Happy Birthday to me.

Today I celebrate my 58th lap around the sun. Every year I take a picture the morning on my birthday and post a birthday blog. Over the last year, I’ve thought a lot about my “why”. Much of my why has to do with fitness, health, bodybuilding, and making a positive impact on the world. Please read further as I reflect and share my thoughts about this last year.

A beautiful soul came into my life 18 months ago. As a birthday present 1 year ago, she gave me the perfect read for where I am in my life. Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning, recounts surviving Auschwitz as a Jewish prisoner during WWII. It’s an amazing story that I recommend everyone read. Frankl reflects deeply and attempts to explain how, as so many people died, some managed to survive. He concludes that the people who found their “why”, and were lucky enough to avoid the gas chambers, were able to endure the daily horrors and survive.

To be clear, I’m in no way trying to compare my life to Frankl’s. He experienced horrors I can’t begin to imagine. I’m aware of my privilege and good fortune. His book helped me to live with more gratitude and inspires me to work harder to find my why.

In grade school and middle school, I was super skinny and geeky looking. Kids teased me and laughed at me. They told me I had toothpicks for arms. I was bullied frequently. I remember crying to my mother, pretending to be sick and, begged her to let me stay home from school. I was afraid of what the older bigger mean boys were going to do to me. I was traumatized as a child.

Late in high school I discovered weightlifting. I took steroids all through college. I went from a 150-pound weakling to a jacked 210-pound nightclub bouncer. I also studied fight styles and became proficient with weapons. I vowed to never fear anyone. No one ever again told me I had toothpicks for arms. Even today, as a Professional Natural Bodybuilder, I use my childhood trauma as fuel to train harder and psych myself up for competitions.

Now, after 40+ years of bodybuilding, I ask myself if this is part of my why. I believe it is. I chose this path. As I get older, I find bodybuilding much more than healing childhood trauma. I get more and more feedback that I inspire people. Part of what now fuels me to continue bodybuilder is to inspire.

Making a positive impact in the world is very rewarding. I try my best to be a walking example of the benefits of healthy nutrition and daily exercise. I’m aware the older I get, the more of an anomaly I become. Few 58-year-old people are seriously fit. I’m often asked how I’m able to maintain a fit lean physique at my age.

It’s a simple formula. I eat whole intact foods and exercise daily. My meal plan consists of a little fruit, nuts, seeds, lots of green vegetables, and a moderate amount of animal proteins like cage free eggs, wild caught cold water fish, free range poultry, and grass-fed organic beef. I do resistance training and cardio exercise daily. In addition, I work on my mental health, reduce stress, and try to get enough sleep.

Much of the answer to the question, what is my why, is the same answer to why I continue bodybuilding at 58. I want to maintain my long-term health and I want to inspire others to be their best version of themselves, at any age.

Thank You for reading. I hope in some small way I’ve inspired you.

Sincerely,

JD Griffin
​
PNBA Professional Natural Bodybuilder, Certified Nutrition Coach, Author: Get Fit Lean and Keep Your Day Job

Happy birthday to me! Writing a birthday blog has become an annual tradition. My goal is to inspire others to be the best version of themselves by living a healthy lifestyle. I try my best to do so. Like most of us, I’m on a path of continuous improvement. This past year has been eye opening, and I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned. Over the years, I’ve been working on how to deliver a more palatable message on how to live a healthy lifestyle. Before I get into that, please allow me to give a brief recap of some significant life events since my last birthday. 

In September of 2021, I won the overall Masters Physique division at the Western Regional, earning my Pro Qualification in Natural Bodybuilding. I then made my pro debut at the Natural Olympia in Las Vegas in November. I’m proud to have earned my PNBA Pro card at age 56 in the 40+ Masters Physique division. A few years ago, I never would have imagined I’d become a pro athlete at this age. Going forward I plan to continue to compete and maintain my PNBA Pro status for as long as I’m able.  

Another life event was meeting a vibrant spirit unlike any I’ve ever encountered. It came in the form of a radiant woman, beautiful inside and out. Empathetic, kind, sweet, and wicked smart, she shares my passion for fitness. My unicorn. As a compassionate soul, she considers everyone’s unique experience. She’s helped me to better understand that talking about how, what, and why people eat is far more complex than the biological aspects of nutrition science. 

As anyone who knows me or follows me on social media will tell you, I’ve been practicing a low- carb, high-fat nutrition plan for several years. It’s been shown to reverse type 2 diabetes and to improve cognition in diseases such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. It’s also been shown in scientific studies to prevent those same non-infectious diseases as well as heart disease, obesity, and some forms of cancer. The root cause of these and many other modern non-infectious diseases is metabolic dysfunction, caused by insulin resistance, caused by spiking your blood glucose too frequently.

I view our health through the lens of evolutionary biology. For most of human history humans were hunter/gatherers who followed the herds. We’ve been eating animal fat and protein for 6 million years. Often demonized by mainstream medicine, our species has thrived on saturated fat and cholesterol. Mother Nature doesn’t make bad fat. The domestication of grains is a very recent event in our evolutionary timeline. We’re not well equipped to deal with the modern food products derived from refined grains. Consuming too much refined carbohydrates rapidly and markedly elevates our blood glucose, which  can causes serious health problems.

Having said all that, I now see that evolutionary biology isn’t the whole story. Beyond physiology, there is much more to consider when we talk about food and nutrition. I’ve come to understand that for many people, the psychological aspect of how and what we eat is their greatest challenge. Many people experience or have experienced food insecurity. Most diets ultimately fail. For many people, diets do more harm than good. For people who’ve experienced trauma from food insecurity, calorie and food restriction can be a nightmare. They may very well follow a diet for a short period of time through will power. They often get the short term expected weight loss results. What we don’t see it the emotional suffering they experienced to achieve the results. Following a meal plan that restricts many foods can trigger PTSD. They suffer and are miserable, and so they eventually rebound. Too often, they end up in a worse state than they were in before starting the diet, both physically and emotionally.

So then, what is the solution? I don’t have all the answers, but I do have compassion. I can tell you what works for me, and I hope can work for others. Much like the way I live in general, I eat with intention. My intention is to stay strong and maintain my stamina therefore I do resistance training and cardio exercise every day. My intention is also to live disease free and feel good, both physically and emotionally. I don’t have any food restrictions. I choose the foods I eat like this: I look at all the foods available to me. I’m fortunate, so the available foods include pretty much everything. I pick the foods I eat based on whether or not they’re going to help me. I might choose salmon for the protein, fat, and omega 3. I might choose kale, asparagus, or broccoli, for the micronutrients in green vegetables. I might choose and orange or blueberries for the many essential vitamins. But that’s not the whole story…

I might choose a glass of wine because I want to celebrate a special event with someone I love. I might choose a piece of cake because someone dear to me baked it with love and it’s a special birthday party. I might choose creamy mashed potatoes because it will make me feel good and give me loads of energy in the morning. All these choices serve some intention. Strength, stamina, physical health, emotional health, well-being, celebrating life, sharing a special moment with someone I love. In all cases, there are no restrictions, I choose what I eat with good intention. You can do the same.

