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Comment by skocznymroczny | Hacker News Reader

An easy way to have self control is to switch to a keto-like diet. You don't even have to count calories and carbs in most cases. There's a variant called lazy keto, where you just stick to approved foods and don't need to count. It's surprisingly hard to overeat on things like cauliflower and pork chops.

Be wary however of the more "extreme" advice on keto-like diets. You don't have to stuff yourself with fats, or put a stick of butter in your coffee.

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This is terrible advice. Any fads are. Ketogenic diets are not good for you in any way.

Bad behaviour starts with acknowledgement and the best way to do that is to track what you eat and learn to adapt slowly and develop self discipline. Use a tracker app and set a reasonable daily break even nutritional target and start thinking about what you eat. Slowly substitute better choices in. Eventually you will develop self control.

People want quick fixes but keto just breaks other things.

What is so bad about keto diet?

The key thing you do in a keto diet, entering a state of ketogenesis, can cause massive complications for diabetic people due to ketoacidosis.

Unfortunately a lot of people who would be interested in dieting and trying out a keto diet are diabetic. It's not always dangerous, but it's generally not a good diet for diabetic people because of this.

This is incorrect. I'm a Type 1 Diabetic and in my opinion keto diet is probably the healthiest diet a diabetic can be on.

Ketoacidosis is a result of extremely high blood sugar for a prolonged period of time combined with ketosis. The reason this happens is that without insulin your body cannot use the sugar in your blood so your blood sugar keeps going up and your body doesn't get any energy out of it.

What happens when your body is out of fuel for a couple of days? It enters ketosis and starts to burn fat. Ketons mixed with sugar in your blood will acidify blood, this is ketoacidosis. It's an extremely dangerous condition.

However, if a diabetic is on keto diet they will have low blood sugar and their body will enter regular ketosis almost eliminating the need for insulin and ensuring a stable healthy blood sugar.

In other words, a diabetic will end up in ketoacidosis if they're bad at controlling their blood sugar, regardless of their diet. However, if they are on keto diet the chance that their blood sugar will be very high is extremely small. High blood sugar is the killer, not ketosis.

I've been doing a keto diet on and off for a number of years. When I'm in ketosis my blood sugar is steady in 80-100 range and I don't need almost any insulin.

Not going to list them here but I suggest you go and do some research of the side effects and risks from actual medical research not HN users.

For me it ended in a few days in hospital.

How?

https://www.ndtv.com/health/top-10-reasons-why-you-should-no...

This is a very low effort, unsourced listicle, that is probably wrong on several points. Disregarding that, I was more curious about how this particular person managed to get hospitalized.

True enough, but it does outline the potential nutritional shortfalls of extreme food regimes, most of which I was aware of. It seemed to sum up most of the obvious shortfalls - I was only passingly interested and this was a low hanging answer. I have seen numerous extreme diets. Many of which are OK in the short term - but not in the longer term. Unless the OP replies - I have no idea in detail what befell him?

Perforated bowel.

How did you get to that point? Diverticulitis?

Constipation believe it or not.

opiate linked? Opiates often paralyze peristalsis = gut walls die and perforate.

Nope I don't take any drugs of any kind. Low fibre in keto diet caused an obstruction and perforation.

Keto can definitely cause constipation under some circumstances, but I'd be dubious about linking it to fibre. Fibre also doesn't count towards carbs, so it's not something that you can't have.

100% this. People often ask me "How do you stick with keto? It's such a strict diet." I always answer: "It's actually one of the easiest diets: the answer to most 'can I eat this?' question is 'no'."

There isn't a persistently high cognitive load on deciding what you can eat, once you master the foundational knowledge of eating low-carb.

I really want to follow it, but what about the bad breath?!

It's definitely a thing, you can smell when people are in ketosis

That usually happens because people use stimulants to accelerate energy burn and it dries you out, and when your body, especially your mouth, get dry, you will get bad breath immediately. If you want to test this out for yourself, try brushing your teeth while you feel very dehydrated. Your breath will smell bad soon after.

isn't that ketoacidosis not ketosis? (i'm genuinely asking )

Yeah, you absolutely don't need to overthink keto once you have a good idea of what foods provide the ideal set of nutrients that you need. You just have to keep those foods stocked, and eat whatever you have on hand when you're hungry, until you stop being hungry. As for avoiding junk food, just STAY OUT OF THE JUNK FOOD AISLE. Don't walk through there, don't daydream about chocolate, make a conscious effort to keep it out of sight, and it will be out of mind. That part takes some self-discipline, but once you make the conscious decision to keep it out of sight, your mind will go wander to some other distraction or stimulus and you will forget about it, and it will become a habit soon.

The truly hardest part of all of this in general is finding a suitable form of substitute stimulus that keeps you from being driven to seek your default vices. The unfortunate part is that there are not a lot of accessible/healthy things in life that provide the adequate stimulus that we seek/need in order to feel "okay". We're drawn towards drugs and junk food and etc because it's easy to acquire and satisfies our needs for stimulus in the short term.

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