Keto diet versus Mediterranean diet what are they are they good for weight
loss are they healthy diets we're gonna talk about what makes them healthy what
makes them good for weight loss so that you understand the bigger picture and
you can choose what's best for you coming right up I'm Dr. Ekberg I'm a
holistic doctor and a former Olympic decathlete and if you want to truly
master health by understanding how the body really works make sure you
subscribe and hit that notification bell so that you don't miss anything when it
comes to diets most people are concerned with is it gonna help me lose weight so
yes we're gonna talk about that but we're gonna talk about the bigger
picture also so first of all I want to go to an article that talks about the
Mediterranean diet and we're going to discuss some of those points so first of
all they say that it is generally accepted that the folks living in the
countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea live longer and suffer less than
most Americans from cancer and cardiovascular ailments the not
surprising secret is an active lifestyle weight control and a diet low in red
meat sugar and saturated fats and high in produce nuts and other healthful
foods again they throw in weight control as if that was the causative factor of
health rather than the other way around when you get healthy the weight comes to
a normal level for you so one of the big yearly votes were expert panels vote on
the best diet then the Mediterranean diet was that one year was voted number
one best overall diet and they talked about that it has plenty of fruits that
it has plenty of veggies lots of whole grains lots of nuts legumes and olive
oil and then they say that the diet is limited in fish and seafood that they
have it once or twice a week that they have limited poultry egg and
cheese and that they very rarely eat sweets or red meat they claim that they
drink a good amount of wine and that in moderation that's good for you as well
so the thing to keep in mind is that the Mediterranean Sea is a large area there
are several countries bordering with many different cultures so typically
they primarily talk about Greece the the Greek culture as representing the
Mediterranean diet but there's Italian there's French they're Spanish living
there as well that have different cultures and slightly different habits
the reason they focus in on Greece and the Greek diet is that the Mediterranean
diet is very rich in olive oil and the Greek consumed by far the most olive oil
of anyone in the world so we're going to talk primarily about that and I'm gonna
give an example because I was in a part of Greece it was an island south of
Greece called Crete that exemplifies this diet very very well and while my
experience isn't ironclad and doesn't represent this completely by any means I
just want to share what I saw and sure enough they had a good amount of fruits
they had lots and lots of vegetables there was never a meal without a tomato
salad tomato onion cucumber salad I didn't see much nuts or legumes maybe
that's because I didn't look for them but that didn't seem to be a huge
component olive oil absolutely it's a staple it's not a condiment it's it's a
food that you consume with everything I saw plenty of fish and seafood and I saw
plenty of poultry eggs and cheese and I saw a lot of red meat
didn't see many sweets again because I don't look for them but while it didn't
have any cows they had goats and sheep running around everywhere
and they also had chickens running around everywhere so they had plenty of
red meats they also had pork was very very common so red meat was basically
eaten with with every meal they served plenty of wine even though I held back a
good bit and I think wines all right in in moderation but yes that's certainly a
big part of the Mediterranean culture so my experience didn't exactly match the
expert panel I think they just want it to be a lot of vegetables and not so
much meat and what they think of as saturated fats while in reality those
are presents in very generous amounts so how do the macronutrients compare well
there isn't a set number of course for the Mediterranean diet because there's
such a great variation but based on what the typical impression is and based on
my first impression I would say that about 50% of calories come from fat 20%
from protein and about 30% from carbohydrates it's the US Department of
Agriculture the Mayo Clinic the American Diabetes Association they promote a
low-fat diet a moderate protein so 20% fat 20%
protein and 60% from carbohydrates so what I think they're trying to do is
they're trying to emphasize the grain and vegetable portion and de-emphasize
the meat to make the Mediterranean diet look more like the USDA but again that's
just my my guess of what's going on and then the keto of course is a high fat
moderate protein very low carb diet but if we look at the the top example of
what the Mediterranean probably is like then it is actually closer to the keto
diet than it is to the recommended us diets so then in the
article they ask some questions and they ask will it help you lose weight and the
they quote some research the first they say while some people fear that eating a
diet that relatively high in fat will keep them fat more and more research is
suggesting the opposite is true really it's wonderful isn't it that they're
starting to wake up and they say if you build a calorie deficit into your meal
plan and you burn off extra calories by exercising you should shed some pounds
and how quickly and whether you keep them off is up to you and
that is just wrong because all diets fail if you emphasize calorie deficits
