If you think that a keto diet has to be difficult and you have to calculate macros, use apps, write down everything you eat, and buy expensive, fancy foods, guess again. You don’t have to do all that. “Lazy, dirty keto” is the phrase for what I’ve been teaching and recommending for about 20 years. I learned recently that people look down on this. I had no idea that telling people to eat burgers and steak and just real food was a bad thing. Let me explain what lazy, dirty keto is and what “internet keto” is.
Internet keto is a conglomeration of people selling products and putting their spin on healthy living. Jumping into an ice bath or going into a sauna is not necessary for a keto diet, but you’ll see people advocating for things like that. You don’t have to buy special products either. I’ve been teaching keto with a list of foods, which tells you that you can have unlimited amounts of meat, poultry, fish and shellfish, and eggs, a limited amount of vegetables (they have to be very low in starch), and a limited amount of oils and cheese. It’s very effective for obesity treatment, weight loss, and for reversing type 2 diabetes or other metabolic problems. Be sure you’re learning from people who are teaching the approach to keto that works for the reason you’re wanting to do keto and the goals you’re trying to accomplish.
“Lazy keto” means you’re being very succinct and doing only what you need. It means that you don’t have to do a whole lot of work, and the diet will work for you. You don’t need to calculate macros and use these apps to write in what you’re eating, because with my method, you’re choosing from a list of foods that we give you. “Lazy keto,” to me, has a good connotation. You can enjoy this diet where hunger goes away after a day or two and the weight comes off one to two pounds per week when it’s working right.
The “dirty” part is fascinating, because at the same time that I’ve been teaching this, there has been a rise in ideas of having super-“clean” foods from the Paleo and primal movements and the idea that you can change the environment by the food that you purchase. I’m all for it, but you don’t have to do that for keto to work. When someone says it’s “dirty keto,” that might mean that you go to a restaurant or have fast food and don’t prepare all your food at home every day. I’ve had some people so distraught that they felt guilty about going to McDonald’s when they were on a trip and they felt so guilty that they ate the bun and the fries when they could have just not had the bun and not had the fries!
I’ve been teaching this simple version of a low-carb keto diet for obesity and type 2 diabetes reversal in Durham, North Carolina, where most people eat some sort of fast food at some point during the week. Whether you go to a burger place or a sandwich place, it’s okay to me. To other people, that means it’s “dirty keto”; you’re not getting the best food ever on earth and you’re not using every dollar that you spend to change the food environment. If I had to require people to do that, I would not meet my patients where they are. The keto diet would be an elitist diet that only people who can afford the best foods can follow. You don’t have to do that to get the benefits of a low-carb keto diet. “Dirty” on the internet means that you’re occasionally not having super-clean foods. This is not going to destroy the diet. As long as you keep the carbs really low, you’ll stay in the keto or fat-burning metabolism.
You have to choose the foods that you like. Don’t eat foods you don’t like; you’re not going to stay with that very long. Eat real food, food that you choose, and as much as you want until you’re comfortably full – because you’re a fat burner, you’re just not going to eat much when it’s working right. If “lazy, dirty keto” means having foods that you consider to be suboptimal and less than perfect, it’s fine by me as long as you follow the rules of the diet correctly and you’re getting the results you want.
Check out the full video here.