Retrospective #140: Peanuts, My Nemesis

My name is Dan, and I am a peanut addict. I love peanuts. I am addicted to peanuts, or at least I used to be. I once gave them up (briefly), but I have since caved and eat them opportunistically…for example, at a cocktail party or reception, or when they are on sale at the supermarket (which is often, LOL). Why is another story, and the subject of another column – for someone who has a better understanding of the very complex questions of why we eat and what we eat. But for this humble blogger, I will just tell you why I have concluded that I shouldn’t eat peanuts.

For the irregular reader, I am a 78-year old, 33-year Type 2 diabetic who eats a Very Low Carb Ketogenic Diet (VLCKD) for weight loss and blood glucose control. I am Carbohydrate Intolerant. I treat my broken glucose metabolism just with minimal oral diabetes medications (Metformin). I also eat this way because I can do it without hunger, and greatly improved blood pressure (with weight loss) and blood lipids, especially HDL and triglycerides.

I have been trying to stop eating peanuts for years. So, now that my body is “happy” with the way I eat and what I eat, I have tried to stop eating peanuts again. The page references below are all from a good book, “Perfect Health Diet,” by Paul and Shou-Ching Jaminet, that I recommend for Paleo nutrition principles and practices: I do not recommend this book for its approach to eating for Type 2 diabetics. They have, sadly, missed the mark there.

First of all, peanuts are not nuts; they are legumes. Peanuts grow in the ground, not in trees. The peanut plant grows above ground with a pea-like flower. The long flower stalk then bends to the ground and continues to grow. The mature fruit develops there into a legume pod, the peanut, containing 1 to 4 dry seeds. Other common above-ground legumes include soybeans, fava, kidney, pinto, garbanzo, and lima beans, black-eyed peas, lentils, sweet peas and green beans. As a Type 2 diabetic, with the exception of young green beans, I try to avoid them all.

Legumes are “almost grains” (pg. 209),” just as dangerous as grains when eaten raw and still risky after cooking.” They are on the short list of “DO NOT EAT” foods (pg. xix): grains and cereals, sugars, beans and peanuts, and Omega-6-rich vegetable seed oils (soybean oil, corn oil, safflower oil, peanut oil, and canola oil). It gets a grade of “F” (pg. 172) in the list of “The Best Plant Food Energy Sources,” listed after wheat, corn and other grains.

The Jaminets say, “Many legumes are highly toxic in their raw state: raw kidney beans at 1% of diet can kill rats in two weeks.” “Legumes are toxicologically similar to grains. Like grains, they are eaten by herbivores and have developed toxins against mammals, including humans.” Plants can’t run away from grazing animals, so toxins are their defense system. Of course, ruminants circumvent the plant’s defense with their four-compartment stomach.

The Jaminets “sample of known toxicity effects from legumes: 1) leaky gut, bad digestion, diarrhea, bloating; 2) retarded body growth and shrinkage of organs; and 3) heart disease and tendon damage.” “Leaky gut allowed bacteria and toxins to enter the body, block production of stomach acid and thus prevent proper digestion of proteins. In the gut, the kidney bean lectin PHA induced immature gut cells that were easily exploited by diarrhea-inducing bacteria such as E. coli” (pg. 210). “Feeding rats the alpha-amylase inhibitor found in kidney beans leads to extreme gut bloating,” which lead occasionally to a ruptured intestine.” It gets worse from there. Read Chapter 20.

“Many legume toxins can be destroyed with overnight soaking and thorough cooking, but not all.” “Traditional cuisines that make heavy use of legumes, such as Indian cuisine, used very long cooking times as well as lengthy detoxification methods – overnight soaking, sprouting, and fermentation. Even with such methods, not all toxins are removed. But at the hasty pace of modern lives, few people soak their beans overnight or cook them for hours.

