Banting, Old School

Banting

On rising in the morning I take a table spoonful of a special corrective cordial, which may be called the Balm of Life, in a wine-glass of water

-Not a dram but of an alkaline character (baking soda)

For breakfast, I take

-four or five ounces of beef, mutton, kidneys, broiled fish, bacon, or cold meat of any kind except pork;

-a large cup of tea (without milk or sugar),

-a little biscuit, or one ounce of dry toast. The dry toast may have a table spoonful of spirit to soften it, which will prove acceptable

For dinner,

-five or six ounces of any fish except salmon,

-any meat except pork,

-any vegetable except potato,

-one ounce of dry toast, the dry toast may have a table spoonful of spirit to soften it, which will prove acceptable

-fruit out of a pudding,

-any kind of poultry or game, and

-two or three glasses of good claret, sherry, or Madeira—champagne, port and beer forbidden.

For tea,

-two or three ounces of fruit,

-a rusk (cracker) or two, the rusk may have a table spoonful of spirit to soften it, which will prove acceptable

-and a cup of tea without milk or sugar.

For supper,

-three or four ounces of meat or fish,

-similar to dinner,

-with a glass or two of claret.

For nightcap, if required,

-a tumbler of grog—(gin, whiskey, or brandy, without sugar)—or a glass or two of claret or sherry.

I am not, however, strictly limited to any quantity at either meal, so that the nature of the food is rigidly adhered to.

My weight is 199 (finally).

I'm not sure what exactly messed me up, whether it was a drug interaction or occasional drinking (I stopped following the Banting diet and only drank a few drinks since my last post) but something threw my hormones out of whack. I since detoxed from basically all medication except when absolutely necessary, stopped all alcohol, and had to supplement like crazy with potassium and magnesium. I didn't check every day but I had a test for ketones in my urine and none were found after IF and low carb when they should have been there, and I stayed at 202/203 for way too long, I think because I was holding water and possibly not going into ketosis. Finally today, the day I was scheduled to weigh myself, I lost a few pounds, and that was after eating throughout the day and having sushi and a sweet bun yesterday. If my body hadn't been out of whack, I theoretically should have lost significantly more weight a lot sooner based on what and when I was eating. It has been an extremely frustrating experience and a really long and stressful week or two full of mostly good things, but also a lot of big changes and decisions.

After what happened to me, I have no appetite for drinking right now. Alcohol can concentrate drugs in your system because it can inhibit cytochromes, and that's no joke if, like me, you tend to be sensitive to medication (hypothetically, already have slow cytochromes). Basically, imagine drugs are forms that need processing and my cytochromes are overburdened bureaucrats, already slow. Now imagine giving those bureaucrats a lot of wine, they get even slower, and the forms build up and don't have anywhere to go. I don't know if that's a good metaphor, but the freaky side effects I experienced that can't be explained by drinking on top of medication because the medication should have been out of my system give me pause when a friend casually asks if I want a glass of wine with my meal. And anything that stops me from losing weight, that is a huge red flag that screams "Doing This Is Bad For My Body!"

I tried a serotonin antagonist and it turns out one of the antihistamines I was taking for insomnia was also a serotonin antagonist (which also has an extremely long half life), and taking them together was bad which I didn't realize for awhile, but taking them hours apart from drinking or other medications was also bad, for me at least. I think I'm very sensitive to changes in serotonin in regards to my adrenal system, and if I'm right it meant too much of certain hormones were released (angiotensin, which leads to increased aldosterone) that raised my blood pressure, lowered my ability to make insulin, and told my body to get rid of potassium. I never would have dreamed taking lower than prescribed doses seemingly far apart could lead to a bunch of weird stuff happening in my body, but it seems to finally be over now and I am so grateful. It makes me concerned about what the insomnia medication has been doing to me since I have been taking it to help with sleep and panic attacks as needed for years. It's made me concerned what all medications I've taken have been doing to me. Not, like, in a nefarious way, just, literally what has it been doing, and how concerned should I be? For example, my rate of panic attacks went way up over the past two weeks. In the past certain anxiety medications has made me more anxious, could other medications be doing that too?

As someone who has experienced rare yet severe side effects in the past that disrupted my quality of life, it is very frustrating when doctors just shrug and say that's just something that happens when you take a drug or discount when you say you think something is wrong because a drug is safe, or people usually don't have the side effect you're having, so it can't be that drug's fault. As a layperson who knows their body and can tell something is wrong but who also doesn't have tests to prove it, especially when it something like migraines or panic attacks or inability to lose weight that can't be tested for objectively, the medical system can make you feel even worse and like you don't know what you're talking about. And also it seems like if you're not like, dying, you're fine. Oh, your blood pressure is thirty points higher than it normally is? Meh. You fasting blood sugar went from the 80's like it has been for years into the prediabetic range although you're eating keto and fasting? Why are you worried? Are you sure you're really trying to lose weight, people don't have a problem with this medication. Sheesh! It can really be invalidating.

