Keto Clarity ~ A Review of the Chaos and Confusion in Memes

Those who follow me on social media know that I broke down and purchased a copy of Keto Clarity.   I'm deciding on whether to bother with a formal review of the book or Jimmy Moore's contribution.  With respect to Jimmy Moore, this is a second volume of convincing himself and the world that his crazy diet schemes are healthy rather than unhealthy, as if repeating it often enough will make it so.  

But for the rest of the world, it is more Dr. Eric Westman's stamp of approval and co-authorship that is problematic for his credibility.  In Cholesterol Clarity, he signed off on a book where Jimmy's horrific lipid panel including, at times, LDL-P over 3000, LDL-C over 300, TC over 400.   In Keto Clarity, the fact that Jimmy Moore's biomarkers did NOT improve, despite a temporary weight loss of almost 80 lbs, is magically presented as a healthy dietary lifestyle.  

The chaos and confusion comes in when one looks at all of the various claims made for low carb diets, Atkins specifically, over the years.  Atkins WAS initially marketed as successful because of ketosis and peeing out excess calories.  Now it's not even ketogenic?  But it is, but it's not, but it is.  Make up your minds!  

For now, I have been Tweeting out various "memes" highlighting contradictory and/or irresponsible information from Dr. Westman -- who co-authored The New Atkins for a New You, and who has his Duke clinic diet plan included in the Appendix of Taubes' Why We Get Fat -- because he is, after all, a doctor specializing in the treatment of obesity.  

It is ironic, or perhaps not, that Jimmy Moore's battle to maintain his losses has only gotten worse since he visited Westman as his "low carb doctor" in the Summer of 2008.  

Without further ado, here are some memes thusfar.  I'll probably sprinkle in some of those Moments of Clarity here and there, and bump this post every now and then.

You should be able to click on all images to view larger (or right-click on them and open images in new tab and use your browser zoom to view larger).

---

This meme includes sections of Ketogenic Diets: Treatment for Epilepsy and Other Disorders by Doctors Kossoff, Freeman, Turner and Rubenstein.  It is important to note that Kossoff wrote the forward to The New Atkins which included numerous references to ketosis in the context of epilepsy treatment, but made no mention of desiring or monitoring "nutritional ketosis" as a part of the success of the diet for weight loss.  

In this meme I call out Westman for his obvious hypocrisy.  His involvement with a 10-day nasogastric feeding diet only takes this up several more notches.

In this meme, I point out the contradictory nature of Westman basically celebrating Jimmy's butter gorging antics and contrast them with the section in The New Atkins where fat and calories are addressed for those who stall in weight loss.  It is important to realize that the picture of Jimmy (predating the half pound of butter as meal stunt) is from January 2014 and Westman witnessed this in person.  Some 8 months after ending his experiment, but still "thriving" in nutritional ketosis, he had again visibly regained weight.  Given as Jimmy's only real personal claim for the glories of NuttyK is weight loss, this is more than irresponsible of the doctor.

This one is just funny.  "They" say that the weight loss is just water based on an unnamed study.  Nobody doubts that fat is lost on "ketogenic" diets in the long term, but the large early losses are irrefutably dominated by water weight losses.   But the funny thing is that Westman then considers this water weight (that wasn't lost) returning when you eat carbs.