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scribingintothevoid-blog · 6 years

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The Media Hates My Life

To start, if anyone has any questions about the Ketogenic Diet and doesn’t want to give into mainstream media fearmongering it, feel free to message me on here. I am more than willing to help.

I’ve noticed a trend in everything that I tend to do with my life. At some point, within about 2-4 months after starting it, the media will start attacking it in full force and blissfully with ignorance. From video games, to programming, to computers, to herbalism, and anime. The latest culprit of their offensive? The ketogenic diet.

I started this diet because of one thing and one thing only: I wanted my brain to stop feeling clogged. I wanted to think again. In the first 2 weeks, I lost 20 pounds, all of which I gained from my previous job of security that consumed upwards of 80 hours of my life per week. On top of this, I could think, for the first time in years, i could think and it wasn’t cluttered. I was cooking for myself for once, I was feeling healthy, I was putting on muscle mass, I felt incredible. I kept track of both my macros and my micros, and kept myself healthy without consuming worthless carbs.

So, this diet begins to become the new craze and what happens? The media, the blissfully ignorant media.

I have seen relentless claims of the following: -The diet doesn’t have enough micronutrients -The diet lacks fiber -Our body can’t function without carbs -The diet puts too much strain on our filter organs

So, to begin tackling these I would like to say that in all the guides I have seen online, I have never, NEVER seen one that says anything about the diet avoiding total carbs. It avoids net carbs, which is total minus fiber and sugar alcohols. This means if the product is high in fiber, such as avocados, then the product itself is fine for consumption and will barely go against your daily limit. Sugar alcohols such as erythritol, xylitol, and sorbitol, also do not go against the diet due to how they are digested, and thus can be used as sugar replacements for those with an extra sweet tooth. Yesterday, however, I read an article of a “neuroscientist” stating how dangerous this low carb diet was because it heavily lacks fiber due to fiber being a carb. In less than 2 sentences, not only did I question their credentials, but I questioned if they even researched what they are opposing. I see this shit constantly. Massive claims from “nutritionists” who cling to the dumb ass USDA guidelines as if they were not linked to the obesity epidemic in the US from the moment they were implemented. All of them saying our bodies suffer from ketosis, which they scarily call “starvation mode”, despite the scientific evidence claiming otherwise.

They also claim our diet lacks micronutrients, another ignorant claim, because a fun fact about this diet is that it borderline requires you eat green, leafy vegetables. The same vegetables that are high in basically every single micronutrient we need as humans. Some of the main ones that needs to be tackled are potassium, magnesium, and sodium. Ya know what has these? Almost every vegetable I eat. Pickles have become a snack because they have no carbs and are high in all three micros. Even pickle juice is valuable to myself now due to the levels of micros in it, all of which are electrolytes. The only instance in which something in this diet when it comes to macros should be a concern is actually sodium. See, both the USDA and the WHO state we should have about 2g of salt a day to meet our daily needs. On this diet, that is impossible to survive on, because we are supposed to stay hydrated constantly. The diet is diuretic, and thus it cleans your system by peeing a lot, so you are drinking a ton of water to stay hydrated in the first place. However, urinating depletes you of an important mineral, and that is sodium. If you stayed at the recommended limit from the USDA and the WHO, you would suffer greatly on this diet. But and even funnier thing about those recommendations is that if you stayed on them without the diet, you still have a large margin to suffer. There has been more than enough evidence to show that humans are actually supposed to have 6-11g of sodium a day to meet their bodies sodium needs, and if you try to go over that, your body will begin rejecting it and removing it through urination. So, because of this diet, I have switched to the higher recommendations of sodium because for once I realize I need it and have been deficient all my life.

As for the final two claims, there has been evidence that our bodies actually don’t need a single net carb at all. The idea of ketosis is that instead of burning carbs for glucose, we burn fat, which produces not only glucose, but ketones which are good for the brain and body. This results in not only loss of fat on the body, but an overall improvement in bodily health. Add in exercise and you will see your body begin putting on muscle mass as well. Not even a lot of exercise, like 15-20 minutes a day and it will work. The second claim says that our organs can’t handle this diet, but that is straight up a lie. Our organs work HARDER because of carbs like sugar, because sugar is straight up the devil and terrorizes our body on a regular basis. It causes so many problems that the liver and kidneys have to work extra hard just to contend with it every single time. Net carbs are, for the most part, sugars, and by removing sugars, you essentially purge yourself of one of the most unhealthy substances in the world. Your body is now free to just function, and when it hits ketosis, it functions even better and more powerfully. You relieve your body of the things that harm it, and start supplementing it with the things it needs because when you are lacking in macros and micros, you feel it, and so you respond to it. Net carbs and sugars block this response, causing you to often ignore what you should be eating because it isn’t “sweet”. They cause an addiction, of which sugar has been proven to be highly addictive, and when the food you eat does not contain your addiction, it becomes less appealing. This explains the lack of American diets containing more vegetables overall, and the sweetening of even diet drinks just so people will drink them, because the American population is addicted to the sweetness of sugar.