And yet low and behold, when I stop the medication, and my side effects go away, then yeah, now they believe me. Usually. Otherwise I guess they assume I'm just a neurotic schlub eating sugar and carbs all day and just expect me to have deteriorating or suboptimal health like high blood pressure and high blood sugar like the rest of the StandardAmericanDiet-sacks. Again, sheesh! The medical profession needs to wake up and start caring about side effects and WHY they happen, and what they mean systemically, because drugs that do things like making you sleepy or hungry don't happen in a vacuum or by magic. They happen because of hormones and neurotransmitters and catecholamines and choline, and it's a very complicated and intertwined system, but that doesn't excuse ignorance of mechanisms when the information is out there or lack of symptom management to maintain homeostasis. And doctors need to stop being ok with people being a little metabolically sick and just being happy they're not really really sick.

And, on a related tangent, people need to stop saying there are no predictors for prediabetes. There are, and they're not even that complex or expensive or controversial, from what I understand, I can't say from experience because I've asked about them but no one has actually ever done these tests for me.

Measuring visceral fat by ultrasound, uric acid levels with a blood test (I think they may made monitors for this similar to blood glucose monitors), and oral glucose tolerance tests for checking for insulin resistance, all of which should be routine as part of physicals. Fasting insulin tells you nothing about the actual function of your pancreas after you eat a cookie, just if it's really really dysfunctional without any food coming in, which is very bad news for your metabolic health. Oral glucose tolerance tests show in real time if your pancreas is overreacting and releasing insulin after you eat sugar, not if it's overreacting by releasing too much insulin all of the time. This is a distinct difference and really valuable information, but it's slightly more complicated and time consuming, so they just don't do it. Give me a break! I wish I could start a nonprofit and focus on just those three screening tests, I bet it could really help people catch things before they get really sick (idea copyright BantingLikeWilliam 2023 lol).

And don't get me started on the overwhelming attitude of doom and gloom if you would have visceral fat, elevated uric acid, or insulin resistance. You're doomed? No. You can reverse nonalcoholic fatty liver in DAYS just by giving up sugar, alcohol, and doing intermittent fasting (may take a few extra days if you don't fast). Notice I didn't say you have to give up carbs. Sugar (fructose) and alcohol stress your liver out in nearly identical ways because if how they are processed. This is not pseudoscience, yet NAFLD is considered by many medical professionals to be a progressive disease, not one you can reverse. And the earlier you catch it, the easier it is to reverse. Same with fatty tongue with sleep apnea. Liver and tongue fat are two of the first to be liquidated when you stop overwhelming your body with sugar (and alcohol, but most people just need to cut out sugar). It takes longer to shrink visceral fat and reverse insulin resistance and get your hormones to normalize, but it has been done over and over so many times in the same way that it feels like willful blindness and pessimism when the Mayo Clinic still talks about PCOS and fatty liver and diabetes like they're life sentences. You don't have to live with any of them, and the way you avoid them or turn them around is by changing what you eat. I try to help my friends who have these health problems and they tell me they don't like eating too much meat or that the keto diet requires processed foods and keep going to this specialist or that specialist and as long as the medical establishment keeps saying we are destined to get fat and decline in health as we age, I'm going to keep sounding like a nutcase telling people to eat more meat and that it's ok to give your organs a break from eating to be healthy. Virta Health, Low Carb Down Under, and all the other reputable low carb researchers, I hope you can help make this type of thinking more widely accepted before my friends have trouble conceiving, have trouble with their eyesight due to metabolic issues, or have to have limbs amputated, all which has happened to people I know.

People like to look to prescription drugs as miracle drugs or quick fixes, but they're often not, and what is a miracle and quick fix is keto. Not for all issues, of course, but for overall health and to balance hormones. Write me off as a nut if you want, but like my bae Mulder would say, the truth is out there. Except it's not classified, just google it and check your sources. I'm not making any claims that haven't been backed up by studies and actual doctors who see the conditions reversed in their practices.