I hope this message resonates with some people. Even if only a little bit, I hope it helps people who struggle with the question of how and what to eat. I am writing this birthday blog because I am fortunate to enjoy excellent health at the age of 57, and that good fortune has been attained because of my healthy intention. I hope that sharing this helps others achieve similar good fortune and good health.

Yours in health and fitness,

JD Griffin, Certified Nutrition Coach, PNBA Professional Natural Bodybuilder

Happy birthday to me! Today I celebrate 56 trips around the sun. As I’ve done now for several years, I’m posting my annual birthday blog. With the recent death of my dad, this one is intentionally direct, honest, and raw. It’s also important. Please read.
 
Fitness and good health are largely determined by lifestyle. It’s true, people have genetic dispositions towards certain diseases. However, gene expression is mostly a result of external environmental factors. For privileged people, many of these factors, particularly what we eat and don’t eat, are in our control. Fitness and good health are a choice for aware, educated, financially secure people.
 
It’s important to acknowledge the factors that contribute to people accessing healthy nutrition such as awareness, education, economic situation, and food availability. Some people aren’t able to choose what they eat, and many don’t know the right choices to make. These are a result of larger systematic problems at work beyond the scope of this article. For those with relative food privilege, my target audience here, we are most certainly able to choose. If you’re fortunate enough to choose what you eat, this article is directed at you.
 
The top killers of modern humans are a direct result of food choices. We can draw a direct line from metabolic syndrome to: type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cognitive disorders including dementia and Alzheimer’s, certain forms of cancer, and a higher risk of neurologic disorders such as Parkinson’s. Metabolic syndrome typically starts with insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is caused by eating refined carbohydrates, mainly sugar, refined flour and starches.
 
In short, most modern humans die of self-inflicted disease. My dad is a perfect example. He died of COVID-19, December 5, 2020. He contracted the coronavirus in a nursing home. He had to go to a nursing home because he had Alzheimer’s. He developed Alzheimer’s because most of the calories he fueled himself with over the course of his life were refined carbohydrates. My dad never met a carb he didn’t like. He would single handedly finish the bread basket before the main course came when out to eat. He loved pasta, root vegetables, and had a sweet tooth for cookies, cake, candy, pie, ice cream, or any other sugar loaded desert.
 
Had my dad not been a refined carb junkie he wouldn’t have developed dementia, he wouldn’t have ended up in a nursing home, he wouldn’t have contracted the virus, and he would be alive today. Again, gene expression is a function of environmental factors including food choices. In fact, for a while I was able to get my dad to cease his high-carb consumption and his cognition improved, until he fell back into his old eating habits and the decline accelerated. I’m certain his death was a direct result of what he ate.
 
I’ve chosen another path. I don’t eat sugar or any other refined carbohydrate. Sugar, flour, and the like are not food. Sugar is poison. These non-foods are inflammatory, cause metabolic disorders, and will ultimately kill you. I choose to eat real whole foods that are anti-inflammatory. Since 2014, when my dad was diagnosed with dementia, I’ve followed a low carb/high fat keto nutrition plan. It’s very simple. I eat whole eggs, fatty cuts of dead animals, green veggies grown above ground, nuts and seeds, and a little bit of fruit. Being super lean walking around with a great physique is a nice byproduct but my primary motivation is long term health.
 
Ironically, the working title of my transformation guide published in 2014, Get Fit, Lean and Keep Your Day Job, was initially It’s Your Choice. We changed the title in the eleventh hour as we thought GFL was catchier and more descriptive. I then thought of “choice” in the context of a successful transformation. I now think of it in the broader and more important context of long-term health.
 
You can choose to swap long term health for short term satisfaction by continuing to poison yourself with sugar and refined carbs. You’ll most likely die of one of the top 10 self-inflicted diseases. Or, you can follow a low carb high fat keto nutrition plan and maintain long term health. It’s your choice.
 
Yours in Fitness and Health,
 
JD Griffin
Certified Nutrition Coach
Author; Get Fit, Lean and Keep Your Day Job

Every year I write a birthday blog and this year has been the strangest to date. On Jan 1st, I began preparing for a Men’s Physique contest. The last time I entered a contest was eight years ago as proof of concept while writing my book, Get Fit Lean and Keep Your Day Job: A Transformation Guide for Any Body. Some personal life events around the end of last year motivated me to compete again. Inspiring others to be their best selves is my greatest satisfaction. I try to lead by example. I registered to compete in a natural show scheduled for the end of March. My nutrition plan was perfect, my training was intense, and I was ready. The contest was then cancelled a week before I was to go on stage (the above picture is today, me at 55, no gym, no special dieting, no spray on tan).

Although disappointed, I figured, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I also like a challenge. I decided then, I’d maintain my stage ready physique until the next contest was allowed. (As of today, that show is scheduled for Sept 12th) Soon after the March contest was canceled, as everyone knows, things went from bad to worse. All the gyms closed and remain closed. Fortunately, I’m in technology so I’m able to work from home.
 
Without a gym, my challenge became how to continue to train hard and stay in top physical condition. First of all, I don’t believe in excuses. You can have results or you can have excuses, but not both. I ruptured a disk in college, I tore part of a tricep off the bone ten years later, and both of my rotator cuffs are severely torn. More recently, I tweaked a knee running on city streets soon after my local track closed down due to stay-at-home measures. Throw in the temptation to overeat out of boredom, while stuck at home all day, and I had a long list of potential excuses.
 
But then I considered all the people with real problems. Millions had lost their jobs, lost loved ones, and lost their lives due to the coronavirus pandemic. I was grateful to be amongst the lucky. I was able to work from home and was in good health. I choose to make no excuses and instead make results.
 
Fortunately, at home I already had a weight lifting bench and a set of dumbbells going up to 50 lbs. Not nearly as heavy as I’d use in a gym, but I adapted my training. More reps, more sets, and more volume. I also have a spin bike so can get my cardio in, even if I can’t run on the street. I got creative. I used the frame for a hanging chair to fashion a pull-down machine. I bought a heavy-duty pully, some plastic-coated steel cable, and ordered different attachments online for my home back and triceps cable machine. I also bought a length of plumbing pipe with T fittings and using carabiners created a barbell system that I can use for straight bar curls and squats. I no longer needed a gym. All of these projects I documented in videos you can find on my YouTube channel, if you’re interested in doing any of these things yourself!
 
