The Keto Diet Works Only For A Week, Then It Causes Obesity And Diabetes

EIRE24

Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2015
Messages
1,792
6 months of keto was the most damaging thing I ever did to my body. I wish I had seen studies like the ones Haidut posted which would have made me reconsider trying it. I did it because a few years ago all the keto gurus promised that you could disregard calories while remaining extremely lean and also increase your athletic performance by dropping carbs. Both were absolute lies.

I lost water weight at first but slowly I began to gain weight. I even restricted myself to just 2000 calories a day which didn't stop the slow weight gain. I was always hungry, had severe brain fog, electrolyte imbalances with spasming muscles, my bowels stopped, and I was always cold. The promised keto adaption never came, even when I doubled down with zero carb. Towards the end of my experiment I added in a high carb day once a week which was the only day I ever felt well.

I would hit the runner's wall just walking up a flight of stairs. I never looked more unaesthetic than I did during keto. It totally wrecked my thyroid too. Returning to carb based diet made me feel warm and energetic again but made me gain weight rapidly. I wish I had never done keto. Worst diet ever by far.
So you’ve regained loads of weight just by adding carbs? Did your thyroid recover fully or is it still poor?
 
Joined
Aug 14, 2019
Messages
159
Location
The Lone Star State
So you’ve regained loads of weight just by adding carbs? Did your thyroid recover fully or is it still poor?
I gained 25 pounds in 6 weeks by going high carb lowish fat which has always been my natural dietary preference. It completely freaked me out. I ate like 6k calories in fresh dates the first two days I quit keto but after that I ate about 2800 calories a day. So, I gained more than should have been possible which leads me to conclude that keto drastically slowed my metabolism. This was over 3 years ago.

I'm actually lighter now than before I started keto though. My thyroid function seemed like it was recovering a little until a prolonged, high stress event 2 years ago tanked it once more. After doing a thyroid panel I decided to go on t3.
 

Dennis

Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2015
Messages
82
I ate a lot of bacon, eggs, red meat, butter, coconut oil, pork, chicken, vegetables, blueberries, strawberries, etc. I found that I could remain in ketosis with resistant starch potatoes (cooked, cooled and optionally reheated), so I periodically included that in my diet as well.
Tell me the amount of each of the items that you listed above that you ate in a day ( or in a week if you ate occasionally). Do you keep a food log?
 

RWilly

Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2018
Messages
479
Why were you big into this? What were the benefits ( if any) ?

Because at that time I listened to the gurus. Now I've learned that I need to figure this out through my own experimentation and analysis. There were no benefits that I can think of.
 

RWilly

Member
Joined
Aug 30, 2018
Messages
479
Tell me the amount of each of the items that you listed above that you ate in a day ( or in a week if you ate occasionally). Do you keep a food log?

I did keep a food log and tracked. Average intake was about 1200 calories. ( My doctor told me that I was probably one of those people who could only handle 700 calories per day. )
 

Dennis

Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2015
Messages
82
I lost water weight at first but slowly I began to gain weight. I even restricted myself to just 2000 calories a day which didn't stop the slow weight gain. I was always hungry, had severe brain fog, electrolyte imbalances with spasming muscles, my bowels stopped, and I was always cold. The promised keto adaption never came, even when I doubled down with zero carb.

How long were you on zero carb specifically, and what did you eat on a zero carb? Put approximate amounts of food that you ate. (Did you keep a food log?)
 
Joined
Aug 14, 2019
Messages
159
Location
The Lone Star State
How long were you on zero carb specifically, and what did you eat on a zero carb? Put approximate amounts of food that you ate. (Did you keep a food log?)
I want to say I did zero carb strict for 2 months before adding some regular keto stuff back in like coconut butter and macadamia nuts. I ate 80 percent lean beef, 2 pounds twice a day. At one point, I switched to just one pound total a day with 4 tablespoons of butter or coconut oil. So, that's 2,250 calories for the 2 pounds of beef and 1600 for the one pound with added fat. Rarely, I'd eat cheese in place of beef, but never more than a pound a day which is just at 2000 calories. I weighed everything I ate on a scale. I still can't believe I tried that depressing diet for as long as I did.
 

