Counter-intuitive things I learned about nutrition and wellness while on intermittent fasting and keto diet, based on personal experience and all the reading up I had to do:

Fat is not always evil

Good quality fats from fresh produce like avocados, wild salmon, butter from grass-fed cows are actually good for you. Essential, in fact, for a healthy diet. Of course, in moderation. But universally vilifying fats because “fats are unhealthy” will ironically make us unhealthier. 

Asians need to eat rice

Maybe it was a good fuel source back then when we were agrarian societies and worked hard physically. But with our sedentary urban lives right now, that old cultural norm deserves a serious relook. Or at least we don’t need to eat as much as we do. Besides, the white rice grain had arguably become mostly empty calories, with over-farming practices and food system deterioration.

Breakfast is NOT the most important meal of the day

There isn’t any most important meal. It’s about healthy intake of macro and micro-nutrients through the day/month/years, eating in moderation and at the right time. Barring any existing health issues (say, gastric pains), it’s perfectly okay to skip breakfast.

Eating all the time is actually not all good

There’s a food myth that instead of eating 3 big meals a day, it’s better to eat smaller meals. Making your body digest food all day everyday is actually not ALL good. It’s good to starve the body from time to time during the day, or for periods of time during the year. Fasting had been a cultural tradition found all over the world, and it’s not just for cultural but health reasons.

Eat fat to lose fat

On a keto diet, probably the first most counterintuitive thing one encounters is having to eat fat as a main source of energy. Yes, about 75% of your calories comes from fat. The funny thing is most people do this to lose weight (and fat). How? Long story short, avoiding carbs and eating (not too much) fats forces the body to switch to fat burning metabolically. 

You can have the sweet without the sugar

Yes. That realisation probably saved my diet from myself. Truth is, I have a sweet tooth. I loved my desserts, ice cream, and cakes. Even on keto now, I still do. So imagine my horror of having to wean off my sweets. I mean, what kind of quality of life is that if I can’t ever have a dessert ever again? (LOL) But the ill effects of sugar is also one of the main reasons why I’m doing this diet - I can see and feel what it’s doing to my body, and I’m getting worried. It was a huge internal conflict. Salvation came when I learned about alternative keto-friendly sweeteners that are actually natural, with no harmful side effects, and doesn’t raise insulin levels (unlike those artificial ones like aspartame). Monk fruit sweetener is actually one of those things that’s actually way sweeter than cane sugar, but without any of the ills. That was mind-blowing, because I always associated sweetness with sugar. No sweet without sugar, I thought. And when sugar being the bad guy, so did anything sweet. But yessss, now there can be sweetness without sugar. If natural sweeteners are safe, do I really have to demonise sweetness? Even if I stop the keto diet in a possible future, I doubt I would want to or need to touch sugar again because there’s these much healthier and just as sweet alternatives.

A doughnut becomes a 10x doughnut while you’re fasting  

Coming out from a fast, it’s important to be careful what you put into you, because after a 16h fast, the body is very insulin sensitive and if you start taking your usual carbs in huge amounts, it sky-rockets your insulin compared to if you didn’t fast. So a doughnut that didn’t faze you without fasting could be a lot more potent while you are. Not done correctly, people can actually gain weight while doing intermittent fasting. I like to think of fasting as an amplifier - it amplifies both the goods and the bads that you eat, with outsized downstream effects. So we have to choose ever wiser while on it. What a keystone habit, that ensures a cascading effect of healthier food choices and mindful eating.

Fibre is not always good for digestion and constipation

The mainstream view is that fibre is good for you. Especially if you’re constipated. But I recently saw a video where a doctor talked about a study, and his own experience helping his patients, that fibre might actually worsen constipation. He likened it to adding cars to the road to stop a traffic jam. The research he quoted showed how constipated folks on a zero fibre diet did way better than those on a high fibre one. More bowel movement. Less bloating. Mind-blown. Truth is, I had fibre anxiety after starting on keto. Because I had to swear off fruit while on keto, and even had to be careful around vegetables due to intrinsic carbs, I worried if I was getting enough fibre for my gut health. But this study made me re-examine everything I believed about fibre. I’m going to experiment more in this and see how my body responds to it.

Salt is your best friend

Salt had always been associated with hypertension/high blood pressure. Even our health authorities get food vendors to display choices for less salt. So avoiding salty foods had always been my practice. But going keto brought about electrolyte loss, namely, sodium, potassium and magnesium. How this happens is most of these minerals are stored in the water as part of glycogen in our body, which drains away when you go on keto, thus leading to electrolyte lack, and muscle weakness, cramps, low energy etc. I find myself having to drink salt water and take more salty foods just to make up the 2000mg daily recommended intake.   

Plants are not always your best friends

Eat your greens, they say. I was vegan before and know about the health benefits of a plant-based diet. The mainstream narrative is such that it feels like you can do no wrong with eating greens, ever. But what I didn’t know before was how there’s also many anti-nutrients and toxins from eating plants too. Lectins, phytates and oxolates are just some toxins found in grains, beans, nuts, soy, tofu, seeds, spinach. All the stuff that’s supposed to be good for us, that’s supposed to do no wrong. Thing is, before Big Agri and the widespread availability of such plant foods, our bodies can manage to detoxify these plant toxins as we didn’t eat so much of them. But not so now. So eat your plants but watch out for these unwholesome phytochemicals.

Eat when hungry, don’t eat for the sake of eating

3 meals a day had become such a norm that it’s hard to imagine otherwise. But since on keto and intermittent fasting, I’d learned to listen to the body, that the body is the boss. Some days I’m starving before a meal and I eat more. Double portions, even. Some days, I don’t feel hungry and I (try to) eat less. I say “try to”, because it’s so ingrained in our social practices that we have to eat when it’s time, whether our body says it is hungry or not. Otherwise risk developing gastric pains, they say. I say now, don’t eat for the sake of eating. Eat when hungry. Stop when you feel full - you don’t have to clean up your plate, your body is not a rubbish dump to throw uneaten food in. And don’t eat when you don’t feel like it. Most importantly, listen to your body. Listen.

Red meat causes heart problems…NOT always

That’s the fascinating thing about being on keto. It’s a diet that flips our traditional diet narratives on its head. But this insight applies if and only if you are on the keto diet. Because red meat can be bad for you, if you are on a high carb diet. But that doesn’t quite apply, if you’re on a low carb or keto diet. I used to avoid eating red meat for those reasons, sticking to mostly chicken. But now, beef is a frequent food. It seems to fill me up a lot more than white meats. It also has more of the mineral nutrients I need. More and more restaurants seems to be offering healthier versions of organic, grass-fed beef, so that’s a plus!

You CAN reverse Type 2 diabetes

I’m amazed by the daily pipeline of personal stories I read on reddit, Facebook communities of how people managed to reverse their Type 2 diabetes through keto. It’s just crazy! The most optimistic cases I heard of in the past was a lifetime of medication, and minor to major complications. But the running log of people reversing diabetes with keto is just too frequent and common to brush it off as one-offs. Unfortunately, most doctors aren’t quite open to how effective preventive methods like keto might work better than remedial methods using medication and surgery. ?‍♂️  

Low carb diets isn’t a fad, it’s actually been around since as early as 1860s!

Unlike many fad diets, low carb diets had been practised under the guise of various names for decades. The very first mention had been in 1860, by William Banting! Before keto, similar versions of low carb diets had these names: Atkins, Eco-Atkins, Paleo, South Beach, Dukan, Scandinavian Low Carb, Bulletproof, Slow Carb. Any sound familiar? 

Listening to the body over any keto diet principles

I like this contrarian insight the most. You often hear long term keto practitioners advise people to listen to their bodies, against some commonly held truth about the keto diet. One example is how you should just eat a moderate amount of protein, while on keto. But some keto folks actually transition on to eating full carnivore, because it could be that the usual keto fats don’t go down so well for them, or that the low carbs still trigger their conditions (like GERD). They listened to their bodies and it works for them, keto rules be damned. 

Food labels can’t be trusted (even if they pass regulatory rules)

I dare say 99% of food manufacturers are out to mislead you when it comes to the food label. There are legal and legally grey ways of doing so. It’s like the nutritional version of dark UX patterns (ever tried buying a budget airline ticket?). The remaining 1% are usually those small-scale, ethical, indie food producers who are often part of the community they sell to, like keto folks selling to other keto folks. Since on keto, I obsessively check the food macros and ingredients list for every product I pick up at the supermarket. Some of the most misleading ones are chocolates that’s proudly “sugar-free”, but contain maltitol or dextrose (which will increase your blood sugar anyhow). Or they try to go vague with ingredient names like “Natural flavours”, hoping you won’t realise. Otherwise they try to do a mathematical sleight of hand with you: “Oh, 5g carbs per serving, that’s great! Then discover: “Per serving = 1 teaspoon or some ridiculously small amount that’s impossible to not eat many times over with that kind of food product.” Low carb ice cream tend to like using this tactic. And some products just outright lie with a straight face. Ever saw “Low GI (glycemic index) sugar?” LOL.  

Sugar is not evil. Yes, WHITE CANE SUGAR type of sugar.

OK this is when some purist/strict keto practitioner will kick me out of whatever group I’m in for saying this. But I will say what’s backed by science, not what’s people prefer to believe. The science shows that too much carbs (therefore sugar) is bad for health. It doesn’t say that any sort of tiny amount of sugar is bad. Sugar is not poison! It’s not like cynanide. Sugar is not poison, I say again. It only gets ‘poisonous’ when you eat too much of it. It’s our eating habits, the abundance of ultra-processed sugars around us, that’s killing us. In and of itself, sugar isn’t evil. By moderation I meant as long as within 20g carb limit, doesn’t trigger cravings, and a rare treat. If someone has it under control and doesn’t conflict with health goals, I think it’s fine. For me. But here’s the difficult thing - things aren’t so black and white in keto, unlike in other sorts of diets. One does need to take nuance into account. It’s contextual and situational. 

