Week Six - JNL Challenge and ketogenic dieting

This is something that I push to my clients, and yet even I struggle when I don't get the proper nutrition. It makes my desire to workout just gone, and I have to push myself to put in the DVD and get going. Once I'm in, I'm all in the moment of bliss that I get from working. It's just that I don't feel it enough to want to do it.

I know that I talked a little about a low ketogenic diet for bipolar yesterday, but I also wanted to share that a study at Arizona State University found that a very low carbohydrate diet in many of us could enhance fatigue and reduce the desire to exercise after just two weeks on the diet. But some people generally do better with a lower carb diet, or at least just picking the right carbs. In other words juicing is not for everyone. What do I mean? Let me share what I think has been effecting my general state of mood this week... too much juice.

What is ketosis and ketogenic dieting?

Ketosis is when your body is burning primarily fats or fuel. This requires you to eat a very clean, low dietary carbohydrate intake. A juice fast requires you to consume practically all carbohydrates. For me, if I'm juicing I can't do just juice. I tried it, complete fail. I find myself starved. So of course I thought why not add in some great stir-frys with coconut oil and veggies. Or some yummy salads with lots of good fats to keep my brain on track. Guess what... what that actually does is shut down your fat burning, move to sugars to burn, and then you store all of those good fats you are taking in... completely messing up the vision you had created for your health. This got me really investigating and looking into why I was not doing well with juice, I do well when I blend, but then I add in a lot more fats. Thus I started thinking about a more vegetarian ketogenic dieting platform that would be a very, clean way of eating.

I used to wonder why I was a tiny little size 2 when I was eating loads of vegetables, fats, and rice. The rice was really my only 'grain' that I was taking in, but isn't rice supposed to make you fat? Apparently when I was eating like that, I was following more of what you would see in Asia with ketogenic dieting. The normal diet there will include rice and noodles as the main energy source, but the good MCT-oil is what makes it work. Paul Jaminet has said that the cooked white rice and potatoes are actually good toxic-free safe-carbs. He said, “The concept of “safe starches” has nothing to do with their glucose content. “Safe starch” is a term of our invention and refers to any starchy food which, after normal cooking, lacks toxins, chiefly protein toxins. We do not consider glucose to be a toxin, though it may become toxic in hyperglycemia.” So maybe that was the secret to my success all of those years ago. 

I've read that doing this vegeo-keto diet with the 5:2 fasting can really raise your HDL levels, which is the good cholesterol that you want. The average hunter-gatherer ancestor ate about 20% carbs, 65% fat and only 15% protein in their diet. It seems very close to what I've been doing, but I believe I haven't been getting enough fats, and I haven't been getting enough good "safe carbs" and so I'm going to give that a trial and let you all know how I do in the future. This is just what I would term as being more "clean" in the clean eating world. What do you think? I'd love to have you give your input.