Now, the most important aspect of staying in top condition is eating right. If you don’t get your nutrition right, nothing else matters. Stuck at home, I’d be tempted to overeat and/or indulge in comfort foods. I follow a low-carb, moderate-protein, high-fat nutrition plan. For anyone who’s not read my Keto blogs, here’s a refresher.
 
Why You Should Follow a Keto Nutrition Plan (Also Known as Low-carb, High-fat):
 
If you overeat carbohydrates, you spike your blood glucose. The long-term problem is repeatedly spiking your blood glucose leads to inflammation, high insulin levels (known as “hyperinsulinemia”), and eventually insulin resistance. These are the root causes of most, if not all, of the top killers of modern humans, including heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and other cognitive disorders, type 2 diabetes, and obesity related disorders often referred to as metabolic syndrome. New research is also revealing links between hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance and cancer.
 
The short-term problem with overeating carbs is that spiking your blood glucose dumps insulin, which signals your body to store the blood glucose, not burned in real time, as fat. This obviously, leads to weight gain.
 
Even though I am an active weight-lifter, I eat moderate protein. Overeating protein is unnecessary, even if your goal is building lean muscle mass through resistance training. Most of the bodybuilding crowd overeats protein as they associate protein with muscle building. Whatever your goal, our bodies can only utilize about 15 – 25 grams at one time. Overeating protein is a waste and can cause short term effects like bad breath, dehydration, joint pain, and headaches.
 
The truth about fat is that saturated fat and cholesterol are not bad for us. Demonized by mainstream medicine for decades, saturated fat and dietary cholesterol are in fact essential for good health. Mainstream medicine’s dogma is a result of questionable science, shady business interests, and corrupt politics. There is no evidence-based science supporting the mythical links between consumption of saturated fat or dietary cholesterol, and heart disease or the other top killers of modern humans. In fact, the most recent and most reliable research has showed exactly the opposite.
 
Here’s the plan:
 
1. Do:
 
Exercise: Find a way to do cardio exercise (bike, run, walk, whatever is available and do-able). Get your heart rate up and sweat. Find a way to do resistance training. Use free weights if you have them. If you don’t have any and can’t get to a gym, use an improvised machine, TRX straps, and/or your own body weight in order to put a load on your muscles. For best results, train to failure.
 
Eat Right: The most important part of the plan is nutrition. Track your macronutrients and your calories. Using a calorie counting app, like MyFitnessPal, makes tracking easy. My recommended macro percentages are 10/20/70 – carbs/protein/fat. After entering your personal data, the app will calculate how may total calories you should eat in order to hit your weight goal. Anyone who claims calories don’t matter doesn’t understand E = mc2
If you don’t believe Energy and Mass are equivalent, please bypass me and instead submit your paper to the Nobel Committee for Physics in Sweden.
 
Eat healthy fats like whole free-range organic eggs, grass fed organic beef, wild caught cold water fish like salmon, organic pasture raised dark meat chicken, avocados, grass fed organic butter, coconut oil, olive oil, nuts and seeds. You do not have to eat red meat or any other meat. You can execute perfect Keto as a vegetarian. Some form of animal fat like whole eggs will do just fine.
Eat plenty of green vegetables like asparagus and broccoli. It’s hard to overeat green leafy veggies like spinach, kale, and collard greens. Eat a small amount of low glycemic fruits like strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. Apples and oranges are great but one serving might be half of your carbs for the day.
 
2. Don’t:
 
Don’t eat sugar. Sugar is not food, sugar is poison. Sugar has zero nutritional value. It only has an energy value. Consuming sugar repeatedly will elevate your blood glucose, cause hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance, and lead to a noninfectious disease diagnosis.
 
Don’t eat processed grains like bread, pasta, and cereal. Don’t eat processed anything. If it comes in a box, a can, or is shrink wrapped, it’s not food. Read labels and if there is a single ingredient that you can’t pronounce or never heard of, it’s not food. Real whole intact foods have a shelf life.
 
Avoid eating carb-heavy root vegetables like potatoes, carrots, and yams. If you do choose these, eat small quantities, as it will likely be your total allotment of carbs for the day.
 
Sample meal plan:
 
Breakfast – Coffee with 1 tbs MCT oil. Whole egg and kale (or spinach) scramble cooked in butter, garnished with avocado slices (I like to add some hot sauce for additional flavor)
 
Snack 1 – One orange or berries
 
Lunch – Baked chicken thigh and a green veggie. If unable to get to the grocery store because of COVID-19, some canned tuna or salmon mixed with mayo and cherry tomatoes
 
Snack 2 – Almonds or sunflower seeds
 
Dinner – Grilled steak or other meat and a green veggie (broccoli, spinach, kale, etc) or salad made primarily of dark leafy greens
 
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and social unrest, maintaining good health is now more important than ever. Good nutrition will strengthen your immune system. One of the best defenses against the virus is a strong immune system. Regular exercise is not only great for our physical health, it improves our emotional health. Exercise can help you deal with anxiety and stress.
 
You too can get results. You can achieve and maintain your health and fitness goals. You can be your best self!
 
Yours in Health and Fitness,
 
JD Griffin
Author and Certified Nutrition Coach

Happy 54th Birthday to me. Posting an article along with an eye-catching picture has become my Birthday tradition. If you don’t know me, I’m the author of Get Fit Lean and Keep Your Day Job, a Transformation Guide for Any Body. I’m also a Certified Nutrition Coach and the creator of Keto Score, a free algorithm that helps people get into and maintain nutritional ketosis. My passion is fitness, nutrition, and wellness. My greatest satisfaction comes from helping people improve their health, look, and feel their best. Achieving this is not difficult, it’s simply a matter of daily habits.
 
If you’re still reading this, I probably grabbed your attention with the pic and my age. Yeah, the aesthetic is great but it’s really just an ancillary benefit (icing on the cake would be more eloquent prose but I don’t eat sugar and neither should you). At this point in my life, my primary motivation is long-term health. I want to maintain my fitness well into old age so that I can remain active and run around with my grandchildren, maybe even my great grandchildren one day. I also have no intention of succumbing to one of the non-infectious diseases that most modern humans die from.
 
As a fitness enthusiast, over the course of nearly 40 years, I’ve tried just about every diet plan under the sun. I’ve also continued to follow the latest in nutrition science. As the consensus continues to build, I believe low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) is the optimal nutrition plan. The argument is born out in my experience, but more importantly, it’s the collective result of cutting-edge research separating science from conventional wisdom. The grain-based diet recommendations that have been the underpinning of the standard American diet and the USDA recommended “food pyramid”, more recently “my plate”, are born out of corrupt politics and business interests, not health concerns. Our evolutionary biology tells the whole story.
 
