Episode #42 10 MORE Myths about Keto and Low Carb… BUSTED!
You’re listening to the Keto and Low Carb Success podcast, Episode #42, 10 MORE Myths about Keto and Low Carb… BUSTED!
Introduction:
Enjoy Keto and Low Carb success by becoming aware of what foods work best in your body and why. Master your mindset to make the journey an easy one. Learn all this, and more, with this podcast based on my trademarked Granny Keto Transitions Program. Join me, Miriam Hatoum, health coach, course creator and author of Conquer Cravings with Keto, as I give you actionable coaching advice with each episode that is sure to empower you and take any confusion out of following a Keto or Low Carb diet. It’s like being a private coaching client while you listen at your convenience!
But before we start, I wanted to offer my free gift to you for just for taking a peek at my course, Roadmap to Keto and Low Carb Success. No obligation – just take a peek! At the bottom of the page you will find a spot to put in your name and email address and like magic, my 35-page Keto and Low Carb Planner will appear in your in-box! The feedback on this Planner has been fabulous and it is yours free for just taking a look over at miriamhatoum.com/course. The direct link will be in the show notes and transcript.
1:40 And now to the episode, 10 MORE Myths about Keto and Low Carb… BUSTED!
In last week’s episode in last week’s episode I tackled some of the top 10 myths regarding Keto and Low Carb. I talked about counting calories and macros, whether certain foods are required and whether you need to eat grass fed and organic. I also talked about how you should not worry about your metabolism slowing down because you might find yourself eating so much less once your hunger hormones get into balance. If you didn’t listen to that episode yet, I suggest you go back and have a listen.
I remember listening to a favorite podcast when I started Keto and I loved how he always started his episodes going back over errors he might have made the week before. I was thinking that I would be so well prepared, that that would never happen to me. Yeah right. Here is MY correction: Last week I was talking about eating out and if you find yourself at a 3 on the hunger scale that it would be fine to eat something. OF COURSE you should eat something. That is the perfect number on the scale to start your meal – that or a four. What I meant to say that if you are out with people and you find yourself at a 5, which is neutral, it is okay to have something to eat, but keep it light, like a salad or appetizer plate. Some diet gurus will say that you should just sit there with a glass of water. Totally not necessary my friends. Go ahead and eat but make it a small quantity so that you won’t be going past a six. Truth be told, it’s a great time to just order that dessert you have been craving, and to heck with worrying about a meal.
Again, these myths are in no particular order. But I do want to say, that I grouped the first three together because they have to do with cooking, preparing meals and making your family happy. Take heed that with either Keto or Low Carb, you can eat that way and no one need be the wiser if you don’t want to announce that you are trying something new. Have salads and green vegetables, stay away from bread, pasta and rice. If you are following Low Carb of course you can have these, and if you are new to the process, you can even measure them out before bringing the food to the table so no one is the wiser. The first few months keep things simple – roasted chicken, one-pan dinners like fajitas or sausage with onions and peppers, and other easy foods like grilled hamburgers. Take the wraps, rolls and sides as your eating plan allows. Honestly, friends, no one is looking at your plate unless YOU make the fuss.
So on to the episode: 10 MORE Myths about Keto and Low Carb… BUSTED! I am going to start with the first one as Myth #11 instead of Myth #1, in case I want to refer back to it at some point, there will be no confusion.
5:05 Myth #11. I will have to get all the Keto cookbooks and print all the recipes to learn a new way to cook. Not unless you are me. Seriously though, part of KISS – Keep It Simple Sweetheart, Episode 16 – is to do, or learn to do, Keto and Low Carb with very simple ways of eating. Have some salami and cheese and olives at breakfast (or bacon and eggs if that’s your jam). Have a salad with some protein, nuts and seeds, and a nice dressing at lunch. Have a steak or roasted chicken with a cooked green vegetable on the side for dinner. Are you hungry during the day? Have some buttered bouillon or bone broth. Are you sorry you didn’t have something for your commute home? Keep some cheese wisps or string cheese and olives or celery sticks to eat in the car (and if you have a strict rule about not eating in the car, have something to eat before leaving work if you are really hungry and have a long commute home). Truth be told, you can do successful Keto and Low Carb on fast food if you had to. I wouldn’t vouch for the quality of food, but in a pinch, I have had a McDonald’s double cheeseburger, hold the bun and ketchup, add some mayo and extra pickle. No need to ever cook a thing if you don’t want to. Once you have the bones of the program, then start branching out to new recipes. These bones are in Episode 10 – What is Keto? And Episode 11 – What is Low Carb? There are two caveats though: (1) Don’t feel you ever have to have more complicated eating and (2) Feel free to start tackling those interesting and complicated recipes from the start. You know what kind of personality you have and also your time and money constraints. You do not have to do anything one way or the other. Do what works for you, not anyone else on all the social media sites you visit.
