I'm just learning about this specific approach and I wanted to find out if anyone here has tried it or researched it.

It basically seems like a Keto diet, but without worrying about the specific detail of true ketosis/keto acidosis.

High fat. High animal protein. Limited carbs, and I think limited fruits.

It seems fairly common sense (except for the high fat part), but I'm curious if anyone here has any experience with it.


Mine and my wife's goal is weight loss and just overall better health.

TIA

Not with the NSNG diet, but with a high fat diet yes. Avoid nearly all oils for your fat consumption though. Olive oil is probably okay, but I mostly avoid it too.

This is what the overwhelming majority of people that say they do keto actually do.

I would also look into Whole30. I *guarantee you will lose weight if you follow it. It's very simple, but takes discipline if you're used to eating garbage. Essentially:

Eat:
meat
fruit
vegetables

Don't eat:
dairy
grain
processed foods
added sugar

*Not a nutritionist, not an actual guarantee.

Done variants of both of the above. Basically different methods of cutting back excess processed carbs and balancing the rest. Works well for dropping bad weight.

Agreed on above assessments

Nutrition isn't difficult to figure out. It is difficult to implement.

Ragoo said:

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Nutrition isn't difficult to figure out. It is difficult to implement.

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It's even more difficult to maintain

So the best description I've heard for healthy eating is to imagine what homo sapiens have been eating for the 300,000 or so years we've existed. Keep in mind "civilization" has only existed for the last 7,000 years or so.

We ate meat, wild vegetables, fruits, nuts. Real food - unprocessed, whole. We kinda ate some grains, but not really.

We sure as hell never ate processed sugar, marshmallows, diet coke, potato chips, etc. We also didn't eat protein bars, energy drinks, trail mix, and other "healthy" things so many of us think help our fitness.

I'm convinced the real devil is sugar. Man, if you only do one thing, cut out processed sugar as much as possible. There is no dietary benefit whatsoever. Unless you're in the middle of a long endurance event and desperately need energy right that moment, it does nothing for you.

This times 1000. If there is added sugar, the ingredients list is longer than a couple things, or you don't know what an ingredient is - you probably shouldn't eat it.

wbt5845 said:

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I'm convinced the real devil is sugar.

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imagine if the food pyramid was good to follow!

Mike Rowe had this guy on recently.
I thought is was worth the time to listen.
Talks about how the food pyramid is whack.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wheres-the-beef/id1087110764?i=1000555585865

I've been on a Keto diet for about 7 months. It's the longest I've done it. I did Whole 30 a few years ago and felt great afterward but slowly drifted off course until last year.

In 7 months, I've gone from 195lbs to 165 and I'm wearing the same size clothes I wore when I was in college. (I'm 51) I feel so much better than I did even 10 years ago. I recently scrimmaged with my son's soccer team (U17) and held my own. I am in better shape than most people 15 years younger than me. When I hit 40 I had arthritis, my skin was terrible, and my joints hurt. I assumed everything was downhill. I was wrong. Your diet is everything. Change it and you will change your life. I no longer have arthritis, my skin looks better than it ever has, and my joints no longer hurt even after a long mountain bike ride.

It's hard to adjust to but when you start feeling the results you won't want to quit. I don't eat any seed oils, no grains, only cheese for diary, and no sugar. I limit fruit as well. I also practice intermittent fasting a few days a week. I can often do one meal a day even while working out.

My go to foods are:

Sausage & Sauerkraut
Bacon & eggs (like 4 strips of bacon and 5 eggs)
Ground Beef (at least a half pound at a time)
Mahi Mahi (Usually 2 filets)
Salmon (Same)
Chicken Kabobs (2 whole breasts at a time)
Lots of Avocado, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Carrots, Asparagus, Kale, Olives, etc...(no corn, it's a grain)

I encourage you to try it.

2 Docs with lots of good info online:

https://www.youtube.com/c/DrEricBergDC
https://www.youtube.com/c/drekberg

Mr President Elect said:

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Not with the NSNG diet, but with a high fat diet yes. Avoid nearly all oils for your fat consumption though. Olive oil is probably okay, but I mostly avoid it too.

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There is no need to avoid Olive oil. In fact, it's really good for you as long as you aren't using it for cooking oil.

What type of oils would be good to cook with instead? Tallow maybe?

tsuag10 said:

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What type of oils would be good to cook with instead? Tallow maybe?

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Avocado Oil, butter, ghee, and tallow. I mostly use bacon grease because I cook it regularly. It's amazing how much money you save when you reuse the grease. I also use uncured bacon. Kiolbassa makes a good one that I get at Sam's. No sugar, no nitrates.