Dennis

Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2015
Messages
82
Yea I see people run into those problems most the time with keto. It’s weird how some people thrive on low carb and high fat and others just wilt away.
I often ask people what they ate and how much they ate of each of the foods, I almost never get a straight answer. Then 'keto' defines only the fat, protein and carb ratios which is a problem in itself. For example having large amounts of seed oils (including coconut oil) can be really problematic. Ofcourse my current understanding is that the 'right' diet for most people does end up being a ketogenic diet.
 

Dennis

Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2015
Messages
82
I want to say I did zero carb strict for 2 months before adding some regular keto stuff back in like coconut butter and macadamia nuts. I ate 80 percent lean beef, 2 pounds twice a day. At one point, I switched to just one pound total a day with 4 tablespoons of butter or coconut oil. So, that's 2,250 calories for the 2 pounds of beef and 1600 for the one pound with added fat. Rarely, I'd eat cheese in place of beef, but never more than a pound a day which is just at 2000 calories. I weighed everything I ate on a scale. I still can't believe I tried that depressing diet for as long as I did.
I see 2 problems with what you ate regardless of the type of diet. Problems: 1) use taste as a guide when it comes to beef not the percentage of fat. This means that you should not season your meat, except with salt.Meat that is seasoned can obscure the taste of meat and for some sensitive individuals the seasonings itself can be a problem. Always prepare ground up what you eat so that you know exactly what you are eating. Ground beef is a no-no if bought from the regular grocery store, because I suspect there are additives in it. 2) Coconut oil or any seed oil for that matter can be problematic for many people,.
 

Dennis

Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2015
Messages
82
I did keep a food log and tracked. Average intake was about 1200 calories. ( My doctor told me that I was probably one of those people who could only handle 700 calories per day. )
Of the top of my head that figure appears too low. Normally one should not be even counting calories. But I guess you have become wiser: don't trust any authority figure just because they told you so.
 
Joined
Aug 14, 2019
Messages
159
Location
The Lone Star State
I see 2 problems with what you ate regardless of the type of diet. Problems: 1) use taste as a guide when it comes to beef not the percentage of fat. This means that you should not season your meat, except with salt.Meat that is seasoned can obscure the taste of meat and for some sensitive individuals the seasonings itself can be a problem. Always prepare ground up what you eat so that you know exactly what you are eating. Ground beef is a no-no if bought from the regular grocery store, because I suspect there are additives in it. 2) Coconut oil or any seed oil for that matter can be problematic for many people,.
Yeah, that's exactly what the zero carb proponents say. I don't buy it. Following their advice leaves you with the dullest, most restrictive diet. I foolishly tried it. I bought my ground beef from a local farm and I only used salt as a seasoning until I later started adding butter or coconut oil. It made me feel like the living dead. Besides, nearly everyone on it long term looks sickly. I'll stick with plenty of carbs so I can function at my peak and look my best.

FYI the additive in cheap grocery store meat, called 'natural flavor', is actually rosemary extract which is used to retain the red coloring.
 

