Welcome to Keto Life Support, where we make your keto life sustainable, fun, and low-stress. I'm Kim Howerton and I'll be coming to you weekly with some of my keto besties to bring you the practical, real-world keto advice that you need. Quick disclaimer - I am not a doctor, and even if we do have a doctor in the house from time to time, he or she is not your doctor. Nothing we say on this show should be taken as medical advice.
Always check in with a trusted medical professional about your own personal medical concerns. Hello and welcome to Keto Life Support. This is Kim Howerton with episode number 188, and today we're going to talk about sustainability. Now, what do I mean by sustainability? It's how easy your way of eating is for you to sustain. So we can sometimes think about food in terms of sustainability, in terms of resources, not how good is it for the environment, I'm not talking about that as much today.
I'm talking about personal sustainability. Can you sustain the way that you are eating? This is something that I think is important to look at because a lot goes into answering that question. But until you answer the question of what it takes to be sustainable, you will perhaps find yourself struggling with making your lifestyle an ongoing experience. So a lot of people, when you get into a weight-loss phase, will talk about how you need to make it a lifestyle, not just a diet.
And it's very confusing what that means for a lot of people. And I think it's confusing because it is a little vague, but I think it really comes down to sustainability. Can this be something that you continue to do? Now, obviously, certain things are going to fluctuate over time. The amount of food that you eat might fluctuate based on how active you are.
The seasonality, right, is going to play into it - certain foods are available some times of the year and not available other times of the year, unless you're shipping them from far, far away. And that's going to play in, but your diet shouldn't be so specific (in most cases) that that's going to really significantly alter your food philosophy or how you're eating. So while some details might be shifting over time, you're generally going to be looking at it the same way.
Now, one would say, from a purely intellectual (or theoretical is maybe a better way to say it) perspective. You might say, 'Well, eating everything in moderation is the most sustainable concept of a way to eat because, well, it includes everything," right? "And if I can choose from everything, that's the most choice possible. That would be the most sustainable." But I think for a lot of us, what we've learned over time is that there is freedom in our boundaries.
That when we create the buffers, the boundaries, the focus, the decision makers around what we do and don't eat-- and where you choose to put those boundaries is-- well, that's what we're talking about in these conversations, but is different from one person to another. But I think a life lived without any boundaries can be overwhelming and not necessarily what we think of as emotional freedom.
And for a lot of us coming into this health journey, operating with some sort of background in addictive behaviors or disordered eating (even if we've never been formally diagnosed with an eating disorde, but somewhere on that spectrum of disordered eating), that a life without any boundaries in it can be very damaging.
And so one of the things we have to think about in terms of ongoing sustainability is what makes us feel physically the best, what makes us feel emotionally the best (and when I say, "emotionally the best," I'm saying, "emotionally healthy," not an instant of pleasure but rather an ongoing experience of health), and also what makes us satisfied and happy about the way we eat. All those things have to come together.
It's funny, my friend Richard Morris-- I think you guys might-- some of you might know who Richard is. He's the one-- the lovely Australian half of the 2 Keto Dudes duo, and he always had this joke about food. Richard is a definite foodie, and so he always puts his little hash tag with his food pictures #boringketo, right? It's a joke, obviously, because the food that many of us eat on keto can be very exciting and beautiful and very satisfying.
But there's this sort of mainstream narrative that often happens of the fact that because keto is such a limited palette, it's really boring - it gets really boring, it's not sustainable. And one of the things that I want to bring up about sustainability is-- it's in the eye of the beholder [laughs], but one of the things about sustainability is that your mindset really matters.
If you talk to yourself about your food, that it's boring or monotonous or limited, if you start to get into a negative spiral, then your diet will be unsustainable. So if those are the voices you listen to, if that's the story you tell yourself, you will fail. However, people who find joy and pleasure and feel indulged, when they feel that sort of indulgence in their diet that, "Ooh, I *get* to have this," then they find that is a much more sustainable way to eat.