No seed oils

Thanks. I was aware of avoiding seed oils, I was just not exactly sure why we wouldn't cook with olive oil.

tsuag10 said:

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Thanks. I was aware of avoiding seed oils, I was just not exactly sure why we wouldn't cook with olive oil.

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I don't remember the chemistry now, but olive oil is modified at high heat into compounds you don't want to injest. I took organic chemistry 30 years ago so the chemical details don't stay fresh in my mind when I learn new things. I just have to remember the concepts.

tsuag10 said:

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I'm just learning about this specific approach and I wanted to find out if anyone here has tried it or researched it.

It basically seems like a Keto diet, but without worrying about the specific detail of true ketosis/keto acidosis.

High fat. High animal protein. Limited carbs, and I think limited fruits.

It seems fairly common sense (except for the high fat part), but I'm curious if anyone here has any experience with it.


Mine and my wife's goal is weight loss and just overall better health.

TIA

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this is basically what I have been doing since October. Started out calling it Keto but didn't feel like tracking carbs , protien, fat etc. so just cut out the carbs and found ways to make stuff I never liked before taste good. Eat lots of squash, zucchini, cauliflower, green beans, salads. no bread, no rice, no potatoes, no pasta. I eat lots of bacon and saute all those vegetables in olive oil. As a treat I eat berries and lowfat greek yogurt almost every evening. I'm down from 195 to 162. got a few more pounds to go and I'll be where I want to be. Also walk every day. minimum 10000 steps a day, try for 15000 a day. I have a sedentary job so I have to get out and walk.

I think it's much more about what you don't eat than what you eat. I never could make myself eat the foods I hated for very long, so those diets would always fail for me. It sounds like it is working for you, but my advice would be to just set yourself up for sucess and focus on the foods that you do like and can make a staple of your diet. For one person it might be cauliflower, but it just so happens for me that it is ribeyes.

Mr President Elect said:

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I think it's much more about what you don't eat than what you eat. I never could make myself eat the foods I hated for very long, so those diets would always fail for me. It sounds like it is working for you, but my advice would be to just set yourself up for sucess and focus on the foods that you do like and can make a staple of your diet. For one person it might be cauliflower, but it just so happens for me that it is ribeyes.

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there is truth to that. I LOVE steak! What worked for me was finding ways to make foods I didn't like taste good to me. Cauliflower is pretty bland, and frozen is horrible! For me, I learned to "rice" fresh cauliflower and lightly saute it in olive oil with seasonings. turns out to be a suitable replacement for rice or mashed potatoes. I eat ribeye or new york strip at least once a week. but with adding in vegetables (instead of a baked potato) i find that I only eat half a steak instead of a whole one because I am full. I take the leftovers for lunch the next day. Better than hamburgers and fries at a fast food joint!

One thing I found is that for most of my life when someone served vegetables, whether at a restaurant or home cooked, they cooked the living hell out of them. soft, soggy, slimy, nasty stuff. I lightly saute, really just to get them hot. Lots of seasoning and done.

Builder93, just curious what your keto macros look like. tia.

NoahAg said:

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I would also look into Whole30. I *guarantee you will lose weight if you follow it. It's very simple, but takes discipline if you're used to eating garbage. Essentially:

Eat:
meat
fruit
vegetables

Don't eat:
dairy
grain
processed foods
added sugar

*Not a nutritionist, not an actual guarantee.

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We've been following this same regiment. Started with the Paleo diet and slightly modified it. Had never heard of the Whole30 but looking at it, it is very close to what we are following. Since August 2nd last year till now I have lost 73 lbs.

We don't count calories. For breakfast and lunch I have a qualitative scale, low and medium. Two lows make a medium. I shoot for going into dinner at a medium level of consumption from combined breakfast and lunch. For dinners I eat as much as I want, following what I can have guidelines. I have never felt like I am missing anything or wanting. I actually much prefer the food we are eating now over what got me to my weight issue. We rarely ever eat out, the side benefit is I have more money in my pocket by not paying for overpriced restaurant food.

I'm convinced the biggies are alcohol, sugars, and grains. I can tell when it happens that I have one of these, my weight is messed up for a week or two.

I do walk 20-30 miles a week so that is also helping. I do this because I am chasing another goal. If I didn't do this amount of walking it would just have slowed down my weight loss rate but I think the eating guidelines would still have taken the weight off just slower. But who knows, maybe the combination of the exercise and eating right are more than just simply additive.

Null and Void said:

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Builder93, just curious what your keto macros look like. tia.

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I honestly don't know. I would guess:

5% carbs
45% protein
50% fat

I am very active so I can get my metabolism going. I am at the gym lifting 4-5 times a week and I mountain bike at least once a week. Building muscle is very important in the process. You need the machinery to burn the energy.

