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Comment by fredsted | Hacker News Reader

I don't doubt this works, but I'd rather do e.g. keto where I can eat delicious meals and still feel fully satiated.

Good for you! Keto doesn't work like that for me. We need many different diets that work for some people, because no diet works for everyone.

I assume it depends on your gut microbiome and physical habits.

Or just preference. I just would be bored and unsatisfied on a real keto diet, I'd rather fast or die an extremely low cal diet on raw veggies.

I agree, keto is probably uniquely suited for my lifestyle and tastes. YMMV as they say.

I did this for a year. Its not sustainable, you'll loose muscle mass.

I eat potatoes daily now, but not exclusively - complex carbs are harder to burn, so they are fattening, so I have gained some weight. Maybe I'll eliminate the rice and see how that goes.

I'd recommend against olive oil and for coconut oil, frying potatoes needs a lot of heat. Add parsley, bacon, caraway, onions and serve with pickled white cabbage. Good & simple!

Interesting. I am one year on mostly keto and lost all excessive fat and gained a lot (!) of muscle. And I seem to be burning fat and gain muscle at the same time.

One thing to note, I am not sure why would you suggest to remove olive oil. All the research (I’ve seen) suggests that olive oil is really good for humans

Did you start sedentary and with a bit of extra weight? It would make sense if you started strength training at the same time and benefited from 'noob gains'

Also the other fellow might be referencing EVOO's low smoke point, it's true there isn't much point using it for high heat cooking.

My sport is cycling, when I started on keto my power metrics jumped up, from an FTP of about 220 W in August 2021 to currently 276 W, where it's plateaued for the last few months. My legs are also visibly much bigger and harder.

I get the feeling that it is possible to gain muscle on keto, it's just being low-carb doesn't lend itself to high-intensity efforts, so at some point you just can't put out enough effort to damage your muscles any further.

I've recently starting eating carbs on days where I'm doing 80+ km and the difference is astonishing, I've set PRs up hills at the end of 100 km rides and I'm approaching being able to do 100 km solo at 32 km/h, where before on strict keto I'd start getting very lethargic after just 50 km.

I imagine there's probably some direct impact to muscle anabolism as well, since the anabolic hormone insulin has a low and stable profile on keto. Really interesting though to hear how your power increased.

Taking carbs on big effort days seems like the best of both worlds, fat adapted but able to take advantage of both energy systems. I think on Inigo san Milan's first appearance on Peter Attia's podcast they got into this a bit, also mentioned that high level fat adapted cyclists could do a few hundred grams of carbs in a day and still maintain ketosis

EVOO? Extra virgin especially low, and also a waste of money using it for cooking. I don't use even cheap olive oil for anything hotter than say medium-high frying or grilling. Unless you're in Italy, where perhaps it's (at the low end) dominant cheap oil, otherwise (or if olivey flavour not desired) I'd suggest something cheap flavourless & high-smoke point, exactly what varies by region - sunflower, rapeseed, mustard, whatever.

I am 175cm. Went from 80 kg to 66 in 6 months or less. Then I plateaued and was around 67kg. Still had excessive fat tissue, but not a lot. Was sedentary, couldn't even do 1 pull around March 15. No I am ~70kg, with less fat tissue and doing 5/5/5 pull ups with 5KG added.

So def. noob gains. But I also see that fat tissue is burning (slowly but surely) and muscles are growing. Lifting, no cardio or HIIT.

Yeah, I meant EVOO in general. Great for salads, maybe not so much for frying :)

Olive oil, coconut oil, lard and butter are all recommended for cooking, but not all of them are suitable for high heat.

Which ones? The milk solids in the butter will obviously burn, but the others seem about as suitable as anything can get.

Yes, ghee would be better than butter, and I wouldn't use olive oil for high-temperature frying. Coconut oil and beef tallow very suitable.

What’s wrong with olive?

Oils go rancid by premature oxidation of the fat. Saturated fat is least susceptible to this, polyunsaturated oil the most. Rancid fat is quite toxic and will suppress the immune system, slow metabolism and cause other issues.

Butter and coconut oil are nearly 100% saturated fats, with 2-3% PUFA. Olive oil is a bit higher in PUFA, 8-11%, so it decomposes more easily when heated up.

Consider that olive oil is one of the most counterfeited products in the world. It is very common for producers (Greece, Italy, Macedonia etc) to add low-quality seed oils, and this is hard to detect. Research the price of olives, the amount of olives needed for one liter of olive oil, and the price olive oil sells for in supermarkets - it doesn't add up.

> complex carbs are harder to burn, so they are fattening, so I have gained some weight.

That isn't how it works. A calorie of complex carbs is the same energy as a calorie worth of glucose.

> Its not sustainable, you'll loose muscle mass.

It worked well for me, my endurance in e.g. cycling improved. However usually stay on it about half a year to lose extra weight and then go back to a "regular" diet.

Can keto meals really be described as "delicious"?

I mean, I love the taste of butter, cream, marbled steaks and pork fat, but when you have to consume whipping cream as a beverage it sounds absolutely nauseating.

You could drink water instead.

Sure, but then the same fat has to be consumed in solid form instead.

When kids are put on the diet for epilepsy they make them chug cream and mayonnaise, not exactly my idea of a delicious meal: https://www.epilepsy.com/treatment/dietary-therapies/ketogen...?

I didn't consume whipping cream except when making sauces.

Keto meals CAN be amazingly delicious, but at the same time extremely unhealthy.

Here in Mexico we have a large number of keto friendly recipes, but the amount of saturated fats in them guarantee a heart attack.

- carnitas - barbacoa - birria - queso fundido - taquiqueso

Among many others

I eat and enjoy quite a lot of Mexican food and all of it has way too much protein and carbs to put you in ketosis. We’re talking about getting 90% of all calories from fat here, I seriously doubt many if any Mexican recipes at all are that fatty.

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