Ketovore, anyone?

Magna

Administrator
Although these diets are loosely defined, roughly speaking the keto diet is low carbs and plant based. The carnivore diet is also low carbs, but high fat and (mostly) beef based. The ketovore diet fits somewhere in between being lowish carbs along with high fat and mixed animal based. So it's kinda carnivore lite.

I've been on the ketovore diet for the past year. Basically it comes down to eliminating the majority of carbohydrates, avoiding vegetable oils, abstaining from overly processed foods, minimizing sugar, and mostly eating meat, bacon, and eggs. True carnivores stick with seafood and ruminant animals (ie, cattle, sheep, deer, goats, bison, etc.) which chew their cud and have multi-chambered stomachs. As opposed to chickens, pigs, horses, dogs, cats, etc. which have single stomachs like humans. I eat a mix of meat including beef, pork, and chicken.

Anyway, I was in pretty good shape to begin with, and did not embark on this to lose weight but to improve overall health and make sure I stay off Dr. Ovadia's proverbial operating table. Within a few months I had dropped over 20 lbs, lost most of my visceral (ie, belly) fat, slept better, reduced inflammation, and my blood test results drastically improved (ie, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, A1c).

I combine it with intermittent fasting which is simply eating all meals on a 8/16 schedule which means only eat between, say, 10a-6p (8 hrs) and don't eat ANYTHING from 6p-10a (16 hrs). That allows the body time to more fully process the food, recover and renew itself. The real hardcore intermittent fasters do 6/18 instead, generally eating only between 12p-6p.

Not saying it's for everybody, but I've found the ketovore diet a significant improvement over the standard "healthy" diet which we've been force-fed (pun intended) since birth. If you do a YouTube search of carnivore (or ketovore) you'll get a huge number of hits, and sometimes it's tough to separate the wheat from the chaff. However, you can often find answers to questions like "what about roughage?" and "how can eating high fat diet cause you to lose weight?" and "is salt dangerous?" and "does red meat clog up your system?" etc. etc.
 
Don't eat too much protein at one time due to gluconeogenesis. Big failure of a lot of keto diets is assuming that high protein is good for weight loss.
 
my blood test results drastically improved (ie, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, A1c).
The fact that your cholesterol and triglycerides improved while eating a relatively high-fat diet is amazing. Combining that diet with intermittent fasting is brilliant. What a way to lose weight without making yourself miserable.
 
My simple eating plan

eat
homemade probiotic food yogurt, natto bean, kimchi/sauerkraut
homemade braised meat (with spices like ginger, aniseed, garlic, pepper ....)
wholemeal flour/rice/chia seed
everyday unless I am not at home


don't eat toxic food / ultra-processed food like
confectionery / cookies / cakes / pastry
ready-made food / fast food
food with vegetable oil / margarine / hydrogenated food
unless I am starving


don't drink life-shortening
sugary drink / soda
fruit juice from the factory
even if I am dying from thirst.


There are also other healthy and not-so-healthy foods which I eat.
But I don't really bother about the amount I eat.



We should do our own Food Quality Pareto Analysis of the food we eat.
And avoid eating the top few most toxic foods.
 
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Cholesterol concerns for most people is fear mongering by big pharma to sell more pills IMO.
20 BILLION dollars worth of statins sold each year.
Can provide plenty more doctor opinions if wanted.

https://x.com/MindDynamo/status/1785362997868712344
https://x.com/snjegi333/status/1785285162340659301
https://x.com/Thekeksociety/status/1785629489076019284
https://x.com/_AshleyRichmond/status/1785950098502873469 (thread)
Maybe, but " lowering LDL cholesterol reduces our risk of death overall and from heart attacks and strokes, regardless of age" according to
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informations...ntial for your,disease,heart attack andstroke.
Flawed cholesterol study makes headlines
statins-300x196-noexp.jpg

A controversial study has argued that if you have a high LDL (bad) cholesterol level when you are aged over 60, you will live longer, there is no increased risk of cardiovascular disease and that statins will have little effect. But can we trust these bold claims?

The researchers, led by Dr Uffe Ravnskov at the University of Lund, Sweden, looked at 19 existing studies which considered the association between ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol levels and the overall risk of death in people aged over 60. They concluded that 92 percent of people with a high cholesterol level lived longer, and called for a re-evaluation of the guidelines for cardiovascular prevention, “in particular because the benefits from statin treatment have been exaggerated.”

Cholesterol is essential for your body to work, although too much ‘bad cholesterol’ (called low-density lipoprotein or LDL) can lead to fatty deposits building up in your arteries. These fatty deposits can increase your risk of developing conditions such ascoronary heart disease,heart attack andstroke.

Statins are drugs that lower your body’s cholesterol level. They work by reducing the production of cholesterol in the liver and therefore reduce your risk of heart disease.