7:20 Myth #12. I will have to cook two separate meals to keep my family happy. No, you do not. Yes, you have to make recipes that are Keto and Low Carb friendly, but you can take almost any recipe you have and convert it to a Keto or Low Carb recipe. We make stuffed cabbage without rice in the stuffing (adding well rung-out riced cauliflower or some chopped walnuts add a nice texture for a recipe like this). We make loaded hamburgers, but don’t use breadcrumbs and of course serve them without the bun (you can make Keto or Low Carb buns though!). We make a fantastic oven-baked fried chicken using, of all things, crushed BBQ pork rinds as the coating. We make mac ‘n cheese but use tiny cauliflower florets instead of the pasta. Take whatever your favorite recipe is and be creative! Your recipes do not have to come out of a Keto cookbook. If you want to make those purchases or do recipe downloads, that is up to you, but I am saying you can approach this in a very simple manner just by getting creative with your own favorites.
Just as a little side commercial here, I have those, and many other recipes on my website at miriamhatoum.com and they are also available in my Breaking Free From Diet Supplemental Workbook available at miriamhatoum.com/books. This workbook with all the recipes and cooking terms and tips is available with my course package that will be open in the Spring. The link to that is in the show notes and transcript.
9:08 Myth #13. Even if I do that it will still be hard to keep my family happy if I am the only one doing Keto or Low Carb. This is a big concern. When you first start, keep your meals simple, such as roast chicken, broiled fish, grilled burgers and steaks. Add for yourself and everyone else, a cooked green vegetable and a salad. The rest of the family can add potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, or whatever they want. Or, you can get very creative with family-friendly favorites and no one is the wiser.
And don’t forget, with Low Carb this is even easier. Take small portions of whatever carbohydrate is being served. Serving baked potatoes? Take a small one or half of a large one. Serving pasta? Take about ½ cup and mix it with cut up veggies that you can easily make with a steamer bag. Serving tacos and fahitas? Maybe take one but put some filling on the side without the wraps. Serving rice? Just measure it out and take only ½ cup. You can also bulk up the rice with a fine dice of sauteed vegetables, but make a double portion – I bet your family will love it too. The list is endless. Just watch your portion sizes and if you are having this at dinner, consider skipping the carbohydrates at lunch and maybe also at breakfast.
10: 45 Myth #14. I will never figure out how to pack lunches for work or eat on the go. Okay, folks, there is more than one way to pack a lunch. Not everything revolves around sandwiches with bread. This is among the one thing that most stumps people who are going Keto or Low Carb. Take a filling with you (deli meat, tuna salad, etc.) and bring lettuce (not iceberg: it is too stiff) and make yourself rollups. (Side note: I have found from experience that any lettuce rollup made with a mayo filling gets soggy in transit; bring the lettuce and filling separately and make your rollups when you are going to eat them.) “Can I have low-carb wraps?” NO, you cannot, if you are doing Keto, but you can with Low Carb – just read the ingredient list to make sure it isn’t as long as your arm. Be creative – use lettuce rollups or a cheese wrap or be even more creative and get out of the sandwich habit. “HUH? No sandwich for lunch?” Well, first of all, anything travels without bread – use baggies and small containers and bring a fork! There are tons of grab-and-go foods too: Beef jerky, hard boiled eggs, salami and cheese (slices or rollups), cut veggies and ranch dip. Come on – you didn’t get overweight by not understanding the concept of how to get food into your stomach. YOU DO NOT NEED SANDWICHES.
