20150829 - Ketogenic Diet Working On Year 2
++ +Part way into year two on a Ketogenic diet, breaking the diet only once and a while on business trips. +The diet is basically mostly fat, some protein, with almost no carbs. +
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+Initially established in the 1920s as a way to control seizures for people with epilepsy, +the Ketogenic diet is being successfully used as a metabolic treatment for cancer +by a few individuals, but is largely being ignored by medical professionals. +The diet works by shifting the body's metabolism from glucose (sourced from carbs or converted from excess protein) to ketones produced in the liver (sourced from fat and oil). +The diet has natural anti-inflammatory properties. +The theory of how a Ketogenic diet fights cancer revolves around the idea that cancer is mostly a mitochondrial metabolic disease. +Specifically that cancer cells tend to have damaged mitochondria which switch to a more primitive glucose fulled fermentation as their primary energy generation process. +Starving cancer cells of glucose places them in extreme metabolic stress, allowing the body to fight back. +One of the primary ways to track cancer is by looking at the process of tumor angiogenesis via periodic MRIs with contrast. +Effectively watching over time as the cancer causes the body to develop ever stronger network of blood vessels to feed the cancer with glucose. +Successful treatments of cancer can reverse this process. +I suspect ultimately that everyone has cancer even if only at some undetectable amount. +The question is if the body's balance shifts between a state which enables the cancer to grow, or a state which causes the cancer to die. +Cancer becomes terminal when there is no longer a way to shift back the balance.
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+The Ketogenic diet for me is a lifestyle choice not made out of medical necessity. +My personal tastes tend to really align with the diet, and it is a great way to stay in shape, +more so when you have a career sitting at a desk typing away on keyboards. +Counter to how the media vilifies fat as the source of the nation's obesity problem, +it is near impossible to maintain body fat on the diet which involves mostly eating fat: +the body is in a constant state of fat burning, instead of fat storage. +
+Looking back, it was relatively hard to get started. +The realization that America's entire food culture and supply chain +is optimized for the delivery of carbs, +leaves a demilitarized zone filled with land mines for the oil fueled consumer. +Just finding things which are in the parameters required for the diet can be quite a challenge. +After a while, planning every meal, weighting all ingredients, measuring ketone levels or blood glucose levels, +is replaced with driving by feel alone. +The transition between carb burning and ketone burning body state +goes through a standard process of horrible sugar withdrawal symptoms, bouts of fatigue and brain fog, eventually returning to the feeling of being normal, +but then unaffected by the standard cravings carb eaters have. +The first transition takes weeks, however after being ketone burning for this long, the transition now only takes me a few days. +
+Over time the diet becomes as enjoyable as the standard high-carb diet, +and even more so in many regards, because of the ability to easily take in 70% fat at a given meal (like bacon wrapped sour cream). +Unlike sugar, there is no crash afterwards, and the body provides some rather strong signals to stop eating before you over do it, +instead of telling you to keep going as is the standard practice with sugars. +Here is an example of the kind of foods my wife and I eat: butter on low heat, mixed in spice, garlic, and boiled shrimp. Consumed head, shells and all, with sour cream on the side straight to bring up the fat content,
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