Even if two people are eating the same thing and one person is like, "Oh my gosh, I get to have this. That's amazing. I'm such a lucky person." And the other person is like, "Ugh, I hate this. This is terrible," - Negative Nancy, right? The first person will be able to eat that forever and feel amazing. The second person-- they're going to fall off, they're not going to continue. It's really an attitude and a focus. Now, you can't just talk
yourself into it. If you know you're lying to yourself, that's not going to work. You have to be telling yourself the truth, but you can't be a Negative Nelly (Nancy, whatever) and enjoy sustainability of any type of food. Now, we can look to people who go on junk-food diets, so like-- you know, Drew Manning maybe? The 'Fit to Fat to Fit' guy? Anyway, he has done experiments a couple of times where he gained a bunch of weight. And he gained a bunch of weight often by-- he's a fit dude, right?
He gained a bunch of weight eating a bunch of junk food and then went back on healthy food to lose the weight. And he said, you know, growing up and his experience of being a fit dude his whole life, he always thought that healthy food tasted great and he liked, quote unquote, 'healthy' food. The kind of foods that-- and I say, "healthy foods"-- like, the kinds of foods he ate to stay in the body that he wanted to be in, right?
And then when he went to junk food, which he was like, "I never indulged in this much junk food. Before I went back to eating healthy-- he said for like two solid weeks it was misery. He just wanted the junk food back. He didn't like the foods that he used to think were amazing because they weren't as much of, like, going to Disneyland in a bowl. And this can be something that people really struggle with and getting yourself over the hump of really enjoying
your diet. But I think, ultimately, the way that you eat, you have to start thinking how lucky you are to eat that way. And if you can't feel that about the way you're eating, then maybe we need to do some adjustments. Now, someone like Jordan Peterson has expressed before that he doesn't love his diet. Like, he doesn't hate his diet. Those of you that don't know-- I'm not getting into the politics of him, I'm getting interested in food.
And he eats basically just a carnivore (like a limited-carnivore) diet (It's like meat and water. It's very basic.) because he has some health issues that when he strays from that, his health issues are exacerbated and he doesn't want to stray from that, but he wishes he could eat another way. And so there are certain circumstances in which you could say like very extreme health circumstances.
But for him, the sustainability will come in that the downside of not eating that way is so violent, so offensive to him that it'll keep him on track. You can-- carrot or a stick. He is the stick. It's like, "No, the beating is too severe when I go off plan." But for most of us, we don't have that severe beating waiting for us on the sidelines. I've actually heard people say many times like, "Oh, I wish I was allergic to dairy so I wouldn't eat so much cheese, but I feel fine after I eat it.
I don't get like immediate gastrointestinal problems, so I keep eating it and I don't think it's good." You know, some of us really wish we had that in our life. I don't think anybody who actually has that experience, though, actually wishes they had it. I think it's more of a fantasy thing. But, ultimately, you have to find the right path and some of us are very much abstainers.
Some of us are like, "Hey, though there is a part of me that wishes I could have these other things, it always goes off the rails. And so I don't have those things. And so my life works." And sustainability is about your whole life, not just indulging your food fantasies. But for others of us, we find we can include certain types of foods that we maybe even didn't think we could at the beginning of our journey.
But I think, ultimately, the most important thing when you're expanding your food repertoire is that you don't lie to yourself and don't say to yourself, "This is working for me," when really there's a lot of stuff breaking down. Like, don't be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic thinking that it will, you know, improve your experience. Ultimately, you're going down and so you need to focus on keeping your ship afloat, right? And so for some of us, that can include more carbohydrates.
For some of us, that can include more types of foods. For others of us, it can't. And that it is an experience that we all have to go through experientially. Wow, that was a really poorly worded-- anyway, experientially, we have to see what works for us. But if you're trying to expand your food horizons, you have to do so very honestly and maybe bring a friend (like, have someone to check in on you on it) because, those of us that have a history of eating disorders or disordered eating
(right? the spectrum), we sometimes can lie to ourselves about how it's going because we want to continue to indulge in the addiction that's starting to sink its claws back into us. And so finding what is sustainable for you is a lifelong, personal, interactive mindful journey.
