Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous? • Hacker News Board

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#71

Post by elptacek » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:04 PM UTC

hinkley wrote: post #22

jlturner wrote: post #11

I'm on my third ketogenic diet stint, and I can attest to how fantastic it is. I'm narcoleptic and I experience nearly no symptoms on the diet, my fiancée is epileptic and is transitioning off her meds to the ketogenic diet (with the supervision of her nutritionist and neurologist), and a former employee uses it to keep her benign tumor from spreading (actually! And she's totally normal, again with doctors). All of u…

I appear to be one of those weirdos who reacts to something in bread but not celiac. I was watching that Michael Pollan series and he was talking about his theory that industrial bread was the problem and everyone would be fine if we went back to sourdough. Well this feels like one of those things that sounds good but has no substance, but clearly at this point I'm willing to try anything. There's a little bakery on…

Stephen Jones is a wheat grower who is also an advocate for long rise times. You can read more about him and his ideas here: http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/cooking-tips/article/...

There's also more and more rhetoric now about the microbial gut biome and the various stuff that we eat nowadays (antibiotics in meat, artificial sweeteners) changes whatever balance we might have had, once upon a time... you get the idea. The more I read, the more it seems like my "sometimes this makes me sick and sometimes it doesn't" experience with food, wheat in particular, is due to something more complicated. Possibly the sprue stage is a symptom rather than its own disease?

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#72

Post by yojex » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:05 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #31

No comment on the main topic, but the "unnatural or advantageous" binary in the title is a confusion that I really dislike. "Natural" and "good" are independent axes. No relationship should be assumed. Tuberculosis is natural, but not good. Brushing your teeth is unnatural, but I'm happy to call it good. This can seem obvious, but the error crops up all the time in serious ways. E.g. women voting and joining the work…

Your comment is rather unnatural, but quite good. :-)

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#73

Post by azdle » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:08 PM UTC

rpazyaquian wrote: post #49

azdle wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you got the 90-95% fat, but I've never seen anyone suggest that you should be eating anywhere near that much from fat. If you were actually trying to get that high I can understand why you'd feel like it's a "sick person diet". From what I've seen, the traditional advice for 'macros' is that you should be eating 65/30/5 for fat/protein/carbs. However people often misinterpret that to mean that that's a…

I could have sworn that there was an upper limit on the amount of protein you can eat on keto. Something like, more than ~150g would mean that the protein starts getting used for energy instead of fat, which ruins the keto. Maybe that was misinformation. Does that mean that I can eat mostly stuff like steak, chicken, and eggs, then? If it's really more of an upper limit on carbs ~20-50g, a minimum of protein, and the…

Yeah, this whole thread is a pretty good summary of why specifying a diet is so hard. There's no way to get any definitive answers. People try to do good, hard studies on this, but they're almost impossible to control/fund.

Because of that you'll find a bunch of different 'right' answers. You have to kinda sift through everything and figure out what seems reasonable and see what actually works for you. There's a lot of that out there and that means that what is currently true can shift back and forth a bit.

It used to be 'generally known' that too much protein was bad and would kick you out of ketosis. But there was a new study released that seems to indicate that it has more to do with it being too high of a proportion rather than too much absolute quantity.

Unfortunately I don't have access to the journal databases anymore, so I can't find the links.

> Does that mean that keto diets are different for weightlifters than for non-weightlifters?

The definition of 'ketogenic' isn't changing based on what you do outside of diet, 'ketogenic' simply means that you body is producing a ketones and your body is using them for energy, it's more that some people will use other energy sources with specific timing to enhance their athletic performance. There's something called TKD, targeted ketogenic diet, (which think is named a bit backward) which is mostly used by weightlifters and powerlifters to increase short term performance by eating small amounts of carbs just before a workout.

TBH, I don't fully understand the effects of that so I haven't started doing it myself. I assume there must be benefits to staying ketogenic during my workout so I condition my body to always be used to using fat as a fuel source, but I don't have any data to prove that is actually beneficial. It also helps that I'm more focused on weight loss, baseline of strength, and general health rather than powerlifting or and goals for the super lean and large muscle look.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#74

Post by no_flags » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:08 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #55

jlturner wrote: post #11

I'm on my third ketogenic diet stint, and I can attest to how fantastic it is. I'm narcoleptic and I experience nearly no symptoms on the diet, my fiancée is epileptic and is transitioning off her meds to the ketogenic diet (with the supervision of her nutritionist and neurologist), and a former employee uses it to keep her benign tumor from spreading (actually! And she's totally normal, again with doctors). All of u…