Prior to the domestication of agriculture there was no such thing as chronic non-infectious disease. Type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and cancer did not exist for the first 3 million years of human evolution. The trouble began when we switched to a grain-based diet a few thousand years ago, and it’s accelerated exponentially over recent years with the industrialization of farming. Carbohydrates are plentiful and cheap. Over eating carbs is toxic.
 
You can draw a direct line: Over eat carbs => elevate blood glucose => develop insulin resistance => cause inflammation and metabolic disorder => facilitate non-infectious disease (pick one or all from the list above). Sadly, too many people get most of their daily calories from carbs. Ironically, carbohydrates are not an essential macro nutrient. Fat and protein, the other 2 macro nutrients, are essential. Our bodies require dietary fat and protein. However, we don’t need to eat carbs. Are bodies efficiently manufacture whatever glucose is required for biological function. Humans are not designed for an onslaught of carbohydrates. You don’t have to kill yourself slowly by overeating carbs. There is another way: Keto. It’s the ultimate low-carb, high-fat way of eating.
 
I eat whole eggs scrambled in butter and or coffee with a tablespoon of coconut oil and butter first thing in the morning. Post workout, I have some plain (unsweetened) Greek yogurt topped with a few berries. Lunch and dinner are a fatty animal protein like salmon, chicken thighs, or steak, and green veggies. Snacks are nuts, seeds, nut butters, avocado, and fat bombs (Google fat bombs - there are hundreds of delicious sugarless chocolate recipes). Eating low carb, moderate protein, high fat, known as Keto, is easy. And to dispel some common keto misconceptions:
1. You don’t have to eat red meat
2. Saturated fat and cholesterol are not bad for you
3. Keto doesn’t mean you can eat as much fat as you want. Calories do matter.
5. You can eat fruit, although limited low glycemic fruit, on Keto.
4. Over eating protein is not keto. Through a process known as gluconeogenesis, excess protein is converted to glucose. Over eating protein actually defeats keto.
 
Actual Keto means getting 70% of your calories from fat, 20% from protein, and the remaining 10% from low-glycemic carbs. That’s a well-formulated Keto diet. The macro nutrient percents as well as micronutrients and total calories can be easily tracked with an eating app like MyFitnessPal.
 
Keto can be achieved in some surprising ways. There are Pescatarians and Vegetarians doing Keto and it’s not easy, but there are people successfully doing Vegan Keto. It’s important to say again; sugar, starches, grains, cereals, and root vegetables are big no-no’s on keto.
 
Back to daily habits. Following a good nutrition plan is critical but moving your body every day is also important. Make daily exercise non-negotiable. Most of us work a full-time job. How often do you skip going to work? Treat daily exercise with the same respect. I set my alarm, get up early, and go the gym every weekday before going to my office. I do 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of weight training. If I don’t go to the gym on the weekend it’s because I’m skiing, Mt biking, or going for a hike. An off day for me is a 1-hour urban walk. There are an infinite number of ways to move your body. Find the exercises you enjoy and do it, daily.
 
Eating low carb, moderate protein, high fat, isn’t an occasional thing or a short-term fix. It’s not a diet. Keto is a lifestyle. I love good food, I love to cook, and I create delicious meals. There are countless spices, herbs, dry rubs, and other seasoning that can turn grilled chicken, fish, or sautéed veggies into mouth watering delights. Keto, combined with daily exercise, both cardio and strength training, keeps me looking and feeling my best. You can also maintain good health, look and feel your best. It’s all about daily habits.
 
If you’d like to learn more about my Get Fit Lean Program, please visit
Getfitlean.com
If you’d like help getting into and maintaining Nutritional Ketosis, please try Keto Score, my free algorithm at Ketonescore.com
 
Yours in fitness and health,
 
JD Griffin
Author, Get Fit Lean and Keep Your Day Job
Certified Nutrition Coach

​Living a ketogenic lifestyle (“Keto”) enables me to stay in the best physical and mental shape of my life. So what is keto? Keto is a low carb/moderate protein/high fat nutrition plan known as The Ketogenic Diet or Keto Diet. I started doing Keto 4 years ago, just after publishing my first book, Get Fit, Lean and Keep Your Day Job. Fitness and nutrition has been a lifelong interest of mine. As a teenager, I began weight training and trying different diets. From Atkins to Paleo to Mediterranean to South Beach, I’ve tried every popular and sometimes not so popular diet plan. After a lifetime of experimentation, what is my conclusion? For both short term and long term positive health outcomes, nothing is as effective as Keto.
 
Keto popularity is growing fast and with good reason. With hundreds of successful clinical trials of patients, San Francisco based Virta Health is focused on reversing type 2 diabetes. Their prescribed treatment? A well formulated keto diet. Another Bay Area startup, Jump Start MD, markets themselves as a weight loss solution. Their prescribed treatment? You guessed it, Keto.
 
I advocate Keto for both short term and long term health. You can improve your body composition (lose fat and gain lean muscle) and more importantly, prevent and reverse most non-infectious disease by following a Keto nutrition plan. My new free algorithm, Keto Score, helps you get into and maintain nutritional ketosis. You can calculate your own personal Keto Score, available to anyone, at ketonescore.com
 
Why is Keto the best solution for fat loss?
Carbohydrates are most people’s primary source of energy. When you fuel yourself with carbs, your body converts dietary carbohydrates into blood glucose (blood sugar.) Elevated blood glucose in turn triggers an insulin flood. The hormone insulin, like all hormones, is a messenger, and specifically, insulin is a messenger that instructs your body to store excess blood glucose as fat. You don’t get fat from eating fat. You get fat from overeating carbohydrates. Unlike carbohydrates, our bodies have no biological mechanism for converting dietary fat to stored fat. When following a Keto plan you fuel yourself with fat. Both stored fat and dietary fat can be converted to blood ketones, and those blood ketones, as opposed to blood glucose, become your body’s primary fuel source. There is no better diet for losing fat than eating fat.
 
I’m a fat loss expert. Many times over the years as a men’s physique competitor, I’ve taken my body fat down to 6%. I “leaned out”, as the bodybuilding community calls it. When I was fueling myself with carbs, leaning out was very difficult.  It felt like I was starving because the blood sugar spikes and inevitable blood sugar crashes put me on a roller coaster of energy highs and lows. I was always hungry. I craved my next carb fix so I could temporarily bounce back from the blood sugar crashes. Leaning out on keto is effortless by comparison. Why?
 
When doing Keto, most of your calories come from fat so instead of experiencing blood sugar spikes and constant hunger, you have a steady level of energy throughout the day. Because keto provides a sustained even energy level, many professional athletes, including endurance athletes, are adopting keto as their primary nutrition plan.
 
