Ketogenic Diet Part 3: Reality Check

I originally thought there was no point in repeating what other people have said about the ketogenic diet. However, after doing some research for this article, I realized that many new websites, seeking ad clicks, have sprung up. And now, it's necessary to point you to some right resources. This article will help you identify which sites are worthwhile, and which are just clickbait. In hidsight, this might've been better as a 5 part series... this article is long! Enjoy!

Let's start with some myths.

Myths

There are lots of myths surrounding the diet. You can find a list of ordinary myths anywhere, such as, bad breath, constipation, etc. These are all potential annoyances, but there's a growing amount of just plain bad information too. A site may not be legit if:

1. It overly focuses on the keto flu, gives dire warnings about fiber and oily tarry stools, etc.

2. It uses macros, percentages, or oversimplifies the diet as a "Protein and Fat" diet. Also see #7 below.

3. It tells you that you have to use their product for best results. Or must eat dairy, or must take enzymes.... the list of possible scammy products is endless.

4. The website looks like a very long blog post, and ends with an option to buy something. I haven't seen that kind of thing much lately, but it's sure to resurface. The web's version of snail mail circulars will never die.

5. You can't figure out who wrote it. Even Dr. Mercola, for all his "buy my product" links, you can find him, you can consider both sides of whether or not he's legit, but a website in a vacuum is a red flag.

6. It makes a surprising claim, and you can't corroborate that claim anywhere else (remember to include PubMed when you look, lots of good information isn't found in random articles).

7. It tells you it's as simple as discarding the carbs and replacing with fat (this is really common on LCHF websites geared toward bodybuilders).

8. It claims you don't need to worry about calories. Actually, the point is that you can eat fewer calories and still not feel particularly hungry. But unlike amphetamines (which are used as diet pills in weight loss clinics), the hunger loss effect is due to the ketones your body produces to feed your brain.

9. It says that you can't do it if you're vegan. I'm not a huge fan of vegan, but I don't like "you can't" messages. If you calculate it right, you certainly can. The resources for vegan keto are skimpy at best, that's a pretty good one, from a dietician, but she fails to mention the ratio, so hmm. If you must be vegan and keto, I'd recommend working with a dietician specially trained in the Keto diet (ask a neurologist's office staff if you're not sure how to find one). This article has some recipes, but I'd call them more "low carb" rather than keto. She made a great effort though, and deserves respect for treating the subject kindly when it's so much easier to criticize than give something a try.

10. It says you should get all your vitamins from your food, for all diets today. This is false. One of the downsides of a keto diet is that you can't really eat enough plant foods to keep healthy, and unless your meat is all game meat that you freshly butchered yourself, it's unlikely to provide you with what's missing. Every reputable book on keto will tell you to take a multivitamin plus possibly some bicarb and carnitine amino acid, the best ones tell you to take extra vitamin C also (see more on this below). Even people on no special diet have vitamin deficiencies today, so don't skip the multi.

Update: In January 2019, a Review was published on the medical use of the Ketogenic Diet. Modified Atkins Diet is the least restrictive version of the options for the medical diet. It has an unfortunate acronym, but is used by people with neurological illness, under the care of a Registered Dietician.

Specifics and How To Calculate it Right

The keto flu shouldn't last longer than three days at the most. Then, after eating carefully for a full three weeks, most people will have acclimated to the keto diet. People like me, with metabolism difficulties, may need longer, such as 6 weeks to two months. If you're still hungry or have continued migraines after that time, and you're sure your calculations are right, then this probably won't help you. There's no shame in that. Everyone's different.

For most people who have a gallbladder, they can begin Keto by fasting for 24 hours. If you're transitioning without a 24 hour fast, you might feel odd for a week but it's not normal if it lasts longer. The 24 hour fast is easy, eat an early dinner on day 1, and eat a late dinner on day 2, with nothing but water in between. A small squeeze of lemon is permitted but nothing else. It's tricky if you must eat with medications. In that case, drink a gulp of milk (whatever kind of milk you tolerate) but nothing else. When you begin to eat, be ready with keto foods. Use the extra time to make some keto meals, and polish your meal prep techniques.

The only really scary effect of the keto diet while your body is transitioning is if you begin vomiting. If so, stop immediately and see your doctor. Some tiny percentage of people have an enzyme deficiency that makes it very hard to make this metabolic switch from carbs to fat. But because your brain needs fat to think, you probably already are aware and have been aware of it since you were a child. I've never known anyone who experienced this, though. It's a rare genetic condition that causes acidosis if you have the genetic trait, and are fasting or eating a high protein diet. However, it's not an excuse to scare everyone.

