Keto made easy

Why I'm KetoDick: Hunger, Insulin and Why Every Gram of Carbs Counts

2019-12-24

A 12-minute Facebook Live from Christmas Eve 2019. I was a few weeks into a reboot for the group, aimed at people who'd drifted from their goals or hadn't started yet, and I knew most people weren't going to be in ketosis on Christmas Day. So I used the time for the question behind the name: if weight loss is really about portions, why keto at all? My answer was hunger. And the practical point for the holidays was that keto isn't all or nothing.

In this recording

Watching this in 2026: the thirst analogy

The best thing in this live is the comparison with thirst. Water is essential, a glass tastes great when you're thirsty, and yet almost nobody drinks until they're sick. Thirst switches off when you've had enough. My argument was that hunger is supposed to work the same way, and for a lot of heavy people it doesn't: they eat, feel full, and still want more.

That framing is why I've never thought the answer is just willpower. Earlier, in my MyFitnessPal video, I'd put it as: if you're powering through keto on willpower, you're probably doing it wrong (video DoSUgIr2rNo). This live gives the reason behind that line.

I was also careful about what keto doesn't fix. Emotional eating, boredom eating and family food traditions are decisions, not hunger, and I said keto won't make them for you.

Drill-down: "every gram of carbs counts"

The claim most worth unpacking is that cutting carbs helps even if you never reach ketosis. In the live I said each gram of carbohydrate brings some insulin with it, and that more insulin over time means a weaker response to it. That's my 2019 theory of how it works, and I called it a theory.

The evidence pages support the practical half. The American Diabetes Association's 2019 consensus report says cutting total carbohydrate has the most evidence for improving blood sugar, and lists low-carbohydrate patterns as one of several options (Evert 2019). That's a "less is better" finding, not an "only ketosis counts" one.

The pages are less kind to the insulin-as-the-whole-story half. In DIETFITS, 609 adults lost similar weight on a healthy low-fat or healthy low-carb diet over a year (5.3 vs 6.0 kg), and insulin secretion at the start didn't change who did better (Gardner 2018). In a metabolic-ward study, cutting calories from fat led to more body-fat loss per day than cutting the same calories from carbohydrate (Hall 2015). And the National Lipid Association's 2019 statement found low-carb diets weren't better for long-term weight loss, though they may give more loss in the short term (Kirkpatrick 2019).

So both things are on the record: my position that carbs drive hunger and every gram you cut helps, and trials where low-carb and low-fat end up close on average. What the trials don't measure is how hungry each person felt, and that was always my reason for keto.

Then vs now

A year earlier I'd said that being low carb is better than being keto, and that the secret of weight loss is a calorie deficit that ketosis makes more comfortable (live GKYD4230). A week after this live, on New Year's Eve, I said calories in, calories out hasn't been debunked (live FPMJ7326). By late 2019 my position was settled: keto is a hunger tool, and less carbohydrate helps whether or not you hit ketosis. That's a long way from the strict 20 g a lot of groups treated as the price of entry, and it fits the 50 g ceiling I'd given beginners in 2018 (video UygKGoP_BtA).

Before you change your carbs

If you take insulin or other diabetes medication, or blood-pressure medication, cutting carbs can change what you need. Talk to your doctor first. The same applies if you have kidney disease, are pregnant, or have a history of an eating disorder.

Key points