30g of carbohydrates a day seems extremely low. The ketogenic diet is not a general-purpose diet, it's a therapeutic diet used to treat specific medical conditions. Also, sugars are only a specific type of carbs, so carbohydrate intake should not be compared directly to sugar intake.
> The ketogenic diet is not a general-purpose diet, it's a therapeutic diet used to treat specific medical conditions.
https://www.reddit.com/r/keto would disagree with you. I myself stay below 20g of carbohydrates per day, and I lose ~3lbs a week on the diet, while eating cheese, meat, and green vegetables. I feel phenomenal, still get to eat food I enjoy, and wouldn't go back to a traditional carbohydrate-heavy diet if I was paid to.
I don't have any opinions on the diet itself, but if you're losing 3 lbs a week, this means that either you started out very obese or haven't been on the diet for very long. I'm glad it's working for you now but this doesn't necessarily mean that the diet will be the optimal for 10+ years.
And once you're at 150, it's only 50 weeks until you are weightless!
No disagreements on keto being useful for many. For those who want to maintain their weight, though, it's not often the right diet. So I'd argue it's not "general-purpose."
Since when did the discussion about diet's healthiness turn into weight loss discussion? You can lose 1.36 kg per week on any diet if you restrict calories, for example, but that's not really relevant here.
> You can lose 1.36 kg per week on any diet if you restrict calories
This line gets parroted around here constantly (its just thermodynamics! calories in calories out!), yet more evidence continues to be provided that macronutrient balance matters, as does gut bacteria.
EDIT: What if dieting turns out to be as easy as naturally selecting bacteria for the gut that can't break down carbohydrates easily, and selling it as a probiotic pill that replaces you're existing gut bacteria? Wouldn't that be a huge win for public health policy?
And before anyone comes in and says that's not possible, check out this women who became obese from a fecal transplant from an overweight donor:
That pill would be awesome. I would actually be willing to try one of those fecal transplants, if I could find someone who has a very high metabolism. It's a bit of a strange thing to ask someone, though. I have a relative with IBS, and he swore he'd never do it, even if there was a good chance at curing his disease. I guess it grosses out most people, but I don't really care.
Isn't a diet you lose weight from the very defintion of an unhealthy diet?
Sure, it might be what you need if you start out in an opposite but equally unhealthy state, but in the long run consistent weight loss is fatal.
It might not feel relevant to you, but large parts of the population in the world find themselves in that very situation through no choice of their own.
> Isn't a diet you lose weight from the very defintion of an unhealthy diet?
No. Really, healthy and unhealthy diets aren't binary categories, diets are more are less healthy than others, and there are usually going to be more healthy options than a diet on which you maintain a pre-existing unhealthy excess of body fat.
And, what those diets will have in common, is that you'll lose body fat on them (probably also weight, though that's less certain.)
> Sure, it might be what you need if you start out in an opposite but equally unhealthy state, but in the long run consistent weight loss is fatal.
In the long run, living is fatal, with a 100% mortality rate. But a diet on which you (with your current body weight) are losing weight is not necessarily one on which you will consistently lose weight without limit; one which would maintain a lower but healthy weight will cause you to lose weight while you are above that weight. And would cause you to gain weight if you are below that weight.
> Isn't a diet you lose weight from the very defintion of an unhealthy diet?
Not at all. If you're carrying excessive fat around, you should be modifying your diet in order to shed that excessive fat. If your body composition is healthy, then you should be on a diet that a) is providing both a proper ratio of macronutrients and b) enough calories that you're not losing muscle mass.
Everyone who posts lipids on /r/keto has horrible cholesterol. Then the other readers of the sub chime in that it's okay to have high cholesterol. Don't worry about it! Check out this TED talk!