“Peanut and soybean allergies are among the most common allergies” (pg. 212). “People with celiac disease who aren’t healed by removal of wheat often turn out to have antibodies to soybeans or other legumes and need to remove legumes from their diet as well.” “Significantly raised antibody titres were found in the coeliac group…” The Jaminets’ conclusion: “(W)e believe there is little reward and much risk to eating toxin-rich legumes such as beans and peanuts. The only legumes we eat are peas and green beans.” I concur. Now, I just need to comply.

Retrospective #139: Nuts – the Very Good, the Also Good, and the Bad

I love nuts. I mean real nuts – not peanuts (although I love them too). Peanuts are legumes, which I try to avoid, but nuts – true TREE nuts – are different. They’re all good tasting, and all are high in fat. Some, however, are much healthier than others, some are more of a toss-up, and some should be avoided. My basis for determining that is largely the type of fats they contain, and the rule here is the same as it is for all high-fat foods: saturated fat is good; monounsaturated fat is really good, and natural polyunsaturated fats are good or bad depending on their Omega 3 and Omega 6 content.  Unfortunately, many nuts contain too many Omega 6 fatty acids.

Next question: When would you eat nuts? The conventional thinking goes: 1) As a regular between-meal snack 2) If you should “feel” hungry on occasion 3) At a social gathering where nuts are one of the few offerings that are an “allowed” food, Or 4) perhaps as a salad ingredient at a sit-down dinner with guests? Let’s take a closer look.

For me, the answers are, respectively: 1) Never as a between meal snack. They are simply not needed; 2) If I “feel” hungry (before or after supper, the only times I get the urge), I “deny” the feeling. I either tough it out, and/or drink something non-caloric; 3) at a social gathering. If nuts are offered, I will usually succumb. I will regret it later, but I am weak when I SEE – that is, when I am VISUALLY seduced; 4) as an ingredient in a salad. I like this option.

Another issue is raw or roasted, unsalted or salted, and/or otherwise coated. The answer, again for me, is roasted, and unsalted, not coated (as in “honey roasted”!). I also like salted nuts, but check out the ingredients list. To make the salt stick, manufacturers add other stuff I don’t want to eat. To summarize: for me, nuts then are only a “party option” (mea culpa) or a supplementary ingredient in a salad. Snacking and emotional eating are verboten!

Remember, the issue with nuts is which contain the fewest polyunsaturated Omega 6 fatty acids. Here is my list:

·         Low Omega-6 nuts: macadamia nuts and coconut (the fruit)

·         Moderate Omega-6 nuts: hazelnuts (filberts) and avocado (the fruit), almonds and pecans

·         High Omega-6 nuts: walnuts, pine nuts, butternuts, Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds.

Note that cashews and pistachios are not on this list because, while moderate in Omega 6s, they are too high in carbohydrates. Other dietary choices which offer low, moderate and high Omega-6 options as food choices are:

·         Low Omega-6 nut (and fruit) oils: coconut oil, macadamia nut oil, and palm oil

·         Moderate Omega-6 oils: olive oil

·         High Omega-6 nut oil: walnut oil

Nut oils, however, come with certain risks to health: the higher the Omega-6 content, the greater the danger of damage from high heat and chemicals in processing and manufacturing and the more likely they are to become rancid on the shelf. After opening, high Omega-6 nut oils should be refrigerated; they are fragile.

If you’re influenced by the Paleo ideology, as I am, you might find it appealing to think of tree nuts in the same way we should think of fruit: as a local, seasonal treat. In today’s world, of course, that is no longer the case. Fruits, hybridized to make them larger and sweeter, are often produced half-a-world away and are available year-round.

Nuts are too, but in our culture, they tend to be consumed mostly during the holiday season from Thanksgiving to Christmas when they are displayed at the front of the supermarket in large boxes and barrels. These displays suggest to me the way we should think of both nuts and fruit: as something special to be consumed as a treat.

I don’t mean to imply this in the literal sense. That would be orthorexic, and far be it for me to think that way (LOL). I mean it in a way that allows us to enjoy something special on special occasions: something to look forward to, like asparagus in the spring, or a dinner salad with guests of frisée, lardons, and Crimini mushrooms, all tossed in a homemade vinaigrette dressing and topped with chopped hazelnuts and shaved Pecorino Romano. Bon appétit!