I wish that more attention would be paid to side effects of drugs, but if doctors etc keep expecting people to have bad side effects or be ok with them being sort of metabolically sick, how can that ever happen? Who will advocate for people having horrible side effects from drugs that well meaning doctors prescribe? I genuinely don't know. Hopefully someday soon the mechanisms by which drugs work will be better elucidated and unified and psychiatry/other specialities and general medicine will work together in a holistic way that considers the patient's whole body. Until then, it doesn't hurt to know your body at baseline and keep track of side effects when trying a new medication, whether it is prescribed, over the counter, or even a supplement. Even food. Chips make you swell up? That's good to know, you may need more potassium if you're gonna eat chips. A drug makes you hungry? That's a metabolic red flag. At the end of the day, when you know what is normal for your body, you can better advocate for yourself and if you do need to take a drug, you have a better chance of finding one that will work with your body.

Thanks science!

Apparently the new medication I am on has the potential to reduce potassium (and magnesium) electrolytes. What else decreases potassium, so much so it is a treatment for high potassium?

Baking soda.

What causes nausea and headaches in keto flu?

Electrolyte imbalance.

When I felt nauseous and was constipated what did I take to fix it?

Baking soda. And then I drank more baking soda water because I was like "Why isn't this working?"

So yeah, I basically induced a case of severe nausea and mild headache barely helped by excedrin and not helped at all by baking soda. I gave myself the keto flu without the keto.

I also found out this medication can raise blood glucose, so I am going to go out and buy some new strips. I bought a meter when I first started keto because of the popular myth that keto causes low blood glucose and I wanted to see if that was true. I've used it to test the effects of different foods and sugars and it can be very useful. I think too little potassium and an increased glucose load is why I felt so swollen after eating bread and why I definitely shouldn't have had half a Taco Bell burrito for breakfast (oops!). It may raise blood glucose and suppress hunger so well that I can go straight keto and do IF without paying for it too much. We will see.

If I decide to continue Banting like William, I will definitely have to supplement and modify the diet to remove the foods that raise my blood glucose too much. Good news: apparently the medication appears not to interact with alcohol, although those are just general effects; the effects of the medication and alcohol together on blood glucose and electrolytes, as far as I can tell, have not been studied.

I had some baking soda water. I had some tea. But I am visibly bloated this morning and I do NOT feel like eating breakfast.

I usually did not eat breakfast even when I wasn't doing IF.

However, like I said when I don't eat and don't sleep, my immune system starts to malfunction. I haven't slept well the past few nights and now my nose is stuffy, I'm getting shaving bumps, breaking out- my hormones are definitely out of whack, and my educated guess is that this is due to insulin and cortisol. So I'm gonna eat that last piece of gyro.

I'm torn about what route to take. Go for fasting to induce ketosis and I risk getting sick on top of keto flu. Keep eating keto and risk keto flu and put this experience on hold. Keep Banting, the proper way, and risk my breakouts etc. getting worse and weight gain. Honestly, it's making me want to stress eat. I'm so tired, and I have a headache, and I have to apply for jobs today and do a lot of other stuff, so I don't want to go buy groceries. Yet I don't have enough groceries here to stick to Banting. Plus I really need to get my kitchen so I can cook in order to do it properly.

First Banting Supper! Day 2

Salmon and claret, not pictured water and merlot.

So he describes supper as "similar to dinner." So I'll take that to mean basically whatever you want to eat that you may eat at dinner.

I must admit, I'm holding water. I blame bread. Too much bread. Gotta supplement with some potassium salt in my water and lots of plain water after that. I am not concerned whatsoever with the keto flu anymore, I'm sure I'm out of ketosis. I miss it. I wanna get back into ketosis, gently. I'm tempted to just completely cut out bread, but I have been bending the rules too often to truly judge. I think abstaining from bread tomorrow would be wise until ketosis comes back, then ease back into it. Gotta buy melba toast tomorrow.

Salmon is the only fish you're not supposed to eat, but I was craving it so bad I couldn't resist getting some. Again, bending the rules. But William himself said not to "violently" change all your eating habits all at once, so I'm not expecting perfection from myself just yet lol.

I am saving one glass of Claret for tomorrow so may have one glass of Merlot if I can stand having a second glass.

Update: That salmon hit the spot. The merlot was more acidic than the boxed wine, yuck, instant heartburn. I guess you can't always bet on Trader Joe's for quality wine at a discount price. The name of the wine is Monterra, 2020. Blech. I think drinking this qualifies as masochism.

Tea time! Day 2

So yeah, this is confusing. Tea, peaches canned in water and splenda, and I forgot to get crackers at the store so more bread.

Not pictured: LaCroix, and I'm gonna put some goat cheese on the bread because i know you're not supposed to eat dairy while Banting but I love it. And I'm starving.

The peaches leave a lot to be desired. They're sour, in a bad way. Like, did they pick then unripened and forget to add the splenda? Can't eat them.

