Keto Clarity: Your Definitive Guide to the Benefits of a Low-Carb, High-Fat Diet (27 page)

– Jackie Eberstein

When you fall into a regular pattern of eating low-carb, moderate-protein, high-fat meals with a sufficient amount of calories from high-quality, nutrient-dense whole foods, you’ll find that one meal can quite possibly keep your hunger satiated for twelve to twenty-four hours. I know it sounds preposterous to think you could (or would even want to) go that long between meals, but it happens naturally because you just don’t get jittery and hangry (hungry and angry) when you are in ketosis. We all know people whose personality shifts dramatically when they haven’t eaten in a while. My wife, Christine, will tell you I was one of those people before I started eating low-carb, high-fat. Now, believe it or not, she sometimes has to remind me to eat because I “forget.”

As you can imagine, periods of spontaneous intermittent fasting (which we will explore even more in the next chapter) will help you lower your overall food and calorie consumption without feeling miserably hungry between meals. Too many people are habitually eating at appointed times during the day (breakfast before going to work or school, lunch during a break in the middle of the day, dinner at home in the evening with the family). But if you allow your cultural paradigms about food to shift from eating by the clock to eating when hunger kicks in, then you might be pleasantly surprised to see your blood ketone levels increase, leading to all the health benefits that will give you.

Think for a moment about who determines your meal’s portion size. The restaurant bringing you a big plate of food? The food manufacturers who create the packaging? It should be your body that determines the amount that you eat. Also, were you raised with the idea that you had to eat everything on your plate “because there are starving children in Africa”? I think all of our moms pulled that trick on us a time or two growing up. You may have even been a member of the “Clean Plate Club” and were rewarded for eating everything placed in front of you. But these ideas from childhood no longer apply now that you are an adult.

DOCTOR’S NOTE FROM DR. ERIC WESTMAN: “Eat until you are 80 percent full” is the way most children in Japan are raised—letting their body’s internal control mechanism determine the portion size. Is it a coincidence that Okinawa is well known for having the highest proportion of people living beyond the age of one hundred?

5. Failing to stabilize blood sugar levels

To achieve a ketotic state, I ask people to begin with grain and sugar elimination. Grains are, by the way, the worst offenders for triggering high blood sugar, even worse than simple sugars, such as sucrose. So grain elimination—not reduction—is key for getting into ketosis.

– Dr. William Davis

Since we’re focusing on ketosis, you might wonder why I’m bringing up the subject of blood sugar. Isn’t that just something people with diabetes need to be concerned about? If only that were true. The reality is that everyone reading this book right now should be actively using a glucometer to test their blood sugar levels. It is arguably one of the most invaluable and yet underutilized tools at our disposal for assessing how we are doing metabolically. Blood glucose meters are widely available in any pharmacy or drugstore in the world.

What’s the big deal about knowing your blood sugar? Plenty. Knowing exactly how your body is responding hormonally to food is empowering. Keeping carbohydrate and protein intake to your personal tolerance and individual threshold and eating ample amounts of satiating, real food–based fats will lower your fasting blood sugar level to the 80s and even the 70s while simultaneously raising your level of blood ketones. There’s almost an inverse relationship between the two numbers—when you’re eating a low-carb, high-fat diet, as blood sugar goes down, blood ketones go up. Conversely, as blood sugar goes up (most likely when you consume carbohydrate and protein beyond your tolerance levels), then your blood ketones plummet.

On the whole, the more adherent you are to a ketogenic diet, the greater improvement you will see in the lowering of blood glucose.

– Dr. Charles Mobbs

Your blood sugar level could be the first sign of how well you are producing ketones. When I tested both my blood sugar and blood ketones day and night for a year, I noticed that blood sugar tends to normalize before blood ketone production increases. For example, if you see your morning fasting blood sugar drop from 99 to 85 within a week of starting on a low-carb, moderate-protein, high-fat diet, you may not see your blood ketones in the range of nutritional ketosis right away. But give it a few more days and the ketones will begin to rise precipitously, while your blood sugar may even drop some more. This is completely normal.

When you normalize your blood sugar, hunger pangs and cravings are controlled, your moods even out, and you experience a sense of well-being that can only come from getting off the roller coaster ride of alternating between hyperglycemia (elevated blood sugar) and hypoglycemia (sudden drops in blood sugar). Get your blood sugar well regulated, and nutritional ketosis will be easier to attain—and conversely, nutritional ketosis will help you regulate your blood sugar. They work together, hand in hand, to make you successful in your pursuit of ketosis.

Because ketones can supply up to 80 percent of the brain’s energy needs in nutritional ketosis, when hypoglycemia does occur, the symptoms are minimal to nonexistent, because the brain is not starved by the lack of glucose.

– Dr. Keith Runyan

If you have been struggling with your low-carb, high-fat program and have fallen into some of the same mistakes I was making, don’t be discouraged. You are not alone, and the low-carb, high-fat diet has not failed you at all. Even those of us who have been doing this for a very long time are susceptible to making these mistakes, and correcting them can make all the difference in your success.

Coming up in the next chapter, we’ll talk more about intermittent fasting and the role it can play in making ketosis happen for you.

Key Keto Clarity Concepts

• Simply eating low-carb may not be enough to get into ketosis.
  
• Consuming excess protein can derail production of adequate ketones.
  
• Choose fattier cuts of meat and avoid the lean meats as much as possible.
  
• Stop relying on urine ketones testing strips to determine if you are in ketosis.
  
• Urine ketones may disappear as you become more keto-adapted.
  
• Failing to eat enough saturated and monounsaturated fats is a huge mistake.
  
• Never eat a low-carb, low-fat diet; your body needs the fat to thrive.
  
• You may need to ramp up your fat intake substantially to experience benefits.
  
• Calories count inasmuch as you shouldn’t eat beyond satiety.
  
• Counting calories is unnecessary if you pay attention to satiety signals.
  
• Frequent meals are merely a cultural thing, not a physiological response to hunger.
  
• Being in ketosis enables you to spontaneously fast for twelve to twenty-four hours.
  
• Getting blood sugar levels under control is critical to nutritional ketosis.
  
• Be encouraged that we all make mistakes in our pursuit of ketosis.