u/BulletproofBovril

In addition to anbeav's excellent suggestions:

• This is not a conventional starvation-based diet: don't go hungry, it will tempt you to eat the wrong foods.
• Butter/oil makes vegetables tastier and improves vitamin adsorption
• Prepare meaty or fatty snacks to replace the ubiquitous carby snacks, although the desire to snack will decline
• Ask restaurants to substitute healthy for unhealthy parts (eg salad for chips)
• it's easy to overeat nuts when you're sat in front of the idiot box

Maybe you should read it yourself. The section of the report which summarizes the science shows no study linking salt intake with overall mortality. The one meta-analysis of salt-reduction trials that looked at mortality found deaths "equally distributed between intervention and control groups."

Edit: In fact a recent study shows those eating 1,500mg/day are more likely to die than those eating 3,000-6,000mg

Good value! I use a milk frother from Ikea (£3?), which works fine as long as you let the butter/coconut oil melt first.

Are you getting out during the day? I find a walk at lunchtime is good for my mood in the winter; some exercise and sunlight helps with my quality of sleep as well.

/u/gogge's criticism is technically correct, but it could be misleading if you don't know the whole picture. It is correct to say that "extra carbs cause more of your food to be transformed and stored into fat".

Despite what you've been told, there is nothing unhealthy about saturated fat. Saturated and mono-unsaturated fats are the most healthy in fact. Butter and cream are fine, just watch the quantity since they are so yummy. Polyunsaturates can cause more problems and R.O.S. damage, especially in processed food where signs of rancidity (degradation) will be masked/removed. Artery 'clogging' is a result of inflammation, which is caused/exacerbated by high carbohydrate intake, not fat. However it is unhealthy to eat fat in combination with sugar. This unnatural combination is what you get in most processed foods: it is addictive, bad metabolically and obesity-causing.

Individuals vary but generally speaking you need to stay under 50g carbs/day, but some find it easier (better health, no carb craving) to be lower, 20g/day is a good limit for all. It takes a few days to get into full ketosis, so after a week you should have lost any carb/sugar cravings and feel great. It takes many week/months for your body to become fully efficient on a low carb diet, during this keto-adaptation period you need to be careful to get enough electrolytes and water.

If you are losing weight (body fat) you don't need to hit a fat consumption target since you will use your body fat for energy if needed. Protein is the important macronutrient target at this point. When you reach the weight-maintenance diet you will need to be eating ~75% Calories from fat though.

Naysaying is not a credible argument. Give some examples of DRM that are not economically motivated.

Apples are not very nutritious, specifically in comparison to bacon. That was the error I was correcting. No-one has claimed that they are a particularly bad food for weight gain (foods like jam doughnuts and bread are more likely suspects). So that's a dishonest straw man you're creating.

Bacon is much more nutritious than apples. Modern varieties of apple are little more than sugar-water: apples vs bacon (ignore the pseudo-scientific criticism of saturated fat and sodium).

Actually it's the 2^nd greatest Internet application, behind AdBlock Edge.

From The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living (Volek & Phinney) p 210:

"Dose response studies indicate a linear increase in skeletal muscle protein synthesis with ingestion of high-quality protein up to about 20-25 grams per meal. With protein intakes twice this amount there is a marked increase in protein oxidation with no further increase in protein synthesis". They reference:

Moore D.R. et al., Am J Clin Nutr, 2009. 89(1): p 161-8

You could prepare some food the evening before to eat cold or make some quick prep. food for breakfast or mid-morning snack. Hard-boiled eggs are easy to prepare, if I don't have breakfast I often take a couple to work.

Many keto-ers find a morning coffee with cream and/or butter (aka "bulletproof coffee") keeps them full until lunch.

Well done on your grades. It may be the keto, but relevant xkcd

I found keto helped to reduce my depression and anxiety. I also had to overcome problems with sleep and non-social behavoir. I found talking therapies didn't help but YMMV.

Depression can be caused or made worse by inadequate sleep, sunlight and nutrition. Try to get 7 good hours sleep, and 30 minutes strong sunlight every day and try talking to people even if you feel like withdrawing/hiding. I recommend eating nutrient-dense food including seafood or organ meats every week.

This Stephen Ilardi video might be useful as well.

Good luck.

I am interested to know what keto-friendly foods still spike your blood sugar. Is it more complicated than estimated glycemic load?

I add pig's trotters. They almost completely dissolve. I'm also uncouth enough to not skim the fat and drink it with the broth. I keep it all in the pot and reheat and eat it daily.

