, can you keep it up seriously? Can you contemplate a life with no potatoes? No rice? No bread? No pasta? No, of course you can’t!
Any diet that leaves you feeling uncomfortable, hungry or yearning for food groups is not sustainable. You can’t keep it up so why start it at all?
The only successful, sustainable, happy, comfortable, healthy way to lose weight is to learn and maintain a healthy happy mix of good foods that you enjoy!
Greggs Blogs
Gregg's Blog - The Keto Diet
Gregg's Blog - The Keto Diet
