Mark turns the tables on Jimmy Moore (host of the popular Livin' La Vida Low Carb podcast, where he has interviewed nearly 1,000 guests!) as Jimmy discusses his new book, Keto Clarity. Jimmy reveals how eating to promote a state of nutritional ketosis can have therapeutic effects on mood, energy levels, and brain function, as well as powerful fat reduction benefits. This is particularly true for people who have been eating primal/Paleo/low-carb and become stalled out on their progress. Jimmy himself lost some 180 pounds through low carb eating, then started to explore the world of nutritional ketosis to make further progress and experience incidental benefits with great success.
Keto Clarity, which Jimmy wrote along with Dr. Eric Westman, details Jimmy's intensive self-experimentation, including blood testing several times per day for a year, to identify the dietary patterns that allow him to remain in a prolonged ketone-burning and fat-burning state. In the discussion, Jimmy mentions the confusion around "low carb" diets, which can often take the shape of a high protein diet.
When people who engage in carbohydrate restriction go overboard on protein, that excess protein beyond metabolic requirements is commonly converted into glucose through the process known as gluconeogenesis. This results in a blood sugar and insulin spike, quickly kicks you out of ketosis, and inhibits the reduction of excess body fat and all the health benefits that come with being a fat-burning machine. Essentially, you are back into a high carb eating pattern even with dietary intake of carbs is moderated. In reality, the optimal ketogenic diet would be characterized as very low carb, moderate protein (.7-1g/lb of lean mass), and high in healthy saturated and monounsaturated fats primarily. As Jimmy says, "Eating fat stokes the burning of stored body fat".
Jimmy also clarified some confusion about people measuring ketone levels. First, blood is the most accurate measurement, since the more common (and less expensive) Ketostix urine ketone testing sticks may reveal low readings not because someone is not making ketones, but because that person has become fully keto-adapted...hence they are not accumulating in the bloodstream. The book provides more details on self-experimentation and the benefits you can enjoy from being in a state of nutritional ketosis.
