Long before there was a “Keto”, there was 60 Day Turnaround… long before there was 60 Day Turnaround, there was the Healing Diet, and long before that we had Atkins. All of these have had the same focus, and that focus was quite simply ketosis. All of these diets are crazy effective for creating an ability to get into ketosis… an opportunity for weight loss. But some are more effective in the short run, the long run, and some are healthier or more risky in the short run and the long run. Lets dig in, shall we?
Atkins diet was one that swept across the world in a short period, as a crazy effective diet, but also really enjoyable to many people… eat all the meat you could ever hope to eat. Avoid all carbs, and simply exist on protein. Two major problems. Protein alone is highly inflammatory, and if there is one thing that we have learned in the last decade… inflammation kills. The next thing that we have learned in the last decade or more, is how significant gluconeogenesis is when it relates to protein. Meaning, we can very readily convert protein to glucose, or blood sugar, which is the point of avoiding carbs.
So our take away from Atkins, is that though it is effective. It has some limiting factors in the high protein consumption, and perhaps some more risky limiting factors in the fact that it is highly inflammatory and has almost no anti-inflammatory foods (which are primarily vegetables and some fruits). Which is a great segway into the healing diet and the 60 Day Turnaround… both of which have brought more fat, and more vegetable (with a focus on nutrient density).
When I created the 60 Day from the idea of the Healing Diet… I had several areas I was working to enhance. The first was to more significantly limit the protein intake, to be sure that the focus was on reducing sugar intake. Next, in order to make this safely sustainable, the nutrient density had to go up, which comes primarily from vegetables… so I put a ton of those in. Granted the healing diet was on that path, but I began selling it as more of a low carb veggie diet, with a bunch of fat, and some protein.
Which brings me to the last diet, the current “hip” diet. Keto. A new version of the others, with a more appropriate focus on fat consumption, which is really what the healing diet and 60 Day are all about. However, keto once again is a failure, in that it alone, without the nutrient density of a high consumption of vegetables, the diet does not satisfy the body, the needs of the body in order to maintain health. And once again we are left with a diet that if followed for too great a time, a lack of health will begin to build. This is why we do what we do in fighting for commitment to health over weight loss, and long term health over any short term gain.
I have been in this world for 25 years. Too many people end up with big problems, even though they were all about trying to get health, from following the wrong plan.
My people will be destroyed from a lack of knowledge. (paraphrase – Hosea 4:6)
Be well and Be blessed! – Dr. E