your body will adapt the only way that you're going to sustain permanent weight
loss sustainable weight loss is to reduce insulin resistance and to the
degree that the diet can do that then you will be successful
so they quote some studies and a 2016 study in The Lancet had a five-year
trial with 7400 adults with type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease and
they were designed either a Mediterranean diet supplemented with
olive oil a Mediterranean diet supplemented with nuts or a controlled
diet which they didn't specify and they found that the Mediterranean diet did
better than the control which we can only assume then as some kind of
standard diet but they say the people that were supplemented with olive oil
lost the most why because they introduced a whole food that doesn't
stimulate insulin so they can reverse their insulin resistance and they lose
low-carb Mediterranean a traditional Mediterranean or a diet recommended by
the American Diabetes Association and after a year they found that all groups
had lost weight but the low-carb Mediterranean group had lost 50% more
than the other two groups so again low-carb means they're eating more fat
and the reducing insulin resistance because they're not stimulating insulin
in a third study they mentioned were 322 moderately obese adults they again give
them one of three diets one a low-fat calorie restricted to a calorie
restricted Mediterranean or three a non calorie restricted low-carb after two
years the first group the calorie restricted low-fat worst combination had
lost six pounds the calorie restricted Mediterranean allowing them along
FAT lost nine pounds and with low-carb but no calorie restriction they lost the
most ten pounds and they finished up saying a 2008 analysis of the 21 studies
of the journal Obesity reviews concluded the jury is still out on whether
following the Mediterranean diet will lead to weight loss or a lower
likelihood of being overweight or obese so why are they so confused because they
don't understand physiology they don't look at the mechanisms involved they
look at labels they call it this diet or that diet instead of understanding the
common factors and the mechanisms that make it happen
so why is the Mediterranean a good choice why could it be a good choice for
you because they eat real food they eat meat
they eat vegetables they eat lots and lots of salads and most of it is grown
locally on Crete there were animals running around there were chickens and
goats and sheep there were olive trees everywhere you could look it's a local
economy they grow it the way they've grown it for hundreds or thousands of
years and another secret is the extra-virgin olive oil they consume over
30 litres of olive oil per person per year every man woman and child over 30
litres of olive oil Greece on average I think is somewhere around 25 litres and
then it goes down from there and that's again why they emphasize Greece and 30
liters of olive oil is 270,000 calories that represents over 1/3 of all the
calories produced from a single item so it's not that olives is this magical
food that's just gonna turn your health on or it's gonna heal your body it's
just a food that hasn't been destroyed that all it is so by eating
tons and tons of olive oil they get a nutritious source of energy that does
not stimulate insulin that has a almost zero influence on insulin and it hasn't
been destroyed there are no rancid fats there are no toxins there's no additives
it's simply a whole food just like they're getting their energy from meat
and salads and local stuff the olive oil is just another food don't think of it
as something miraculous that's gonna do anything it's just that they're getting
energy from something that does that hasn't been destroyed most of the fats
eaten in the Western world like vegetable oils and margarine and
processed fats and processed food the food has been destroyed that's why the
Mediterranean diet is better than the standard Western diets because most of
the Western food has been destroyed it's been processed it has chemicals it has
added sugar it's been altered so please keep that in mind there is no miracle if
we just learn to eat real food humans can thrive on a wide variety of
different things if you have insulin resistance you need to go a little bit
lower or a lot lower on the carb scale to create the results you want and
reverse insulin resistance forget the labels it doesn't really matter if it's
called the carnivore diet or a Mediterranean diet or a - diet or a
South Beach or an Atkins or a keto or a low carb all you need to worry about is
does it have whole food and if your insulin resistant then you cut the carbs
and if you're not or if you reverse or insulin resistance then you can increase
your carbs a little bit and you can keep eating real foods and do real well so
which one is better the keto diet or the Mediterranean diet well it depends on
where you are on your insulin resistance if you need to go
Kido you can still do that and basically follow a Mediterranean diet because if
you notice based on my experience be moderate with a wine don't eat any
sweets but then they have red meat they have poultry eggs and cheese fish
seafood olive oils be careful on the legumes and cut out the grains have a
few fruits and then all the rest you can eat the Mediterranean diet as long as
you eat whole food so there not that difference the key component is that we
eat things that haven't been altered or destroyed let me know your thoughts on
this if you have experiences or questions please share those below if
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