Type 2 Nutrition #493: Why fasting is soooo easy!

I know. It doesn’t ring true. It sounds, literally, incredible. But under the scenario I am going to describe, it IS true. I wouldn’t lie to you. My credibility with my regular readers is too important for me to squander it.

Before telling you why, though, I want to address the thinking that questions this assertion. On hearing this, a person thinks and maybe asks, “Don’t you get hungry? How’s your energy level? Do you feel okay?” My answers are: “No, I don’t get hungry,” and “my energy level is high.” In fact, I feel pumped, sometimes euphoric, almost manic. “I actually feel better than okay. I feel great!” And no, I’m not “Tony the Tiger.”

Why then do people ask those questions? Because it’s common sense! It’s empirical; we’ve all experienced it. If you eat less on a “balanced” (carbohydrate-based) diet, you’re going to still be hungry! If you don’t “feed your body,” your body will slow down! And as your metabolism slows, you will have less energy and you will feel weak. You may even feel unwell. That’s all very logical and true. Yes, but notice the big “if.”

This “if” clause contains the phrase “balanced carb-based diet.” Eating less with that diet will produce the effects described because you are starving your body of needed energy because it is unable to access your body’s fat stores. However, your body is designed 1) to be fed by mouth when food is available and 2) to be fed from fat stores when food is not available, for example, when fasting. There’s only one problem. For your     body to work like that, a switch is needed to “turn on” the body’s fat fuel source. Here’s how it works.

When you eat carbohydrates, your blood insulin level rises. Your body secretes insulin to carry energy from the digested/absorbed carbs (as glucose) in your blood to your cells. Insulin then opens the “door” for the energy to be taken up. Then, when the level of glucose in your blood drops, your insulin level drops too. Insulin is thus the switch. Low insulin signals the liver to switch from burning carbs for energy to burning fat.

So, in a normal metabolism, when your carb energy is expended and your blood glucose level drops, your blood insulin level also drops and your body switches to burning body fat for energy. It does this without your feeling hungry, without slowing down your metabolism, and without making you feel unwell. The reason that all this is true should now be obvious: Your body IS still being fed…FED BY OWN YOUR BODY FAT.

You will be fed at the level your body needs for your activity level. You could run a marathon! This energy balance – called homeostasis – will be met by the liver breaking up triglycerides (body fat) as needed. You will be in energy balance so long as you have fat to burn and you don’t eat too many carbs.

Another way to lower both blood glucose and blood insulin is fasting. It is especially effective for people with a disregulated glucose metabolism, e.g. those with Insulin Resistance (Type 2 diabetics and Pre-diabetics). When we don’t eat, blood glucose and blood insulin go down and good things happen: 1) we burn body fat for energy without slowing down our metabolic rate, 2) we lose weight without hunger because our bodies are being fed at the cellular level by body fat, 3) ketone bodies, a byproduct of fat (triglyceride) breakdown, feed the brain, and 4) while fasting, out bodies gather cellular debris (autophagy) and 5) burn old, used up cells (apoptosis). These renewal processes provide great benefit. Burning omental (visceral) fat, including pancreatic fat cells, beta cells (erroneously considered to be ”burned out”) begin to function again.

I’ve been a Type 2 for diabetic 33 years. So, what happens when I eat Very Low Carb with Intermittent Fasting? I lose weight, my glucose metabolism stabilizes, and I’m never hungry because I’m a fat burner. I have loads of energy, I save money on food, and I feel “pumped.” What’s not to like about those outcomes?

Your doctor will love it too. My last A1c was 5.0%. My cholesterol panel is “to die for.” No statins. “Blood pressure of a teenager,” the nurse said.” When you’re not hungry all the time, fasting really is soooo easy.

