Good health tips

Health is the real wealth

My previous story gave an introduction to ketosis and intermittent fasting lifestyle and why it is so good for health. I have tried to boil it down to simple and easy to follow guidelines below.

1. Eat within a eating window of 6–8 hours per day. This gives you a fasting window of 16–18 hours per day.
2. Try to maintain the same eating hours and fasting hours each day. The smaller the eating window, the better it is for health.
3. Cut out all sugars, starches, sweet fruits and grains. Grains in the powdered form (with added minerals and fortified with vitamins) are highly detrimental to health.
4. The idea is to suppress hormone insulin so that the stored fat is mobilized for energy instead of carbs. Carbohydrates make you more hungry. Cutting carbs from diet make it easy to go longer without eating.
5. Saturated fats like eggs, avocados, butter, lard, coconut oil are good for the health. In fact, they are essential for great health.
6. Diet rich in saturated fats does not cause heart disease. Carbohydrates and sugars cause heart disease.
7. Replace carbohydrates/sugars in diet with healthy saturated fats.
8. Do not use unsaturated fats to cook food. Unsaturated fats like canola oil, vegetable oils etc. are not heat stable. When cooked, these oils break down into dangerous substances. Olive oil is also partly unsaturated so it should not be cooked.
9. Stay away from artificial fats like margarine and artificial butter. These contain trans fats even though the label says otherwise.
10. Diet rich in healthy saturated fats and no carbohydrates will transition the body into ketosis or fat burning for energy. It may take at least two weeks to transition into ketosis.
11. Fat burning for energy makes the body less hungry for carbohydrates and less hungry overall.
12. Fat burning for energy produces ketones which act as fuel for the body. This fat can come from food or the stored fats in the body.
13. Do not forget to add salt to your diet. Enough salt is needed especially when you are on ketosis.
14. Consume 7–10 cups of high nutrition vegetables like collard greens, broccoli, asparagus, lettuce, spinach, kale, lemons, avocado, Brussels sprouts, celery, green onions etc. every single day.
15. All carbohydrates in diet should come from vegetables only. Lentils or beans are allowed if weight loss is not a goal.
16. Being on healthy ketosis (without cheating) for a long enough period like say 2–3 months at a time will transition the body into fat adaptation or keto adaptation.
17. Proteins help with burning fat (lipolysis). However, too much proteins cause insulin secretion which stops fat burning. Hence, eat moderate amount of proteins.
18. Fats do not cause much insulin response. So fats may be consumed as long as the hunger is not satisfied. Also it is impossible to overeat fats.
19. Stay away from junk or processed or packaged foods which may contain hidden sugars and harmful chemicals.
20. Do not worry about initial side effects like weakness, thirst, itchy rashes, sleeplessness, hunger, constipation or cravings. These will go away by eating enough vegetables/minerals or after the transition into fat adaptation is complete.

My experience has taught me that this path can guide anybody to better health in matter of days. Please comment on your thoughts or questions.