A belly fat around your waist, overweight, elevated blood pressure and cholesterol levels all indicate fatty liver and insulin resistance. Individuals could be walking around with fatty liver for a long period of time without any outside symptoms. Even the belly fat I could attribute to me reaching fifty and still eating as if I am twenty.
My daily diet mostly consisted of 5-6 cups of rice, meat and poultry, fruit and 2 cups of coffee with cream and sugar.
I need to lose weight and become healthy. Dr. Eric Berg's mantra is "First become healthy and then you lose weight". Dr. Berg is talking about the problem of insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone secreted by the pancreas in response to food we eat. We must differentiate between the three food macro nutrients. The macros are carbohydrates, proteins and fats. Our insulin levels peak an hour or two after eating food. Most foods contain these macros in various ratios. But in a controlled tests, it has been shown that insulin peaks are more pronounced for carbohydrates and proteins but less with fats.
People have been dieting based on a low carbohydrate, high fat protocol to lose weight and reporting great results. At this point, I also found the ketogenic diet or keto. It is a diet used medically on children suffering from seizures. The salient point of the keto diet is to reduce carbohydrate intake to at most 10% and fats to take up the gap. The macros profile for this diet is carb 10%, protein 20% and fats 70%. The goal of this ratio is to move the body in a state of ketosis, where the body uses fats instead of sugar. You can also achieve ketosis if you fast for 12 hours, guaranteed. Insulin and glucose levels drop after 12 hours. Of course you go hungry, and eating low carb, high fat food is going to keep the body in this state of fat burning.
In actual practice, I find keto difficult to do long term. I kept on stumbling and being kicked out of ketosis. So to make sure, I do intermittent fasting and it works. The first four weeks I lost 10 pounds mostly water from the glucose I depleted. When glucose molecules are depleted the water in the body is also lost. I pee it out. This is the point when I craved for salt. I put salt in my drinking water. Sodium needed by the body is depleted so I have to watch it. Keeping carbs under 10% is tricky. Sugar is in everything that my arms can reach. I recommend emptying your food cabinet first before starting with this diet. Intermittent fasting can be done several ways. I do a 16 hours fasting with an 8 hour window. I eat breakfast at 6H and follow it up with a second meal of the day around 13H-14H. I keep to 2 meals a day. I'm using cruciferous vegetables mixed with bell peppers and tomatoes to deliver coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and melted butter and cheese. I don't really count calories in this diet but I estimate it is lower than the 1,800 calories I'm used to before the diet. The fats keep me satiated for a longer time I give it that. I never went hungry. But it is weird especially after doctors advised me to keep away from fats all these months.
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