Here is a detailed list of contraindications. There's also a practical guide here for the usual mildly annoying side effects that people experience when transitioning to the keto diet. The side effect that annoys me the most is leg cramps since my muscles will take any excuse to ache and cramp anyway, keto tends to increase that, temporarily.

A good keto diet plan includes
a ratio in grams, of Fats --------------- to --------------- Protein +Carbohydrates,
and limits Carbohydrates to 40g/day or less.

I put a big space there because people get it mixed up, usually like this Protein + Fat --to-- Carbohydrate. That's WRONG, if you see that, go to the next website. A children's diet can be 3:1, but an adult should stop at 2:1 because at any higher ratio, an adult will not meet their protein needs. If you are going to calculate a 1:1 keto diet, the best place to learn how is in this book by Dr. Kossoff.

Now, it's true that in practice, a keto diet usually works out to be 75% of calories from Fat. But if you're not measuring your foods, you're opening yourself up for disappointment. You'll see what I mean, if you use a good nutrition tracking website. One such as the Chronometer.com can show you how small variances and inaccuracies of measurement can cause big long term effects. For example, if you had just 10 grams wrong every third day, and your child is an epileptic dependent on the diet. They may have seizures after one week, or two weeks. It adds up over time.

Here's a visual example from Cronometer.com which is a website that allows you to track your nutrition intake from foods.

Notice that the Fats percentage says 51 % if you hover over the red area? Now pay attention to the center of that leftmost circle, it says kcal (ie. ordinary Calories are more correctly written as kilocalorie, or kcal). This is a percentage by calories, it means 51% of the calories of this day's food came from Fats.

You might think, ok great, then I'm at 1:1, but you're only 1:1 by Calories, not by Weight! This is not a keto day.

Look at the bars on the right. Add together 70.8g protein + 76.8g carbohydrates = 147.6g total P+C

Look at the fats bar, 69.5g.

The true ratio of Fats :to: Protein+Carbs is 1:2 by weight in grams! That's not keto. It must be between 1:1 or 2:1 for adults, F: C+P

Now do you see how easy it is to miscalculate? That ratio (by weight in grams) should be between 1:1 and 2:1 for adults. It can be as high as 4:1 for young children but should be less strict as the child grows to allow for protein requirements to be met.

So percentages, macros, and ballpark figures don't work. This is an exact diet. You must buy a food scale with a grams measurement (about $10 at this time in my local stores). You should plan out your meals, four or five days ahead and make them, then store them in portion sizes. This is not easy. It takes dedication.

If you were a bodybuilder, age 21, you could probably simplify the diet as "remove carbs, replace with fat" because the larger your muscles, the more space for glycogen, and a little extra carbohydrate gets used up. If you're a 40-something obese person like me, and you have trouble with mobility, it won't get used up, it will float around in your blood and mess up keto. So, reality check... if a website is geared toward the ultra healthy, treat its advice with caution.

Just like nobody but a Strongman would eat close to 10k calories in a day and massive quantities of spinach to saturate their body with iron, neither should you try to apply that logic and expect to become a Strongman. A middle aged man trying that would likely trigger hemochromatosis, and that's not good health. OK I admit, I just had to mention 'strength athletes'. They remind me that what's humanly possible is much more than what we imagine it to be. You go guys! But the point is, diets can't be applied the same way to all people and expect the same results.

So, no, you can't use shortcuts if you want results from keto. Be exact, use Chronometer.com (link above), and soon you will see how much variance is already present even if you do it perfectly. Use reasonable care, with a tendency to double check.

Need another example for nutrition information inaccuracy? In the example of 1 ounce of mackerel fish (which is eaten if you love fish, and want a full day's Omega-3 from one 4 ounce fillet), be sure you switch to 1 oz view on that page before proceeding. It currently says there are no Carbs, 6.7g of Protein (rounded up to 7), and 5g of total Fat (x4 if you''re imagining a 4 ounce fillet). It also lists the total calories as 73.4. Try to check the math on that, remembering that 4 calories are provided by carbs and proteins, and 9 calories are provided by fats, on average.

