Common Mistakes that Lead You Down the “Dirty Keto” Path
Activating autophagy provides so many immediate and wide-ranging health benefits, which I share with you in my bestselling book Glow15. Intermittent fasting, protein cycling, a diet high in good fat and my youth-boosting AutophaTea have made a world of difference in my life, and I hope yours too. I often discuss my journey to wellness and the adjustments I have made along the way, and one of those adjustments occurred a year and a half ago. I was battling an uptick in inflammation due to the amount of travel and work I had taken on, and I realized that I needed to examine what I was doing, what I was ingesting and make a change. So, I made the decision to go traditional keto, the classic approach to the ketogenic diet plan, which is more restrictive on carbohydrate intake (75% fat, 20% protein and 5% carbs) and extremely beneficial for those individuals that suffer from auto-immune or metabolic issues. Going traditional keto not only allowed me to make a beneficial change for my inflammation, but it still allowed me to function within the principles of Glow15. However, through this structured process, I discovered some distinct nuances to starting a traditional ketogenic lifestyle, and I would like to share them with you to support you in achieving your goals.
The differences I’m referring to come down to certain key distinctions between what is known as “dirty keto” and “clean keto.” While I am a solid believer that there is no “one right way to keto” and you need to find the specific dietary strategies that work best for your unique biochemistry, a dirty approach to keto is downright harmful to everyone. Trust me, the benefits you will reap from clean keto are nothing short of miraculous. On the flip side, the dangers of dirty keto can actually set the stage for increased inflammation and risk of chronic disease, which clearly is not the ultimate goal.
Additionally, doing anything just for the end goal robs you of the process… the journey. My spirit of discovery is not just for travel, but for the inner journey as well. When we connect with our food and see it as more than just grams of fat or grams of carbs, for example, food can take on much more power and that energy we give it by honoring its huge medicinal ability can have life-changing effects on our health. So, first off, I encourage everyone to assume a humble perspective of food. The junky, processed stuff can completely wreak havoc on your health, skin, mood, sleep, energy, and weight while the real, whole, vitally-charged food can heal, bring you back into balance and give you your life back. It’s remarkable and it’s true. But yet, in the light of getting results quickly, even the best of us (like yours truly) can sometimes forget its power!
My interest and passion for real, whole foods and their incredible healing power dates back to my childhood with an autoimmune skin disease. The path I took to find the right combination of dietary and lifestyle changes to effectively manage my disease and give me my life back is something I now feel both compelled and obligated to share with everyone I meet.
The ketogenic diet has been a big part of my personal journey and healing process, yet I’ve learned along the way just how essential it is to ensure your body is prepared and equipped for the major changes in mindset and physiology. This preparation includes understanding that the nutrient-density and quality of what you eat is profoundly important, and that the environment in which we live also must be addressed and accounted for. I always stress that quality trumps quantity. The quality of our food isn’t about keeping on trend with the culture of organics or pastured animal foods. Quality is important because the toxins and impurities in our food system are actual real players in disease, obesity and inflammation. Many top researchers have studied the science behind the connection between environmental toxins, our food supply and inflammation. There’s an actual field dedicated to it and I believe it’s going to become a more prominent discussion in the coming years. Researchers coined the term obesogens, which refer to both dietary and environmental toxins that directly contribute to obesity and metabolic disorders. Avoiding obesogens starts with the foods you put into your body.
I was fortunate enough to have a conversation with Dr. Cate Shanahan, one of the unbelievable experts I had the opportunity to interview in The Real Skinny on Fat docuseries. She so simply, yet profoundly, put everything into perspective for me when she said that unhealthy fats are worse for the human body than cigarettes. Let that sink in for a second…. Think about all the cappuccinos with cream and choosing dishes off the menu with the richest and heaviest of sauces, and yet not paying much attention to the quality of these fats, but only concerned with how much of it we can consume.
What do I mean by not seeing the forest for the trees regarding a ketogenic diet? Our body can solidly enter a state of ketosis by living off of low-quality bacon and fried cheese. But are you using the ketogenic diet simply to be in ketosis, or is your intention to experience its therapeutic and healing benefits? I suspect the latter.
Let me share five areas where individuals can most commonly stray from a clean keto model and enter the dangerous realm of dirty keto. Thankfully, all can easily be replaced by cleaner higher quality, real food alternatives.
Five Common Dirty Keto Mistakes
1. Rancid Vegetable Oils
There’s really no delicate way to say this: toxic fats are slowly killing us. By toxic fats, I mean modern day food culture’s profit-based practices of stocking shelves with oxidized (rancid) omega-6 fatty acids prevalent in highly processed vegetable oils and all processed foods that use these oils. Vegetable oils most commonly used for cooking and that lurk in most all restaurant kitchens include canola, soybean, corn, sunflower, cottonseed, and grapeseed oils. The reason these fats are used is because they are cheap and have a seemingly endless shelf life due to the fact they are very highly processed, so basically have already gone bad before even leaving grocery store shelves.
These types of processed vegetable oils (the new cigarettes) are simply unnatural in the human diet and are being used in shockingly large amounts between at-home cooking and processed foods. They have been linked with systemic inflammation, neurodegenerative conditions, cardiovascular disease and more. An overabundance of polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acids throws off the natural omega-3:omega-6 ratio, and since this balance is critical to human health it’s no surprise that we are in an epidemic of rampant inflammation.
To avoid this major pitfall of dirty keto, focus instead on the nourishing and healing fats that I outline in detail in Glow15 such as coconut oil, MCT oil, grass-fed butter and ghee, avocado oil, tea seed oil, avocados, nuts, seeds (pili nuts are my secret weapon) and omega-3 fats from wild caught fish and BioAlaskan fish oil.
Given just how prevalent toxic fats are in today’s diet, it might seem next to impossible to avoid them, especially if eating out is part of your reality. Tricks I’ve learned that have made a world of difference include carrying with me a travel-size bottle of extra virgin olive oil (hint: quality matters when it comes to EVOO) and not being afraid to speak up when you’re eating out. Sadly, canola oil runs in the veins of restaurants, so going as far as telling servers that you are allergic to it might be the answer. Don’t feel bad telling a white lie — it’s your health on the line.
2. Conventional Dairy
Having grown up in Europe, dairy has always been a part of my diet. Unfortunately, modern-day practices of processing dairy result in a very different product than what I grew up with. But being the dairy-lover I am (and suspect most