There’s even more benefits than fat loss and steady energy levels. Keto has also been shown to improve mental focus, cognitive function, and mental clarity. Ketones easily cross the blood/brain barrier and are a preferred fuel by the mitochondria (power plants) of brain cells. So Instead of feeling distracted and irritable most of the day because of carb/sugar crashes, I feel mentally sharp and focused.
 
Why is Keto best for long term health? As mentioned above, eating too many carbs elevates your blood glucose which in turn floods your blood stream with insulin. Elevated blood glucose and insulin spikes are inflammatory. Inflammation is the root cause of most non-infectious diseases including type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and cognitive disorders like Alzheimer’s, dementia, and Parkinson’s. Many forms of cancer are thought to be caused or exacerbated by inflammation. Recent research suggests that inflammation and epilepsy are tightly linked, and potentially even causative.
 
Following Keto, you’ll eliminate the inflammation caused by elevated blood glucose and insulin. Doing Keto you can prevent, and in many cases reverse, non-infectious disease. Numerous clinical trials have proven that following a Keto Diet can reverse type 2 diabetes, obesity, and heart disease, and many more are under way in the areas of cancer, neurologic diseases, and metabolic syndromes.  It’s well documented that Keto has also been successfully used to treat childhood epilepsy for decades, and many hospitals and health systems are now establishing ketogenic therapy programs.
 
Following a Keto plan is not difficult. First, you need to accept a couple facts that are contrary to popular opinion and sadly, conventional wisdom. Carbohydrates are not an essential macro nutrient. Fat and protein are essential. That’s right, we do not need to eat carbohydrates. The small amount of blood glucose required for some vital bodily functions like brain activity, can be converted from dietary protein. Through a process called gluconeogenesis, protein is converted to blood glucose. This also explains why eating too much protein defeats a keto plan. Over eat protein and you will elevate your blood glucose as if you were eating too much carbs. On a true Keto plan you eat moderate amounts of protein. It’s worth mentioning that you do not have to eat meat. Grass fed red meat is great, but not required. There are many sources of animal fat including whole eggs, cold water fish, butter, and whole fat dairy.
 
Sadly, far too many health providers continue to cling to the second bit of conventional wisdom in desperate need of debunking. Saturated fat and cholesterol are not bad for you. In fact, saturated fat and cholesterol are beneficial anti-inflammatory nutrients. Unfortunately, mainstream medicine continues to propagate 1950’s dogma instead of real science. The myth linking saturated fat and cholesterol to heart disease is a product of bad science, shady business interests, and corrupt politics.
 
You probably have little interest in taking your body fat down to 6% but like most people, I’ll bet you’d like to shed a few pounds of fat. Most importantly, nobody wants to succumb to non-infectious disease. Unfortunately and statistically, most modern humans will. But you don’t have to follow the herd. Whatever your current age or health might be, it’s never too late to start doing Keto. Keto will stop elevating your blood glucose, stop the inflammation, and improve and maintain good health.
 
Please check out Keto Score at ketonescore.com for more helpful information. You can calculate your own personal Keto Score as often as you like and ask questions in our Keto Coach Forum. What’s really cool is that the app is FREE. I look forward to seeing you there, and helping you embark on or continue a successful ketogenic lifestyle!
 
Yours in Fitness and Health,
JD Griffin
Author, Get Fit Lean
Certified Nutrition Coach
Keto Score Founder

​As a Certified Nutrition Coach and believer in food as medicine, I’m one of the last guys in the world to recommend unnecessary supplements. I’ve been into muscle development, fitness, and wellness for over 35 years. In my transformation guide, Get Fit, Lean, and Keep Your Day Job, I explain how to lose fat and develop lean muscle by eating whole intact foods. I’d rather eat a steak than drink a protein shake and I recognize that eating vitamin-rich foods is better than taking multi vitamins & minerals. However, because we live in an imperfect world where we are often not able to get enough macro and micro nutrients via the food we eat, I do, on RARE occasions, recommend some supplements. Ketone supplements (specifically those that contain high-quality and bio-available beta-hydroxybutyrate, or BHB) are among the few that can provide huge benefits. The one that I’ve used, and that I know works (because I test my blood with a blood ketone meter), is Pruvit’s Keto OS. Please read on and allow me to explain.
 
When I first heard about ketone supplements a couple years ago, I was skeptical. I’ve come full circle for some very good reasons. Over the 35 years of self-experimentation with supplements, I have tried just about every pre- and post-workout drink that has come along. It wasn’t until about 10 years ago in my 40’s, that I began to care more about my health and wellness than the aesthetic benefits of working out. Part of that evolution has included limiting my supplement intake to only those that are truly beneficial – and effective.  
 
My definition of beneficial supplements is simple. Any nutrient, macro or micro, that you are not getting adequate quantity of or not getting at all from eating whole foods. And the fact is, we can easily get enough of the 3 widely recognized macronutrients (carbs, protein, and fats) from the foods we eat. But recently, with the rise of the ketogenic (keto) diet, many people are considering ketones as a 4th macronutrient.  Ketones are a very potent and natural fuel source, they have anti-inflammatory properties, and they optimize brain energy metabolism. And unfortunately, unlike the other 3 macronutrients, they’re not very easy to get – they require strict adherence to a keto diet.
 
For those of you who may not be familiar with the benefits of a Keto Diet, I’ll give a brief summary. A keto diet is basically consuming mostly fat, moderate protein, and very very little carbohydrates. Your macros by percent of calories should be 10/20/70 – carbs/protein/fats, and this is achieved by eating less than 50 grams of carbs per day. What this does, is puts your body into nutritional ketosis. Ketosis is the state in which your body is burning fat as fuel, not carbs and glucose. You see, ketones are an alternative fuel to blood glucose. When you’re in the state of nutritional ketosis, your body burns fat by producing ketone bodies as its fuel source. However, putting yourself in a state of nutritional ketosis is not easy. In fact, it can take weeks to achieve, and it can be a difficult transition. This is the reason I’m excited about ketone supplements – they are a way to kick your body into ketosis and experience some of the benefits more easily.
 
So why do it? What are the benefits of fueling your body with ketones?
 
First of all, ketosis is your body’s native state – burning fat as fuel. When you stop fueling yourself with carbohydrates, your body turns to fat to fuel itself. So being in ketosis is a great way to get your body to burn bodyfat. If you need to lose weight, it’s pretty much effortless weight loss. The other benefit is energy. Ketones generate 35% more energy than glucose. This means the cells of your body and brain are running at peak efficiency and with a high-energy fuel source. As a result, when I’m in ketosis, I feel energetic all day with more mental clarity and focus than I’ve ever felt before. It’s also why many athletes are turning to keto and ketone supplements. In fact, Team Sky who won last year’s Tour de France were using ketone supplements as part of their performance toolkit.
 
