How is it possible to not eat vegatables at all

[Intense]

I need a way to approach an extreme low carb diet without getting deficiencies, i have been having sibo symptoms and need to lose weight and i basically want to cut out carbs forever. 
 

@Leo Gura you talked about literally cutting out all carbs. This means you do not even eat vegetables. How is this possible, is this only for sibo? Would you eat veg if you did not have sibo? Do you  need to take supplements for fiber and other nutrients?

so basically an extreme keto diet would be only healthy fats and protein, So only meat, healthy oils and butter, avocados, and that is basically it. Even nuts would be too much carbs.

I dont see how that could be sustainable, i thought the whole appeal of low carb was to restrict carbs but eat a wide variety of vegetables, meats, and nuts. If you substract vegetables and nuts it is basically carnivore only. 
 

 

[Michael569]

8 hours ago, Intense said:

I dont see how that could be sustainable, i thought the whole appeal of low carb was to restrict carbs but eat a wide variety of vegetables, meats, and nuts.

This pretty much sums up the endeavour. You could probably pull that off for a year or two but your health would start to crumble eventually. This is why you see all these keto and canivore guys adding fruit back on Youtube (or munching on it behind camera view) . It may be challenging to keep up with eating only meat and butter diet without ending up severely sick. 

Maybe you would benefit from eliminating processed carbs and fixing your SIBO on something like a low FODMAP diet and once that is done you could eat all sorts of (good quality) carbs again. The benefit of this approach would be that it is more sustainable and does not usually leave to deficiencies if correctly planned. 

Extreme diets are reserved for therapeutic purposes they were never meant to be complete diets . I'm pretty sure if Leo could eat fruits and vegetables without getting razor blades in his intestines, he would. 

[Intense]

@Michael569 thanks. so how much fruit and veg is minimally required per day ti remain healthy? Because I do want to keep carbs as low as possible

[Leo Gura]

12 hours ago, Intense said:

 

@Leo Gura you talked about literally cutting out all carbs. This means you do not even eat vegetables.

Yup, easily doable.

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How is this possible, is this only for sibo?

I did it for SIBO and other health issues I've been struggling with.

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Would you eat veg if you did not have sibo?

Yes

Veggies are usually good for ya.

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Do you  need to take supplements for fiber and other nutrients?

No.

Protein and fat contain all the nutrients you need. I do take a bit of supplements but I doubt it's necessary.

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so basically an extreme keto diet would be only healthy fats and protein, So only meat, healthy oils and butter, avocados, and that is basically it. Even nuts would be too much carbs.

Research carnivore diet.

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I dont see how that could be sustainable, i thought the whole appeal of low carb was to restrict carbs but eat a wide variety of vegetables, meats, and nuts. If you substract vegetables and nuts it is basically carnivore only.

I don't recommend carnivore diet unless you have some special condition that requires it, like SIBO.

Carnivore will shoot your bad cholesterol through the roof. So be careful.

I do not consider carnivore diet to be healthy long-term. You should try to eat as many fruits and veggies as you can if your body can tolerate them.

[Michael569]

1 hour ago, Intense said:

 thanks. so how much fruit and veg is minimally required per day ti remain healthy

At least 2-4 portions of fruit and at least 3-4 portions (1 portion = 1 cup) of veg. This is the bare minimum to prevent the major disease and hitting the minimum of fibre (20-30g/d) to prevent your microbial colonies from dying out. I would advise more but since you're so adamant on carb avoidance this would be it. 

Then what you can also do is to add more fruits & veg with the lowest glycemic load. That would also be beneficial. 

[How to be wise]

@Michael569 From my research, it seems that fruits are actually unhealthy because of their high sugar level. As for the nutrients, you can simply rely on supplements. I’ve seen many phd’s that recommend cutting out fruits altogether.

[Michael569]

1 hour ago, How to be wise said:

From my research, it seems that fruits are actually unhealthy because of their high sugar level.

What's the source of your research?  Because it probably isn't the majority of the long-term observational and interventional research. The benefits of fruits and vegetables are pretty much undisputable at this point. The sugar concern is not something to worry about as this is not the same type of sugar you get in candy but I won't go into details breaking that apart. 

1 hour ago, How to be wise said:

I’ve seen many phd’s that recommend cutting out fruits altogether.

Damn, imagine spending 150K on your education and then even failing to learn the basics. 

If you want some serious academic research from people who are elbows deep into this stuff look at "The Good Gut" by Justin & Erica Sonnenburg, the Phd researchers into human microbiome and the effects of fibre on our health. "Fiber-Fuelled" is another enlightening read breaking a lot of the dogma and nonsense about carbphobia. Or just any of the lectures on youtube really if you wanna save money. 