Doesn't add up. The most confusing bit is the total calories from protein line, where it says currently, 28.4. OK how did they do that? How do you get 0.4 from either rounded up 7x4 or 6.7x4? I wish that was a very rare thing, but charts like this are riddled with such inaccuracies, and not all are as minor as this. Always keep in mind you're looking not just at a website, but at a government maintained database. It probably contains a mixture of data from multiple food tests run at different times on different samples. It's still helpful, but it's not to be blindly trusted.

Always remember, everything we do based on a database like this, is an estimate. However, if you're trying to find out how come lately your migraines are more frequent, this kind of insight can save you hours of beating your virtual head against the virtual wall of "everything looks right, but nothing works." Sometimes the only way is to recalculate everything and look for discrepancy.

All ketogenic diet resources should recommend taking a multivitamin every day. And they should all tell you that if you feel "unwell" or "achy" you should take some carbonates such as simple baking soda with water, an electrolyte drink similar to Emergen-C (but that's full of sugar so look for a cleaner one), and you might need the amino acid L-carnitine. I don't think there's a vegan version of that. If you're transitioning from vegan, you might also need Taurine, for a couple of months until your liver evens out. The reasons for that are technical, you can seek out taurine and glycine metabolism if you wish to know more.

More about L-Carnitine: The human body is part of a small group of animals that can't make Vitamin C and must get it from the diet. One reason why L-Carnitine can become low on the Keto diet is because it's easy to have a low Vitamin C intake on a diet that limits naturally sweet and starchy foods. Most fruits are available in limited portions only and some nutritious vegetables like carrots have too many carbs to be included most of the time. Vitamin C is required for the body to make Carnitine. Look at Table 1 for all the enzymes it's involved in.

The need for a multivitamin isn't an indication that the diet is "unbalanced." Every non organic diet right now is unbalanced enough to need a multivitamin. I've said before our soils are depleted, and plant breeding of the GMO and non-GMO type that produces huge varieties that look good but taste bland are all the rage. That's the best reason to eat as much organic as possible.

Everyone right now, especially someone who has recently discovered they have Celiac Disease, is experiencing some level of nutrient deficiency. It's not unusual to feel better with a multivitamin on any diet. And it's also common for people to feel better with other supplements besides that. For example I have liver pain if I don't take taurine and choline in addition to Omega-3 and a multivitamin. Your body may have other needs. The most important thing to do is listen to your body's needs. And drink water. (You knew I was going to say that, though, right?)

Real Warnings

Does the Keto diet have risks? Yes!   Can it sicken, or even be deadly in some people? Yes! Remember what I said about children can do a more strict keto diet than adults because adults need more protein?

1.   In truth, there have been cases of people dying from the diet, usually because it can induce pancreatitis. But when people object to the diet, they don't say that. They say it causes "kidney problems" which is a holdover from the objections against the Atkins diet that weren't completely proved either way. Mantras like "causes kidney problems" can hide the real risks, so I encourage you to look for and find the actual risks and avoid dogmatic thinking.

2.   In my experience, the greatest risk is to the pancreas. Here's a tragic case report of a girl who died because her pancreas was inflamed and bleeding and they didn't discover it in time to save her. She had been on the diet since infancy, and died at age 9. My heart breaks to read such stories. They do exist, and it's important to remember that mainstream medicine isn't prepared to deal with the complications of a keto diet. Your best defense is to know your own body and the real risks. That's the reality check I wanted to share most.

3. If you have Diabetes Type 1, the Keto diet is a bit more complicated for you and should be closely monitored by a health professional, if you decide to use the diet, even for a short time. Many people with Celiac Disease have Diabetes type 1 because the antibodies of CD can attack the islet cells that produce insulin. If that happens, the body can't make enough insulin and can't recover from the damage. This is different from the body becoming insensitive to insulin in Diabetes type 2. Be sure you talk with your doctor before attempting a keto diet and ask for a dietician to work with. If all else fails, you can find trustworthy advice about Diabetes Type 1 and the Keto diet on this page. The author of that blog also wrote several books on the subject of using the keto diet in other illnesses.

How to Start Off Right

Before you start, make a list of your previous health conditions and think about how best to nutritionally support their healing. For example, if you struggle to stay one step ahead of osteoporosis, you might want to include high calcium, vitamin D and K foods to your routine. For Keto, that means, lots of green leafy veggies. Luckily, garlicky creamed spinach (or other greens) is ideal for Keto. Example 2; if you have neurological issues, you might consider high magnesium and vitamin B foods. Leafy greens will provide many minerals, including magnesium and I consider them essential to eat daily, on the Keto diet.

