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Pros and cons. Keto diet
Hello B and Daniel. I’d like to know your opening on keto diet.
I was never convinced especially with the lack of fibres and many veggies but I’d love to know if you ever would recommend it and to whom?Also, any supplement that would help the peri-menopause belly and weight gain at this stage? -
2 Replies
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Hey @KK,
When I recommend diets, it’s usually based on what that person would work on. For example, suppose someone has a lot of trouble balancing blood sugars (for example, when somebody has Type 2 Diabetes) and the ability of the pancreas to produce insulin is impaired. In that case, I might strategically choose to give the pancreas a break with a ketogenic diet. Not forever, but enough to destress the pancreas to allow it to heal.
If someone likes a ketogenic diet and decides to stick to it, I would say: go for it.
Another discussion is how the ketogenic diet is implemented. For me, a good implementation of a ketogenic diet goes beyond removing carbs and focusing on fats and proteins. The quality of the fats and proteins is equally important. I usually recommend eliminating all sweetened beverages and all-grain flours with a strong focus on vegetables, nuts/seeds, healthy fat sources, and moderate amounts of low-carb organic fruits.
I would recommend eating non-starchy fibre-rich vegetables. Fibres are consumed by the microbiome and are converted to short-chain fatty acids like butyrate. Although technically fibres are carbs (and we used to think they were undigestable), a degree of fibres does get broken down and absorbed as fat. Examples of non-starchy fibre-rich foods that could fit into a ketogenic diet are artichoke, leafy greens and nuts like hazelnuts, pecans and macadamia nuts.
Would I recommend keto to everyone who has insulin resistance? The degree of insulin resistance plays another role. One person might need a more drastic reduction in carbs than the other. For one person it might be enough to reduce the fast digestible carbs and focus more on slower carbs, for the other person such an intervention is not enough.
Supplements peri-menopause
In perimenopause, the female hormone ‘dance’ changes. Progesterone slowly declines, which can make women more sensitive to changes in estrogen. In the B Better library, you can find a protocol that has helped many. You can find it here.I find lifestyle recommendations in this case extremely powerful as well.
The body goes through a change. Other things (besides perimenopause) that throw female hormones out of balance as well can have more impact. For example, in perimenopause production of progesterone slowly goes down. Other stuff that lowers progesterone will have more impact, like:
Stress
Hypothyroidism
Low cholesterol
PCOS (in these cases improving insulin resistance, if there is insulin resistance at play, can help women find more balance in peri-menopause).
Make sure you sleep well! Being deprived is a quick way to stress the body.
Make sure the body can clear estrogen:
Make sure you’re not constipated. After 24 hours, estrogen that was bound and ready to leave the body through the stool can be reabsorbed.
Magnesium helps the enzyme COMT which helps break down estrogen.
Reduce caffeine.
Reduce Alcohol. Detoxification of alcohol uses the same pathway as estrogen detoxification… but alcohol will go first!
There are more tips in this handout. It helps you understand in what ways you can help the body to bring balance to the female hormone ‘dance’.
I hope these tips are of help to you!
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@Daniel Schepers thank you!
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