17. Plantation Bay’s Keto But Not Kwite Diet

Days 1-3

Aim for minimal carb intake during these 3 days, less than 20 net carbs daily. Do not eat any rice, bread, fruit, fruit juice, sugar, flour product, or starchy plant (potatoes). Also avoid any fried food, pork, and beef. Relax — it’s just these 3 days.

Begin the day by checking ketone breath. Check periodically throughout the day. Plantation Bay recommends the type of ketone breath meter with an mmol/L scale; 0 to 0.5 means no ketosis; 0.6 to 3.0 is a good level of dietary ketosis; above 3.0 is not recommended.

Drink 250 ml water upon waking and 250 ml more within next 1-2 hours. Drink 2 liters of water daily (tea, coffee, and sugar-free soda all count toward the 2 liters, but sugar-free soda should not be a mainstay of your water intake). Make this a permanent habit in your life.

Skip breakfast or eat ½ of a meal-replacement bar like Quest or One (the ½ should not have more than 5-6 net carbs, the less the better), with plenty of water and brewed green tea or black coffee (not canned, only sweetener permitted is Allulose). Whether you have breakfast or not, take probiotics that include L. reuteri and Akkermansia.

We urge you to learn to skip breakfast. Unless you are a manual laborer, you don’t need it, and the longer you go without ingesting calories in the course of a day, the better your metabolism will work.

Since our bodies are evolved from long-ago hunter-gatherer ancestors who habitually went longish periods with no food, NO SNACKING.

For lunch at 1-2 pm, have any lunch you like so long as it has less than 5-6 Net Carbs (for example, barbecued chicken plus Shirataki Alternate Rice with Bolognese sauce = 1-2 Net Carbs).

At around 2 to 3 pm, consume 5 grams combination psyllium-inulin fiber from gummies, capsules, or powder mixed with any non-caloric drink. Be sure to drink with 300-500 ml water. Next day, check your bowel movements and adjust timing to coincide.

No snacking. In case of a craving, drink a diet soda or eat candy with not more than 3 grams Net Carbs (1 Choc Zero Caramel OR 1 ChocoRite Peanut Butter Patty = 35 calories, 3 grams Net Carbs). While eating it, quickly go up and down 3 flights of stairs to burn those carbs and calories ASAP.

Dinner at 5:30-7 pm; finish by 7. Aim for some fiber from natural sources (for example, avocado, almonds, pickled ginger). Limit meal to 5-6 grams Net Carbs. Optional: include 2 tablespoons Sesame Butter or Tahini to flavor either non-starchy vegetables, fish, or chicken. The sesame contains nutrients that encourage ketosis (you cannot substitute). If you are in Plantation Bay, you can have dessert! We have Dairy-Free, Allulose-Sweetened ice creams in several flavors, all with 0 Net Carbs.

Before bed, eat a very small snack such as: one teaspoon of peanut butter; one tablespoon of pumpkin seeds, or about 5-10 macadamias, pistachios, or almonds. Optional: another 3 grams of fiber supplements; if you take the fiber, be sure to drink 250 ml of water too.

Days 4-14

Check ketone breath, drink water, etc., as before. Skip breakfast, okay? You can have green tea any time, or coffee two hours after waking.

Limit Daily Total Net Carbs to about 60 grams, and calories to not more than 1600 to 2200 depending on your size and activity level. These limits will allow you to enjoy some pastas, fresh fruits, or normally-sweetened desserts. If you do choose to eat rice, limit to one cup and that is almost your Net Carb quota for the day. If you choose to eat bread and potatoes, 2 slices of bread and about 20 french fries would constitute your limit, but then you won’t be able to have fruit. Choose your carbs mindfully. Keep up the sesame butter.

No snacking. Keep up the inulin and psyllium fiber.

Lunch (1-2 pm) and Dinner (finish by 7 pm).

Days 15-30

Check ketone breath, drink water, etc., as before. Skip breakfast. You can have green tea any time, or coffee two hours after waking. No snacking. Keep up the inulin and psyllium fiber.

