Keto

Keto is one of the most polarizing nutrition approaches in the fitness and health world.

Some people treat it like a miracle. Others dismiss it completely.

And like most nutrition debates, both sides usually become ideological instead of practical.

In this episode, I break down where keto genuinely works, where it often fails, and why individual physiology matters far more than online nutrition tribes.

For some people, ketogenic dieting dramatically reduces food noise, improves appetite control, stabilizes blood sugar, and creates adherence that they never had with higher carbohydrate diets. That matters. A diet that someone can consistently follow will outperform a “perfect” diet they constantly abandon.

At the same time, keto is not magic.

A lot of people use ketosis to mask poor calorie awareness, avoid behavioral work, or justify excessive restriction. Others force themselves into a low-carb approach that leaves them flat, exhausted, socially isolated, or unable to train at a high level.

This episode also breaks down the reality that training demands, stress load, digestion, hormonal status, and lifestyle all influence how well someone tolerates lower carbohydrate intake.

Some people feel mentally sharp and stable on keto. Others feel anxious, depleted, and constantly under-recovered.

Neither experience is universally right or wrong.

The bigger issue is that most people are trying to force ideology onto physiology instead of paying attention to feedback.

Nutrition should be adaptive, not religious.

Your body composition, energy, recovery, digestion, relationship with food, and long-term sustainability matter more than belonging to a dietary camp.

What We Cover

• Why keto works extremely well for some people
• How appetite suppression changes adherence
• Common mistakes people make on ketogenic diets 
• Why training performance recovery matter
• The psychological side of restrictive dieting
• Why physiology should drive food decisions, not internet identity

Key Takeaways

• Adherence matters more than ideology
• Appetite control is powerful, but it is not behavior change
• A diet only “works” if your body and lifestyle can sustain it
• Dogma creates blind spots. Awareness creates results

