Keto Nation

How bodybuilders, biohackers, scientists, nutrition nerds and crooks helped an extreme diet go mainstream.

- Michael Easter

GREYSON LOPEZ’S friend was about to be kicked out of the military for being too chubby. It was late 2017, and Lopez noticed his friend started losing weight – fast. “He’d lost 9kg in 20 days,” says Lopez, 23, who works in IT for the Navy. “So I asked, ‘How’d you do it?’ ”

Searching for a lose-it-quick plan, the rapidly becoming-less-fat guy explained, he’d gone to Reddit, where he glommed on to a thread on the “ketogenic diet”. People in the 870 000-strong /r/keto subreddit posted about losing 24kg in as many days, not feeling hungry, and even being able to focus better. However, the diet was – to put it mildly – contrarian; in the same way you might say American politics is “divided”.

First, you eat very limited carbs. Low-carb isn’t radical, but ketogenic is ultra -low: less than 50 grams a day. (The average guy hits that at breakfast.) Fruit is mostly a no, and you cap vegetables strictly. Yes, vegetables.

Next, you’re limited to 100 grams a day, at most, of protein – that muscle-building nutrient embraced by nearly every other diet. What’s left? Fat. Lots of it: marbled steak, oily fish, yolky eggs, and streaky bacon. Top it all with butter, olive oil, and lard. A classic keto diet consists of 90% of your kilojoules from fat, 6% from protein, and 4% from carbs. The diet is, indeed, a giant F-U to the food pyramid.