All Kinds Of Keto

It Makes Me Mad!!!

I'm going to start with a rant. Only a small(ish) one. I know I bang on a bit, but this won't take long. The internet is a very powerful tool. It allows the exchange of ideas, communities to form, individuals to help one another. Unfortunately there are a few who seek to run things 'their way', which inevitably leads to misinformation and helps nobody. My commitment on this blog (and all my social media for that matter) is to only offer factual and well researched information that allows informed decisions to be made by anyone who reads on. I won't railroad, judge, preach or offer false information. But I will challenge if the facts are wrong. Not my opinion, but the facts.

How Today's Blog Began....

Having been keto for a long while now, I've been lucky enough to be part of a number of 'communities' of people with like minds. Facebook groups, Instagram feeds, that sort of stuff. Having been out for a walk this morning, I was scanning through a few posts on Facebook in the afternoon. Along it came:

"Can we have diet drinks, like Diet Coke or Lucozade Zero on Keto?"

Simple enough and a reasonable question, clearly coined by someone relatively new to eating Keto. The group where this was posted has about 60k members, so you'll always get a bit of a mixed answer. I pride myself on offering a balanced view and I was one of the first to see this particular post, so I replied:

"In principle, most diet and 'zero' drinks are okay. However just be careful. Fanta Zero, for example, still contains some sugar. Diet Coke on the other hand does not. Fever Tree tonic has similar issues. As with anything it's best to check the label. Some will tell you Aspartame is bad for you, but it's not a sweetener linked to blood sugar spikes so should be okay on dirty keto"

A reasonable response, I felt. Remarkably, fever trees 'light' tonic contains a whopping 3.8g or carbs per 100ml, where the Schweppes equivalent contains none. Doesn't take many of those to sabotage results.

As is often the case on Facebook, two factions immediately formed. The 'clean keto' crowd turned up first. Because the Diet Coke contains chemicals and isn't natural, it doesn't fit with them. They put their point forward. Then come the 'dirty keto' clan. I'll explain clean and dirty keto shortly, but I see both sides of the coin. What wasn't right, was how one particular 'dirty' keto follower chose to put his point forward:

"Don't listen to the keto police. Drink it. I'm 5 stone lighter and I drink it"

This was followed by a carb manager snapshot, clearly showing no carbs in Fanta Zero. Except there are cabs in Fanta Zero - 2.6g in a 500ml bottle. Pop onto any Supermarket website and it's there. I decided to reply, stating that drinking refined sugar isn't really keto and that just because one adult male had lost weight drinking it, doesn't mean it's okay for everyone. The original poster was female, so I explained that typically women find it harder to lose weight and can find their tolerance to carbs lower. I also advised that we are all physiologically different and that the choice should be an informed one for the original poster to make, there was no need to be so direct about it. Finally, I posted the image of the true nutrition for comparison (excuse the scrawl) and pointing out that a litre of Fanta Zero could be a quarter of someone's daily carb intake on Keto. 

It was what came next that got me opening my laptop in a rage. First, I got a swift reply telling me to stop being the keto police and to 'get a grip'. I was then removed from the post, before being ejected from the group and blocked from even being able to see it. For all intents and purposes, it no longer exists to me. I can't see it, can't comment and can't re-join.

Now this doesn't make me mad because of the treatment to me personally. It makes me mad, because the owner of the group has made a decision to censor an open discussion. A group that has grown exponentially in recent days, full of people looking to figure out keto (you can't exactly pay £4.95 a week and sit in a 'Keto group' in a church hall somewhere, can you). What makes me mad is the thought of people questioning why they haven't got the results they wanted on their Keto journey, yet not getting a balanced view. That 60k people can happily be given advice based on one individuals results and it's okay for him to tell others to 'get a grip' if they disagree, before censoring them. It doesn't seem right.

Clean, Dirty, Lazy........

Once the anger above began to subside, I decided it was time to put pen to paper and explain why questions like this divide the Keto community.

There are really only three ways to tackle Keto:

Clean Keto - This is for purists and the ethos is simple. Eating as naturally as possible, avoiding any added ingredients or processed foods. At their most extreme, clean Ketoers wouldn't be anywhere near any diet drinks. They probably wouldn't touch a sausage or any other processed meats. Bacon that is cured with nitrates might be off the menu too. They'd look for whole foods, grass fed, with their fats coming from natural unrefined sources, such as olive oil. As with all Keto followers, they will look to intake no more than 20g of carbs a day. Additionally, however, they'll likely look for 70% of calories from fats and 25% of calories from protein (the other 5% being the carbs but never more than the 20g) whilst watching their calorific intake. This is what is meant by controlling your 'macros' and you'll often see the 70/25/5 split mentioned when talking about this. Clean Keto can often be as much about health as weight loss. A true lifestyle choice.

Dirty Keto - This is for those who are less precious about the ingredients. As always, it's less than 20g of carbs a day. But if a frozen burger says it's 2g of carbs on the packaging, they aren't going to go out of their way to make their own, if they don't want to. Sausages are on the menu, as is pretty much anything as long as it keeps under the daily carb limit. Whilst this is generally proven to work for weight loss, some people find certain ingredients, even in small quantities, can kick them out of ketosis. If the results don't go as planned, it can sometimes be an ingredient causing this (maltodextrin being a good example). It's generally seen much more as a weight loss programme and an easier step into Keto, being less restrictive. They may or may not continue to track their macros, but are often 'Lazy Keto' as well.

Lazy Keto - This is basically just tracking carbs. Lazy Ketoers don't care about calories, fats, proteins, they just keep the carbs under 20g and let ketosis do the rest. I can be an effective route into Keto for those looking for simplicity. It's not without it's pitfalls, but is generally easy to follow.

Taking on board the approaches, you can see how groups might disagree. Some fit clearly in one of the groups above, some blur the lines and sit in the middle. Ultimately, it's every individuals decision how they approach Keto and all approaches should be equally respected.

So There You Have It......

So there it is. The dust has settled and the types of Keto have been explained. 

Me? I started Lazy, purely out of ease. As I got more involved, I've tried to go more towards Clean Keto where I can. I'm not precious, but I now track my macros to see where I am. If there's a cleaner choice that doesn't inconvenience me too much, I'll take it. Sometimes.

Rant complete.....Information conveyed....That's me done for today. 

Time for cake and cream. I'm not sure if it's clean, but it certainly feels dirty.

Good luck for the week ahead!!!

Karl