Lunch (1-2 pm) and Dinner (6-7 pm). Limit Daily Net Carbs to about 100 grams, and not more than 1600 to 2200 calories depending on your size and activity level.

Your lunch + dinner on Day 30 should be limited to total 10 grams Net Carbs, and be sure to finish dinner by 7 pm.

Before bed, eat a very small snack such as: one teaspoon of peanut butter; one tablespoon of pumpkin seeds, or about 5-10 macadamias, pistachios, or almonds. Optional: another 3 grams of fiber supplements; if you take the fiber, be sure to drink 250 ml of water too. This is a good habit whether you are on the diet or not; it may inhibit your liver’s tendency to release glycogen as glucose in the middle of the night, which also raises cortisol (adversely affecting your sleep).

On any day between the 11th and 15th, and another day between the 20th and 25th, maintain the two-meal schedule but you can consume a “normal” 200-300 grams of carbs, and perhaps a few more calories than usual. Have protein and fats before gorging on carbs, and still try to avoid eating a large amount of high-glycemic food. These are not “cheat” days because they are actually helpful in maintaining your path to metabolic improvement, similar to rest days between heavy exercise.

Day 31 (=Day 0 of next cycle)

Check ketone breath, drink water, etc., as before. Skip breakfast. You can have green tea any time, or coffee two hours after waking. No snacking. Keep up the inulin and psyllium fiber. Drink water.

Skip lunch. Drink non-caloric liquids.

Start dinner at 6 pm. Limit 10 grams Net Carbs. Finish by 7 pm. This would constitute a 23-hour fast, enough for some autophagy and help with insulin resistance.

OR, skip dinner too, in order to prolong autophagy, a beneficial process by which your body looks for and dismantles defective cells. Light autophagy begins about 16 hours after your last caloric intake – longer if you ate a lot of carbs, kicks in strongly after 24 hours, and is generally considered beneficial up to about 48 hours after last caloric intake. With your physician’s consent, if you have a genetic disposition to cancer or other degenerative disease, once or twice a month consider doing a 40-47 hour water-only fast: low-carb dinner followed by complete fast next day, then first caloric intake at lunch or dinner the day after. There is some tentative evidence that fasting and ketosis inhibit the growth and spread of cancer cells. For more on ketosis and its potential benefits, look for Plantation Bay’s Nutrition and Metabolism articles.

Days 1-31 Of Next Cycle:

Repeat the previous Days 1-3, 4-14, 15-30, 31. Etc.

Tip: It will be easier to remember to follow this diet if you start Day 0 as the last day of the previous calendar month, and subtract a few 100-Net-Carb days as needed to make the last day of the calendar month the Day 31 (=Day 0 of next cycle).

Another Tip: Do one cycle to trim a few kilos. Do several cycles in a row to lose more kilos.

Yet Another Tip: To focus on trimming waistline, endure a few days with no fried food, no pork or beef, and no sugar.

Foods to Permanently Avoid or at least Severely Limit FOREVER:

• Seed oils (canola, sunflower, corn, etc.)
• Anything that has Modified Corn Starch or Maltodextrin among its ingredients (and be wary of sneaky synonyms; see other Plantation Bay articles for more details). This includes most baked goods, pizzas, and many ice creams, and most things marked Low Fat.
• Anything deep-fried in a fast-food outlet, or in fact in most restaurants unless you verify they use coconut oil like Plantation Bay.
• Instant Noodles, any brand.
• Beer, or limit to half a can daily, due to high carb content and disproportionate tendency to be stored as fat on your stomach.
• If Asian, rice. Shift to Shirataki Alternate Rice, which has only 20 calories per cup and 0 Net Carbs. Shirataki is made from a pulpy plant and is formed into rice-like grains. It’s not very good as simple steamed rice, but if you mix it with sauce from a stew (e.g., Kare-Kare) or any kind of pasta sauce (best is Bolognese), you won’t know the difference.