I need to wrap this up, but I needed to vent. I’m sick of “professionals” on the media straight up lying and fear mongering the keto diet. For a lot of us, it is easy to see why, the foods this diet doesn’t allow are a staple of the American diet, and thus, companies do not want to see their products drop in sales. Rather than adapt and evolve, they want to maintain and control. Our health doesn’t matter to them, only our wallet. With keto, we eat less, and spend less as well. They do not want this. But the media, as always, isn’t on our side. They are on the side of special interests. We have to fight for ourselves, or else we will have already lost.

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scribingintothevoid-blog · 6 years

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I still fucking hate you for what you caused me

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scribingintothevoid-blog · 6 years

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Keto Changed My Life

I posted this on reddit, but I will share it here as well as it is my writing for the day.

"Hey all, new here, not new to keto, but after reading the amazing stories here, I just kinda wanted to share mine, being I'm supposed to write something once a day, this is my writing for the day. Back in September, I listened to an interview between Joe Rogan (Comedian) and Maynard James Keenan (Musician/Artist). I mostly listened for Keenan as he is one of my idols. At a part of the interview, they spoke about how Keenan takes care of his health, and spoke about Jiu Jitsu, as well as the Ketogenic Diet and Intermittent Fasting. This was the first I had heard of either of the latter, and this was the start of turning my life around. Rewind to April of last year. I had moved to a new state, changed my name, and quit my job after a year. I was on a course to figure my life out, to hit reset, after a ton of emotional turmoil from the year before. I moved with my gf at the time to her parents house. 2 weeks later, she broke up with me, and moved out of state, leaving me at her parents house as I tried to figure out what to do through depression. Her family was very kind and helpful to me, and it made it easier, but everything hurt, mentally, and because of that, physically. I was diagnosed in 2014 with fibromyalgia, which is also what got me kicked out of the military, and under extreme stress, the pain goes wild. I was out of shape because of the previous job being about 80 hours a week with almost no benefits, I was already depressed because of my grandfather passing the day before my birthday the year prior, and now I was in the middle of nowhere, with a new name, and no one but her family. I found work back in the old job field I was in, and moved to St. Louis, and this is where it all started. I always wanted to get into game development, and by some miracle, this city has a game dev scene. So I started to go, and that was the little tidbit getting me by until that interview above. After that interview, I went to youtube, and found two channels: Thomas Delauer, and What I've Learned. I started marathoning their channels, learning as much as I could from them. On my birthday at the end of September, I enjoyed my last non-diet beers in memory of my grandfather, and decided that October 1st, it begins, I'm going to either figure out everything and take my life back, or I'm going to find a new way to cope. October 1st, I started with a 6 day water fast with a multivitamin. (I also started a social media purge to remove that from my life, and I only go on social media once a month now to post life updates for friends and family.) It started great, but my job exhausted me a lot, so when I had a day off on the third day, I didn't exercise and my body was mad at me, so I got some symptoms on the list to stop the fast, and so I broke it with eggs and a slice or two of ham. The next day, I went to my ex's parents house (still good friends with them) for dinner, and they made keto tacos for me to sort of celebrate. I got home, and I went shopping that night, it was time to stock my fridge. I didn't know how to cook, so this was daunting to me. I had never in my 25 years cooked anything further than basically mac n cheese and grilled cheese. There were a few meals I had cooked with my parents, but that stuff doesn't really stick. But I figured I had to do it, I was living alone and I had to survive somehow, so this was where I would start. The first thing I wanted to learn to make was my favorite food in the world, cheeseburgers. I got lettuce to replace the buns, and started it up. When I finished and bit into it, I legit thought it was one of the best burgers I had had, but the lettuce annoyed me a bit. I then learned how to make my own buns, and started learning all the substitutes, and was just amazed that I literally never needed to stray away, I could eat everything I loved in a healthier form for my life. After this initial point, I realized a lot of things happening without expecting the level of it all. First, my acne started clearing up. It was never horrible, but it always bugged me, and it started vanishing. Then, for the first time in my life, my facial hair came in even instead of just in patches, which made me entertain the idea of growing it out for once, which I have since and I like it a lot. The 20 lbs I had gained from my previous job literally just vanished. It all dissipated, and suddenly when I looked in the mirror, I had muscle tone. My sleep improved dramatically, and even 6 hours was good enough to keep myself going at a good pace. I realized it was easier to go from "I want to do this" to actually doing it, motivation felt easier than ever before. Lastly, I could think again. I wasn't forgetting things anymore, I was able to retain information, complete thoughts, my speaking cleared up, and most important, I could recall even older memories, which was one of the biggest breaking points of me desperately wanting to keep this diet; I realized how badly my ex had gaslit me because I could finally remember everything she used against me out of context of what I actually said. I was finally able to overcome her, and move forward. The funny thing was, it didn't stop from there. This is a long post already, but I'll sum up the last few parts leading up to now. I finally started learning programming and Japanese like I always wanted to. I quit the job I was in and found a better job in my field for the first time in 3 years. I made a ton of new friends in a group that I finally feel like I fit in with. I replaced all of my time wastes into time valuable efforts, even making my gaming time turn into an effort to write for a blog I befriended. I quit drinking almost entirely outside of social events because feeling dehydrated is hell. The last part was the key thing that essentially brought me back to the diet. The holidays are hell on any diet, too much stuff, so much cheating. I decided, being this was the first time in years I could see family for the holidays, I'd cheat for those weeks, anything goes. It actually started slow, but I realized as time went on, my mind fogged, my energy depleted, I was tired, I felt anxious, and the worst part of all, my feet got cold. A common symptom of Fibromyalgia can often be numbness of the feet, or a cold feeling, as well as sensitivity of the skin. In all that time I was in ketosis, I never once realized that my Fibro was almost entirely gone. I didn't go a day with pain for once in my life, and everything else felt so amazing that I got high on it and forgot I even had fibro. My Dad and Step Mom were starting keto because of me, and when I stayed with them for a week, they saw me degenerate like I did, they knew what was up. I got back home, and slammed back into the diet. My feet aren't cold anymore, my pain is gone, my skin isn't sensitive. Everything has gone back. My dad and I agreed that next time, we just aren't cheating, it isn't worth it, it isn't fun, the food isn't better, the life isn't better. The beer is great, as we both love good beer, but we found ways to work around that instead. As of last monday, it has been 5 years since I shipped to basic for the Army. When I started this diet, I hadn't felt as good as I did since that time. Now that I'm home from the holidays, I feel even better than I ever did in or before the Army. I convinced my mom to switch to keto as well next week, and I've got people at my new job all asking me for info now. 5 years ago, I thought my life was screwed because of fibro, because I was disabled at that point. I found herbalism, and it gave me my ability to walk back, but not my ability not feel pain. Keto gave me everything back, every single thing, and even went as far as giving me the power to finally push and learn code, and this month, I'll be making my first game in a game jam in St. Louis. I never believed I'd have this life, but keto helped me get it. I couldn't be more thankful for anything besides the people who loved and supported me through this all. Its been a wild ride this past year, but I'm excited to see where 2018 goes now. If 3 months of 2017 on keto did all of this, well then, lets see what a year allows me to demolish."