Retrospective #138: Fruit, the 3rd Rail for Prospective Low Carbers

Whenever I am asked about what foods one “cannot” eat on a Low Carb Diet, eating fruit is always the “3^rd rail.” Like 3^rd rails, life without fruit to a prospective Low Carber is “fatal.” I love fruit too, just as I love pasta, rice, bread and potatoes, but I have learned that my body can no longer tolerate “sugar,” especially simple sugars, as in fruit. I also “can’t” eat any processed carbs, as in all packaged foods, and I can’t eat all of the starchier and sugary veggies.

After water, fruit is basically sugar. All of the macronutrient nutrition in fruit is sugar. An apple is 86% water, 3% fiber, and 11% simple sugars (0% protein and 0% fat). The sugars are 20% sucrose, 57% fructose and 23% glucose. When the disaccharide sucrose breaks down, an apple is then 67% fructose and 33% glucose. That’s all “sugar”!

It’s true, an apple has some micronutrients (vitamins and minerals in the skin), and the pulp has pectin, but there are other sources for these important components in a basic “real food” diet. Do not use these “good” components as an excuse to eat fruit. Rationalization is just self-deception. Own up to it, my friend.

So, what do you tell someone who loves fruit and who wants to reduce their carbohydrate intake? Three common approaches are 1) don’t snack on fruit. In fact, don’t snack at all, but if you must snack, snack on fat (like nuts, cheese or olives), and 2) if you must eat dessert, eat fruit for dessert instead of ice cream or pie, and 3) eat mostly berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries), with heavy cream (but no added sugar!). Berries have phytochemicals, fiber, minerals and vitamins too. And avoid grapes, cherries, and dried fruit (like raisins)!

Is it possible to take a more moderate stance on the issue of fruit? Sure. As far as your body is concerned, all carbs are equal. They will all break down to simple “sugars,” mostly glucose. If you are only mildly carbohydrate intolerant, that is, if you have been told you are “pre-diabetic,” you may be able to tolerate more “sugar” (carbs) in your diet. But be careful. This is a very slippery slope. Your meter will tell you what you need to know.

But this is a no-man’s land for both the patient and the clinician. Your doctor most likely adheres to the practices and “Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes,” issued by the American Diabetes Association. If you are overweight, and your A1c test is elevated, your physician will advise you that you are “at risk of diabetes.” Your doctor will then probably tell you to lose weight by eating less (on a “balanced diet”) and “moving” (exercising) more.

Your doctor, however, probably won’t tell you to eat fewer carbohydrates, and they won’t tell you to eat less fruit. And they definitely will not tell you that IF YOU DO NOT CHANGE THE FOODS YOU EAT, THAT YOUR CONDITION IS PROGRESSIVE AND THAT YOU WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY MOVE ON TO BECOME A FULL-BLOWN TYPE 2 DIABETIC.

AND THAT, MY FRIEND, IS AN IRREVERSIBLE DIAGNOSIS. REPEAT: IRREVERSIBLE.

Doctors just don’t get it, yet. Carbs in your food cause your blood glucose to rise, and if you are insulin resistant, glucose will remain circulating in your blood. The only way to lower your blood “sugar,” and your circulating (serum) insulin that transports the glucose, is to eat fewer carbohydrates, including but not limited to, fruit. It’s that simple!

I was inspired to write this column by two recent incidents. First, I read a Q & A in “Diabetes Today” in which Dr. Richard K. Bernstein referred to “sweet fruit” as something to be eaten sparingly. He has been a Type 1 now for 75 years and has an A1c in the 4s. He regards a 5.7% A1c as a full-blown Type 2 diabetic. You don’t usually hear the phrase “sweet fruit,” so it stuck in my mind. The other incident was an article, “Fruit Restriction for Type 2’s: Good or Not?” in “Diabetes in Control,” a digest for physicians. It compared two groups of newly diagnosed Type 2s: one was told to eat fruit only two times a week and the other “given the more common conventional medical advice to eat no more than 2 fruits a day.” After 3 months they measured A1c’s, weight loss and waist size and found little difference. They concluded, “We recommended that the intake of fruit should not be restricted in patients with Type 2 diabetes.” What idiots! What bleeping idiots! This is “one-size-fits-all” advice (writ large!)  If you want to live a long and healthy life with Type 2 diabetes, eat to your meter! And eat fruit very, very sparingly!