If you love the way you're eating (the food is delicious and you're happy about that), you're as healthy as you can be in your current state, and you feel good about your choices, I think you've hit the trifecta of awesome and you should continue to do that. If you're in a place where you're like, "I wonder if I could be a little broader in my approach," experiment and see, but put in rails, put in guardrails. You still need that. Don't fling open the doors.
Don't be like, "I'm going to eat as much as I want of this food that used to make me terribly ill," right? Like, nooo! You're going to go slow and steady, and then you're going to really be honest with yourself. And being honest with yourself starts with, "Why do I want to expand my food horizon? Why is that?".
For me, my experience was the way that I was eating on my full high-fat-keto approach stopped actually making me feel as wonderful as it used to make me feel and I had to question what way of eating would I find pleasurable and sustainable and get me more of the rewards that I was looking for (more weight loss, better digestion, feeling better) that I wanted to continue to experience. It shouldn't be around only being like, "I want to bring back
donuts," right? Like, if the food you're looking to reincorporate on a regular basis could objectively, by most people, be agreed upon as junk and that's what's driving you towards changing the way that you might loosen your parameters, I would question that decision. Does that mean, for some people, noone can bring a few of those things back in occasionally? I think you can actually-- some people could eat some of those things some of the time and it's not going to collapse their house of
cards. But that desire for those foods (in my opinion) should probably not be the driving force behind your thoughts about the way that you want to move your diet. So, ultimately, sustainability means more than, "I can eat everything I've ever wanted to." It's about living the full life that you want to live with the proper boundaries set in place so that your life remains as healthy and full and joyous as you want it to be.
Not just about your life is about food, but that food fuels your life and is part of your overall health spectrum. All right, guys, I hope that was-- I thought I'd just have a little check-in on-- I know I've talked about these topics a little bit in the past, but I'm talking about, as we get into this holiday season, some of us make decisions where we're like, "I'm going to eat this thing that
I don't usually eat." And I think that could be okay for some of you, but I think we need to make sure that, overall, our health choices are still grounded in long-term good health, and choices that lead us towards being happier and healthier, not just more indulged. So just to piggyback what I just said a minute ago, some people can step outside and some people cannot. That's the meaning of the word 'some', right.
Not all. And I just wanted to put it out there that there are probably going to be people in your sphere or people in your world who either are more limited in their eating than you, and you can do a good thing by supporting them in the choices they want to make, right? They're like, "I'm carnivore." You're keto-- as the keto person, you know, be like, "Great. It's great that this person's carnivore.
I'm going to support them on their journey and the choices they've made and they're going to support me because we are both doing things from a mindful, conscious place." And then the people in your life, who are like, "I eat all the junk all the time," or like, "Live a little," you can be firm in your belief that you're doing what is right for you, and you can love them while not maybe supporting their decisions [laughs] to eat a bunch of crap.
And you can just say like, "Hey, food's not on the table for us to discuss at this holiday.". So I wanted to put this out there again so that you could have somebody maybe just talking a little bit of sense in your ear during this time when maybe you're like, "Ah, I can totally handle all sorts of things." Maybe you can, but also it doesn't mean anything bad if you decide not to. All right. Talk to you soon. Bye bye. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Keto Life Support.
Want more information? Want show notes? Want to suggest a topic? Just head over to ketolifesupport.com - that's where all that kind of thing can go on. By the way, I have a request. If you could go to your podcast host and hit 'subscribe', we would really, really appreciate it. And what would be even more awesome is if you could write a review. And what would be even more awesome than that is if you could write a really flattering review. Just asking. You know, you do you.
All right. So thanks so much for joining us. I'm thrilled that you're part of the keto fam. Talk to you soon. Bye bye.