Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

blogs.scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 319 posts

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#101

Post by j-kent »

metamet wrote: post #90
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…

Have you ever tried Cloud Bread? While certainly not the same, it's a convenient replacement for bread if you want to make sandwiches or so. For reference, a general recipe (without any sweetener, but use stevia or something if you want): - 3 eggs - 3 Tablespoons cream cheese - ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar Takes around 20 min to bake. Makes six slices. As you can tell, it's low carb. But I get the social thing. I have…

Also try cream cheese pancakes! Very similar recipe and my kids love them. Also good for Gyros.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#102

Post by rotwoof »

SiddarthaBuddha wrote: post #77
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.

I should probably have specified that when it comes to foods like that which are high in carbohydrates I won't eat a significant amount or I'll get knocked out of ketosis just like everyone else would.

I rarely eat foods that are primarily carbohydrate based since that defeats the purpose of going keto, but if I do I try to find alternatives (sweet potato replacement for regular potatoes) and even then I severely restrict the amount that I eat. Sweet potatoes have important nutrients in them like beta-carotene, vitamin A, manganese and copper. It is as far as I'm aware always preferable to get vitamins and minerals directly from your diet rather than supplementation.

See http://www.yummly.com/recipe/Low-Carb-Potato-Salad---paleo_-... for an example of a keto friendly sweet potato salad.

For me at least it's important to get creative with what I eat. Staying Keto is a long term goal for me and while I started off doing Keto as a means to lose weight the immediate health benefits convinced me to stay Keto for the foreseeable future. While it's possible to do keto off nothing but cheese, bacon, avocadoes, eggs and low-carb greens such as spinach and broccoli it can get boring.

As long as my body stays in ketosis and I'm covering my body's nutritional needs I believe strict moderation rather than completely cutting all carbs is an acceptable way to diet. While it is completely possible to eliminate all carbs from your diet it is not requisite for staying in ketosis, though you of course do not have much margin for error before you knock yourself out of ketosis. Good news is it's much easier to get back into ketosis if you overshoot your daily carb allowance compared to the initial adaption period where you have to be very strict in order to adapt your body to keto.

For people who are dealing with insulin resistant type health conditions like diabetes type 1, 2 or even pre-diabetes there might be entirely different dietary requirements and a very strict emphasis on eliminating all carbs may be appropriate. When it comes to carefully managing health conditions with potentially severe health ramifications that's something which requires cooperation with a physician.

For most people, as long as you stay beneath the protein and carb limit you're completely fine.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#103

Post by redwards510 »

circlefavshape wrote: post #45
tetraodonpuffer wrote: post #27

what I wonder every time I hear people be very enthusiastic about how their diet improves their quality of life, is if it's just a case that eating good food and working out (which a lot of people do when starting a new diet) is the trigger to feel better as opposed to the vegan / raw food / ketogenic / paleo / high-carb specifics, not to mention the obvious placebo effect of starting something new that supposedly wi…

I was wondering about this too. Many of the comments on this thread are "I felt great on keto and lost X lb/kg". Could you be feeling better just because you lost weight? if you have no weight to lose is there anything to gain?

I think a lot of those types of testimonials come from people who have tried other dieting styles and failed with them. One of the biggest reasons that people really enjoy keto is that a high fat + protein diet leaves you feeling sated even though you are eating less calories. You are not STARVING all the time like with a simple calorie reduction diet. Another reason is that by eliminating sugar/carbs, you aren't dealing with large insulin spikes anymore, and that evens out your mood.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#104

Post by meanjeans »

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…

have you tried making the keto flax focaccia bread? it changed my life.

http://www.healthfulpursuit.com/2014/08/flaxseed-focaccia-br...

as far as pizza crust goes, there are myriad alternatives for that as well.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#105

Post by redwards510 »

epalmer wrote: post #92
artellectual wrote: post #2

Actually, I've tried the ketogenic diet. It's great, however it does have negative side effects. That is the lack of fiber. This can lead to hemorrhoids. Which can be extremely painful. Everything was great, I burned a lot of baby fat, but it was painful in the toilet, there was bleeding involved. You need to supplement yourself with fiber if you want to try the ketogenic diet.

You can take fiber pills or powder and mix it with water. The carbs in the fiber do not contribute to blood sugar at least not very much.

Actually, there is the idea of "net carbs" on keto. This means if the package says: Carbs: 4g Fiber: 3g

Your net carbs is 1g. You always subtract out the fiber from the carbs. There's a long explanation for why you do this, I'll leave it to you to find.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#106

Post by rotwoof »

jobu wrote: post #94
SiddarthaBuddha wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The digestibility of the carbs in sweet potatoes is highly dependent on the way they're cooked. Boiling them leads to a fairly low glycemic index and glycemic load, whereas baking them essentially turns them into candy: http://www.livestrong.com/article/295025-the-glycemic-index-...

It is also possible to reduce the glycemic index of food by ingesting acetic acid (apple vinegar).

See: http://www.jbc.org/content/135/1/157.full.pdf

TL;DR Apple cider vinegar will decrease the glycemic index of food by interfering with carbohydrate digestion.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#107

Post by cjf101 »

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…

Most bakeries use commercial yeast in addition to starter in what they call sourdough. If you haven't already been doing this, you need to ask if there's commercial yeast in their sourdough. You might need to shop around to find a bakery that does it pure.

My partner has a similar condition (not celiac, not gluten sensitive, but 'something in bread' sensitive) and she found that sourdough from locally made starter was way easier on her system than anything from bakeries or the store.

(Source: We've been experimenting with breadmaking at home, so I've learned more than I ever expected to about bread over the past year.)

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#108

Post by shanusmagnus »

This has been scattered around the existing comments, but I'd be really interested to hear people who are keto comment explicitly on its perceived cognitive effects. I know a number of pretty successful scientists who have told me they feel that being keto provides them a significant performance advantage. I'm really interested in how it affects perceived energy, clarity of thinking, fatigue, and creativity.

I'm gearing up for keto induction myself in the next month (the social things are the hardest for me to deal with, so require a lot of planning to make it feasible), but I'd love to hear (or be pointed to) stories on this topic, especially for knowledge workers / intellectual-types.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#109

Post by catdog »

lopatin wrote: post #91
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…

I also lost a bunch of weight on keto after several failed attempts at simply cutting calories. 235 lbs to about 185 and it all happened pretty rapidly (about half a year) considering I barely exercised. Lots of salads, chicken breasts, eggs & bacon, lettuce wraps, and quest bars. Regular coffee though, never was a fan of throwing butter in there. I mean I did do light cardio on and off, but I think it was mostly the…

> I mean I did do light cardio on and off, but I think it was mostly the diet that did it for me.

Most likely. The amount of calories burnt by exercising is surprisingly low. Unless you really do a lot of it simply eating a bit less may be easier, esp. because you get hungry after exercising which easily leads to more intake than you have burned before.

Re: Fat-fueled brain: unnatural or advantageous?

#110

Post by rotwoof »

nkw wrote: post #89
tolmasky wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Is something like Ensure allowed on keto? Its awfully convenient mid day. A regular Ensure looks to have around 15g of sugars per serving, so it would not be conducive to a keto-type diet. For similar convenience there is a product called Ketochow - https://www.thebairs.net/ which I've found quite tasty.

15 grams of sugar is above the daily recommended sugar intake for adults. Recent research indicates that 10 grams daily is a more realistic limit for maintaining health.
Post reply on HN