sugar

Keto Case Study #4–Stay Away from Gurus!

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This is the final post for now about the problems with following the so-called “ketogenic” diet. Today I’m addressing some issues I’ve discovered with one of the leading keto gurus, Eric Berg DC. Note that I don’t call him “Dr.” Berg, even though that’s what his YouTube channel, his books, his website and his ads call him. HE IS NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR. HE’S A CHIROPRACTOR. Sorry. I try to steer clear of all-caps ranting, but sometimes it’s just necessary.

Just a reminder: the “case study” I’m using is that of the blogger who runs the Addicted2Decoraing website. She says in a post titled  “The Personal Stuff: A New Furry Family Member, More Keto Info, and What I’m Listening To” that one of her five ways to get started on the ketogenic diet is:

Find one keto expert you like and trust, and stick with him or her.

And the “expert” she’s decided to follow is Eric Berg DC. Now why on earth would you want to “stick with” just one source? That makes no sense. The best way to get a balanced view of any topic is to consult multiple sources, checking out the discrepancies that you find. Then you make your own well-informed decisions. Otherwise you’re just outsourcing your choices. (And, as I’ve said before, I love this blog, follow it faithfully, and totally respect its author. She’s so independent in her decorating choices that I find it very puzzling that she’s willing to blindly follow anyone about her health choices.)

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A Keto Case Study, Part Two

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I left off the last post with a description of how habits work. As we keep repeating an action we wear a neurological groove, making the action easier and more automatic every time we perform it. If you read Charles Duhigg’s book that I referenced yesterday you’ll learn about one way to disrupt a habit: basically, you have to figure out what the reward is and then substitute a new routine that will give you the same result without the negative consequences. For instance, and this is quite relevant here because it’s about eating, Duhigg analyzes the habit he’d formed of going down to the cafeteria every workday afternoon and getting a cookie. He gained five pounds, his wife let him know that she disapproved, and he set himself the task of changing the habit. What did he really want as his reward? he asked himself. Was it satisfaction of true hunger? Then he could eat an apple. Was it a shot of energy? Then he could get a cup of coffee. Or, perhaps less intuitively, did he just need a break, a chance to interact with people after sitting in front of his computer for several hours? He decided that last one was it. So he started getting up from his desk and looking for a chance to chat with people when the mid-afternoon munchies hit. (I haven’t gone back and re-read the relevant section, but I don’t believe he just started interrupting his co-workers as they were trying to concentrate.) He successfully changed his cookie habit. You can also simply remove the cue, if that’s possible. So that bag of cookies in your pantry that tempts you every time you open the door should just go. If the cookies aren’t there, you can’t eat them.

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My Boring Principles for Eating Well

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I could distill my boring principles for eating well into the following short statements:

1. Eat a decent breakfast.

2. Do not eat anything else until lunch.

3. Eat a decent lunch.

4. Do not eat anything else until dinner.

5. Eat a decent dinner.

6. Do not eat anything else until breakfast.

7. Don’t drink sugared beverages and drink lots of water.

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The Thanksgiving Post-Mortem

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Roast Turkey just out of the ovenHow was your Thanksgiving? I have to say that this was one of the nicest I can remember in an unbroken string of enjoyable holidays. We had our 15 people who ate, played games, talked, watched college football, and hung around for a long time. That’s always my yardstick for measuring how successful a party is.

But since I’ve been writing about the food, I’m going to tell you how that part went. Also, if you don’t particularly care about my results, at least scroll down and read about the two things you shouldn’t do when cooking a turkey. As I said in an earlier post, this is a bit late for Thanksgiving but you may end up having a turkey for Christmas too. (I’m hoping to be asked to do some cooking for that meal, too.)

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What I Had for Lunch Yesterday

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I said in a recent post that I was planning to scale back on my regular what’s-going-on-with-my-life posts and invest my time in projects that I hope will actually make a difference to my readers. One such is a set of videos on various topics concerning healthy eating. I also said that I might start some once-in-awhile posts about “what I ate today.” This is the first of those. They won’t be on any kind of regular schedule; they’ll just show up when I think a specific meal is particularly good and easy to make. (I remembered as I was writing this that I did include a picture and recipe for a lunchtime salad several years ago in connection with a memoir by the chef Nora Pouillon. Scroll down to the bottom of that post for that material.)

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Are You Guilty of Being an “Evil Donut Bringer”?

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Well, it’s getting to be somewhat of a tradition that on Wednesday I write about something that piqued my interest on the Gretchen Rubin/Liz Craft podcast, “Happier.” Today the two sisters were doing an anniversary special and revisiting some popular ideas from the past year. One of those was that of the “evil donut bringer,” that person in the office who brings in treats that tempt people who shouldn’t eat them. Liz is a Type 1 diabetic, so it’s especially important that she strictly limit sweets. But all of us have had the experience of repeatedly walking past a plate of something we know we shouldn’t eat, resisting and resisting, until finally, on the tenth pass, we reach out and grab that cupcake. We do our best to ignore that bowl of candy on a co-worker’s desk but (especially if it’s mini Reese’s peanut-butter cups), again, it’s all too easy to finally give in.

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You Crave What You Eat.

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If I eat this I'll crave it!Interesting quotation from Anne Lamott in today’s Washington Post, “A Few Quick Thoughts on that Diet You Are About to Fail.” (I’ve read her non-fiction books but could never get into the one novel of hers that I tried. She can be pretty strong stuff, both in subject matter and language, but I have really enjoyed Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, and Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son’s First Son.

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Food Fads Debunked

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The Gluten Lie and The Gluten Lie book b Alan LevinovitzOther Myths about What You Eat by Alan Levinovitz, Ph.D., originally published in 2015 by Regan Arts, now available in a variety of formats. (Book image and title are both affiliate links; if you click through to the Amazon page and buy the book there I will earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.)

I first became aware of this book because its author was featured on the Freakonomics Radio podcast, to which you should subscribe and faithfully listen. (And then you should read the Freakonomics book, Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything.

Anyway, the author of this book, Alan Levinovitz, was interviewed not too long ago on the show, and since I’m a total fan of any author who wants to punch a hole in our society’s various food fads and manias, I made sure to get hold of his book.

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My Personal Clean Slate

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clean blackboardHave you ever heard the proverb “Begin as you mean to go on”? It means that beginnings count. How you start is how you’ll continue. New beginnings are a way to start over. Gretchen Rubin (there she is again!) calls it “the strategy of the clean slate” in her book on habits. (The link is to a video she did on the subject.)

So, although I didn’t plan it that way, I started out in our new life here at Lowell & Jan’s with a clean slate about food: I just wasn’t going to eat any sweets.

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