I have been allowing this to build up inside of me for quite a while. I am generally the most positive person/ nutritionist/ surgery coordinator BUT I have decided to let you into my head for this blog post and to allow you to understand why I feel so upset lately …
In my opinion, the beautiful thing about keto is that it is simple.
For those of us who just want to be healthy, lose some weight, lose some body fat, get their blood sugar down, get their insulin down, (unless you are dealing with a really severe condition), then keto is a great solution.
Most people do not need to really weigh or measure their food. They don’t need to track their macros. They don’t need to have exact specific ratios. They don’t need to calculate grams of everything.
You don’t need to have a Ph.D. in calculus to be successful on a low carb or a ketogenic diet.
You don’t need to have 57 apps. You don’t need a watch and a monitor, and this and that.
You don’t need to turn yourself into a Keto-Cyborg. You just need to change the food that you are eating.
Unfortunately, some kinds of keto-obsessions and a purity thinking about food quality and food sourcing has trickled down into the keto world and it has started to take away from the main message of keto.
The main message of keto and the beauty of keto is the simplicity of keto. There really is only one thing you need to do …
Don’t eat sugar and starch!
Literally, this is the only thing you have to do to be successful on Keto.
Period. Everything else is gravy. Everything else is a bonus.
Before anyone throws me out of here or kicks me out of the keto-club, let me specify something…
It is not that everything else is unimportant. It is not that your macros don’t matter at all, or that nothing else matters except getting rid of sugar and starch, BUT …
For the majority of the people, the majority of the benefits of the low carb way of eating come from exactly that, LOW CARB.
I sometimes wish that there was a new word other than “keto”, because it puts the emphasis of being in “ketosis”, or chugging a lot of MCT oil, or fasting or doing all these things to raise “keytones”….
When what most people need to focus on is keeping the carbs very low.
So, even the abbreviation LCHF which most of us know as Low Carb/ High Fat is kind of problematic for me now. So many people are putting the emphasis on the HF, the high fat, rather than the LC, the low carb.
I prefer to call LCHF – Low Carb HEALTHY FAT, but unfortunately, the HF, High Fat mantra has become so widespread now. Everybody just knows it as high fat.
So now we know that the single most important thing of the ketogenic diet or low carb diet is very low carb intake.
Your food quality and where you get or source your food from is a lesser issue. It is not unimportant. We can’t just disregard it, but let’s talk about it.
Let’s be clear on one point. Keto is an equal opportunity diet. I welcome ALL. I don’t care where you are from, what you look like, how much money you have in the bank, what God you pray to if any. I don’t care where you are starting from if you are 300, 200, 150 lbs.
I don’t care what language you speak… if you want to eat this way to improve your health, I welcome you and I am glad you are here.
With that in mind, there is no room for elitism and self-righteousness in keto. Not in my keto. Not in the keto-community I want to be a part of.
So putting the emphasis on expensive food, or on all organic food – this should not be a barrier to entry for people who can’t afford it. Many of you may be blessed with good and stable jobs and you can afford very high-quality food.
Not everybody out there fits this description.
Some people are going to go to the local grocery store and get whatever is on sale. As long as those items are very low in carbohydrates, those people are going to do fine and they should never be made to feel otherwise.
They should not be shamed about where their food comes from.
There shouldn’t be fear-mongering on social media. That is leading these people to believe they are not going to be able to accomplish their goals by eating regular food from the regular grocery stores.
I salute EVERYBODY who wants to be a part of my Bariatric-Keto-Club.
I welcome you all with open arms.
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