This is just like any custom health diet, so start by addressing your needs for best results.

How to start calculating: Fat is 9 Calories per gram. Protein and Carbohydrates are 4 Calories per gram. This is the source of the mistaken impression that fat makes you fat. But fat is full of energy and as you'll see below, it also contains invisible nutrients. While keto, you plan your diet, so you are at or below a reasonable amount of total calories each day.

We're going to calculate an "ideal / goal" diet based on total calories needed per day, and a 1:1 ratio. But we're not doing it to "lose weight" in this example. The total Calories is 1800 which should keep most adult's bodies from gaining or losing weight. Women with a slight build might need to lower that to 1500 Calories per day. But the elderly probably shouldn't go below 1800 because they may have more trouble absorbing nutrition, especially while recovering from Celiac disease. It's tricky because osteoporosis will give anyone a 'slight build' so use your best judgement.

How do you set your nutrient gram goals for your daily calories in an idealized example? Starting with 1800 Calories per day, you calculate the Proteins and Carbs first.

How much protein?

You can delve into how much protein you need yourself, but I've come to believe that adults need at least 75g -100g protein each day, and bodybuilders often eat twice that. I sometimes don't agree with medical advice given by Harvard, but in this case, this article is a reasonable start if you want to research the protein needs of your body. Many people trust Harvard, so it's encouraging to see them recommending twice the RDA for protein, and roughly 15-25% of Calories as protein in their blog. Naturally, this causes confusion with people calling certain diets a "high protein" diet, when actually the RDA is just wrong. This calculation falls in the 15-25% boundary recommended by Harvard's blog post. It's a 22% protein diet calculation.

So if we assume 100g of protein that's 400 Calories. We know we want less than 40g of carbohydrate per day because it's Ketogenic. Carbs tend to creep up, so let's start with 30g carbs per day. That's 120 Calories. I've gone as low as 10g of carbs but it was very difficult. What's left from 1800 Calories?

1800 - 520 = 1280 Calories need to come from Fat every day for Ketogenic energy production

1280 / 9 = 142 grams of Fat each day.

So your "goal" macros in grams are: in P/C/F, 100g P / 30g C / 142g F

This will result in 130g of Protein + Carb : 142g of Fat -- which is about a 1:1 ratio.

Nobody really eats this perfectly every day. It wold be foolish to try. But you can plan your meals so that you're eating 3 times a day, and generally, 33g of Protein, 10g of carbs, and 47g of fat per meal. If you've never done this before that seems like a giant amount of fat. Remember that it's replacing your energy source from carbs. The protein is needed for daily repair and upkeep of your body's structure, so don't lower it. Low protein can also trigger hunger so it's a bad idea to lower it too much.

Also, the tools we have are inaccurate. For instance, if you add oil, lard, or tallow to your calculation on Chronometer.com, it will show no nutrients besides calories. But that's inaccurate already. There are fat soluble vitamins in all body fats of animals, and there are vitamins in oils. So we're already taking in invisible nutrition that we don't usually have, by eating a ketogenic diet instead of a low fat diet. However, I caution you not to call this a "more nutritious" diet because it simply focuses more on certain nutrients. So keep your focus on your diet needs, nutrition and gluten free, and you'll be fine.

Invisible Nutrition in Fats

When people criticize the ketogenic diet, they often rely on our ignorance of this simple fact: Fat isn't empty calories. Neither is carbs (since they are often delivered in fruits, vegetables or grains/pulses that contain other nutrition). The primary sources of empty calories in our food system are refined sugar (also corn syrup), and shortening, which have had the nutrients purified out of them. I also suspect that lard, as found in a grocery store, is too purified to have any nutrition left, but it's hard to verify that.

Example of the inaccurate listing of nutrients in fatty foods: One of the worst things low fat diets have done is lowered our food intake of naturally available Vitamin K, while at the same time, we have an osteoporosis epidemic. It's not even listed in food nutrition tables, not even in the USDA table, which only lists plant-based vitamin K, and doesn't even mention the animal fat forms of it. So keep in mind, you're eating not only fat, but fat soluble nutrients. Instead of buying expensive MK-7 supplements, you could be using a higher fat diet to provide it for yourself naturally.