12:11 Myth #15. I enjoy a drink once in a while or wine with dinner. I will have to give that up. To a point. Mixed cocktail drinks are off the list for the pure sugar content in mixers (and don’t get involved with “Skinny-type” mixers – there may be too many chemicals and magic needed to make them taste like regular mixers). You can have one or two glasses of white wine or dry red wine (the sweeter the wine, the higher the carbohydrate content). Straight spirits have no carbohydrates so yes, you can enjoy a whisky or tequila or scotch or whatever. Just realize that your liver’s primary job is to rid the body of toxins. While it is processing getting the alcohol out of your system you will not be burning fat. You may still be in ketosis because you are not consuming carbohydrates with the dry wine or spirits, but neither will you be burning fat at an optimal level. Some people have reported that they are much more sensitive to alcohol once they are on Keto, so if you normally have a drink or two, stop at one and evaluate how you are feeling.
13:32 Myth #16. I travel a lot. Eating like this will never work. I talk about this in Episode 9 – On the Road. If you are traveling in a car this is very easy. It’s your car (or a friend’s car). Bring a cooler. All the grab-and-go foods I listed above travel well. Some don’t even need the cooler! These foods are also very easy to restock from any store (even most liquor stores now carry small vacuum packs of cheese and salami, sometimes even with olives!). If you are traveling by plane, you can take food on the plane. Any bottled water or hot beverages like tea and coffee you can get once you are through the security gate. As a matter of fact, once you are through the security gate you can take any purchased beverages right on the plane with you. When I started Keto, I would always ask for a fridge in my hotel room and then I would stock it (either with what I had brought with me or find a little store near the hotel) with Keto-friendly foods. However, the longer I was Keto, the more I realized I no longer needed to do this. I would have my coffee in the morning, and even a hotel breakfast of bacon and eggs and cheese, and then if I was hungry at lunch I had no trouble finding Keto-friendly and Low Carb-friendly foods and ditto at dinner, which is when I usually enjoyed a meat-centric dinner like a nice ribeye and maybe some salad on the side. You will find that traveling on Keto and Low Carb can actually be easy because you just aren’t hungry all the time and needing snacks when you get back to the hotel room. I have even thrown out doggie bags that I thought I would enjoy as an evening snack, but no longer wanted by the time I was ready to move on to the next adventure.
15:40 Myth #17. I’ll get constipated if I am not eating a variety of grains. One of the most common questions is the worry about becoming constipated. You may find you will likely have regular, but less frequent and smaller bowel movements. This is because the meat is more easily broken down and absorbed in the intestines and so there is less output vs. a diet high in insoluble fiber. Your body just produces less waste because it is taking in less waste. However, please don’t skimp on green leafy vegetables – I always have a large salad at least once a day, or non-starchy vegetables. My favorite of the latter is an oven-roasted ratatouille using eggplant, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, onions and garlic. If you are eating Low Carb, you can certainly enjoy roasted root vegetables like carrots, parsnips and beets, and a potato – white or sweet – occasionally. Believe me, if you are eating like this, constipation will not be a problem.
17:10 Myth #18. I heard there is a risk of kidney damage if I eat so much protein. There is strong research that disproves that eating protein above the recommended daily allowance damages kidney function. It was thought that excess protein causes kidney disease, but about 20 years ago that was disproven. If you have healthy kidneys to begin with, they will be able to handle the nitrogenous waste of protein. It is at stages 3 – 5 of kidney disease that you have to be concerned about too much protein, but the protein itself will not cause kidney disease. Jason Fung had used a wonderful analogy using a sieve and blueberries, with the sieve being your kidneys and the blueberries being protein. If your sieve has no holes it will hold the blueberries and the water will wash right through them and out of the sieve. If you have holes in the netting, then the blueberries will fall through. It is not the blueberries that damage the sieve. It is the already-damaged sieve that is the problem. I have his books, as well as the prominent study he refers to, in the reference section of this book, but I also encourage you to listen to the short-lived “Obesity Podcast” with Jason Fung and Megan Ramos, hosted by Carl Franklin. In Episode 10 he specifically talks about the connection between protein and the kidneys.
18:40 Myth #19. I won’t get enough vitamins and will need to take a ton of supplements.Some people may find a benefit from taking some electrolyte support like a magnesium or potassium supplement. A common worry is about getting enough vitamin C. This is not the case. The vitamin C present in meat, along with the vitamin C-sparing effect of low-carb diets is enough to prevent scurvy which is a severe deficiency of Vitamin C, even without going out of your way to eat liver or other organs. The bottom line is that even on a diet of just muscle meat, you should expect to get enough vitamin C, along with all your other nutrients. With regard specifically to vitamin C, this seems to be of particular concern with the carnivore method of Keto, but there is no evidence to support that there is a Vitamin-C deficiency with this or any other method of Keto. You must remember that the government RDA (recommended daily allowance) of Vitamin C and every other vitamin and mineral were arrived at in the context of the high-glucose Standard American Diet. Your needs for many of these vitamins and minerals are lower when you are on a well-formulated Keto diet, even if following the carnivore method.
