Marcus Welby's Journal, 04 December 2016

Ketotic? 

@oliverismoi Ketotic is just the vernacular for when ketones start appearing in your blood and urine in significant quantities once you restrict calories and severely restrict carbs. Not to be confused with diabetic ketoacidosis which is dangerous. I can tell about that point when most of the glycogen is burned off that is stored in the liver and I am using mostly fatty acids and proteins for metabolism. If I remember correctly the heart prefers to burn fatty acids and your brain doesn't care one way or another what goes into the coal chute as long as it burns lol. 

you are never burning or using fatty acids and proteins for energy, directly. everything will be converted to a sugar, to a ribose. Glucose and a smaller sugar molecule will always be the endgame for all living organisms on the planet as the key fuel dynamic. ketones in your urine or your blood does not mean that they are replacing sugar or glucose for in fact, a ketone is part of the saccharide family, a carbohydrate and that ketone is also used in ATP Dynamics and ATP is also a sugar based molecule. 

Great drop Marcus, keep going! 

@oliverismoi lol. You comment made me have to go back and review the Krebs cycle and beta carboxylation lol. It looks like fatty acids skip the sugar step and go directly to acetylCoA. The heart is the one that doesn't care what it burns or oxidizes in other words. The brain does ketones and glucose. I think what a lot of people have found in ketogenic diets or whatever word people want to use for them is that once glycogen stores are burned off after about 48 hours and your body is depending on ketones, fatty acids, and the main source of glucose is new glucose made from the liver that people don't get hungry as much. It makes sense since the liver can only produce glucose at a certain maximal rate, so blood sugar fluctuations are rare in a healthy person cutting out the carbs and it is theorized it is blood sugar fluctuations which lead to hunger as they drop. They drop faster after sweets than oatmeal which makes since in terms of people having more hunger after sweets on a diet than they do after oatmeal. The blood sugar rise and fall is less with oatmeal  

Adenosine is technically a sugar but it is not what we normally mean when we talk about carbs proteins and fats lol. You have apparently studied some biochemistry 

I teach bio chemistry. What we know in the lab and about the human body, and pretty much every mammal and all organisms on the planet is that the body is never ever without sugar(s). Unless we are dead - and even then some sugar molecules may remain, suspended in time even. Every nook and cranny has some form of sugar in it. Even without consuming any sugars - we will make glucose. 

You can never be without sugar - you can be with too much sugars as we all have learned - but we need sugar to exist. All organisms on the planet start first with a sugar molecule. RNA/DNA are sugar based (the ribose thing again - ribonucleic acid). We can have atoms and compounds and other molecules, amino acids say, floating around the universe and we can make them in a jar (see urey/miller on aminos) but they all are just abiotic entities. It is when they come together to form biotic beings that then a sugar molecule is required. 

All energy, all chemical actions, reactions in the body are triggered, fueled, by a sugar molecule - or electricity (again the Urey/miller experiment). So unless we are dead, we are never without sugar nor have we burned off all our sugar supplies allowing for something else to fuel the body - and again, ketones are of the sugar family - as well as the end game, the final step/stage in biochemical energy, metabolism - ATP (sugar based). 

The Ketogenic diet is misleading - not so harmful but just misplaced as a weight loss idea. Fasting - which is what ketogenics and seizures was all about - is effective as a weight loss dynamic. The more misleading and truly harmful aspect of some offshoots of the keto diet is the idea of high fat eating. That is completely founded in false science and has zero to do with weight loss and suppressing ones appetite. And of course cooked fats, bacons and butter can kill you - so too oxidized oils (olive oil, coconut oil, vegetable oil etc.). 

Keep up the good work MW!!! 

I would agree that fats need to be limited too but that is a secondary concern to carbs. I call what I and most people do Atkins light or south beach heavy lol. I saw a picture here yeaterday of steak, broccoli (preferably without butter or added fat) and a salad with no added fats in the dressing is certainly not unhealthy. Sure should that be salmon instead and a few nuts? The nice thing about Atkins light is that pretty much everything is allowed except carbs and added fat. Most people will tell you when they protein load and cut out the carbs after a couple of days they are no longer. hungry. Some people with a sweet tooth will obsess over sweets but that technically isn't hunger in my opinion. 

The hardest part about avoiding carbs like the plague and cutting out animal fat and concentrated fats where possible is boredom and waiting for the inevitable weight loss. Most people will say there really is no hunger when carbs drop to 100 grams for a female or 150 for a male provided those are mostly complex carbs or at least not all eaten at once. 

Lol. Obviously 8 GMs of sodium a day and what I am doing right now is not healthy but I don't have time to cook a damn steak and broccoli and make a salad so I am doing the Atkins light/southbeach heavy convenience food diet lol. I will slowly adjust before I blow out my heart or kidneys lol