Keto and the Aftermath of Losing Weight

I wrote my book, "How I Lost 100 Pounds Without Getting Out of Bed, the shortest, dirtiest, laziest Keto routine ever," because Keto has been a miracle for me. I was so sick, so depressed, and completely unable to function. When the doctor told me I was Diabetic, something in me snapped. My uncle had just had his leg removed because of complications of diabetes, and I'd watched my parents, grandmother, and aunt all struggle with it. I was not going down that road. I have a sleep disorder and managing shots of insulin was going to be impossible and dangerous for me. I knew people claimed that you could reverse Type 2 Diabetes and I was going to find out if it was possible. Long story short, it was and I did. I no longer require any insulin or metformin and my A1c is 5.1. I lost over 100 pounds with almost no exercise - I was in bed with severe bipolar depression the whole time, though that has also improved since I'm on a ketogenic diet. I eat a meat-heavy keto/carnivore diet with only occasional lower-carb veggies and a few berries now and then for variety. The food I eat is delicious - steaks, hamburgers, shrimp, crab, lobster, chicken, turkey, duck, fish. I love broccoli and cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and cucumbers. I even eat Keto ice cream. thanks to a company called Rebel Creamery. Yes, I miss chips and fries, I miss mashed potatoes and regular chocolate - mine is keto these days, but still delicious. We eat healthy fats like butter, tallow, and bacon grease as well as olive, avocado and coconut oils. We don't eat grains - no breads or pasta - but honestly, there's a keto version of almost any dessert or bread that you'll miss on the diet. You'd be amazed what you can do with almond flour and coconut flour, plus Swerve sweeteners. We don't eat industrial seed oils like Canola, soy, corn. or vegetable oils and we definitely don't eat hydrogenated fats like Crisco which are trans fats. Those oils are produced by sending seeds to a factory where they're processed with solvents and deodorized and they're poison to a lot of people. If you have any kind of autoimmune disorder, start by eliminating grains and industrial seed oils and see if your inflammation doesn't go away. Most people have at least some reduction in flareups, if not a direct cure.

I feel better right now than I have in 20 years. I have more confidence and people treat me better. I took charge of my health and I'm proud of that. Keto is easy to follow once you learn how to shop - I don't bring carbs home so they don't tempt me. I indulge a couple of times a year when relatives visit, but I don't go crazy and I fast and get back on keto immediately after. So far, so good. The aftermath which I referred to in the title of this article is this - it is torturous to watch people I care about among my friends and family suffer the effects of a diet full of poison.

You've heard the saying that there's nothing worse than a reformed anything? Well, that's me right now. I have an old friend struggling with Diabetes, who just got out of the hospital. I'm afraid he'll go blind or worse, he'll end up needing an amputation. He's an amazing drummer, so that would change his life forever. I don't want to nag him, but he's hurting himself with his diet and I know it is entirely possible for him to get off the insulin cycle and stop needing insulin and other medicines, some of which are causing him severe side effects. Unfortunately, he's a grown man, we're not that close, and we're separated geographically so he can't see the changes I've been through. I've offered to help, but that's all I can do.

I have several friends on Facebook who I've communicated with for years, who are disabled with fibromyalgia and similar disorders. If they'd do a Carnivore fast - that's at least 2 weeks of nothing but animal meats and eggs, cooked in butter and plenty of good salt, I know a lot of their pain would ease up if not stop completely. I know that seems to fly in the face of what we've all been taught about nutrition, but we've been sold a bill of goods in the form of about 50 years of ass-backward information about how we should eat. That happened when a researcher named Ancel Keyes - not even a doctor, mind you - cherry picked some date he'd collected in a study spanning several different countries, keeping the info that fit his theory that fat caused heart disease and hiding everything else. He then hooked up with Congressman George McGovern and the USDA dietary recommendations that we were all taught in school were born. The problem is, the information was wrong. The Standard American Diet (SAD) is heavy on grains and carbohydrates, while it villainizes meats and natural, healthy fats. Following these guidelines all these years has brought America to its current epidemic of obesity, hypertension, heart disease, cancer, and the explosion of auto-immune disorders. I thought I had arthritis until I did a Carnivore fast and discovered that my pain was caused by onions. At the time I was on a prescription medication for it and it turned out that a Montreal Steak Seasoning I was eating nearly every day, which contained onion powder, was the cause of it. I stopped eating it and now I am pain free.

What is really tough is seeing the effect Coronavirus has on people with these comorbid conditions that I know are being caused by their diet. Processed foods, laden with sugar, carbohydrates, chemicals, and industrial seed oils are cheap. So are refined grains. Real food - meats. fish, poultry and fresh vegetables - are expensive and hard to come by in some urban areas. How many people in this country are living on mac and cheese, cheap tacos, MacDonald's burgers and fries. Every one of those things is full of carbohydrates which turn into sugar in your body. A hamburger bun or a couple of corn tortillas are the same as a small scoop of ice cream.

The human body can run on 2 different fuel sources. One is sugar, which causes your insulin to spike and encourages your body to store fat. The other is your own body fat. In order to tap your body fat, you have to eliminate most of the carbs in your diet. On a Ketogenic diet, most people try to stay below 20 carbs a day. The average American eats hundreds of grams of carbs a day, causing chronic hyperinsulinemia, which leads to obesity, metabolic syndrome, and eventually, Type 2 Diabetes. If you eat a low carb, medium protein and high fat diet made up of real foods, your body taps into its stores of fat for fuel. You aren't hungry, you aren't starving your body, you aren't spiking your insulin and the weight comes off. I am living proof that this works. There are thousands of people to eat real food right now, just the way our ancient ancestors did and it's changing lives.