There is a limit to how rapidly body fat can be mobilized and therefore a limit to how much calorie deficit (per kilogram excess body fat) you can tolerate before other tissues (muscle etc) start to be cannibalized. This works out to a maximum percentage safe deficit, but I don't remember the exact figure.

There was some research and some numbers put to this a few weeks ago. This should really go in the FAQ.

"moderation" and "balanced" are unscientific buzzwords. How do you think buzzwords "trump" scientific evidence?

RemindMe! 1 minute "check"

Note I am not a mental health or dietetic professional. However it seems undiagnosed physiological problems are often misinterpreted as psychological issues. While you may have contributing parent issues (who doesn't?) it makes sense to try a physiologic/metabolic approach first.

IMO the best way to tackle carb cravings is to stuff yourself with satiating low-GI foods at meal times: cheese, eggs, bacon etc; and take low-GI foods with you to eat whenever you get snack-attacks. This will kill hunger pangs and normalize blood sugar. After a week you should have changed your snacking habits in a healthy direction and you can start to look at food quantity as well as quality.

Keto is just an extreme form of low-GI diet which is accepted as a good diet by the mainstream (and the logical solution to blood sugar issues), so just say you think a very low-GI approach is what you feel most comfortable with and you find high-GI foods such as wheat products lead to binging/addictive behavior. Then you just have to convince the dietician that fats are not all evil and they will be recommending a ketogenic diet for you.

Here is a useful video about the effect of a low GI/paleo diet.

There are quite a few things I have found can affect my mood

• Not getting enough good-quality sleep. I need 7.5 hours
• Not getting a good variety of nutrient-rich foods: eat enough green and brightly-coloured veg, good fat and protein.
• If you tend to be worse in wintertime it can be SAD. Try to spend some time outdoors each day.
• Minimize and manage stress when possible. Allow time for recuperation.
• Get some moderate exercise every day. Walking is good.
• Don't get too anti-social. Talk to and interact with people even when you want to hide away.

Take time to look after yourself

My lower back pain reduced significantly after I started keto, probably because of reduced weight, but was still a problem. However it disappeared completely after about a week of eating bone broth daily. Broth is rich in nutrients and minerals that repair/replenish connective tissues and bone. Many traditional cultures regard home-made fish or marrow-bone broths as a medicinal 'superfood'.

I use pigs trotters and large beef marrow-bones. Make a pot and drink a bowl or mug a day for a week and see what happens.

Eating food made from the same few ingredients all the time can be boring and not so healthy as you can be low in some micro-nutrients. Variety is good, and also fun. There are lots of different cuisines to try: Thai, French, Indian, African, South American etc. Get some cookbooks or find high-fat recipes online and start experimenting. Stuffed peppers? Chocolate ants? Seafood stir-fry? The world is your oyster.

Volek et al. found that switching from a typical carb (48%) to low carb (8%) diet produced significant fat loss with lean mass gains, with 12 subjects and 8 controls. All subjects were encouraged to eat an adequate diet.

Of course the calorie intake was not rigidly controlled and changes in appetite/hunger will have affected the result, but this is a more realistic scenario for someone who wants to change their diet outside of a metabolic ward, like the OP.

Noakes et al. found carb composition with isocaloric diets did not affect fat loss with 83 subjects, but his high fat diet was only 61% of calories. Do you know of any isocaloric studies using 75-80% fat diets?

• Volek JS, Sharman MJ, Love DM, Avery NG, Gomez AL, Scheett TP, Kraemer WJ: Body composition and hormonal responses to a carbohydrate-restricted diet. Metabolism 2002, 51:864-70

• Noakes M, Foster PR, Keogh JB, et al.: Comparison of isocaloric very low carbohydrate/high saturated fat and high carbohydrate/low saturated fat diets on body composition and cardiovascular risk.

there are no studies that prove that carb restriction leads to greater fat loss than low fat (when calories/protein/etc. are the same).

Young at al[*] compared 3 isocaloric, isoprotein diets with 30, 60, and 104 g/day carbs respectively for 9 weeks in obese men. The lowest carb (ketogenic) diet showed greatest fat loss and greatest preservation of lean tissue.

"Weight loss, fat loss, and percent weight loss as fat appeared to be inversely related to the level of carbohydrate in the isocaloric, isoprotein diets."

• Young CM, Scanlan SS, Im HS, Lutwak L: "Effect of body composition and other parameters in obese young men of carbohydrate level of reduction diet", Am J Clin Nutr 1971, 24(3):290-296