Make sure you're not getting influenced by low-carb & carnivore nonsense of the likes of Paul Saladino and Layne Norton, when challenged these guys often fail to come up with reasonable defence and eventually they keep turning to this "ancestral diet" argument which is an absolute bogus at this point. 

[Username]

On 25/10/2021 at 4:42 PM, Leo Gura said:

Carnivore will shoot your bad cholesterol through the roof. So be careful.

Fasting will also rise your LDL. So be careful  

https://www.hcplive.com/view/cholesterol-levels-rise-after-a-24-hour-fast

Your LDL will be higher if your body is using fats as a fuel. LDL isn't a good indicator of CVD.

[How to be wise]

@Leo Gura How about sugar. How could you live without consuming anything sweet? I doubt I could live without sweetening my tea.

[Username]

58 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

@Leo Gura How about sugar. How could you live without consuming anything sweet? I doubt I could live without sweetening my tea.

It is super easy to eliminate sugar almost completely (there are sweeteners so there is no real sacrifice). It's much harder to use it in 'moderation' because it's addictive. I have same issue with coffee. If I start to drink certain amount of caffeine it will go out of control quickly.

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, How to be wise said:

@Leo Gura How about sugar. How could you live without consuming anything sweet? I doubt I could live without sweetening my tea.

It's not fun, that's for sure. But I have done it.

[How to be wise]

@Leo Gura Have you tried stevia? It’s a sugar substitute, but I don’t think it’s carb.

[Michael569]

19 hours ago, Username said:

Fasting will also rise your LDL. So be careful  

https://www.hcplive.com/view/cholesterol-levels-rise-after-a-24-hour-fast

Interesting finding. I wonder what would happen if they kept observing for a few more days. Maybe this was an initial adaptation as glucose and glycogen were depleted and fats were excessively shuttled around the body. Longer-term data would be interesting to see for comparison although this is obviously challenging when you have participants on water fast. 

But an acute elevation of a marker does not mean that that particular marker has no value in diagnosis of chronic disease.

By the same line of thinking we could say that acute increased post-prandial (after meal)  blood glucose is not a useful marker of diabetes and I would agree with you but if you made a statement based on that that "elevated blood glucose is always useless" you would have to assume that it also means "fasted glucose is also useless" which would be incorrect as it is one of the hallmarks for diabetes diagnosis. 

Other examples could be made where acute increase of a marker is not useful but a chronic increase is. Blood pressure would be another one or even some liver enzymes. 

I agree with you that LDL alone isn't a sufficient enough marker for CVD progression but it should not be discounted either. Anyone who shows elevated LDL on multiple tests separated by some time would be incredibly foolish to discount the readings as meaningless. What elevated LDL means is that further investigation is needed and the person needs to know what their HDL, total cholesterol, blood pressure,  fasting glucose, free triglycerides, HbA1C, CRP, ESR and maybe also ApoB is for a full picture of CVD progression (or lack thereof). 

I see this idea of "LDL is not useful because XYZ" in the low-carb community and it is an incredibly dangerous statement to make and to share amount public uneducated about the risks of elevated cardiovascular markers. A person with no understanding of medicine hears this and they're like "oh well maybe it's ok that my cholesterol is up" and they will not see a doctor, not undergo treatment, carry on eating beef and bacon and end up with myocardial infarction in their late 40s because they've been exposed to brainwashing on youtube. 

[Username]

2 hours ago, Michael569 said:

Interesting finding. I wonder what would happen if they kept observing for a few more days. Maybe this was an initial adaptation as glucose and glycogen were depleted and fats were excessively shuttled around the body. Longer-term data would be interesting to see for comparison although this is obviously challenging when you have participants on water fast. 

2 hours ago, Michael569 said:

But an acute elevation of a marker does not mean that that particular marker has no value in diagnosis of chronic disease.

Large buoyant LDL is a fuel carrier and isn't a problem. The issue is that if you measure total LDL it is mostly large buoyant and it doesn't give much information about more dangerous forms of LDL which are smaller. In some cases people might have higher cholesterol and be healthy, and some people with normal cholesterol levels might have too much small dense LDL.

Another paradox is that if you test LDL in a fasted state (this is how it is usually made), person who is fat adapted will get higher levels of cholesterol. LDL itself isn't a direct cause of CDV. I agree that if you have high LDL it is worth to check other makers to be safe.

2 hours ago, Michael569 said:

I see this idea of "LDL is not useful because XYZ" in the low-carb community and it is an incredibly dangerous statement to make and to share amount public uneducated about the risks of elevated cardiovascular markers. A person with no understanding of medicine hears this and they're like "oh well maybe it's ok that my cholesterol is up" and they will not see a doctor, not undergo treatment, carry on eating beef and bacon and end up with myocardial infarction in their late 40s because they've been exposed to brainwashing on youtube. 