For other than carnivore, make sure you get the proverbial rainbow – such as colored peppers and carrots. But this should not be a concern even on Keto, as broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower are also good sources of Vitamin C. With Low Carb you may eat 1 or 2 fruits a day and this can include citrus fruits. For Keto, strawberries is a good choice.
Circling back to the electrolyte support, I cover this in my book, Conquer Cravings with Keto, my upcoming course, Keto and Low Carb Success, and in several of my Keto blogs. I will put links for all those in the show notes and transcript.
Myth #20. I will lose too much weight with Keto. Okay my friends, is this really a worry? Yes, I have heard that too. But I think those cases are few and far between. Usually, the feedback loop on your hunger and satiety is such that it will indicate that you need fuel. However, how everyone metabolizes that fuel is different for different people. A person like that might feel that she has to override her hunger signals and eat all the time in order to maintain a healthy weight. Sometimes, especially with Keto, adding more fat and protein will take care of that, or maybe that person has more leeway with the amount of carbohydrates that can be consumed in order to stay in ketosis. In any case, increase the amount of protein so that there is no muscle loss involved. When you restrict carbs on keto, your body rapidly burns through glycogen, the stored carbs in your liver and muscles. After your glycogen stores are depleted, you shift to burning fat. Many people notice dramatic weight loss during this transition. However, if, after the first few weeks, you are losing weight at more than 2-3 pounds a week, please do up your caloric (and macro) levels across the board. If rapid weight loss is still a problem even after you have increased caloric levels across the board – including carbohydrates – please consider talking this over with your doctor to make sure nothing is amiss in your general health.
I like to call Keto the “shape-shifting” diet. I went a full 6 weeks with not a single ounce lost, but I dropped several inches in my waist, as well as down in my overall clothing size.
The other side of the coin is no weight loss and no “shape shifting.” I don’t remember the source on this – it might have been Gary Taubes, author of “Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It” who said that our body’s primary goal is to seek health. While you are eating Keto or Low Carb, you are bringing your hormones into line, especially insulin, the master hormone and bringing your blood sugar into normal range. Your body isn’t saying to itself, “Oh my god I have to lose weight so Miriam will be happy with the scale.” It is saying, oh thank heavens she is finally eating in a healthy way and giving me a rest from treading water so that I can do some internal healing here.” Okay, so your body isn’t saying that… but you get the point.
With either Keto or Low Carb you must cultivate patience. Appreciate that your body is working hard to heal years of poor eating and yo-yo dieting. Yes, you might – and probably will – lose rapidly at the beginning. But if you stop losing weight, take a step back: How long has it really been since you have been in a stall (and the general wisdom is that you can’t call it a stall or a plateau until you have been four full weeks with no weight loss)? Do you need to dial in your eating because you’ve become careless with a few things? Do you need to eat less because now that you have lost some weight your calorie and macro demands have grown smaller? These are all things to look at if you have not been losing weight even after giving your body at least four weeks to level out and start weight loss again.
So that’s it for this week’s episode. I hope you have enjoyed it and that it has answered myths and questions about Keto and Low Carb.
If you’ve ever got a question you’d like to ask me or share a topic idea that you would like me to cover on a future episode, don’t be a stranger! I always look forward to hearing from listeners like you. You are welcome to email me directly… miriam@miriamhatoum.com. And don’t forget to leave a review wherever you listen to this podcast. Leaving a review makes it easier for other people who are looking to listen and learn about Keto and Low Carb.
25:30 Episode 43, coming up
Coming up in next week’s episode I will be talking about how to think outside the box with breakfast and lunch ideas that do not include sandwiches, muffins or cereal. Be sure to tune in!
So go share the show with your friends, let them know that’s coming up in the next episode, and invite them to tune in with you and learn how to become free from diet prison with my Keto and Low Carb Success podcast.
Until then, go live free from diet worry — I’ll see you back here next time.
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