Retrospective #137: “How Ketogenic (Low Carb – High Fat) Diets Work”

In 2013 the “Low Carb Diet News” site keyed me in to another blogger who was new to me and who thinks along the same lines as I do. He is a New Zealander named Professor Grant Schofield, and his blog is “The Science of Human Potential.” He is also an academic (Psychology) at the Auckland University of Technology, NZ, which leads to an interesting digression in his post. I liked it well enough to repost it here. To quote “Professor Grant” (as he is known):

“A second excellent review article was also published in Nutrition Today by Volek (again!) and Phinney, the low carb gurus. This one is called “A New Look at Carbohydrate-Restricted Diets: Separating Fact From Fiction.” Again this is an excellent scientific review paper. What I should be doing in this blog is simply drawing your attention to this good work, and you can go and check it out for yourself. Except I’m aware that unless you work at a university, you’d have to buy the paper, which means that most of the people who would benefit from the knowledge won’t.”

How true. The new Volek and Phinney paper that the good professor was referring to is published in “Nutrition Today,” for the journal’s pecuniary benefit alone, and is available for $48 plus tax for this one article or $99 for an annual subscription. I passed on this offer, and am grateful that the professor reviewed the piece for us. But just think of all the practitioners out there, the very clinicians who would benefit from this the most, who will never see it for lack of an academic appointment. What impediments we make to the advancement of learning!

Anyway, Professor Grant goes on to list his takeaway of the main points of the Volek and Phinney article. He does get a bit in the weeds so, as J. Stanton says, “CAUTION: CONTAINS SCIENCE.”  The Professor Grant article makes these points:

1.      Saturated fat levels in the blood are not associated with dietary saturated fat intake, but dietary carbohydrate intake. They show evidence from both randomized controlled trials and population data for this.

2.      They discuss in detail what the keto-adapted (fat adapted) state is; how this comes about, including increased beta oxidation of fat, decreased hyperinsulinemia, and a re-orchestration of substrate utilization in the body, including the use of ketones to fuel brain function. It is interesting that the majority of practicing dietitians, endocrinologists, cardiologists, and public health physicians have never heard any of this.

3.      They point out what is an…obvious set of outcomes, which are well documented in the scientific literature; that treating a patient with insulin resistance with a low fat/high carb diet is palliative and going to make the problem worse. If you are having trouble getting glucose into your cells, then reduce the glucose load stupid!

4.      They show a nice little diagram to show the role of dietary carbohydrate in metabolic (dys)function. To quote the authors “The major point is that SFA (saturated fatty acids), and the response to eggs, has a totally different metabolic behavior when consumed in the context of a low carbohydrate diet.”

The interesting aspect of Volek and Phinney’s thesis to me is that first sentence in bullet Number 1 above, as illustrated in the diagram. They are showing with “both randomized controlled trials and population data for this,” that “high dietary carbohydrates” (symbol: CHO) results in “SFA synthesis up” and “SFA storage up” (we make and store more body fat in the form of triglycerides). That in turn, in the “metabolic health continuum” leads to “plasma SFA up” (high blood fat, i.e. triglycerides), “insulin resistance up,” and “dyslipidemia up.” The other side of the diagram shows that the inverse is true with lower dietary carbohydrate intake. But this is getting perhaps a little heavy on the science.

My wife likes to simplify it all by telling our friends and acquaintances that “Eating fat doesn’t make you fat; carbs make you fat.” I like that. Most people just look at her in wonderment and disbelief. Some say, politely, “I never heard that before.” I secretly wonder if they think she is crazy. She’s not a scientist or a doctor, and doesn’t even play one on TV. Where does she get these crazy ideas? Maybe she reads my blog. Maybe – just maybe – the word is gradually seeping out there that “the conventional wisdom,” that we have been following for the last 50 years, has been dead wrong.

