Calories In, Calories Out: myth or truth?

Marco DabizziNo Comments

The myth of CICO (Calories In, Calories Out) seems hard to kill. I understand the appeal, it’s catchy, easy to explain and apparently faultless. But it’s not true. Even in the keto community, many are still convinced that a calorie is a calorie and that to lose weight you simply need to calculate your energy expenditure and eat less than that. Simple, right? So, are you really convinced that eating 1,000 calories of sugar has the same effect on your body fat that eating 1,000 calories from chicken breast? It should, a calorie is a calorie after all. A few clinical studies show how eating the same calories but split… Read More

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One, two or three meals per day?

Marco DabizziNo Comments

This is another recurrent question amongst people following a keto or low carb diet. Fact is, there is no definitive answer, simply because it all depends on your goals. If you are obese or you have quite a lot of fat to lose, eating twice a day in a restricted window of time is often the best option in the long term, and one meal a day could be even better if your appetite is kept well under control during the day. Eating fewer times, even better if in a short time frame, helps significantly with weight loss, and it’s recommended for the vast majority of the population: that means… Read More

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Do I have to use coconut oil on a keto diet?

Marco DabizziNo Comments

Coconut oil is a fat solid at room temperature, and it’s produced from the white flesh of coconuts. Being made of up to 90% of saturated fat, coconut oil was demonized for a long time together with butter, lard and drippings, but it’s increasing popular now that low carb, keto and paleo diets are on the rise. A significant difference compared to the animal saturated fats, that are mostly made of long chain triglycerides (LCTs), about 70% of the triglycerides in coconut oil are medium chain triglycerides (MCTs). This gives coconut oil a very important place in terms of energy production, because MCTs are quicker to digest and are rapidly… Read More

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What’s the difference between paleo and keto?

Marco DabizziNo Comments

Contrary to what most people think, the paleo diet isn’t necessary low carb, and too often you can find paleo products in the specialized isles of supermarkets with even more than 50% of sugar. How is that possible? Well, one of the reason is that the paleo diet includes fruit in the list of recommended foods, and some smart manufacturers used this to produce snacks mostly based on dried dates and nuts, the paleo equivalent of a Grande Frappuccino in terms of sugar content. Strictly speaking, the keto diet doesn’t eliminate any food, it only restricts the total amount of sugars to ingest per day. Eating half an apple, a… Read More

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No, exercise doesn’t burn fat (or at least not much)

Marco DabizziNo Comments

Let me be very clear: if you think of losing weight sweating in the gym on a treadmill you are just wasting your time. Same apply for any other form of exercise, it simply doesn’t work as many thinks to burn fat. I know that in the last few years, to justify the obesity epidemic, many doctors started pushing the Coca-Cola mantra of calorie in, calorie out, exercise as a way to maintain your weight and health even eating their crappy food every day. It’s a catchy slogan, it seems to make sense, you eat a pizza and then you run a little bit more. It doesn’t work, though. Have… Read More

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Your body needs salt!

Marco DabizziNo Comments

I’m a lucky guy. I was born in Tuscany, and when I was a kid skipping school meant walking around the streets of Florence or hanging on the Ponte Vecchio, admiring the lazy Arno river and having some merenda at one of the many local delis. Now, you should know that Tuscany if famous for two things (food wise, I’m not talking about art and culture here!): bread without salt and smallgoods made with very liberal amount of salt. OK Marco, stop reminiscing and go straight to the point: is salt important on a keto diet? no, it isn’t just important, it’s paramount! And yet, many people – especially in… Read More

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