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scribingintothevoid-blog · 6 years

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Tunnel Vision

While I’m sure it is due to a lack of vegetables in my diet setup, or at least a lack of proficient nutrients, something feels off. My brain has hit a sort of state now where I almost feel drunk, as if forward is the only direction I can see, and my mind is rushing like crazy. But I know I’m not drunk, all motor skills function fine, its just the mindset that it feels like it is.

Part of me wants to say I can’t focus, but I can, I’m actually doing great at focusing. I’m capturing all the info from the new job, and staying on top of all the essentials I need right now to get through everything going on. Besides today, I’ve stayed on top of my drinks and workout schedule, and while I know I should eat a bit more tonight in general, I still am eating keto and doing well.

My mind feels like its in such a strange place though. As I write this, part of it is veering, thinking about things off the topic of the writing. I wanted to look into Transcendental Meditation, and the more I think on that on the side as I write this, the more links I seem to make to make that more efficient. I know my caffeine intake went up kind of a lot in the past two days to offset the lack of sleep this job is causing due to a drastic schedule shift, but I don’t feel like that is the cause, because I felt this way even after my early morning bp coffee I have every day. Maybe I’m even further in ketosis than usual, or the effects are heavier than normal. I feel off, almost like I’m not there, like reality is on some sort of auto pilot, but I also feel in some sort of control. This doesn’t feel bad, but idk if it feels good either.

I did notice that I am analyzing my reality.....a lot. Like, the best example I can give is when Benedict Cumberbatch in Sherlock analyzes a room, except I’m doing that to my surroundings so often, that reality feels slightly distant. It isn’t disassociation, I know I’m connected to reality, I know I’m there, I don’t feel disconnected, but as I’m there, everything that happens, I mentally consume, analyze, categorize, and keep it there. Each of my coworkers in training with me I’m analyzing, realizing who will, and who won’t, be staying through multiple ques. One I can’t get a reading on through anything but body language, but even that I feel I’m picking up a lot. Maybe the company itself is making me paranoid because normally a collection agency doesn’t run their business on “empathy”, but they are apparently under contractual obligation to do so, which is even stranger. Maybe I am looking way too far into that, I see no trail of it being a false reality for them yet, but I don’t trust jobs, so I won’t trust this for a while either I’m sure.

This writing is something thats just letting me unwind a bit. I’m so tired, but I feel alive and awake. Perhaps keto didn’t hit me this hard before because I wasn’t so very strict on it, and because I didn’t have something to adhere to the whole time that challenged me mentally, but I do now and it feels like an incredibly worthwhile challenge. If this is what my mind will be pushed into, then I need to practice a better grounding for control. Perhaps meditation will give me that. So much of my routine has not been reinstated because of the sleep schedule, but its on the agenda at least. For now, if this is the new phase of keto I’m going through, I’m quite curious to see what this will do to me. This seems potent, and I wonder if such potency is of value, or is of harm. I’m feeling it is the former.

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