Maybe it HAS all been a big fat lie, as Gary Taubes suggested in his seminal New York Times Sunday magazine cover story on July 7, 2002. If you’ve never read it, Google it. It re-started the low carb revolution 17 years ago.

Retrospective #136: “No Butter on Your Corn?!!!”

“No butter on your corn?” I didn’t really say it, but I thought it. Our dinner guest that summer evening said he would “pass” on butter for the corn that my wife had prepared. In our house we only eat corn “in season,” and that means “in season in our immediate neighborhood.” My wife likes our corn picked that day. We also had local tomatoes and a meat course of beef short ribs prepared the way I love. For dessert we had local blueberries with heavy cream. For a Low Carber like me, this was a “special occasion,” when rules are meant to be broken (LOL).

But “no butter” on corn is not one of those rules. Besides, without butter, how can you get all the extra salt to stick? (LOL). Well, it turns out our dinner guest was taking a statin for his “high cholesterol” and was under the care of a physician who advised him to eat a diet low in saturated fat (and salt). That’s a surmise on my part – but a pretty safe one. Most physicians, and the general public, still believe the diet/heart hypothesis that associates saturated fat and dietary cholesterol with heart disease. Regular readers here know that that hypothesis has been completely disproven – that eating saturated fat does not cause heart disease, and dietary cholesterol (the cholesterol you eat) has nothing to do with serum cholesterol (the cholesterol in your blood).  There are legions of corroborating articles by leading heart surgeons if you want to check this out for yourself. Or if you prefer a book, Dr. Malcolm Kendrick’s “The Great Cholesterol Con” is a good read.

The observation gave me pause for thought, though, and my mind drifted to my column. We hadn’t seen our guest for several years and so, for conversation, I mentioned that I was writing and publishing a blog. Our guest seemed interested and asked the subject. When I said “nutrition,” his reply was, to the effect, what qualified me to write about nutrition. I found myself on the defensive, and not very well prepared. Our guest was a very successful, now retired, attorney, but his training, life-long experience and instincts were still sharp. And my answer pretty lame.

Nevertheless, I told him that my course of self-study included a large library of books, articles and scientific papers I had read. He didn’t seem impressed. Afterwards my wife told me that I should have added my personal (n = 1) experience. She was right of course. I had lost 170 pounds and put my long-term Type 2 diabetes in remission, which allowed me to discontinue two oral diabetes meds and reduce the Metformin to 500mg/day). I had also dramatically reduced my A1c’s, improved my blood pressure and saw my inflammation marker (hsCRP) plummet.

But here’s the zinger I had in my quiver and had failed to use: I WAS ABLE TO DISCONTINUE TAKING STATINS!

I had at one time been taking 80mg of Lipitor a day to get my LDLs down to under 70, which my doctor advised due to multiple “risk factors.” But, as I changed my diet from the SAD to Very Low Carb, I was able to discontinue the statin because my HDL more than doubled and my Triglycerides fell by two-thirds. As a result, although my recent Total Cholesterol was still above 200 (215), and my LDL above 130 (133), my HDL was 70 and my triglycerides 58.

My new doctor, an internist and cardiologist, wrote: “your cholesterol profile currently conforms to the NCEP-3 standards.”  The reason, in part, his letter continued: “A high HDL may mitigate some of this risk. Triglycerides should be 150 or less.” These National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines are used almost universally to inform clinicians on statin use.

On my latest visit, I had also asked for a VAP ™ cholesterol test to get more detail. This time my Total Cholesterol was 219, my LDL 131, my HDL 75 and my triglycerides 47. The best news in the VAP test, though, was that my LDL size/pattern was, “Pattern A – Large Buoyant LDL.” This news didn’t seem to impress my doctor, but it made my day. The doctor’s note on my lab report: “Stable, Similar to (previous visit).” So, bingo! No statins for me. Conclusion: If you eat the right diet, not the so-called “healthy diet” that is making so many Americans and people worldwide who eat a Western Diet, so very sick, YOU TOO MAY BE ABLE TO STOP TAKING A STATIN. 