Satellite

Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2018
Messages
159
A great study that goes a long way towards dispelling the currently dominant dietary fad - the keto diet, as well as various other functionally equivalent diets such as Paleo, Warrior, intermittent fasting, etc. As the study unequivocally demonstrates, the reductions in blood sugar and weight while on a low-carb happens only during the first 1-2 weeks. This matches perfectly the widely reported experiences of virtually all followers of such diets - i.e. they tend to rapidly lose weight in the first 2 weeks and then invariably hit a wall. Why is that? Well, most of the initial weight loss is due to water loss since cutting carbs has similar effects to taking diuretic drugs. There is not much fat loss, which is ironic as losing fat is arguably the goal of every diet. After the initial water loss and drop in blood glucose due to carb restriction, the stress system (HPA axis) gradually starts going into overdrive to compensate for the lack of dietary carbs. So, if cortisol rises after the initial "honeymoon" week then one would expect the weight to start climbing again (since cortisol promotes fat storage) and blood glucose to rise even if the person consumes only fat and is in ketosis. This is exactly what the study below found. By the second week of embarking on a keto diet, the balance between fat oxidation and fat storage starts to get heavily skewed in favor of the latter and the organism develops obesity and diabetes (II). That alone should be enough to give every keto follower a pause. Namely, the low-carb diets do not work even for the basic goal of fat loss, and will in fact make a person even fatter than before embarking on the diet. On top of that, the effects of chronically upregulated fatty acid oxidation (FAO) as well as fat storage are a separate and highly detrimental aspect of low-carb diets and has been implicated in virtually all chronic degenerative conditions but especially cancer, CVD, and neurological disorders.

Ketogenesis activates metabolically protective γδ T cells in visceral adipose tissue
"...After 2–3months of ad libitum KD feeding, mice gained significantly more weight compared to chow-fed controls (Fig. 6a) and exhibited elevated fasting blood glucose (Fig. 6b). KD-fed mice remained ketogenic (Fig. 6c) despite exceptional weight gain. Obesity in KD-fed mice was driven by excessive whole-body fat accumulation (Extended Data Fig. 6a–c) including in the liver (Extended Data Fig. 6d,e). Analysis of insulin-induced AKT phosphorylation in the livers of long-term KD-fed mice revealed an inverse relationship of weight gain/adiposity to insulin action (Extended Data Fig. 6f). Collectively, all these obesity-related phenotypes were associated with impaired glucose tolerance (Fig. 6d)."

Keto diet works best in small doses, Yale researchers find
"...A keto diet tricks the body into burning fat, said lead author Vishwa Deep Dixit of the Yale School of Medicine. When the body's glucose level is reduced due to the diet's low carbohydrate content, the body acts as if it is in a starvation state -- although it is not -- and begins burning fats instead of carbohydrates. This process in turn yields chemicals called ketone bodies as an alternative source of fuel. When the body burns ketone bodies, tissue-protective gamma delta T-cells expand throughout the body."

"...But when the body is in this "starving-not-starving" mode, fat storage is also happening simultaneously with fat breakdown, the researchers found. When mice continue to eat the high-fat, low-carb diet beyond one week, Dixit said, they consume more fat than they can burn, and develop diabetes and obesity. "They lose the protective gamma delta T-cells in the fat," he said."

Finally, someone with some sense.

The only sensible “diet” is fluctuating periods of over-eating with periods of under-eating.

Over-eat like sumo with carbs to fill glycogen stores and build new cells.

Then under-eat without carbs to use those stores. This is also when you burn fat and destroy cells that need to/get replaced in the next period of over-eating.

I like a 10-day over-eating period followed by 4-days/100 hours of under-eating.

Activity levels can vary, but don’t need to necessarily.

Everything else is a fad/fetish novelty plan and not sustainable.
 

Terma

Member
Joined
May 8, 2017
Messages
1,063
That's how I see it, keto is a therapeutic tool and this gives hint of therapeutic window. Compare a yearly 30 day fast against periodic 1-2-week high MCT keto, for anyone at risk of lean tissue loss, brain problems and other, no comparison. Fasting 3-5 days for benefits like those for chemo will undo my progress but a week of keto with (low-iron) protein should be doable in low-stress env with a few supps. Pushing any hormetic effect into long term is like taking pharmaceuticals 2x/day for life.
 

Dawid

Member
Joined
Oct 15, 2019
Messages
56
Actually, my calories when going low-carb averaged about 1200. One of the things I'm working on now is to increase calories. Unfortunately I'm still gaining weight on this diet too. My overall labs however are improving, and my fasting insulin seems to go down with less fat and meat.
You just ruined your metabolism eating only 1200 calories
 
Joined
Mar 10, 2021
Messages
21,494

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom