Keto is NOT the Ultimate Goal

I am getting a little confused by the paleo community all seemingly running like lemmings into the land of Ketosis!  As if, all of a sudden, the goal of ancestral living is to just get to ketosis, stay in ketosis, and glory in ketosis…

 

Getting into a ketogenic state is important- it is one tool in our paleo health toolbox.  I don’t deny this.  But to go on and on and on about KETO, and never mention the other essential parts of healthy ancestral living, well, it’s like cutting off your nose to spite your face.  It’s like when, early on, all that was talked about seemed to be crossfit.  Just like the Keto craze, this made Crossfit the centerpiece of paleo exercise (it never was for me), and the extremes people started to take it became dangerous.  It just became a form of organized overtraining, and a sure way to get injured, and burn out ultimately.

 

Ketosis is a therapeutic tool, primarily, and should be used sometimes, but that is all.  Some may need to use it more extensively, since they are more damaged than most- but ideally we want to get to a point where we dip in and out of ketosis, not just stay there since it’s ‘better’.  It’s not, it’s just one form of fuel we need to be able to use if we want to be healthy and happy.

 

Just as important to my mind as going into ketosis is to consume enough healthy superfoods!  Greens, veggies of many sorts, sardines and other wild caught seafood, good pastured fats- it’s actually hard to get enough of many highly nutrient dense foodstuffs when eating in such a manner as to keep us keto.  Some carbs are good for our precious gut biome, (remember that)?- and it is a good thing to be able to metabolize things like some beans and tubers on occasion. 

 

Also, thinking endlessly of Keto, it is easy to become obsessed with it (just like Crossfit), and to become literally afraid of foods!  “Oh no- if I eat that apple it will take me out of ketosis!”  That sort of thinking.  And this way lies madness.

 

I think it’s time to go back to the old Paleo description, with all of the attendant things that go along with that paradigm.  Wild caught seafood, pastured meats, eggs and high fat dairy.  Vegetables, some fruits, and nuts in moderation.  Checking blood levels for sugar and insulin levels can become crazy obsessive really quickly, and concentrating on fats to the exclusion of most other sorts of good, healthy foods can leave us under nutrified.  (I just invented a word!)

 

Besides- it everything goes Keto, I would have to change my moniker from PaleoJay to KetoJay, and I don’t see that happening.  Same with CrossfitJay, especially since I kind of hate Crossfit, and what it has become.  In fact, every time something becomes a fad- it’s time to step back and reassess. 

 

Oh gosh- I have to go now- l just got an alarm on my iphone that it’s time to take my keto esters -gotta go!