That is what I should have told our dinner guest. But I wasn’t at my best, or perhaps I was intimidated or too polite to give a better answer. Besides, it’s so much easier to have the perfect riposte, in writing, only a day late…

Retrospective #135: What About Physical Energy?

“What about physical energy?” That’s the header of a paragraph of a story on the home page of a UK website called “The Low Carb Diabetic.” It describes how many people report they feel more energized on a low carb diet than they do on a “balanced” diet that includes lots of carbohydrates. I have reported this myself here many times.

J. Stanton of Gnolls.org reported it also in a blog post about the same time. His headline was “There’s Another Level Above ‘I’m Feeling Fine.” His conclusion: “Result: I’m in the best physical and mental shape of my life. I don’t feel ‘fine’: I feel great. Some days I even feel unstoppable.” I couldn’t agree more, but it’s very subjective.

So, how do you measure it? Well, “The Low Carb Diabetic” article gives us a way. Here is their postulation:

“Strictly speaking, we burn neither glucose nor fat for physical energy. Energy within our cells actually comes from a molecule called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. When its molecular bonds are broken, energy is released in the mitochondria, the power plants of our cells. A glucose molecule will generate 36 ATP molecules. A 6-carbon fatty acid molecule will generate 48 ATP molecules. Therefore, when insulin levels are low and the body can access fatty acids as a fuel source, physical energy levels can actually increase on a low carb diet.”

Do the math: 48 ATP molecules from a fatty acid molecule vs. 36 ATP molecules from a glucose molecule. That’s one third more energy! Of course, I don’t know if it really works that way, but it is reaffirming for me to see a tangible and plausible explanation for my sense of an increased and stable level of energy. I like to say I feel “pumped” when I am in a ketogenic state. Is it because I am using ketones for energy? Who knows, really, but it is a very real feeling for me. I like never feeling tired and always full of energy and “pep.” I feel like I’m a kid again.

The reality is that you can feel great on a diet that is Very Low Carb (VLC), i.e., 20 to 30 grams of carbohydrate a day (or less, even). The body has no minimum requirement for dietary carbs. It will make all the glucose it needs (for certain cells that do not have ATP “power plants”). And the brain and the heart love to use ketones for energy.

Besides the increased physical energy benefit from eating VLC, there is the element of mood elevation. Again, this is anecdotal, but I am almost “hyper” when I am in a ketogenic state. I’m not talking about “ups” and “downs” though. I am talking about a stable and elevated mood level. Sort of like being on “speed” (amphetamines). Oops.

But I am older and wiser now. I have come to accept that 1) I have a broken metabolism with the result that I am Insulin Resistant and as a consequence cannot tolerate carbohydrates in my diet; 2) that the best way to “correct” my hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, as well as lose weight permanently and regulate and stabilize my energy levels, is to eat a Very Low Carb ketogenic diet every day for the rest of my life. It is a lifestyle change. It is a Way of Eating (WOE) that I find delicious and very satisfying – both pleasurable and satiating. I feel “full” on very little food. I don’t feel hungry. I hardly ever snack and often “forget” to eat lunch.

Feeling full on a really small meal is a new paradigm, and it takes a little getting used to. When I told my egg vendor at the farmer’s market recently that I had decided to increase my daily serving of eggs at breakfast from 2 to 3, and reduce the bacon from 2 strips to 1, she asked me, “Is that all you have?” She was genuinely surprised. No juice. No bread. No jam or jelly. Just protein and fat. I told her “yes,” except for a little heavy cream in my coffee.

When I recently told the nanny of my step daughter’s children that I just eat a can of sardines packed in olive oil for lunch, she said, “Is that all you eat?” Again, I said “yes,” and I eat it even though I am not hungry at lunch time. Maybe I need to rethink that lunch. Why am I eating lunch if I am not hungry?

Why indeed! I am running on my fat reserves, my body loves its ketones, and I am full of energy.  Maybe even one-third (48 vs. 36 ATP molecules) more physical energy than it was while it was running on glucose!