The Public Health Renegade
When I was a health and wellness coach, I used to write coaching tips. This is one of the tips that received a lot positive feedback and I think it’s the perfect choice for the first Public Health Renegade post.
I’m a low carb/keto/carnivore way of eating advocate. I’ve witnessed first hand the amazing healing benefits of this way of eating.
Before the dawn of agriculture, we were all following a ketogenic way of eating . What other way could we have eaten? Humans were originally hunter-gatherers, which means that they only ate what they could kill (meat and fat!) or easily collect from bushes and trees. Our bodies evolved to utilize ketosis. In fact, for millennia, it was a normal part of the human condition. If ketosis were not a desirable state, the human race would have died out long ago.
When people tell you that ketogenic diet is not optimal, think about what that statement actually means: The human body evolved with a metabolism and energy storage system that is not optimal? The weakest and most vulnerable among us- the newborn human- is set up for failure to thrive by being born in ketosis and providing as its primary sustenance, breast milk that prolongs the ketogenic state?
Think about how silly those two statements are.
The irony of this kind of thinking is that the ketogenic way of eating (high fat) led to the development of the large human brain, with intelligence enough to eventually devise ways to manufacture our own sustenance. We are the only species with the intelligence to create and massively produce our own food and sadly, we are also just ignorant enough to eat it.
The words Keto, ketogenic, ketosis are so polarizing. People are triggered by those words. So what is it, really? A ketogenic way of eating focuses on whole foods. Meat, non-starchy vegetables, and healthy fats. It does eliminate highly processed foods, which include seed/vegetable oils, heart-healthy whole grains, and virtually anything that comes from a package, box, or bag (frozen non-starchy veggies are an exception to this).
Call what ever you want. Low carb, Real Food, Keto, Carnivore, whatever. In the next 5 bullets I’m going to call it Keto, but feel free to sub another word in there as you read it to yourself.
* Keto is NOT a fad. It's the optimal way of living! This is not something to be followed for a while until you get what you want, and then throw it away to go back to what you were doing before. This is a lifestyle that focuses mostly on whole, one-ingredient foods.
* Keto is NOT easy to get right at first. We have to work on deprogramming ourselves from decades of bad advice and ideas. However, once you get over the hump of becoming fat adapted, it gets easier and more intuitive as you go.
* Keto is NOT difficult, food-wise, unless you make it that way. Eat fatty meats, non-starchy veggies, and healthy, natural fats. That's it.
* Keto is NOT a calorie restrictive way of eating. You can't drag your CICO (Calories In/Calories Out)dogma over to keto and expect it to work.
* Keto is NOT a diet that was invented or discovered. It's been around since the dawn of humankind.