What’s a life and death situation, a big no-no for someone who’s say, diabetic, might be okay for someone healthy and on maintenance keto. Everyone’s health profile is different, and their health goals differ too. For those on maintenance keto, sugar in small amounts, within limits, and occasionally, is okay. But if one still has sweet cravings despite on maintenance keto, perhaps avoidance for a bit more time is good practice, in case it triggers carb relapse. For those who are overweight and/or just starting keto, being more strict is better. Or for those who have more serious health conditions, avoiding altogether for rest of their lives might be good for them. I recognize that someone else with different health profile might not need to practice keto the way I practice keto, and it’s fine. If they feel that it aligns to their goals, why not?

The confusing thing for anyone starting out is that you hear advice from people who’s doing keto in a certain way based on their health profile, and it might not be similar to yours. Some keto folks on forums tend to be purist and make sacred laws around their own way of eating, and perceive everyone else to be blasphemous when they break those cardinal rules. When there isn’t actually really any hard and fast rules - it all depends on one’s profile and health goals. So being discerning is important. Get your facts straight from research, and hear from more than one person. Ask them about their profile to get some context. 

Maintenance feels harder than starting out

Four months into my keto journey, and I had mostly reach my targeted weight and health goals. I feel leaner, stronger, even-keeled in my energy levels, less bloatedness, and back at a weight that I last had more than a decade ago, in my mid-twenties! Most importantly, there’s an overall sense of well-being. The diet is working. In fact, too well, because I’m still losing weight, which I do not want. Having to maintain weight on keto feels harder as it involves a new balancing act of being relaxed versus being strict about calories and carbs. On maintenance, I can afford to eat more calories and a bit more carbs, but measuring how much more is the tricky bit. Too much, you get kicked out of ketosis. Too little, I continue losing weight. Compared to when I just started, I was on strict keto and what I can eat and don’t eat were more black and white in a sense. More room for negotiation actually makes it harder to keep track! Less freedom of food choices actually leads to more freedom in mind and will (as it’s non-negotiable and I don’t even need to think about it). I read before somewhere that the reason monks have so many rules and vows to adhere to, is because knowing what to do and what not to do is actually more freeing. Strange but true.    

What works is often what you eliminate, not what you take in

In keto, we often spend obsessive amounts of time and mental effort thinking about what we eat. But I realise most of the initial benefits from keto is actually what we eliminate from our diet, not what we actually take in. Most of the initial weight loss comes from almost completely removing carbs, gluten and refined sugar from the equation. With less gluten also come less overall inflammation in the body, which in turn makes everything else in the body get better. Less sugar means less energy fluctuations, better insulin sensitivity, less cravings etc. At this early stage, I can’t quite tell yet: Was it the keto, or was it just the carb elimination? Can one not be on keto technically, but still enjoy the health benefits from eliminating carbs?

Keto is expensive, but we pay now for health rather than pay even more for ill health later

Whenever I pay double or triple what I usually pay for a ‘normal’ meal or groceries, I like to repeat to myself the above-mentioned header title. Yes, grass-fed butter and steak costs more. Buying avocados for its high quality fats only to discard them when they ripen suddenly and without warning – yes, a waste of money. Ordering two mains instead of one, because the mains were designed to fill you up with mainly carbs (potato, rice, bread, pasta) and you’ll go hungry on the keto part that you can eat on just one main. All more expensive than my past life on carbs. But. BUT, I believe I’m paying more now for good health, than pay more later for ill health (in terms of medical bills). Either way, you pay. Just now, or later. I’d rather be poorer in wealth, than poorer in health. With health, I can still earn back wealth, on a net positive. Without health, I’ll have no vitality, energy and drive to get more wealth. And I’ll even go on to say, what we pay for all that organic, pasture-raised, fresh, non-GMO, local produce is the true cost of real food. Food that doesn’t tax you in hidden consequences and externalities on the health of people and planet. Whatever price that I used to pay for all those cheaper foods are all ‘artificially’ deflated anyway, because they were less nutrient-dense, or next to no nutrition at all. Or something or someone had been exploited in the making – the environment, the people producing it, the consumers eating it. The cost is always there. The accounts (or karmic debt) will need to be balanced at the end. I’d rather be in the red in the right areas than the wrong ones.

Fat is not always evil, but not all fats are created equal

Building on point #1, I talked about how good quality fats are actually good for health, and how wrong it is to universally demonize all fats. But not all fats are created equal, even the good quality fats. Current research seems to point towards animal-based fats like grass-fed butter and meat fat as the ‘safest’ choice. Plant-based sources of fats, especially coming from nuts and seeds, might have anti-nutrients like oxalates and phytates. Omega-6 is a polyunstaurated fat that our body needs but we seem to have too much of in our modern diets—in the form of vegetable and seed oils. It is pro-inflammatory unfortunately, so it’s good to have less. 

When hungry, drink water first.

I hear this heuristic often, but not sure if there’s any research backing it up. It’s something about how our human bodies were evolutionarily wired to get water mainly from food (not drinking, perhaps water holes were scarce). So it sends signals to eat when thirsty, when all we need to do is to drink water (now that water is more readily available in modern society). It’s so harmless that there’s no harm trying anyway. So now if I feel peckish, I drink and check back again. 

A running log of counter-intuitive learning points - to be continued…