jeroboam
3d ago
OP are you testing with keytone strips?
I have tried peeing on some ketone strips but they didn't work or my ketones are too low. Probably the former former since the strips are very old and I've been limiting my carbs pretty strictly.
Depending on who is counting a "keto" diet calls for < 20 or < 50 carbs per day. I am almost certainly in the 20-50 range. I am strict with absolutely no bread or fruit. But there are carbs in everything - even yogurt.
I guess I don't care if I'm in "ketosis" or not. As long as the weight comes off easily. Like I said, I'm not hungry, and I'm not making any effort to restrict calories.
what's your plan for after you finish your initial weight loss?
I plan to go back to normal eating erring on the side of low carb. Once I hit my goal, I'll allow myself to get slightly fatter and then use keto as a maintenance diet perhaps 1 of every 6 months.
jeroboam
4d ago
I'd love to. I have a lot of salads and meat obviously, but I am also enjoying Mission Zero burritos and Keto bread.
Typical day:
Breakfast: Eggs and Bacon
Lunch: Hamburger with keto bun and mashed avocados
Dinner: Shrimp tacos with mission zero burritos
Dessert: Yogurt with whipped cream and keto-friendly chocolate chips
jeroboam
4d ago
Do you think it's something that you would stick with long term, or perhaps cycle on and off of?
I plan on cycling off. But it's nice to have this in my tool kit. Previous dieting was effective but felt like torture. I'll probably do keto from time to time to keep my weight and BF% below a target level.
One point I'll make is that "yo-yo dieting" is bad when people use high-carb, low-protein diets. These diets cause large decreases in muscle mass. This puts the dieter in a bad metabolic state when they stop dieting. Having less muscle mass, they burn fewer calories, and are likely to return to a higher weight than before.
Dieting with adequate protein, and with resistance training, will help me lose weight with a minimum of muscle loss.
I do think there are plenty of, at least decent quality, studies showing carbohydrates are necessary for peak athletic performance.
As a weekend warrior type sportsball athlete, this is something I've noticed. While people can do endurance activities in a state of ketosis, explosive movements tend to suffer. Adequate electrolytes help, and I've also started supplementing with creatine which promises benefits as well. Some suggest consuming a small amount of carbs (5-15 grams) before activities that require explosive movements such as sprinting.
Funny enough, the first time I heard that claim was today, when I was listening to Stem Talk podcast episode #157. The interviewer said that's been largely debunked and that people who consume higher carb content are actually more likely to have screwed up kidneys.
I think it's possible there may be some negatives to the diet, but almost anything is better than the SAD (standard american diet). 10% of the American population is diabetic and about 1/3rd of adults are prediabetic. It's hard to imagine a world in which going from SAD to low carb is going to be bad for your kidneys.
Concerns about cholesterol are also largely overblown. People with "high" total cholesterol at age 65 are more likely to live to 100. LDL/HDL ratio and triglycerides are more important. That said, I do have very high cholesterol already so this is something I will be monitoring.
I plan to take a blood test soon.
jeroboam
4d ago
I'm about 5 weeks into my keto diet and I am loving it. In the past, maintaining a diet was extremely difficult and I was hungry all the time.
Not so this time. I'm down about 10 pounds despite making zero effort to count or restrict my calories. The weight comes off like magic. What's more I love the food, and I'm always full.
I should gone low carb a long time ago, and I don't know why I never did until now. This is no brainer stuff. Everyone I've talked to who has done keto has gotten amazing results. It has a strong scientific basis as well. The people who are most critical seem to have some sort of ideological objection.
Sometimes it really is that easy. There's no need to complicated programs, apps, or calorie counting. Just cut out pretty much all carbs and the weight comes off.
jeroboam
5d ago
It does weaken public perception, I think.
There was one poll recently that had Trump at 52% vs. Biden at 42%, so it's not like the only people who would vote for Trump are his core supporters.
I think Trump is a bad person and a bad President, but this case further updates me in the direction that Trump is the victim of politically motivated lawfare. Not everyone is a committed team player. In fact, independents are a plurality of the population. It's possible that ridiculous decisions such as this one will move the needle at least a little bit. Trump says he's being treated unfairly. That wasn't necessarily obvious before. But here comes clear and obvious evidence of it happening.
jeroboam
5d ago
As our local black pill Nybbler points about below, Rikers is a jail, not a prison, and as such hasn't segregated the population into violent pyschopaths and others.