Another interesting fact:

"Cholesterol absorption efficiency was lower and cholesterol synthesis was higher in obese subjects with diabetes than in those without diabetes, suggesting that diabetes modulates cholesterol metabolism more than obesity alone."

https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/25/9/1511

The problem is that you lump together opposite groups of diabetes and low carb because of one shared marker - LDL.

I do not hold strong opinion about this subject but it seems to me that issue of LDL is overblown and in many cases dangerous because it impacts dietary choices.

[Michael569]

47 minutes ago, Username said:

In some cases people might have higher cholesterol and be healthy, and some people with normal cholesterol levels might have too much small dense LDL.

Yes, cholesterol particle size does matter to a degree but unfortunately is not part of common screening. Regardless, anyone with elevated LDL should undergo more rigorous testing which includes other essential markers. People with high levels of LDL and non-HDL cholesterol are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease regardless of the mechanism. Blood sugar as well as systemic inflammation need to be explored among other things. 

47 minutes ago, Username said:

Another paradox is that if you test LDL in a fasted state (this is how it is usually made), person who is fat adapted will get higher levels of cholesterol.

Everybody is fat-adapted otherwise we would have died overnight without the ability to switch to temporary ketosis. If any high carb person had their blood measured for ketones after night, there would be some. Whether everybody on ketogenic diet will have increased cholesterol, it would very much depend on what they eat I guess as well as their LDL receptor density and sensitivity and their HDL levels. 

But majority of the population are not on ketogenic diet. For majority of population LDL, cholesterol and blood pressure are extremely sensitive markers of CVD progression and they need to be taken seriously every single time. We are not talking about a tiny group of people biohacking their ketogenesis into superhuman levels (granted, one can pull that of), we are talking about those who will die of cardiovascular disease way before their time. 

47 minutes ago, Username said:

Cholesterol absorption efficiency was lower and cholesterol synthesis was higher in obese subjects with diabetes than in those without diabetes, suggesting that diabetes modulates cholesterol metabolism more than obesity alone."

Few things with this study: 

1. too small -  The increased absorption could also have been down to many other factors that were not confounded for

2. cross sectional study is not enough to infer a causality -> you need interventional studies for that 

3. obese diabetics are not a very relevant reference group where metabolic health is discussed. 

4. In a topic such as CVD, cholesterol, saturated fats etc we cannot appeal to low level of evidence, you need to present strong argument in form of systematic trials and meta analyses on large populations of people. This is like when people try to defend saturated fat consumption with rat studies.

 

Here is a systemic review & meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials on LDL and mortality. 

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29677301/

full study https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5933331/

Look at the forest plot. The therapies aimed at reducing LDL lead to lower mortality and greater outcome. Mind you this study included data from 270 288 over 34 randomized trials (randomized trials > observational studies).

Yes granted people who had over 100mg/dL had better outcomes but that's fairly common to be honest. The higher the LDL the more people respond. This is why all major health organisations suggest to keep LDL below 100, ideally below 70. Because it protects people from dying early. 

You can't get higher level of evidence than this. Now tell me how LDL is irrelevant for majority of the population. 

The higher the LDL in the general population the higher the risk of premature death from cardiovascular causes. It does not matter what small observational studies say. It does not matter what rat studies say. It does not matter what the mechanism is. Increased LDL is a risk factor for all cause mortality. 

 

[Nomad13]

On 10/26/2021 at 11:00 AM, How to be wise said:

@Leo Gura How about sugar. How could you live without consuming anything sweet? I doubt I could live without sweetening my tea.

It’s possible. I used to be addicted to sweets (mint chocolate icecream, werthers candy, tres leche cakes, etc).  Now, I eat one meal a day ~20 gr carb whole food Keto diet. Even with one meal a day, I don’t  have hunger or snack food cravings. Before starting the keto diet, I went on an extended fast to break my addiction to all processed or junk food. 
Dr. Eric Berg’s youtube channel has lots of videos on keto and intermittent fasting that I found useful. I also take Athletic Greens to supplement my diet.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Nomad13

[Nahm]

@Intense

https://www.actualized.org/forum/topic/41823-the-loophole-shake-easy-way-to-change-diet/?do=findComment&comment=521516

[Leo Gura]

On 10/26/2021 at 11:22 PM, How to be wise said:

@Leo Gura Have you tried stevia? It’s a sugar substitute, but I don’t think it’s carb.

Stevia tastes gross to me.

[How to be wise]

@Leo Gura How about sugar alcohols?

[Leo Gura]

21 hours ago, How to be wise said:

@Leo Gura How about sugar alcohols?

They feed SIBO so absolutely not for me.