The bread is great. Goat cheest makes it better. I might add my supper portion early.

Banting dinner day 2!

Hey ho, let's go. This little tiny boxed wine is exactly three glasses of cabernet, La Croix, mediocre Starkist tuna salad and crackers, gyro meat, and mangos.

There's vegetables in tuna salad, right? That counts as a vegetable if ketchup does (does it still?)

No urgent errands to run this afternoon that can't wait 3 hours so yes, it's 3:30pm, and I'm nervous but gonna drink three glasses of wine with dinner for science.

Did you ever notice that Aldi tuna salad is 100x better than the name brand? But I own it, and it must have some nutrients in it, even if it is filled with polyunsaturated fat (boo, if you're not sure why this is a bad thing, it's because the more unsaturated a fat is, the more free radicals it forms in your body. Free radicals are why people say you need to eat antioxidants. It's why more and more processed food manufacturers are switching to "high oleic" aka more saturated varieties of oils...but that doesn't fix the root issue. Even palm oil, which is very saturated and stable, does this. But that's a discussion for another day!). Still, I'm hungry, and it tastes better than I remember, just has a bitter aftertaste.

This wine is definitely more acidic than Coppola's Claret but it does pair well with the gyro meat.

This is not the Indian mango I was expecting. It has a weird aftertaste, like melons and cucumbers do, it's too fibrous, and it makes my mouth itch a little. I have what is known as an "oral pollen allergy" which is another reason I almost never eat fresh fruits and veg. My body basically is telling me "You don't need to eat these things to be healthy." Or at least cook them first. Hard pass. I can always freeze it and then try baking it later.

I must look up which fruits and veg were widely available during different seasons in Banting era England. I'm tempted to fry bananas or plantains and consume that as my fruit, or I can eat baby food, but I might have to stick to things like baked apples because I know most fruits were less sweet and smaller 161 years ago and they definitely couldn't waltz into Whole Foods and get watermelon in January. Someone call a historian! I want my diet to be as historically accurate as possible.

Also, I'm curious now: I'm happy to not drink during the middle of the day, it does feel a bit like a hassle, but are there any cultures left in the world where it is still culturally acceptable to drink like Mad Men and have a three martini lunch? I'm not endorsing it, I will not be drinking before or during working hours even if I work from home, but I'm just curious. There must be, right? My best guess would be somewhere in Eastern Europe, although I'd find it hard to believe if Russians didn't at least proclaim to deem that unacceptable these days.

Although one time during the pandemic this guy from a legit healthcare company called me drunk as hell to see if I would take a survey about my insurance. He pronounced the "Dr." in my address as "Doctor" dead serious and stood by it without apology. He only mildly slurred but did have enough lag time and silly mistakes and even a giggle or two which informed me he was almost certainly not dyslexic or something similar but crunk. I looked up his employer for remote jobs because I figured it would be a sweet gig if he hadn't been fired yet but sadly they required cross country travel for training which wasn't feasible at the time.

Update: Ugh, this tuna salad sucks, I can't finish it. Trying to finish gyro meat, it's fine but technically a few days past expiration, but it's hard to just eat a pile of meat, bruh, even when it's moist and spiced so nice.

And it's almost as hard to drink this much wine, but at least it goes down without chewing. I gotta re-read his pamphlet, it's been a few years, but I don't remember him drinking much water? I could not drink this much wine without water. Oof. It's heavy.

Banting Breakfast Day 2!

Half a package of bacon, a strong cup of Constant Comment, and approximately one ounce of bread.

Oof, I'm getting a late start today! May have to have a second breakfast like a Hobbit in a bit or combine this meal with tea. I need to get on a schedule, which can be so hard to do when you're unemployed.

Last night I got hungry and had a piece and a half of bread (one piece with butter) and about three ounces of kombucha (not entirely unlike wine? Hey, I own it, might as well use it up). Definitely did not eat enough during the day yesterday.

I didn't weigh myself today because I have decided to weigh myself in precisely the same time intervals Banting did, about every 2-3 weeks. As a woman whose weight can be arbitrarily affected by where I am in my cycle (especially post ovulation and PMS) it can be discouraging to weigh every day. Better to get the big picture!

I also forgot to mention that I am two inches shorter than Banting (5'3") and much younger (but old and corny enough to quip a lady doesn't tell her age). I'll try to dig up my sewing kit today so I can compare our waist sizes. I know mine is...not small, although there is still an hourglass figure under there.

Yeah, those pears went down horribly. I feel like my stomach is an overinflated basketball. Balm of life, here I come.