Foods You Were Taught Are Bad, But Aren’t

• Eggs — lots of nutrition for few calories, no impact at all on your blood cholesterol, which anyway has at best a negligible effect on cardiac mortality.
• Pork, Chicharrón, Fatty Steaks, and foods fried in pork lard and beef tallow — mountains of evidence that in moderation these foods are physically and emotionally satisfying (thus avoiding mindless eating), have NO or at most NEGLIGIBLE effect on heart health, and are far better than the starches and sugars you would be eating otherwise. For more on saturated fats and The Swindle of the Century — How Bad Science Became Nutrition Dogma, see the article in https://plantationbay.com/satfat/.
• Pork, Chicharrón, Fatty Steaks, and foods fried in pork lard and beef tallow — we mean it! 50% of the fat in beef is oleic acid, the exact same “good fat” as olive oil. The fat in pork belly is also over 50% oleic acid.
• Coconut oil as a dish ingredient or as a frying medium — consists mostly of Medium-Chain Triglycerides, which suppress appetite. Pressed from coconut meat with minimal processing, it is much more stable than seed oils, which quickly turn into trans-fats with each heating.

Foods You Don’t Think Will Break Your Fast, But Will

• One potato chip, a bite of cracker or cookie, or half of one french fry.
• Any quantity of any fruit or worse, fruit juice or Coke.
• One swallow of Milk, whether regular 3.5% or Low-Fat, whether real milk or milk substitute.
• More than 5 peanuts or similar quantity of other nuts, seeds.
• One bite of meat, seafood, rice, bread, legumes, any kind of vegetable except green leaves.

Foods that Probably Won’t Break Your Fast

• Unsweetened tea, coffee, diet carbonated drinks (not ideal, but tolerable).
• MCT (Medium-Chain Triglycerides) oil as softgels or liquid.
• Fiber supplements if unsweetened.
• Most other supplements, if in total they amount to less than 10 calories. If more, try immediately burning off the calories with stair-climbing, rebounding, or farmer’s carrying (Google will tell you about how many calories you burn based on your exact inputs of weight, etc.)
• For most people, ONE drink of alcohol, provided it has no carbs, so that excludes beer, wine, and most cocktails like Mai Tais, Margaritas, Mojitos, Negronis, etc.. This leaves straight brandy, whiskey, Vodka, or Gin. Alcohol is not a carbohydrate and will not trigger insulin release in most people (except those with a Pavlovian-type response to alcohol intake). It will suspend your fast, but won’t totally derail it.

Supplements to Consider While on Diet, or Permanently

• Green Tea, Olive Leaf Extract, Garlic, Ginger, Curcumin — antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, help with weight management.
• Magnesium, Potassium, Zinc — Minerals needed for many bodily processes, often deficient in diets high in ultra-processed foods.
• Omega-3, EPA/DHA. Originally promoted as “good for the heart” by lowering blood triglycerides, Omega-3 is also anti-inflammatory and protects against cognitive decline. In a meta-analysis that covered 48 different studies from around the world and about 46,000 persons, a group of Chinese researchers (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000291652 3463204) concluded that 1 gram daily of DHA and 0.5 grams daily of EPA, taken for an extended period, reduced the risk of dementia by 60-80%. This implies a lowering of absolute dementia risk from about 35% to 7-14% (a far cry from the Hazard Ratios applicable to statins, which at best reduce absolute risk from 3% to 2%). Prefer a brand which states the oils are “re-esterified”, which is more bio-available.
• Glycine and NAC (N-Acetyl-Cysteine), about 1 gram of each per 10 kilos body weight, divided into morning and evening. Precursors to glutathione, which declines after age 45. Glutathione moderates oxidative stress and enhances mitochondrial function (which is necessary for delivering energy to cells and brain). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9879756 reports a study in which Glycine-NAC administration restored “young adult” level cognition and strength in some muscle groups to a group of over-60s.