There are thousands of assaults at Riker's each year, and in 2021, 15 inmates died.
If an otherwise upstanding citizen were to defend himself from rioters using a gun in NYC, he could absolutely end up at Riker's where there is a high chance of being assaulted and a non-trivial chance of death.
Up until that point, either side could have adopted the war.
I generally like this line of reasoning. After all, Trump had first dibs on whether to make Covid right-coded or left-coded. He chose the wrong side, the Democrats went Covid-maximalist, and Trump lost the election as a result.
I don't think the same logic applies here. Republicans couldn't have owned the Ukraine issue. For one, a Democrat is commander in chief. But even more importantly, the Democrats have been making anti-Russia their thing ever since the bogus Russian election interference claims in 2016.
As the opposition party, it's tough to make headway by jumping on the bandwagon led by your opponents. Ukraine was always going to belong to the Democrats.
jeroboam
6d ago
There are few principled peace-lovers on either side. Now that progressives are in charge, they push their wars and conservatives are for peace. When Republicans were dominant in the George W. Bush years, it was the opposite.
Many in the French Revolution were for abolishing the death penalty. It wasn't long before these same idealists were drowning priests in the Vendée. The Soviet congress actually did abolish the death penalty in 1917 before reversing course three months later.
The principled idealists are always in the minority against the bloodthirsty majority for whom there are no bad tactics, only bad targets.
jeroboam
6d ago
I think he's losing mainstream Republicans who were firmly on Ukraine's side before.
Zelensky
I suppose I am using the metonym. By Zelensky, I am referring to the war strategy for the country as a whole.
Are you suggesting that the transwoman was picked as the English spokesperson because she just happened to be the best person for the job? Clearly, there is a culture war angle at play here, and that whoever is calling the shots thinks that these cheap tricks will lead to more funding.
Similarly, Zelensky (actual Zelensky here) is not choosing to wear the ridiculous military fatigues because they are the most comfortable clothing available to him.
A show is being put on, and the audience is not the U.S. people as a whole, but only left wing of the Democratic Party. It's a strategy. I don't think it's the correct one personally. Zelensky should play it more straight. Ukraine is naturally sympathetic here and shouldn't alienate any of their natural allies.
jeroboam
6d ago
The Penn State sex abuse scandal
Was the Penn State sex abuse scandal real? I remember reading a very convincing takedown which suggested that it was not. But of course it's been memory holed.
Does anyone have a link?
jeroboam
6d ago
Zelensky is playing the American culture war. This isn't an indictment of Zelensky, who is in a desperate position. But it's an interesting glimpse into who really matters (and who doesn't). In Zelensky's belief, pandering to the most ridiculous beliefs of American leftists is a winning strategy. I think he's wrong about this, but it's revealing glimpse into the state of affairs.
jeroboam
11d ago
Aren't you basically agreeing with the parent? The extreme elements interact with the mainstream and get some of what they want. The extreme stays extreme, but over time, the mainstream moves further and further to the left, even though they never adopt the extreme policies wholesale.
I just watched a 2008 movie called "Baby Mama" starring Tina Fey.
In the movie, Tina Fey is reading a book about childbirth and is given a "nightmare" by the possibility of her child being a hermaphrodite or, in her words, "a chick with a dick". It's clear that this is being played for laughs even though, like the rest of the movie, it wasn't really funny.
It's crazy how far things have swung in just 15 years.
jeroboam
12d ago
Presumably the whole system works because people lie on their resumes. Not sure why companies would want to optimize for this.
jeroboam
13d ago
You are an outlier. Congrats!
The probability of an obese person attaining normal body weight is very small.
I do think there is model where anyone can go from obese to slim within an extreme amount of exercise. If you're training for long-distance ski races or endurance swimming, you will burn so many calories that no amount of eating can overpower it.
jeroboam
13d ago
People in the 1970s in the US didn't struggle to afford food. Neither do modern day people in Japan.
jeroboam
13d ago
My 1 page infographic will contain just two things: an 800 number that helps people find an Ozempic clinic and instructions for how to use e-Cigarettes. I guarantee success on all metrics.