I started 3 weeks ago, and have been losing weight steadily (10 pounds in 3 weeks), have no real appetite (can go for half a day without eating something, but force myself not too), and am more alert during the day at work, without the "sleepy" low period in the afternoon anymore. I eat mostly what's allowed on "Atkins 2.0, stage 1", plus some small stuff that's not like watermelon). Scientifically the calorie intake…

> Scientifically the calorie intake is more important than the what (for losing weight)

This has been the assumption but there's reason to believe it might be more complicated than that. Gary Taubes addresses the subject here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKuDamgGkZQ

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#75

Post by rotwoof » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:09 PM UTC

abandonliberty wrote: post #68

rotwoof wrote: post #62

I've been doing Keto since Feb 25 2016. My primary goal when switching over was weight loss, which turned out to be easy. I'm 25, male and was experiencing growing health complications related to obesity. I've lost well over 60 lbs since making the switch despite the fact that I maintain a primarily sedentary lifestyle though I now work out weekly as well as take bi-daily walks. There are downsides though. It's not c…

Do you have some resources you'd recommend to get started?

I first started learning about keto on reddit - reddit.com/r/keto (although I initinally learned about it elsewhere)

In the sidebar on the right there are two very useful sections labeled "useful links" and "related subs". I personally recommend the ketoscience, ketogains and ketorecipes subreddits depending on your goals. I guess I can't leave out ketoxx either if you're a girl.

In addition to that I recommend reading anything written by Dom D'Agostino who is widely considered the #1 authority on the ketogenic diet. Also read Mark Sisson's books. And finally I recommend Joe Rogan Podcast Ep. 752 - Mark Sisson. Rogan can be somewhat of a pothead/hippie but if you can look past that his guests are often very informative.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#76

Post by reflexive » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:10 PM UTC

jlturner wrote: post #50

wnevets wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bread is delicious Bread taste sooo good when you haven't eaten in a long time, it really is addictive.

Really is, sucks too cause I love baking bread and making pizzas :P

Try making pizza crust with almond flour.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#77

Post by SiddarthaBuddha » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:15 PM UTC

rotwoof wrote: post #62

I've been doing Keto since Feb 25 2016. My primary goal when switching over was weight loss, which turned out to be easy. I'm 25, male and was experiencing growing health complications related to obesity. I've lost well over 60 lbs since making the switch despite the fact that I maintain a primarily sedentary lifestyle though I now work out weekly as well as take bi-daily walks. There are downsides though. It's not c…

You eat sweet potatoes and stay in ketosis? Those are full of carbs. I have been keto for about a year and would love to eat sweet potatoes.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#78

Post by tolmasky » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:16 PM UTC

rotwoof wrote: post #62

I've been doing Keto since Feb 25 2016. My primary goal when switching over was weight loss, which turned out to be easy. I'm 25, male and was experiencing growing health complications related to obesity. I've lost well over 60 lbs since making the switch despite the fact that I maintain a primarily sedentary lifestyle though I now work out weekly as well as take bi-daily walks. There are downsides though. It's not c…

Is something like Ensure allowed on keto? Its awfully convenient mid day.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#79

Post by SiddarthaBuddha » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:17 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #67

jlturner wrote: post #11

I'm on my third ketogenic diet stint, and I can attest to how fantastic it is. I'm narcoleptic and I experience nearly no symptoms on the diet, my fiancée is epileptic and is transitioning off her meds to the ketogenic diet (with the supervision of her nutritionist and neurologist), and a former employee uses it to keep her benign tumor from spreading (actually! And she's totally normal, again with doctors). All of u…

no alcohol either ... that is a deal breaker for a lot of people (including myself)

you can have alcohol. beer obviously is off limits except for some low carb beers but liquor and wine is OK.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#80

Post by ccallebs » Wed, Sep 28, 2016, 4:21 PM UTC

misiti3780 wrote: post #67

jlturner wrote: post #11

I'm on my third ketogenic diet stint, and I can attest to how fantastic it is. I'm narcoleptic and I experience nearly no symptoms on the diet, my fiancée is epileptic and is transitioning off her meds to the ketogenic diet (with the supervision of her nutritionist and neurologist), and a former employee uses it to keep her benign tumor from spreading (actually! And she's totally normal, again with doctors). All of u…

no alcohol either ... that is a deal breaker for a lot of people (including myself)

You can have alcohol. I follow a ketogenic diet and regularly drink liquor and wine. Wine has carbs, but not a lot. ~4 grams per 5 ounces.