A Saucerful of Secrets

Appetizer

The word diet has such a negative connotation. You and your friend will go to a restaurant and order the usual but when you interrupt and say, “I’m avoiding this food now.” You are met with an annoyed look. “You don’t need to lose weight. You look fine!” or “Oh come on, a diet? How long will this last?” What if your answer was “this isn’t a diet, I’m just eating healthier in general.”

In the 1970s, the US recommended everyone to switch to low fat, high carb diet after a study which suggested the theory of a positive correlation between saturated fat intake and weight gain. The magazines of the time heard about this, erroneously stated it as fact, and here we are now, with a steady increase in diabetes and obesity since the 70s. Still to this day in American schools, students are taught to follow the “food pyramid” which says that a majority of our calories should come from carbohydrates and a minority from fat. Now the citizens of the US are the among the fattest in the world.

Before summer I bought a pair of skin-tight skinny jeans. I tried these same jeans after the holiday and was welcomed with a nice problem: the jeans didn’t fit, they were too big. I now needed a belt to wear these same pants and cover my ass. What happened in between? Watching the Joe Rogan podcast which led to changes in what I eat. Not drastic changes, just cutting back on one food group: carbohydrates.

Entrée

The body uses glucose as an energy source and this should not be ignored, but there is a lesser known fact – the body can generate its own glucose. Humans don’t need to consume any sugar to survive, it is merely a luxury. In its present state your body is likely burning sugar and storing fat which is why that weight seems impossible to shake. When one consumes more sugar than the liver can handle, insulin is produced. Repeating this process over and over during a lifetime leads to weight gain and diabetes. If you aren’t producing insulin, you aren’t gaining fat. It’s that simple.

The two rules to live by:

Eat huge amounts of fat, not carbs

Most of your diet should come from fat, whether it be from beef, pork, lamb, or fish. Fat is also found in avocados, coconut oil, olives and nuts among many other foods. Fat has more calories per gram than carbs, will satiate you faster than carbs, and will not spike your blood sugar, unlike carbs.

Nurture you gut biome

Your gut bacteria are crucial to a healthy body and mind. Maintaining good bacteria in the gut can reduce depression, autoimmune responses, fatigue, and anxiety. I was taking medicine for Bipolar disorder for almost a decade, but I no longer do this because my biome has been restored to a healthy state.

To properly feed your gut bacteria, eat fermented foods such as piimä, sauerkraut, pickles, miso, tempeh, kimchi, banana chips, and yogurt. Unfortunately, not all yogurt is beneficial in this way. Fortunately, Finland has made it quite easy, just pick yogurt marked as AB or A+ to be sure it contains the bacteria needed for gut health.

Double down by increasing your fiber intake. Fiber slows down the absorption of sugar in the liver and it can be found in vegetables, rye bread, and fruits (not juice). If you would prefer a list of foods, then google “keto diet” or “insert food here keto”. You will come up with a swarth of results to start with.

Dessert

I am not suggesting a full-blown keto diet because these diets exclude many delicious fruits and vegetables, which contain essential vitamins and minerals. My recommendation is to limit your daily carb intake to a maximum of 30g per day. Replace the carbs with fat. The first two days you may feel cramps as your body excretes the remaining glucose from your muscles but after that life will be very easy. The hardest part will be denying pasta or rice for every meal, but you will find that the less you eat of these foods, the less you desire of them. Soon you will realize that fruit tastes so delicious if you aren’t shooting up your sugar tolerance every day. It is okay to have one or two cheat days per week but if you really want to improve your life I recommend sticking to this plan and I guarantee you will see results in less than one month.