There is some messaging that will work.
More seriously, people prior to the recent epoch didn't have to struggle to maintain a healthy weight. They just did it naturally. With keto diets, many people lose weight and maintain weight without hunger. In low fat diets, this doesn't generally happen. So there is some value in what you eat, beyond just CICO. I'm not sure that a keto-based infographic would work, but I know that a CICO-based infographic wouldn't.
jeroboam
13d ago
I also experience difficulty with completing workouts on keto.
There might be some options. On /r/ketogains they talk about targeted carb consumption around workouts and also cycling in/out of keto. Since I'm only about 4 weeks in, and the weight loss has been great, I'm just going to deal with bad workouts for now until my body fat gets down to where I want it.
I'd also point out that at 1 week, you are in "keto flu" territory. In the first few days, you lose a lot of water weight and need to consume a lot of electrolytes to compensate. Some people say that long distance work is doable on keto, but you need help for "explosive" activities like sprinting and weightlifting.
jeroboam
13d ago
And a diet that causes hunger and lethargy can never be sustained in the long term. If your body is fighting to return to a higher set point, then you need to fix that somehow. Otherwise you must either be fat or miserable.
At this point, I'll mention that the best diet is never to become fat in the first place.
jeroboam
13d ago
At this point I have to ask, what are your numbers and where are you getting them from? The demands for rigor are all coming from one direction. What is the evidence that CICO diet messaging has any value in the long term? What's the evidence that you can lose weight with CICO and not experience hunger or lethargy?
CICO is the current bog standard advice. The results over the general population are miserable. I also want to know, do you even believe it works?
Let's say that you, as a trusted authority figure, are given the opportunity to design a 1 page infographic. This infographic will be distributed to everyone in your country who has expressed a sincere desire to lose weight. In 10 years, you will be measured by the BMI, mordibity, and diabetes level of your cohort. What do you put on your infographic? Do you really think CICO messaging will have any positive effect?
My position (half of which I agree is unsupported by the linked article) is that maintaining a caloric deficit OR maintaining a low weight will cause lethargy and therefore reduced energy expenditure in people who are disposed to obesity.
The person (from the article) who is burning 800 calories fewer than a similar person their same size is going to find it nearly impossible time to maintain their weight. They are always hungry and tired. You might be happy at 2000 calories/day. How would you fare at 1200?
On a trivial level, CICO is correct. As far as I know, no one is saying that CICO doesn't work if you have full control of a person's eating and activity levels. Where is fails for most people is that dieting causes the body's homeostatis to be thrown out of whack, leading the body to compensate with higher hunger levels and higher lethargy. These signals are quite difficult to ignore for long periods, leading to the failures we see in nearly all dieting programs.
Keep in mind that a surplus of 35 calories per day will lead to an additional 36.5 POUNDS of weight gain per decade. To prevent this, the body maintains homeostatis by controlling hunger and energy levels. Until quite recently, most people maintained this homestatis effortlessly. Now, many people cannot. They naturally gain weight unless they maintain strict diet and exercise programs. Keep in mind just how small of a caloric surplus is necessary to result in obesity. A 200 pound person who eats an extra cookie every day will balloon to 300 pounds within a few years. Fortunately, their body sends the satiety hunger signals to prevent this.
I'm interested if you have any substantive disagreement with any of this.
No, she's being selected to represent the median Democratic voter, or even the median Democratic activist/fund raiser.
Despite California's reputation for being on the loony left, that characterization is more about the political class than it is about the increasingly Hispanic population. 57% of Californian's are pro-choice with 38% believing that abortion should be illegal.
Few will have views as extreme as an abortion activist.
You are are correct that in Alabama, a vacancy would likely be appointed by someone equally on the right, but let's not pretend this represents an average voter in any way.
If a governmor is going to making an appointment where people don't get to vote, one would hope for a more conciliatory choice, even if we would never expect it from Newsom. Using race and gender as the overriding factors feels icky to me as well.
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