There are so many benefits to putting yourself in ketosis. Is there another way than following an uber-strict diet? Well, until ketone supplements were developed, the answer was NO. But, now ketones can be consumed via supplements. The one I have personally been using is Pruvit’s Keto OS (Ketone Operating System). Within 60 minutes of taking it your body goes into ketosis. Because ketones are slow burning, you’ll feel energized all day and you’ll experience greater mental clarity and focus than you’ve ever felt.
 
In case you’re wondering if any of the benefits I describe are placebo, I’m sure they’re not. You might also be asking how I’m so certain that Keto OS raises my blood ketone levels. I’m sure it does because I test my blood ketone levels daily. I’ve been pricking my finger and testing my blood ketone and blood glucose levels since I began following a Keto diet 5 years ago. I’ve successfully put myself into nutritional ketosis both by bio-hacking myself with the right diet and macros, and by taking Keto/OS.
 
The bottom line is that I can attest to the fact that Keto OS works. It elevates your blood ketones, giving you incredible energy, mental clarity, focus and super-powered fat burning. If you’d like to experience all the great benefits of being in ketosis without having to follow a super-strict diet, you can.  Just go to http://getfitlean.ShopKeto.com and give it a try. As I said before, I rarely recommend supplements, but I can recommend this one with confidence because I’ve tested it on myself, and have seen first-hand that it works elevating my blood ketone levels.
 
Yours in Health and Fitness,
 
JD
Certified Nutrition Coach
Author; Get Fit Lean, and Keep Your Day Job
 
PS: I believe ketosis is so beneficial that I developed Keto Score, a free algorithm at https://www.ketonescore.com/ that can help anyone get into and maintain nutritional ketosis.
Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I am a promoter of Pruvit and receive commissions on sales of the product. But I am not telling you about it to sell something. I’m telling you about it because I’m excited about it and I know personally that it works! 

​I believe Keto can help everyone.

This article is written by the new gentler, humbler, and kinder version of me. Until very recently, I argued everyone should be on the ketogenic or keto diet. As a fat loss and nutrition expert, and like many people in other fields, I argued that my approach is right and everything else is wrong. My followers praised me and those advocating different approaches sometimes heckled me.
 
My combative style has damaged relationships with sweet loving souls, very dear to my heart. I’ve learned the hard way that enmity towards others’ beliefs, opinions, and views, does not attract most people. We can all be better humans. I’m working on myself and try to be better each day. I’m still a strong advocate and believer in the keto diet but would like to frame it in a more moderate way. Please read on.
 
Nearly ten years ago, at age 43, I did a 12-week body transformation contest where I achieved my goal. I lost nearly 40 pounds, got ripped, and looked great. Many people wanted to know how I did it, so I wrote and published Get Fit, Lean and Keep Your Day Job (http://getfitlean.com). It’s a comprehensive plan that works, although I’d like to go back and change one part of that program. The macros were too high in carbohydrates and protein, while too low in fat. If there’s one sin that will keep me out of heaven, it’s the thousands of egg yolks I’ve thrown away over the years.
 
Like most people at that time, I believed what we’ve been told for decades; saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for you. However, I no longer believe that, and science has since exonerated fat and cholesterol as being good for you. So currently, I contend that saturated fat and cholesterol are great for us. I think whole eggs are Mother Nature’s perfect food. Please stay with me here and allow me to expand on this idea.
 
Let’s connect the dots. Lucy, grandmother to us all, lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle on the Ethiopian plains 3.2 million years ago. Humans domesticated agriculture and began eating grains about 10,000 years ago. So, for 99.7% of human history, our ancestors were eating very few carbohydrates. What’s most interesting to me is that paleontologists have found no evidence of any of the modern non-infectious diseases in the fossil record.
 
It appears that in the pre-agriculture epochs, there is no trace of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Parkinson’s or for that matter, cancer. The trouble started after we domesticated agriculture. The Egyptians described and recorded type 2 diabetes in the 15th century BC. It’s only accelerated from there. Today, there is a global pandemic of non-infectious disease. One-third of the US population is either pre-diabetic or confirmed as type 2 diabetic. That’s 100 million people in the US alone. It’s perfectly correlated with the increasing consumption of carbohydrates. Globally, people are eating more bread, pasta, grains, rice, and other starches than ever before. I believe that the biggest problem is carbs. Here’s why.
 
Eating too many carbs elevates your blood glucose. Elevated blood glucose is inflammatory. Inflammation is thought to be the biggest contributor to all the non-infectious diseases I’ve listed above. I believe the single biggest thing you can do to ensure long-term health and avoid succumbing to non-infectious disease is to stop elevating your blood glucose. Stop overeating carbohydrates. Therefore, I believe the solution is keto. Here’s why.
 
A properly formulated keto diet means eating a lot of fat, moderate protein and very few carbs. Your macro %s are typically 70/20/10 (fat/protein/carb). Following a keto diet you can put yourself in a state of nutritional ketosis. Because you’re no longer fueling yourself with carbs and relying on blood glucose as your energy source, your body breaks down fat from your diet or from your body’s fat stores, and produces ketone bodies. You’ll then burn ketones as an alternative energy source – and ketones are a high-yield energy source, producing 38% more ATP than glucose. Remember, elevated blood glucose is inflammatory. Ketones are anti-inflammatory. That’s right, it’s widely believed that ketones protect and prevent non-infectious disease. In fact, in human clinical trials, San Francisco based Virta Health is having great success reversing type 2 diabetes.
 
Let me point out what Keto is not and dispel some misconceptions. Keto doesn’t mean no carbs, it means very few. I don’t think it’s possible to over eat micronutrient dense green leafy vegetables. Low glycemic fruits like blue berries and raspberries, packed with vitamins and minerals, are also on the menu. Keto doesn’t mean that you have to eat red meat or any meat for that matter. Have a couple whole eggs every day or some cold-water fish like salmon or sardines and you’re there. You can be vegetarian and still do keto because nuts, oils, and whole fat dairy products (if you’re lacto-vegetarian) are keto-friendly. What’s important is that you’ve got some source of saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet. Last, keto doesn’t mean high protein. Proper keto is moderate protein. Excess protein can be converted to blood glucose thereby defeating ketosis (our bodies have no such mechanism for converting fat to blood glucose).
 