If you’ve ever felt confused by the extreme opinions around keto, this episode will help you think about it in a more practical, grounded way.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to another rebuild episode. It's good to see you. Today I want to talk to you about the keto diet. It's very popular. It's been in and out, you know, in the last 10, 15 years, very popular, and it took, you know, rise in popularity actually in the 50s as a medical treatment diet. And so a lot of people don't understand this, that it is actually one of the few diets that does have some good literature behind it as far as um helping the ailment of metabolic diseases and certain brain diseases, etc. And so a lot of folks think keto is like magic in and of itself, that if you're in a keto diet, that the laws of thermodynamics do not apply. This is not true. Any diet, any caloric diet that you do, any eating that you do still has the law of thermodynamics, which is essentially calories in and calories out. Now there's some things that matter, right? Like, you know, your hormones matter, your age matters, your activity levels matter, and someone's let's say calories in, calories out equation might not be exactly the same, often isn't for their whole life. That's normal physiology, right? And so we have a simple way of looking at it through that calories in, calories out lens, but it's also not simple. And so I I'd like to be careful with that and try not to turn this into you know a physiology podcast. But when you look at keto itself, being in ketosis does not give you any more fat burning. We've studied this till the end of time. It's well known in the scientific literature, it's just not in the social media space because creators are always trying to sell some some crap. And so it's like this idea that keto provides superior fat loss to just being in a caloric deficit. If you average out the calories that someone's taking in, it's pretty much the same amount of fat loss. In fact, I think um including carbohydrates in the diet provides a slightly better um uh dieting result head to head, which makes sense because the thyroid doesn't take a hit from not having those carbohydrates. But it is very effective as a functional tool for a short period of time. I've used it a lot uh for uh slapping insulin resistance in the face, so it's an amazing tool if I have someone who's very insulin resistant. It can be appetite suppressive for some people, but I also want to myth bust that a little bit. Just because you're having more dietary fat, like there's this myth that like fat's more satiating than carbs and protein's more satiating than fat. That's not true at all. For a lot of people, carbohydrates are um one of the more satiating macronutrients, even above protein, and protein always isn't. It's a little bit more intra-ind individual, and we've studied this, to be honest. It has some varied results, which tells me that there probably is no one macronutrient that suppresses appetite, and people usually just want stuff because it would be awesome. GLPs suppress appetite, not so much eating more fat or more protein. The reason that I think more protein suppresses appetite is because people naturally don't like eating protein. So if you make them eat more, you just get food fatigue. But for me, I'm kind of like that with common carbohydrates, like uh rice is an example. Like after five bites of rice, I'm just done with it. And I think part of that is because I've eaten so much in my prior bodybuilding career, but it doesn't like do anything for me. And so if someone said to me, Dylan, you're gonna go on a really low-fat diet, like when I used to bodybuild and get absolutely shredded out of my mind, I would go on a very low-fat diet, high carbohydrate, moderate protein, because that for me was the macronutrient that I could just like push away, if that makes sense, versus like uh for me, like some roasted pecans or almonds. I could eat probably like 4,000 calories of those in a sitting and not be full because I like them. You know, that's like that was like a healthy fat kid snack that I would have. It's like trail mix, cashews. I could eat those till I'm blue in the face. And so for me, a calorie deficit through the keto diet actually was never um a great strategy. For neurological function, so things like um Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, dementia, um, glucose does and cancers even, glucose does feed a lot of the uh sort of biological process in amplifying those disease states once the disease state has started, and so starving the brain and or body of glucose, forcing it into ketosis can help with some of those and it'll drive inflammation down as well. Um but again, uh creating a calorie deficit also creates a uh uh it creates a lessened inflammation response in the body, and so you know that take that into account. You know, there's there's some things we still have to discover here for training. Um, you know, there's been some long um some athletes that do very long distance like cycling or running who have done well utilizing ketosis, but again, much like the carnivore diet, because they're very similar, carnivore is just gonna have more protein. Keto is going to have like 70, 60-70% of your diet coming from fats, and you know, more like 20 to 30 from protein. So it's keto is like super high fat, pretty low protein actually, and very low carbs. Carnivore would be considered like moderate protein, high fat, and then very low carbs. And so just by default, because you're eating uh a little bit less sort of animal product on a keto diet, on a standard keto diet, standard keto diet you can think of almost like um kind of like a Mediterranean diet, lots of high-fat fish, high-fat meats, um, nuts, seeds, butters, gis, oils, uh, some greens, vegetables, a little bit of berries, and uh that's that's kind of it, right? And so any sport or performance endeavor that requires a high glycolytic turnover. So, what does that mean in English, Dylan? That's gonna require carbohydrates to perform. Uh so you know, a lot of like a lot of weightlifting sessions, fighting, military work, all this type of stuff that requires explosion uh and muscle contraction usually suffers on a keto diet for most people. And uh, you know, I think that the sort of the there's a big overhype on how easy it is to stay in ketosis and act that out. You know, again, I I mostly am speaking to folks in North America because that's just where my my audience group is, but it's very unlikely that someone is gonna stick to a ketogenic diet for a long period of time. Most people really enjoy carbohydrates. You know, if you want to limit them because you know you have an issue with them, that's fine. But, you know, I think that obsessing about am I in ketosis today and peeing on sticks, unless you're doing a very functional health work with someone who knows a lot more ph about physiology and neurology than you do, and you're just self-doing that, I think it's kind of just a waste of time, to be honest. Although I am for people trying things, but I just don't want people to get the idea that there's like this magic thing that fixes their behavior problem, which is almost always the problem. And so there is definitely long-term hormonal consequences to watch out for, particularly with women. Again, women do not actually do well on low carbohydrates. Men are way harder to kill. Uh, you know, you can kind of feed us and we can be a slave with you know very little calories, and our body will just keep churning out and churning out. Women's bodies degenerate in about six to twelve months when they don't have proper nutrients, and their hormone profile will fall apart a lot faster. They're much easier to kill. And so I think that that's something that I'd be very careful of if I was a female watching this. Okay. And so remember, total calories will still matter a lot. Athletes will often feel flat and slow. It does work pretty pretty well in like uh high stress, um, you know, maybe sedentary executives with really bad uh insulin sensitivity or pre-diabetes or a disposition for dementia, Alzheimer's. I think that that is um, those are something to watch out for. But I think tools only work when the conditions match, right? So I don't want you to make one uh one tool or like one solution, the ultimate holy grail of health and fitness, because it never is, right? And so again, uh I try to break this down simply. I try to keep these episodes in under 10 minutes. Most of these episodes I I do for my clients because I just want to empower them with the knowledge for me to be their last coach and not feel like they need to not feel like they need to chase a magic dragon around long after I'm gone. Um, but if this is something that you want help with in your in your lifestyle, in your diet, your nutrition, your mindset, I would love to lead you through the rebuild and and show you how I can be your last coach. Thank you so much for for joining us today, and I hope you have an awesome rest of your day.