Reliable research?
The total number of people involved in the study was nearly 70,000, but only 9 of the 19 studies actually included deaths from heart and circulatory disease.

Moreover, two-thirds of the total number of participants in this new analysis are from one study (Bathum et al 2013). This study found that higher cholesterol (total, HDL, or LDL) in people aged 50+ was associated with a lower all-cause mortality. That study also showed that taking a statin prescription provided a significant survival benefit, regardless of age, whereas the researchers in this new analysis are using it to argue against statins.

They relied on limited, aggregated and inconsistent information …an approach liable to bias

John Danesh
BHF Professor of Epidemiology

Furthermore, the research, published in the BMJ Open journal, has been deemed unbalanced due to what John Danesh, BHF Professor of Epidemiology said was “crude study methods”. This is because their analysis "relied on limited, aggregated and inconsistent information from published sources, an approach liable to bias.”

Similarly Colin Baigent, of the University of Oxford, has described the study as reaching “completely the wrong conclusion. In fact, we know that cholesterol is just as important as a cause of heart disease in older people as it is in the young. We know this because of the evidence from all the randomized trials of statin therapy, which collectively have studied substantial numbers of older people.”

The authors themselves said that “We may have overlooked relevant studies as we only searched PubMed” (an online search for medical publications), and they may have excluded studies that evaluated LDL-C as a risk factor for death, if the study did not mention it in the title or abstract. “We may have overlooked a small number of relevant studies because we only searched papers in English,” they added.

Dr Tim Chico, a consultant cardiologist at Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, said there are several studies that has shown lowering cholesterol using a drug does reduce the risk of heart disease in the elderly. He said: “I am surprised the authors of this study do not refer to such trials, which tends to make their own paper disappointingly unbalanced.”

Evidence from large clinical trials demonstrates very clearly that lowering LDL cholesterol reduces our risk of death overall

Professor Jeremy Pearson
BHF Associate Medical Director

Some of the participants in the study with high cholesterol may have started statins during the study, and therefore their high life expectancy could be due to them being on statins. Similarly, some of them may have started a healthy diet during the study, and this could have increased their life expectancy.

At least five of the study authors have previously written books questioning the links between cholesterol and heart disease. The lead author Dr Uffe Ravnskov, has written a book called ‘The Cholesterol Myths: Exposing the Fallacy that Saturated Fat and Cholesterol Cause Heart Disease’. Another of the authors, London cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra, is a prominent campaigner against statins.

The BHF View
Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “As we get older, many more factors determine our overall health, making the impact of high cholesterol levels less easy to detect.

"The evidence from large clinical trials demonstrates very clearly that lowering LDL cholesterol reduces our risk of death overall and from heart attacks and strokes, regardless of age. There is nothing in the current paper to support the authors’ suggestions that the studies they reviewed cast doubt on the idea that LDL cholesterol is a major cause of heart disease or that guidelines on LDL reduction in the elderly need re-evaluating.”

The media coverage
The story was covered by the Daily Mail, Guardian, Independent, Telegraph, BBC Radio Four and others. The Daily Mail headline ‘Statins 'may be a waste of time': Controversial report claims there's NO link between 'bad cholesterol' and heart disease’ did at least include the word ‘controversial’, rather than present the evidence as fact, while The Times’ headline Bad cholesterol ‘helps you live longer’ was arguably less balanced.

Much of the news coverage did show the controversy that the report has caused, although in some cases this was not mentioned till most of the way through the article.

It is important that people at high risk of a heart attack or stroke take their prescribed medication. Individuals can assess their cardiovascular risk and find information about how to reduce it using the Heart Age Tool, developed by the BHF, Public Health England, NHS Choices and Joint British Societies.

If someone is unsure about their heart medicines, they can speak with their GP or contact our Heart Helpline.
 
My total c has been creeping up (age, gear?) over the years but my lipids are good.
 

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The heart-surgeon Dr. Ovadia (besides his book on Amazon that I linked to, he is frequently interviewed on YouTube) lists a simple 5-condition test to determine your overall metabolic health. He says only 12% of the people in the US pass all 5. And if 3+ are abnormal then you have what is called Metabolic Syndrome.

1. waist circumference < 40"
2. blood pressure < 130/85
3. fasting blood glucose < 100
4. HDL cholesterol > 40
5. fasting triglycerides < 150

For #1 use a flexible tailor's tape and go right on top of your belly-button which is the largest measurement ─ don't cheat by checking nearby to get a smaller number. An alternate, and slightly better indicator, is to measure your waist ÷ height and get the W/H ratio ─ you want it to be ≤ .53. If you go that route be sure to get an accurate current measurement of your height, not something you remember from your high school days. Finally, to be useful in this determination #4 and #5 are not valid if you are taking statins.
 
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