I’ve been into fitness and nutrition for over 35 years and I’ve tried every diet plan under the sun. Since discovering keto about 5 years ago, I’ve never felt better and it’s never been easier to stay lean. When I did the body transformation contest 10 years ago and was still fueling myself with carbs, I felt like I was starving. I got lean with pure calorie reduction. By comparison, doing keto is easy because dietary fat is satiating, and your body uses the fat you eat as fuel, rather than storing it on your body. Most importantly, I want to live a long disease-free life and I believe keto gives me the best chance.
 
Let me return now to gentle, humble, and kind. I recognize that many people have a very different view. Much of the mainstream medical community still supports the notion that saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for you. I believe that shoddy science, shady politics, and big agro business interests led people to believe grains are good, and fat and cholesterol are bad. It’s easy to search online and find a “study” that supports whatever your preexisting beliefs might be. Unfortunately, in today’s world it’s very difficult to determine what’s true and what’s not. I realize this makes figuring out what’s actually a healthy diet very difficult.
 
Some people might also point to individuals that defy all of what I’ve warned against in this article. There are people that who eat pasta, bread, and sugar drinks their entire life and live to a ripe old age. There are also cases of people who’ve smoked cigarettes their whole life and live to be 90. We all have different tolerances and a different spectrum of resistance to the effects of elevated blood glucose. There will always be statistical outliers, but betting against the odds is risky business. More and more science points to the notion that preventing and treating many disease entities lies in controlling the toxic and inflammatory effects of elevated blood glucose and insulin response.
 
I’m not going to argue that I’m right and every other view is wrong. I’m not going to argue that keto is healthier than every other diet plan. I hope you consider all the evolutionary evidence I’ve outlined above and I hope you do try keto. Please go to my website, https://www.ketonescore.com, sign up, and try my free online algorithm that can help you get into and track your level of nutritional ketosis.
 
It’s my belief that keto can help us all feel better, look better, and prevent non-infectious disease. Most importantly, I believe keto can help us all live long healthy happy lives. I hope everyone reading this will believe it too.
 
Yours in fitness and health,
 
JD Griffin
Author, Get Fit, Lean and Keep Your Day Job
CEO and Founder, Keto Score

​The most common question people ask about doing Keto is what should I eat? Most of your calories should come from fat, followed by moderate protein, and a few carbs. Your macronutrient ratios should be very close to 70/20/10 – fats/protein/carbs. Be careful not to eat too much protein because our bodies convert excess protein into blood glucose, thereby defeating Keto. Eat too many carbs and your body will not become fat adapted. Adapting to fat as your primary fuel source, is the whole point of Keto. Eating too many carbs elevates blood glucose, which is inflammatory and leads to non-infectious disease. When you put yourself into a state of nutritional ketosis, you do not elevate blood glucose, but instead fuel yourself with anti-inflammatory ketones.
Keto will help you improve your body composition in the short run. More importantly, Keto will improve your long-term health. Keto has been proven to reverse type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Keto is also use to treat Alzheimer’s, dementia, Parkinson’s, and epilepsy.
You can track your progress getting into and maintaining nutritional ketosis with our free algorithm, Keto Score at https://www.ketonescore.com/
Putting a well formulated keto diet into practice is not difficult. Choose a lot of high fat, moderate protein foods, and eat very little carbs. Below is a general list of foods you should and should not eat.
Keto Friendly Foods

• Whole eggs
  • Preferably pasture raised organic. There’s a big difference in the amount and quality of the omega fatty acids. Industrialized eggs are inferior.
• Butter
  • Look for grass fed organic. Like eggs and other dairy, the quality and amount of nutrients depends largely on how the animal lived.
• Whole Fat Dairy
  • Read the label and buy nothing with added sugar. Also, never buy fat-free or low fat. Saturated fat is the good fat.
  • Whole fat dairy contains lactose (a form of sugar) so should be eaten in limited quantities.
  • Whole fat dairy includes whole fat milk, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, cheese, and sour cream.
• Avocado
  • About 75% of the calories in an avocado comes from fat. The only fruit that provides substantial amounts of monounsaturated fats.
  • Rich in vitamins C, E, K, and B-6 as well as riboflavin, niacin, folate, magnesium, and potassium.
  • Avocados are also a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids.
• Coconut Oil
  • The saturated fats in coconut oil increases your HDL/LDL ratio
  • Rich in medium chain triglycerides (MCT) that can increase 24-hr energy expenditure by as much as 5%
  • The digestion of MCTs by the liver creates ketones
  • The MCTs in coconut oil curb appetite
• Olive Oil
  • Rich is both monounsaturated and saturated fats
  • Contains anti-inflammatory oleocanthal
• Cold Water Fish
  • Rich in omega-3 fatty acids and high concentrations of DHA, the omega-3 that provides the greatest benefits to our brains.
  • Includes salmon, anchovies, mackerel, sardines, and trout.
  • Preferably antibiotic free, wild caught, as opposed to farm raised for better nutrient density.
• Shellfish
  • High in omega-3 fatty acids
  • Loaded with mineral including zinc, copper, iron, magnesium, and potassium
• Poultry
  • Dark meat chicken and turkey are preferred over white meat for their higher percentage of essential fatty acids, omega-3 and omega-6
• Red Meat
  • Rich in omega-3 fatty acids, the fatty acid CLA, vitamins B3, B6, B12, A, and E along with iron, zinc, selenium, creatine, and carnosine.
  • Look for grass fed organic beef, lamb, and pork raised without drugs and hormones
  • Avoid mass market or factory raised red meat. It’s grain fed, treated with nitrates, preservatives, and other chemicals.
  • Avoid mass market red meat, typically raised with growth hormones and injected with anti-biotics in the feed lot. 
    • Anti-biotics and growth hormones in the meat pass through to the consumer
• Vegetables grown above ground
  • Especially green leafy veggies including kale, chard, and spinach
  • Veggies including asparagus, bok choy, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, zucchini
• Nuts and Seeds
  • Rich is both monounsaturated and saturated fats
  • High in fiber, protein and minerals
• Berries
  • The fruit with the lowest glycemic index
  • Loaded with micronutrients like vitamin C, folate, and potassium

Not Keto Friendly Foods

• Sugar
  • Raw sugar, cane sugar, honey, agave nectar, maple syrup, high-fructose corn syrup

Sugar, the true villain in our human story deserves a more detailed explanation. When we use the term sugar, what do we mean? There are many types of sugar. White table sugar is sucrose. Fructose is a sugar that naturally occurs in fruit. Lactose is a sugar that naturally occurs in milk. Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants. They occur in enough concentrations in sugarcane and beets for efficient commercial extraction.
The Truth About Net Carbs
All sugar enters your bloodstream quickly and elevate your blood glucose (blood sugar). Other than a few indigestible fibers, all dietary carbohydrates are eventually broken down into blood sugar. Whole grains and other low glycemic complex carbs are converted to blood sugar. With very few exceptions, all the carbohydrates you eat eventually become sugar. Clever marketers of processed foods recently invented the concept of net carbs. What are net carbs?
Net carbs is a processed foods marketing gimmick. They’ve jumped on growing public awareness of the health benefits of low carb diets. Processed food manufacturers would like for you to believe net carbs. Don’t. They subtract the fiber and sugar alcohols from the total carbs and then call the remainder net carbs. It’s true that some indigestible fibers pass through us and some sugar alcohols have little effect on blood sugar. But in in fact, those quantities are barely measurable. It’s true that different carbs have different glycemic indexes. For example, table sugar has a high glycemic index while whole grain oats have a low glycemic index. The glycemic index is simply the rate at which carbohydrates are broken down into blood sugar. All carbohydrates are broken down into blood glucose. Don’t believe the net carbs marketing gimmick. All carbs elevate your blood glucose.

