I got either underfed to the point of fainting, had to rely on expensive restaurant meals and questionable supplements, or had to spent an enormous amount of time on meal preparation.
So either I approached this in a completely wrong way or keto just isn't for "normal" folks like myself with busy schedules.
Not that there's anything wrong with being vegan! But it definitely a minority position.
That's like an omnivore saying they're occasionally vegan because not 100% meals contain meat or dairy?
If it was possible to combine keto, a meat-free diet, and intermittent fasting, without breaking the bank or breaking the body, that would be the dream.
It's your body going into emergency starving mode. It might be good to do every now and then, just like fasting, but it's not normal.
It's not easy for any type of diet and just a few carbs will kick you out of ketosis.
But especially for Vegan, then it's mostly nuts & avocado's you can eat.
Some people have negative knowledge on diets and how the body metabolises foods, yet are ready to share advice on the internet.
Scientific evidence is clear that a whole food, plant-based is the best diet. I mean, it also makes common sense to eat a balanced diet to get all the different macro and micro nutritients, minerals and vitamins.
The "carb is bad!" line is just wrong. Eating one or two slices if fresh, whole weat bread is not unhealthy, it's healthy! It contains a lot of fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals. But of course, eating frozen pizza is unhealthy because it contains jackshit. Carbs != Carbs.
So why do these intermittent fasting, keto and what not diets work? Well, because people just live a silver bullet and quick fix. And many companies and people make a lot of money by selling these alleged quick fixes to people in the form of ready-made meals, books, coachings and what not.
Nobody is getting rich if people would just eat fresh vegetables.
while you are _probably_ correct that a whole food-plant based, balanced diet is the best way, it just does not work for everyone the same way. some might have allergies and intolerances, some might have a microbial gut biome that doesn't do well on certain foods, some might have other medical conditions (i.e. diabetes) which influences things. for all of them, having a "balanced diet" that doesn't fuck them up means different things.
many of those "fad diets" are actually nothing but tricks to actually introduce something that resembles a balanced diet into the lives of people whose diets are critically off. keto doesn't work because people believe in quick fixes, it PROBABLY works because you can't subsist on dougnuts, frozen pizza and beer anymore. suddenly it's water, spinach, broccoli, carrots and nuts for snacking. for those people, "carbs are ok" doesn't just open the door to bread but also to cake.
furthermore, keto wasn't invented by a snake oil salesman to get rich quick, it's been used as a medical intervention for at least a hundred years.
if you had actually read the article it's precisely about the scientific support for "this fad diet" keto for its effects, which actually aren't well understood. it's clearly stated that there are actually benefits for some people suffering from certain mental illnesses. don't just discard that.
And of course, if you've got a gluten allergy regular bread won't work for you. I know that nutrition is not a one-size-fits-all thing.
But you also have to agree that there are many keto snake oil salesmen.
> keto doesn't work because people believe in quick fixes, it PROBABLY works because you can't subsist on dougnuts, frozen pizza and beer anymore.
Yes, that's better formulated than what I did in my comment.
thus critizicing one's diet is like saying: "your religion is trash", which is, not surprisingly, usually not taken well be the other.
in my experience, a healthy diet is mostly about two things: * restricting calories to reach a balanced CI-CO for a bodyweight in the healthy range * allowing caloric restriction without going insane
so it's technically less about the quality of the food (i.e. how healthy your meal ingredients are) and more about feeling satiated long enough to not go crazy from hunger pangs between meals. in practice, those two overlap a great deal: if your meals lack in certain nutrients you tend to become "hungry" - for those missing nutrients, but people on a "bad" diet just eat more of the usual stuff.
apart from that, people have different motives and preferences: there are bodybuilders who can happily scarf down the same prepared meals day in and out and would subsist on cardboard if possible as long as the macros are right. there are the foodies who'd rather starve than eat a meal that's not delicious. women may need other ingredients than men due to different hormone profiles. some people love the simplicity of drinkable meals that contain all the nutrients and don't care for solid food at all anymore, while for others that would be hell on earth.
the potato diet will not work for a gourmand. a low fat diet may not work for women who need certain essential fats more than men. a low carb diet might not work well for an athlete. etc.
This is clearly not backed by science. It's clear that humans need a certain set and quantity of micro nutrients, macro nutrients, minerals and vitamins.
Now, of course, food is not the only factor determining your health. So there are people who only eat french fries and smoke and live to be a hundred, and there are people who eat a balanced diet, work out every day and then die from cancer with 40. But it's all about probabilities. Eating a balanced, whole food diet decreaes your all-cause mortality. And this is not religion, this is science.
Now, of course, every body is different and not nutrition is complicated and not that well-understood on an individual level. And yes, if you have a allergies or other types of reactions to certain foods that are considered healthy in general, you should not eat them.