This Exhausts Me. But There’s No Way to Stop It.

Not a rant about the riot. This is a rant about a diot (that was on purpose, you grammarians)

I LOST MORE THAN 120 POUNDS ON THE KETO DIET.

Thus shrieketh the headline.

That one is gonna get a whole lot of looks, for which I am sure the writer will be grateful. It’s always fun to be the latest Biggest Loser, which allows you time in the spotlight being lauded for curbing your curves.

Give it a few months. A few. Like I love to say, and people justifiably despise me for it, wait a while. 95% of us put it right back on and then some.

I have already lost more than one reader for my stance on Keto and other ridiculous and dangerous fad diets. There is nothing about Keto that’s smart, nothing about Keto that is sustainable, and there is plenty about Keto to be damned worried about for the long run.

The difference is that I not only lose readers forever but the fundamental difference is that I lost the weight forever. That alone puts me in a very different category to talk about this shit.

And Keto IS shit, and no amount of popularity will change that. Pet rocks were popular too. So were Bill Cosby and Mel Gibson and Lance Armstrong and I could go on. Stupid shit is still stupid shit, whether it’s people or pills or pet rocks.

But yet, every so often someone will use it to lose a mass of weight, to which I say and mean it, good for you, for I have too. That is, lost a shitload of weight. But the next question is, unfortunately for all of us who fuck our bodies to be thin…

Okay sure Sparky, and after all those months on a diet designed for epileptic children, what did you do to your kidneys?

How severely did you impact your microbiome?

Did you, as did others, cause dangerously low blood sugar, increase the wrong cholesterol levels, screw up your bone health?

That last one is a doozy. For if you, like me, are thin, White or also Asian, as we age, we can suffer from osteoporosis. If you are heavy, then get thin via Keto, you set yourself up for serious bone mineral loss. That means easily breakable, thin bones.

Don’t wanna believe me? Don’t. However do your research:

Or this:

“If you are on diabetic medication that causes low blood sugar, those meds may need to be adjusted within a few days,” Condon said. “There are heart-healthy sources of fat, however if that person is not educated on heart-healthy sources of fat, they may consume excessive amounts of saturated fats that can increase your risk of heart disease,” Condon said.

The keto diet could cause low blood pressure, kidney stones, constipation, nutrient deficiencies and an increased risk of heart disease. Strict diets like keto could also cause social isolation or disordered eating. Keto is not safe for those with any conditions involving their pancreas, liver, thyroid or gallbladder.

Kleinman said someone new to the keto diet can also experience what’s called the “keto flu” with symptoms like upset stomach, dizziness, decreased energy, and mood swings caused by your body adapting to ketosis.

Oh hell. What do they know? They’re just scientists. Researchers who are watching and monitoring and measuring what happens to real people doing this to themselves.

What do I know? What do they know?

It’s exhausting paddling uphill here. I had a friend who used to be a soccer player well into her sixties. She quit. She loves food, and noticed that if she stuck to mostly protein (Atkins, for example) she could easily dump the extra ten that pressed against her pants buttons.

Sure. And the next thing, as soon as she returned to her beloved sourdough, back they came.

And therein lies the issue.

While the woman who wrote the headline story above noted a number of those very health concerns (constipation, cholesterol, etc), she has no idea what she did to her internal organs. And she also has no idea whether or not that damage is permanent.

You and I play Russian Roulette with our bodies when we engage with extreme diets. Teas that are nothing more than laxatives dressed up in very expensive packages, sold by idiots like Gwyneth Paltrow to slavering fans who gorm them up and damage their GI systems in the process.

But what I do I know? Well, first, I did summa that shit to myself. Nothing like being the village idiot to figure out that you’re the village idiot.

Happily, I quit. Even better, the choices I ultimately made led to a permanent weight loss of some 85 pounds, for 34 years and counting. There is nothing faddish about my dietary choices. They are changing based on an aging body.

To wit: finally and utterly cleaning up my diet of all refined sugars, limiting myself to bits of honey here and there and mostly getting my sweets from what Nature already made sweet.

What's the sweetest in being in terrific shape as I waltz towards my 68th birthday. Four days away at this writing.

Keto, schmeto. Good food fuels a healthy body.

By choosing to live healthy, I bought myself time. And not only time, but really good time.

And I plan to have a really good time filling that time. And not a strip of bacon in sight.