• Starch
  • Pasta, bread, rice, grains, French fries, potato chips, porridge, muesli
  • Grains such as wheat, barley, oats, rice, rye, and millet
  • Brown rice and quinoa
• Root Vegetables
  • Potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, yams, beets
• Starchy Vegetables
  • Corn, peas, parsnips, beans, legumes
• Fruit
  • Oranges, apples, pears, bananas, pineapple, grapes, mangos
  • If you must; blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, and strawberries
    • Eat in very small quantities
    • Best of only source of carbs for the day
• Alcohol
  • Beer, wine, and spirits
    • Your body treats alcohol as a toxin
    • Your body stops burning fat for fuel as it processes alcohol

In summary this Keto Friendly Food Guide covers most of what you’ll need to know about eating Keto. For more information please visit Keto Score where you can ask any question on our Keto Coach Forum at https://www.ketonescore.com/
Yours in Health and Fitness,
JD Griffin, Keto Score Founder 

A little over 4 years ago I began following a low-carb high-fat nutrition plan. I thought I was doing a ketogenic (keto) diet and told people I was doing a keto diet. I was wrong.

After believing I was following a keto plan for nearly 2 years, I finally bought a blood testing meter and tested my blood ketone levels. I was disappointed to learn that I was not in a state of ketosis. Sure, I’d been eating very low carbs and a lot of fat. But I’d made the same mistake that many people make who think they’re doing keto – and I know now that it’s also the most common mistake: I’d been eating too much protein.

Through a process known as gluconeogenesis, our bodies convert excess dietary protein to glucose in much the same way we convert dietary carbohydrates to glucose. A true keto diet requires you to eat only moderate protein, not high protein. Too much protein and you’re defeating the whole point of keto.
Believing that a keto diet is a high-protein diet is indeed a common misconception. I often hear comments like, “I could never do keto because I could never eat all that protein”, or “I tried keto but didn’t like eating so much protein”, even “I would never do keto because I don’t eat red meat.” None of these statements are accurate because you don’t need a lot of protein and you certainly don’t have to eat red meat. Getting about 20% of your daily calories from protein isn’t difficult at all. Additionally, there are plenty of non-red meat protein sources including whole eggs, salmon and other cold water fish, dark meat poultry, and whole fat dairy products like cheese, Greek yogurt and cottage cheese. If you’re vegetarian, you can even assemble the essential amino acids for a complete protein with plant sources. Let me re-emphasize that point: the ketogenic diet is not a high protein diet, and it doesn’t require eating meat.

Let’s get back to my path towards getting on an actual keto nutrition plan. After testing my blood ketones 2 years and discovering I wasn’t in ketosis, I tweaked my diet. I reduced my protein and added more fat. Within just 2 weeks, my blood ketone levels bumped up enough to confirm that I was actually in a state of nutritional ketosis. I had been close but in reality, was still fueling myself with glucose. I was not producing ketones as my primary energy source. You may be asking, what does that mean?

The vast majority of people walking around on planet earth today are fueling themselves with blood glucose. Elevated levels of blood glucose trigger inflammation. Inflammation is closely linked to obesity and metabolic syndrome and inflammation is the root cause of many non-infectious diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease, and the link between inflammation and metabolic disease is being investigated in neurologic diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease. If that weren’t enough, there is a proven link between inflammation, obesity and diabetes, and many forms of cancer. Prior to the domestication of agriculture, these modern afflictions were nonexistent. Sadly, their prevalence has accelerated dramatically in the last 100 years since the industrialization of agriculture and the increased consumption of highly processed foods high in sugar and refined carbohydrates. We’re in the midst of a global health pandemic.

You don’t have to succumb. Instead, you can stop elevating your blood glucose with inflammatory carbs and go keto. Your body will then switch from relying on glucose as your primary fuel source to instead producing and burning non-inflammatory blood ketones. Ketones are the alternative fuel your body produces by breaking down fats, and have a wide number of health benefits, including reduction of inflammation.  You can achieve ketosis and run your body on ketones by eating a low carb, moderate protein, high fat keto diet. But, achieving true nutritional ketosis can be challenging because you may be eating too much protein or hidden carbs that can elevate your blood glucose levels and keep your body from achieving ketosis. There is only one way to know if you’re in ketosis:  You’ve got to test your blood ketones. It’s also highly recommended you test your blood glucose. How do you do this? Well, there’s a great new tool that combines these measures into an easy to understand single value. It’s called Keto Score, and It’s free –  anyone can sign up at https://www.ketonescore.com/user-register/

Keto Score. Measuring your blood ketones is the only way to know whether or not your body is in a state of nutritional ketosis. Urine ketone sticks (“pee sticks”) are popular and easy to use but can be wildly inaccurate. By definition, urine carries waste from our body. Peeing on a ketone stick can only tell you what you are not using – it does not tell you what’s actually circulating in your blood stream, which is the key to knowing if you are in ketosis. There are three ketone bodies; Beta-hydroxybutyrate, acetoacetate, and acetone. A lesser ketone body, acetoacetate can be detected in urine. The pee stick manufacturers claim that when your blood ketones are high some of it “spills” over into your urine. Maybe, but even if this is true, it says nothing about the actual level of your blood ketones. Pee sticks are in no way accurate. If you want accuracy and want to know if you’re truly in ketosis, then you have to test your blood with a finger prick and blood glucose and ketone meter. It’s super easy – just ask any diabetic person you know who does this many times a day in order to monitor their blood glucose levels.

If you want to know if you’re really doing keto then test your blood. If you want to take advantage of a free online tool that will help you get into and maintain ketosis then got to https://www.ketonescore.com/ and start generating our own personal Keto Score.

Yours in Health and Fitness,

JD Griffin
​Author, Get Fit Lean
Founder, Keto Score