How do I decide what to eat?

Someone offers it and I want to be agreeable = SOCIAL

I like the taste, the flavour/aroma just before it enters my mouth…then the texture, the crunchiness, the mouth-feel (the biochemistry of marketing processed foods) = SENSORY

It reminds me of my childhood when visiting at grandma’s place = FAMILIAL

And foods for special occasions – birthdays, holidays = CULTURAL

All of this happens before it gets to my stomach – in fact, it is mostly happening in my mind.

And primary food category that is a response to these forces is….CARBOHYDRATES!

How do I know what my body wants to eat?

If I make the wrong choice I might not know…

…until an hour later – some signs of indigestion – gas, bloating…

…or by the next day….poor sleep, low energy on waking, difficulty thinking clearly

…or the next month….weight gain, sore joints, fatigue during the day

What do the health professionals tell me to eat?

MEDICAL ADVISOR RECOMMENDATIONS

…eat a balanced diet? What’s that?….just practice moderation? What does that mean?

…then out come the adjectives – whole grains, fresh vegetables, ripe fruit, lean meat…

The conclusion from this?…that I need some of everything – carbohydrates, protein and fats

– 3 meals a day plus healthy snacks = eating 6 times a day!!! Most diabetics eat 6 or more times a day….in fact they are told to do this!

The 3 food groups – sometimes called MacroNutrients – are what nature offers me.

According to 99% of our evolutionary story, carbohydrates are not essential to life !!!!!

Now, if you believe that all things human began just 6,000 years ago and that the Garden of Eden was abundant only in fruits and vegetables then this will prevent you from seeing how early man, in the evolutionary sense depended on fats from animal sources to become the dominant species on the planet.

In fact, most disease states, that we might call the effects of lifestyle choices, are aggravated by the consumption of carbohydrates!

So KETOGENICS is a way to reduce the intake of carbs so my body is less reactive to the production of glucose produced by the carbs. It is a fundamental shift to using fats for fuel rather than carbs that generate glucose. When glucose is limited, the body knows what to do.

My body will look for fats that are stored in the muscles and the liver primarily. Yes! I am carrying reserves of fuel that can be used when I am not eating carbohydrate foods that convert to glucose and trigger an insulin response. Life is much quieter when I eat the right fats first and then find that carbs are not needed at all. Imagine that!

In fact I have a short summary that goes like this: fats for fuel, protein for parts and repair, and carbohydrates are optional as far as sustaining life is concerned. When you add back in all those other reasons for eating certain foods, you might have to make some tough choices. You need a compelling personal reason to do that or you will just succumb to familiar patterns as if you were a helpless victim of your emotions and social environment.

When I initially thought about reducing carbohydrate foods, the first thing that came to mind was bread, in all its forms. It is deeply cultural – ‘breaking bread together’ meant sharing a meal with family or close friends. And then I realized that grains were part of every meal, which includes pasta served hot or cold. Then it got worse – I had to admit that virtually every snack was based on carbs too.

As I was questioning how much sugar I was consuming, it struck me that most grains are quite bland and so get enhanced with sugar in one form or another. So, I just decided to give up all grains – wheat, barley, rye, oats & rice – and I threw corn in for good measure because it is just very high in starch which turns to sugar with little nutritional value.

Immediately, I noticed that I was walking away from an early breakfast and all between-meal snacks. That forced me to put more quality into the two remaining meals. At noon I would enjoy a complex raw food salad with nuts, seeds and a hard-boiled egg. A homemade tahini sauce made it all work. By 4PM, I was hungry again so I started to eat earlier. Now that I am thinking about this, I have to laugh because I had not decided how to get my primary fuel . Here I had begun to seriously reduce carbs, shrink my food window to 6 hours and begin intermittent fasting.

This pattern was only sustainable if I was truly satisfied by the food in my two meals a day. So Keto, for me, has been about leaving some habitual foods behind and finding out I don’t miss them as much I thought I would. I am finally asking my body what it wants and listening to the answers. Let’s discuss this more in the next chapter.

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