I ate the other half of the bread and now I'm basically full but I am still going to drink that third glass of Claret.

Yeah, that's a silver goblet. I got a set of four for $2.50. I love old stuff. And people today don't want to take care of silver so it gets tarnished up and sells for cheap. Then I take it home and it is so satisfying to polish, even if it turns out to have a few flaws. I wish I could have a silver pantry like Martha Stewart. I almost bought her wine, because I respect the woman's hustle and ruthlessness (did you see her Lifetime movie?) but most of all style, but it was chardonnay and Snoop Dogg was on the red wine. But I love him too. Have you seen his show? It's so funny. Oh man, wine. I am not used to drinking wine. This dude drank like seven glasses of wine every day? That's nuts. Anyways, I'm way off topic. Bread is great. Fruit sucks. Vaping is pretty cool but kids don't do it and also it makes my throat hurt but my friend bought me a disposable vape thingy and it tastes great but kids don't do it. You'll get suspended. If you're reading this, like James Pumprhrey I love you, goodnight!

Banting dinner part 2!

My first Banting dinner! Pepperoni, leftover palak, three little rusk like crackers, claret, sparkling water, and other food tbd, probably gyro slices. Tea not pictured because I chugged it, Constant Comment is lit.

So I made several mistakes and had several victories today.

Mistakes:

- Reorganizing kitchen so no way to cook right now, and I did not sleep well, so when I got hungry I also got lazy. I had a few ounces of butter, a protein shake and half a small bag of keto almond crackers like I would normally do keto. By 8pm I had a stomachache, a mild headache, and burps. It was almost 12 hours in between meals which I think was a big mistake because I was active and moving about for hours. I don't do well if I don't sleep more than 6 hours and don't eat during the day. Breakouts, colds, all kinds of mildly annoying things happen. Since eating my symptoms have improved greatly, but after eating everything on the plate except the salmon and most of the two beverages I'm still feeling bloated and will have more baking soda water apres diner.

- Forgot salmon was forbidden. I didn't have a problem not eating it though- this was a different brand of smoked salmon than I usually buy and it smelled and tasted like ointment, so I only had a small bite. I'm gonna take it back, it's that bad, I wouldn't even give it to my dog as a treat.

- Thought I had berries in the fridge, but they were moldy.

Victories:

- I had never heard of Claret, and so imagine my surprise when I found it at Walmart. I read up on it and was prepared to buy Bordeaux or Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon, but Francis Coppola made it easy! It's smooth and very good, not too sweet or acidic.

The Great Banting Like William Experiment begins!

I had my baking soda water upon waking (not a tablespoon, I'll get more into that later).

My first Banting breakfast! Starbucks tea, Trader Joe's grass fed beef roast, and half a keto hotdog bun (you better believe I'm buying real bread and rusks (Melba toast or similar) later today!

Yes, I will be eating real bread (no sugar added) and fruit and drinking red wine and chewing nicotine gum. There is a reason I am choosing to experiment with straight up antique Banting, and I'll probably go into that in a lot more depth later. But suffice to say for now that IF tends to make my immune system take a nose dive and I can't take any more nausea and headaches and low blood pressure I get with the keto flu. I am in ketosis right now, lightly, because I didn't have an appetite yesterday and ate very little (confirmed last night with ketostix). But the last time I got into deep ketosis, even without strict IF, I felt awful for three days.

In the past I figured out I can use alcohol to put the brakes on the keto flu and fix the symptoms I tend to develop by the late evening with a meal and a drink or two. So although it runs contrary to common advice, I think it will work well for my personal situation. Plus I'm already riding the yellow pony (nicotine, don't start if you haven't kids, you may NEVER get that monkey off your back).

I once asked an expert what he thought about the original Banting diet, and he was concerned about epigenetics. Also, there is the fact that I am a woman, and also that when I start working again I can't be having multiple glasses of wine at lunch. And I don't think most American meat is fatty enough to not use butter. I dipped the bread in the au jus, but the roast was dry and I had to make an extra cup of tea to get it down and chewed an inordinate amount. I'm also curious what eating this way will do for my microbiome and digestion. I find ramping up fat quickly seems to be rough on my poor pancreas, and although nothing abnormal happens I do have looser stools and gas. Maybe all this dry stuff and cutting out dairy will help ease me into low carb in a more gentle way.

Fun fact: I am starting The Great Banting Experiment at almost the exact same weight as Banting was when he started: 203 pounds. He was 202. I will be recording my weight in the same time intervals that he did to compare my progress with his. I'm PMSing so I expect the first weight loss to be more than his was over his first 12 days (which was only 2 pounds) due to water weight.