Ketogenic diet: What a scientist who’s done keto diet for 6 years eats

Ketogenic diets are high
in fat, and essentially cut a person’s sugar intake to
nil.
Africa
Studio/Shutterstock

Six years ago, David Harper considered himself relatively
healthy.

The anatomy and physiology professor loved an occasional cookie,
but he exercised often, cooked nutritious meals at home, and
tried to stick to conventional nutrition advice: not too many
calories, low amounts of fat. 

But Harper started to realize that saturated fat may not be so
bad, and that maybe it was the carbohydrates he ate that were
causing him to pile on extra pounds and increasing
inflammation.

“We’ve been telling people to eat the wrong diet for 40
years, and we’ve seen the results,” Harper told Business
Insider.

He’s is convinced that carbohydrate-heavy, low-fat diets
are a major reason we’re seeing high rates of diabetes, high
blood pressure, obesity, and cancer. That’s because
a diet
high in sugar can quickly raise insulin levels in the body.
Over time, those insulin spikes can lead to insulin resistance
and eventually to long-term health issues like high blood
pressure, Type 2 diabetes, inflammation, and obesity.

So years before the likes of LeBron James and the
Kardashians figured out there might be some benefits to a
low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet, Harper gave it a try.

[Read More: Silicon
Valley’s favorite high-fat diet is beloved by everyone from
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works]

Harper lost over 20 pounds on a high-fat, low-carb
diet

Trained in mathematical biofluiddynamics, Harper teaches
anatomy, physiology, and pathology at University of the Frasier
Valley in British Columbia. He said that’s part of the reason the
keto diet made sense to him. 

David
Harper
Goran
Basaric

“It was the knowledge that I gained through my career
teaching anatomy, physiology, and pathology that led me to the
conclusion that this is absolutely right, in terms of the way the
human body works,” he said.  

Harper went on the diet with his wife to test out what it
was like for a few months.

“Over 12 weeks I lost about 22 pounds of body fat,” he
said, adding that most of it was around his mid-section. He
wasn’t a big guy before — about 5’9″ tall and roughly 177 pounds
— but today he weighs 150 or so.

The reason the keto diet is effective for weight loss and
some disease control is that it fundamentally shifts the way our
bodies run. On a traditional diet, our bodies automatically reach
for carbohydrates to burn first, before using fats, because carbs
are quicker and easier to break down.

But if there are no carbs available, our bodies start
burning fat as a primary fuel source and producing ketone bodies
in the liver, which the body can turn into energy. This metabolic
state, called ketosis, is what happens when someone is
starving. But it’s also how Harper’s body works every day.
His system relies on fats like butter, oil, and lard as a
primary energy source instead of packing those fats on as
in-case-of-emergency poundage.

Harper said he doesn’t even feel hungry if he skips a meal
or two.

Harper doesn’t eat tons of meat, and hasn’t given up wine

Flickr/adactio

Harper said he often starts the day by eating high-fat
yogurt topped with a few berries and some roasted
nuts. Other mornings, his breakfast might be bacon and eggs
with some tomato and avocado.

His sweet tooth is gone, he said. Instead, he gets
hankerings for fatty foods.

“What I crave is butter,” he said. “I like grass-fed
butter. I could eat that stuff like cheese.”

If he’s out and about during the day, he might order a
breve latte, which is made with cream instead of whole milk. Most
keto dieters shy away from even the fattiest milk because it
contains too many carbohydrates (specifically sugar) to be
ketosis-friendly. Harper keeps a stash of nuts with him at all
times when on the go. 

[Read More: The
tastiest, most surprising foods you can eat on the keto
diet]

For lunch, he often opts for a salad with chicken or fish
on top.
The dinners he cooks are usually pasta-style
dishes or maybe the occasional meat-and-potatoes type
meal, except he replaces any potatoes or grain-based pasta
with low-carb alternatives like cauliflower or squash. Often he
tops the meal off with cheese. He avoids
 beans
and apples, which are too high-carb to be considered keto, but
sometimes has a glass of wine or munches on berries for a sweet
treat.

“It’s all real food that comes from plants, and I don’t eat
huge amounts of meat,” Harper said.

If he does cook chicken, he keeps the fatty skin on, and
the small cuts of steak he picks out are marbled with fat.

The keto diet is not a diet at all

Harper doesn’t think the keto diet should be tried as a
quick fix, and he’s not a fan of keto “cycling”: a practice that
involves switching back and forth between a state of ketosis and
meals with more carbs. 

“You need to be committed, and you need to really say ‘I’ve
been on the wrong path for a long time and I’m willing to give up
a lot of these foods that I really love, that I’m emotionally
attached to, 
and I’m going to change to a
different diet because that’s going to provide better health,'”
he said.
 

But a few disclaimers about the keto diet are in
order. It’s not for everyone – people with a
history of kidney or liver issues and pregnant women can put
themselves in severe danger if they try the diet. The
plan should not be tried without consulting a
professional.

Harper also said that many people may confuse going keto
for an excuse to fill up on bacon and eggs every morning, but it
really isn’t. A
proper keto diet is about 70-80% fat, with no more than
10-15% carbs. That means most people try to keep their
carbohydrate intake below 50 grams a day and stick to only
moderate amounts of protein.

Other kinesiologists think the keto diet could have dangerous
effects on people’s athletic performance, and it’s tough to know
what potential side effects a long-term high-fat diet might have
for a healthy person, since we don’t have any solid study results
yet. Low-carb diets like keto can make it easy to neglect key
nutrients like magnesium,
calcium, and potassium that are found in fresh,
high-carb foods like beans, bananas, and oats.

Ketogenic diets are, however, already a well
established treatment to help control Type 2
diabetes and the plan has been used to
reduce instances of childhood epileptic seizures for nearly
100 years. Some scientists also think the high-fat diet may hold
promise for staving off Alzheimer’s, and there are some early
indications it might help
improve certain cancer treatment outcomes when used in
conjunction with drugs. (Harper is part of a research team
that’s 
investigating how the diet might help
boost treatment in patients with breast
cancer.)  

But Harper doesn’t think keto should be considered a fad diet.

“You can’t do this halfway,” he said. “You have to be
all in, and all in forever.”