Tips

1. Read read read! This website is perhaps the best resource on the planet for Ketogenic dieting, click through and follow up on the references. Then seek out some Paleo references on Keto-Paleo, or look up the Wahl's Protocol. Note that for some odd reason Paleo doesn't always mean organic and neither Keto NOR Paleo means Celac-safe Gluten Free! Keep it simple, while focusing on high nutrition and no gluten.

Life Pro Tip : ) In particular, avoid trying to find Vegan, Organic and Gluten free cheese, because it's a unicorn, I've been seeking it for years, and so far every product that approached it has glutened me or made me ill from bloating.

2. Measure out four or five recipes that work for you to start, make them all ahead, or at least 3 of them, and portion them out. You can use an intermittent fasting plan, so that you begin eating at 12 noon and do not eat after 10pm. Or you can wing it and use an "eating every three hours" plan, that depends on what your body needs to feel right. You can plan it for no weight loss, around 2000 calories. Or for modest weight loss, around 1500 calories. Anything below 1200 calories a day is considered a "VLCD" (very low calorie diet) though, and you should talk to your MD about working with a local weight loss specialist MD in your area.

3. Buy a bag of chicharrones / pork rinds and try them. Some people like them, but they're fairly neutral in flavor. If you can stand them, buy a few more bags, it will help your transition because they replace bread crumbs in almost any scenario.

4. If you eat dairy, your path will be more smooth for Keto. I've been experimenting with some butter lately, and it seems ok so far. But at the moment I can't tell whether I feel bad because of the casein in the butter or because of the mold we cleaned up from around our windows. I'm still achy from the mold. However it's a big advantage to be able to use cream cheese. Cashew butter just isn't the same, so I tend to avoid dairy requiring foods.

5. Seek out a good recipe for keto 'french toast' using eggplant. And make some simple fried zucchini rounds for snacks.

6. Either use a mayo you like, make fresh mayo or make a mock mayo that's high in fat. You can sweeten the mock mayo (if it includes mustard) and have instant honey mustard.

7. Don't be fooled by Swerve, Erythriol, Truvia, or any of the other 'fake sugars.' for daily use Do the math for 1 cup of any of the fake sugars and compare the calories to 1 cup of sugar. Yeah, not much savings. The only sweeteners I use are stevia and saccharin. Saccharin is my preference, strictly on flavor quality. But, is it true what they say about just the flavor of sweetness spiking insulin levels? Well the evidence is mixed, as a fellow blogger has analyzed here. I'd rather use a tiny amount of real coconut sugar (the brown sugar flavors in coconut sugar beat anything in my opinion) if I need something sweet (like a topping on simple custard).

If you're going to enjoy life while keto, you'll occasionally either celebrate with something carby (cookies, cake, etc), or you'll end up baking with unusual fake sugars. A good use of the fake sugars is to find one that is converted to fat by gut microbes, before you absorb it. As long as you're not having a birthday party every week, it will be fine. Maria Emmerich has a lot of great recipes using Swerve mostly. We're all human and celebrating together is an important part of life. Don't renounce the love of life!

8. The healthiest way to go keto is to avoid trying to fake everything you're missing, and learn to appreciate the naturally keto snacks and foods that come from various ethnic cuisines.

9. Slip fiber or seaweed nutrition into anything you can get away with. Lots of foods can 'hide' and are even enhanced by the addition of chia or flax seeds, ground. For instance, scrambled eggs with ground flax looks speckly, but tastes perfect.

10. Find a Keto cookbook you really like. I still think the Atkins books are good, especially the one page where he discusses the Fat Fast. (That's not an Atkins site, so if you want it from his book exactly, then this is the version that contains it for sure.) But since then, there have been so many books about low carb and Keto! Most new authors deserve to be read more widely. Here's one I haven't seen before, but I love few-ingredient types of cookbooks. There are a few more suggestions, that I think are good, here.

Bonus tips:

Macadamia nuts are exactly keto! If you like them, stock up! Beware of keto snacks that aren't gluten free.

You might want to learn how to render lard or tallow at home yourself. This will lead to the maximum nutrition from animal fat. However be careful, don't ask the butcher to grind the fat up for you, because it can lead to cross contamination with gluten, if, for instance, wheat flour was added to a sausage recipe in the same grinder.

Eat green leafy vegetables every day. Never skip a day of this nutrition packed food. Make it cooked if you don't like salad, but include it.