It's not just about losing weight but being healthy in mind and body. So much research now is proving the gut- brain connection is tremendously important. I have felt a change in my mood also since focusing on gut biome as well.
In fact, I can't remember the last time I got a stomach ache . That's where the sauerkraut comes in. Kimchi, if you like it, is also good. No sugar kombucha helps, too.

I love air fryer roasted veggies. I buy the giant thing of frozen vegetables Normandy from Costco and throw them in the air fryer. All they need is some ghee, salt, and pepper and you are good to go.

i've considered getting an air fryer many times but we already have too much crap on our counters as it is.

This might be a stupid question, but is Whole30 basically a form of a keto diet?

I've been trying to figure out how to make more progress with my overall fitness and I think a lot of my trouble is diet. I have no problem weight training 4 to 5 days per week and also getting some running in, but I have been unsuccessful in getting rid of some stubborn body fat.

Ag12thman said:

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This might be a stupid question, but is Whole30 basically a form of a keto diet?

I've been trying to figure out how to make more progress with my overall fitness and I think a lot of my trouble is diet. I have no problem weight training 4 to 5 days per week and also getting some running in, but I have been unsuccessful in getting rid of some stubborn body fat.

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I think the difference is keto shoots for fat and carb targets where Whole30 and Paleo is just removing certain foods from your diet.
What seems to have made the difference for me is removing desserts, alcohol, breads & pasta (any wheat based foods), pototoes, rice, legumes and dairy, not counting the milk in my morning lattes. Also watching foods with excess sugars like miracle whip, ketchup, soda, etc. I don't worry about fat levels in meat, but we end up eating leaner meat more out of what we like to eat versus being forced to choose them by a diet. Lots of fruit and vegetables. I can say I don't have cravings or feel like I am missing something or being deprived in any way.
For us this way of eating should end up being sustainable because we like what we are eating.

I feel like all these diets do is move macros around and in the end all accomplish the same thing as iff one just ate a balanced diet with protein, carbs and fats and in counted these macros so that they are in a calorie deficit if their goal is losing weight.

And that is great. Do the strategy that works best for your lifestyle. But there is no "magic" genie behind one diet or the other.

Capitol Ag said:

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I feel like all these diets do is move macros around and in the end all accomplish the same thing as iff one just ate a balanced diet with protein, carbs and fats and in counted these macros so that they are in a calorie deficit if their goal is losing weight.

And that is great. Do the strategy that works best for your lifestyle. But there is no "magic" genie behind one diet or the other.

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Not necessarily.

The low carb/keto diet focuses on removing carbs so as to force your body to metabolize stored fat. A by-product of this diet is you tend to consume fewer calories, as well, leading to a daily caloric deficit. Those two things combined equal substantial (safe) weight loss. I lost 120lbs in a year doing this.

rednecked said:

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i've considered getting an air fryer many times but we already have too much crap on our counters as it is.

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The air fryer is a pretty good appliance to have. I soley use mine for cooking meat. Even if you decide the diet isn't for you, you can still use it for crap food as well.

In addition to what AggieBarstool said, there's the impact of insulin and its effect on fat storage. One of the reasons keto/low carb/IMF all tend to work well is it is directly targeting insulin spikes. A lot of support for it not actually being a calories in/calories out calculation as typically taught.

I use erythritol instead of sugar when I can.

AggieBarstool said:

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Capitol Ag said:

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I feel like all these diets do is move macros around and in the end all accomplish the same thing as iff one just ate a balanced diet with protein, carbs and fats and in counted these macros so that they are in a calorie deficit if their goal is losing weight.

And that is great. Do the strategy that works best for your lifestyle. But there is no "magic" genie behind one diet or the other.

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Not necessarily.

The low carb/keto diet focuses on removing carbs so as to force your body to metabolize stored fat. A by-product of this diet is you tend to consume fewer calories, as well, leading to a daily caloric deficit. Those two things combined equal substantial (safe) weight loss. I lost 120lbs in a year doing this.

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But doesn't this happen (the body metabolizing stored fat) happen regardless if one is on a calorie deficit and eating carbs? Most studies seem to suggest it does. That said, I too cut carbs when leaning out. The reason for me though is that the carbs are just the least needed during a lean out and I need the protein to try to limit the loss of muscle that follows a calorie deficit. Plus the fat is lowered as well. Hence, how I achieve a healthy calorie deficit....

Bear in mind, I come at this from a muscle building/strength first background with fat loss as a secondary even separate goal to that given where I am in BF%. SO Carbs are a very important part of my lifestyle and very necessary for my performance. I can lean out fast due to my % muscle mass per body weight so I pretty much lean out when and if I need to in a very healthy fashion.

Also, here is someone I follow on the subject. Take or leave as you wish: