Preventing Ketones on a Paleo Diet

This is open to anyone, but I guess William will provide me with the definitive answer.

I'm seriously considering going Paleo, I'll probably be on more of a modified Paleo diet than William would be on more like some of the others on here.

My question is simple really, how do I prevent Ketones, considering that my carb intake will be almost none existent?

Rob,

William posted this link to an interview with Stephen D. Phinney MD, PhD on Ketogenic diets, below is a link to one of Dr. Phinney's paper's on the same topic.

In addition an interview with Dr. Phinney is here:
[hoe.kgnu.net]

[www.nutritionandmetabolism.com]

Dr. Phinney studies Inuit diets that are 80% fat, 20% protein. He started studying them in the '70's. One comment Dr. Phinney made is to not over-do the protein side. He remarks that the native people's talk about a diet that is too protein rich - rabbits in the spring.

George

Rob - the idea of Paleo is more to eat the food of ancestors and one thing that keeps coming up frequently is that it is perceived as a high protein diet...it is not. The ancestors didn't have an abundance of protein every day...only when they made a good kill and that would last for a while.

With modern day adaptation to Paleo eating, we should have ample protein but not overdo it and the key to avoiding keytones is to eat plenty of non-starchy carbs in the form of allowed vegetables and fruits.

William will probably correct me for this loose interpretation of Paleo eating.

The nutritionally oriented physicians today steering patients toward Paleo type eating emphasize that protein is eaten in moderation... relatively small portions... about the size of a deck of cards... and often for 3 meals a day ... yielding approximately 20 grams of protein for each deck of card/serving or a total of around 60 grams a day. Heavy exercisers require more. The focus though is getting in the minimum of 9 or 10 servings of nonstarchy carbs and fruit, eliminating all grains, dairy, beans (like dried beans) but not to have too much in the way of fruit that is very sweet - like bananas, pineapple, dried fruit that will produce a blood sugar rush and subsequent insulin spike and then a hypoglycemic event as a result.

This is a very rough outline. You can check the Paleo website for more tips.

My functional medicine MD follows the Schwarzbein Principle of eating which is almost Paleo...but allows small amounts of brown rice and oatmeal because Dr. Schwarzbein feels people who have burned out adrenals cannot function and heal without just a bit of added carbs - thus the brown rice and oatmeal, but these are small amounts and not at every meal... maybe only one a day and maybe not every day. She's an endocrinologist who was seriously ill from adrenal burnout and she's developed a recovery protocol. You have to restore adrenal function before anything else.... thus her eating plan.

When you eat more foods than protein, you will not develop ketones. That's the old Atkins style diet where little in the way of veggies was allowed...it was something like less than 20 grams total a day from veggies or fruit..which is virtually nothing... and was hard on the kidneys if one stayed on that plan for an extended period of time. Later on, Atkins expanded his plan to include more balanced eating rather than so heavily weighted toward major protein intake- fatty protein especially.

Forgive me William for the loose interpretation of Paleo.

Jackie

I don't think it is a loose interpretation - something I try to keep in mind is that people were hunter-gatherers, not only hunters.
I assume that females did the gathering, so provided whatever plant-source foods were in the diet. These are either no longer available or males are not equipped to recognize them. Females have better colour vision than males for a reason.

The Inuit diet is not the best example, because there are no edible plant source foods where they live, except the rare seeds they got by robbing mouse nests.

Modern tests on athletes indicate that the perfect mix should be 83% calories from animal fat.

The only person I know of who eats raw paleo beef only (with the usual splendid results) adds 10% organ meats to each meal, for the sake of nutrients insufficiently present in meat. This is a male approach. Paleo gatherers might have provided the same nutrients in berries or fruits.

IIRC nobody who has experience worries about ketones.

And it's raw; if you can't do it raw, then supplements are needed.

William

PS Modern veggies grown by agri-business contain an estimated 2% of what minerals that they used to have when farming was traditional. This guarantees deficiency disease. WS

Here is a better answer that I just found at:
[www.wynman.com]
---I have not yet found the courage to try such a fast.

"Incidentally, fasting is not a period where the body functions without food; just no food from outside the body. Normally, most of the body's energy comes from ADP directly from glucose. According to Dr. Alec Burton, of London & Sydney, Australia, who's likely conducted more fasts than any other living person (some of over 100 days), when the fast starts & glucose from food is unavailable, the body switches to glycolysis, using the glycogen stored in the liver & muscles to produce the glucose for the body's energy. In a couple days when that's nearly gone, the body switches to gluconeogenesis, breaking down its own protein to provide the glucose. Since eating its own protein is not a good idea, it quickly to switches to ketosis, which is fully in place by the 10-14th day of the fast, breaking down fatty acids & other nutrients in the body into ketones, which provide most of the energy for body functions during the remainder of the fast. When ketones are broken down for energy, the byproducts are CO2 & water, which is why people fasting usually need very little water. The brain & a few other organs need a small amount of glucose to function, so the gluconeogenesis process continues to use some protein during the fast.

He says at the point when the body has successfully converted from burning glucose to burning ketones, then the rebuilding, regeneration can proceed & minimal protein will be lost & that most of the benefit of the fast occurs after the 7th to 14th day. If that's true, it seems to make little sense to switch on & of the fast, forcing the body to go thru that 7-10 day process over & over."

William