The A List - Foods and Recipes to Look Up

Classic Keto foods you can use as a springboard for your own take on this neurologically healing diet:

Oopsie Rolls / Oopsie Bread

Keto Ice Cream (I got an ice cream machine for about $10 at a yard sale)

Custard and Chocholate Custard (or Carob, I think I actually prefer carob to chocholate!)

Guacamole

Eggplant "French Toast"

Egg Nog (in a thermos, this is a great workday sip)

Mug muffins based on nut flour and coconut

Coconut cream... soup!

Chicken soup, with all the fat, or with added fat, use freshly cut spiral squash for noodles

Bacon, Eggs and Tomato (the classic!)

Deviled eggs, or Angeled Eggs (my recipe!)

Roasted meat of your choice with coconut oil + peanut butter dip

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

Homemade ranch dressing (or honey mustard), green salad and roasted chicken slices

Of Atkins, Keto and Low-Fat Vegan

The "new guard" in Atkins diets would be the authors Phinney and Volek who authored one of the later Atkins books and then wrote one of their own. They tend to focus on athletic performance benefits. A minority of athletes do use their advice, so be on the lookout for keto runners, especially trail runners. Even Runner's World has written about the Keto diet recently, and said that long distance runners may benefit.

Dr. Phinney has a three part video series about Keto Dieting here, and also note, he actually knew Ancel Keys and if you're interested in dieting, you should look up what Dr. Phinney has to say about Dr. Keys.

I tend to look at Atkins and Keto as the same thing, but they're really not. The goals and some methods, are very different. While some people do use Atkins to control migraines, nobody would suggest Atkins as a permanent solution to epilepsy, and most people use Atkins for weight loss, not so much for medical issues, such as neurological problems. The main difference is that Keto stays below 40g of Carbs per day, and Atkins may go up as high as 100g of Carbs per day (after the Induction period). As a result, more energy comes from fats in the Keto diet than the Atkins diet.

I wrote this series to explain some details about the diet and to dispel myths that are harmful not just to the diet, but to people who may benefit from it. Many criticisms of Keto originate from the belief that Vegetarians,Vegans, and Low Fat Dieters are more healthy. A litany of health studies compare a "healthy diet" to a "high fat diet" but they get it wrong, very often. Why? Because they're not doing a low carb and high fat diet, they're doing a high carb and high fat diet. So it causes a lot of misunderstanding.

Incidentally, Dr. Westman is part of a local team of doctors who give Diabetes advice, diet advice, and have a support group, if your doctor refers you to his office at Duke University Medical Center. Be aware that the support group occurs in a restaurant that may not be safe for you, if you have Celiac Disease.

While I try to be fair to all diets, I no longer support veganism the way it's practiced today (as if protein doesn't matter) because I was hurt by it, physically. But I equally dislike anyone criticizing someone's efforts to improve their health. Therefore, I maintain a vigilant neutrality on diet choices and issues, as long as people are being responsible about nutrition. Some people simply like low fat food and find fatty foods unpleasant. That's OK with me. I have trouble though, when someone calls another's effort to get healthy "disgusting" or "unhealthy" without any good reason except, that they don't like it.

Vegans have been of enormous help to people with gut problems because they were the first to figure out how to make modern foods that usually include eggs or milk, without eggs or milk. As Celiacs, we often have problems with one or both of those foods and this is a brilliant benefit to us. I wish Keto and Vegan could coexist without getting tangled into so many arguments. So I say thank you to the Vegan community for the positive things, and let's focus on that.

In short, what I'm saying is, let's all try to get along and help each other be more healthy, no matter what form that takes for each person. 🙌 The stress you save could be your own!

Well that concludes my short course on the Keto Diet! I don't think it's for everyone, but many people can benefit from it. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Epilogue: OK so where do I go for good information, recipes, etc?

Here are two websites that are must-see if you're considering the Ketogenic diet

Be careful when you google for this one, there are a lot of copycat sites with similar names, This is the original Ketogenic Diet Resource. Most of the ones with similar names are scammy.

This blog and associated commercial websites has been around for 11 years and posts something new every day. It's Mark's Daily Apple, and Mark is a former endurance athlete.

Between these two sites, you will discover many more, but always be aware that the Atkins Diet is orthodox medicine's favorite hatred totem. So be very cautious about what you believe. These two sites I've found to be far better than my greatest expectations, and they have continued that way.

Durham's Gluten Free Network