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Give Me a Bit More Detail

A Common Progress in Three Minutes.

Metabolic Syndrome drives most of the chronic poor health in the community. Your immediate concern might be obesity, joint pain, lack of sleep, type 2 diabetes, lack of energy, loss of libido, or something similar.

You are trapped by what you "know". When you first learn about the Banting Diet (Keto, Ketogenic, LCHF), giving it a try, looks easy, but somehow it's "hard". Why? All of us have brains full of nutritional and health propaganda. This destroys our initial efforts, and failure is inevitable. First you have to unlearn a lot of stuff, and that takes time.

So time passes and things get worse. Joining an online Banting or Keto group always helps.

Participating in the online internet group, lets you see that other people are making progress.

However the focus is likely to be on weight loss, and "Keto Foods" and making breads and muffins and deserts. It's certainly possible, and people enjoy the success of producing "Keto friendly" treats for the family, but it's expensive. It's also fake. Doing Banting without really Banting at all. Most members are avoiding real change.

More time passes and there are some people clearly having success. You get inspired and try again.

Even so, slowly, ever so slowly, from other people's knowledge; understanding about how to prepare real foods, how to measure carbohydrates, what is or isn't a good fat, and how to read food labels grows. By this time the sugar, bread, potatoes and rice are (almost) never on your table.

Fruit and fruit juice is recognised as a source of blood glucose. Cakes, muffins and deserts are no longer needed. Then we discover that there was alcohol, artificial sweeteners and diet coke involved too. When better informed, one's weight plunges again, and then stalls, about 5kg above your best adult weight.

Things are definitely better, one can exercise now. Walking and or lifting weights becomes not only sensible, but also possible and enjoyable. You have energy, and a flight of stairs or a hill doesn't intimidate you anymore.

The Banting Diet will have improved many health issues, some of them will be surprising to you. One can focus on remaining issues, like remaining inflammation of the skin or joints. Some people have autoimmune issues that resist simple changes. Talk to your doctor, but continue to seek your own way forward.

Many people find that removing vegetables from the diet reduces inflammation and restores health. This is strange and confusing to most of us. It's exactly the opposite to our expectation. It's also likely to horrify your GP or dietitian. They will likely recommend a vegetarian or a Mediterranean diet.

Still if you have pain, and you are not sure, a 30 day trial, eating only meat, fish, eggs and natural animal fats, is very safe and costs little or nothing. Plan this experiment with your doctor. Some people report the years of joint pain, skin problems and autoimmune troubles vanish. How? Why? There's lots health professionals don't know, but YOU, can learn about YOURSELF. Then talk with your dietician and doctor about what you are learning.

Meat, fish, eggs, cheese, cream; plus water, tea or coffee; seems to be an impossible diet. If it allows you to be pain free, and to have energy, and to maintain an ideal weight easily, that's such a relief.

Somewhere along the way people discover that they are never hungry, that they now eat only twice a day, and sometimes only once a day (OMAD).

It's a journey. A journey we at OFH have taken, and we've seen many other people take. If you have a need to try this, All you can do is begin, and see where it leads.

Far too many people waste three or more years getting started. That's the story of Professional Dissonance, getting your head around all the new ideas that the Banting way of thinking and living entails. Most of it directly conflicts with everything you've been taught.

Then people blame themselves for their failure to be healthy. It's NOT your fault. Fake news isn't something recent. Much of your education is based on opinion, and nutritional and health education is full of both wrong and doubtful recommendations. Your existing knowledge about health and nutrition needs to be unpacked and re-evaluated. See Common Health and Dietary Ideas. There's no quick way to unlearn old but wrong stuff; that stops your progress. We can tell you what to do, but you can't do it. You will make poor decisions. You will sometimes lose previous gains. You will repeat old mistakes and have to relearn old lessons.

Then there is the social taboo of even talking about health issues with family members, or work associates or other people you know well. Too often, the issue is so sensitive that it cannot be discussed. See The Forbidden Conversation.

Dr Jason Fung (11 minutes)

Published by: Diet Doctor - 14 Sept 2017

Finally, there are some things you need to understand about What you can do NOW to improve your Health. Make a start. You have to find your own way. Mistakes are part of the journey. When you fall off the wagon, Start Again, the sooner the better.

You will make much better progress if you can understand why Banting works. Learning about real foods, and how nutrition maintains your body, and about Metabolic Syndrome, will give us many reasons for continuing to develop your knowledge.

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