HONG KONG — The table is full of food at the Farooq house in the Petaling Jaya suburb of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. There’s creamy spinach, broccoli, cauliflower rice, beef, and chicken for Sunday lunch, and sitting around the table are Norah Mohammed Khir, Ella’s mother Chan Yoke Yen, Ella’s husband Mohammed Farooq, and Ella’s son. she Azran Farooq.
The dishes that Ms. Khir serves are part of the ketogenic diet that all three generations have been following for several years to improve or reverse their individual medical problems, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, anxiety attacks, mood swings, and Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s.
The goal of the ketogenic diet is to drastically reduce carbohydrate intake and replace it with fat that puts the body into a metabolic state of ketosis, allowing it to burn fat for energy instead of carbohydrates.
On the ketogenic diet, only 20 to 50 grams of net carbs are allowed per day. Typical keto foods are meat, fish, cheese, full-fat yogurt, healthy fats like avocado oil and coconut oil, non-starchy vegetables, berries, but not fruit.
Ms. Khir was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2003 and prescribed medication. Her blood sugar levels continued to rise and she developed “type one and a half diabetes”, also called latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (Lada).
“I tried to follow my doctor’s orders, like eating whole grains, fruits, and vegetables, but every time I ate carbs, my blood sugar would go way up and I would be shaky, tired, and sluggish,” says Ms. Khir , math teacher.
Her doctor told her she was “waiting too long” and prescribed more medication. In 2016, she met another doctor at choir rehearsal who suggested he cut carbs and go keto.
Ms. Khir was skeptical at first, wondering how she, as a Malaysian, could live without rice, potatoes and delicious roti (bread). “I decided to let my family help me decide if the keto diet would work by cooking them a meal of roast duck with guacamole and non-starchy vegetables like eggplant, Brussels sprouts, and okra,” she recalls. Since that meal, the Farooq have embraced the ketogenic lifestyle.
According to Ms. Julie Mokhtar, a certified ketogenic life coach based in Kuala Lumpur, the ketogenic diet can be helpful in addressing conditions caused by insulin resistance and/or chronic inflammation.
“Insulin resistance is the start of many health conditions we face today, including type 2 diabetes and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS),” says Ms Mokhtar, adding that eating Limited carb intake on the ketogenic diet breaks the endless cycle of high carb intake and excessive insulin response.
Before switching to the ketogenic diet, Ms. Khir’s son, who is now 27 years old, weighed 98 kg. He suffered from ulcerative colitis, or inflammation of the colon, and was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder. The result was regular anxiety attacks, rages, absence attacks, and mood swings.
“Azran worried too much about things and blew them up in her mind,” says Ms. Khir. But since he started keto, her son is calmer and has fewer mood swings.
In addition to the mental health benefits of the high-fat, low-carb diet, her son has lost 20 kg and is no longer on colitis medication. Although it does flare up sometimes if you eat a gluten-rich treat once in a while, it will improve significantly when eating keto or fasting.
“Since the ketogenic diet promotes a whole food approach and limits intake of foods like sugar and industrialized vegetable oils that are known to be inflammatory, you can see significant improvement here,” says Ms. Mokhtar.
Ms. Khir’s husband, 61, a managing director of a business consulting firm, had his doubts when he started the ketogenic diet. But being overweight with a family history of cardiovascular problems and having battled high blood pressure for most of his adult life, he was more than ready to give it a try.
“I used to believe that there was very little I could do about my poor health and that as a consequence of getting older I would acquire more and more chronic diseases, how wrong I was,” he says.
Mr. Farooq’s blood pressure has dropped significantly since he started keto and as a bonus, he has lost almost 30kg. “I am grateful to Norah for bringing this concept into our lives, for me and especially for the great impact on the health and well-being of Azran,” he says.
Mr. Farooq quickly learned from his wife that the ketogenic diet is much more than just meat, cheese, and avocado. Some of his favorite dishes are creamy salmon soup, spinach pie, braised eggplant, and blueberry muffins.
Although he often faces temptation and finds it hard to turn down carbs at the homes of family and friends because social norms require people to be polite, Mr. Farooq knows how to get back into ketosis: by fasting.
“I often just eat one meal a day (OMAD, often combined with the ketogenic diet) or fast for at least 16 hours a day, and I can say I’m healthier today than I’ve ever been in my entire life.” he says.
According to Ms. Mokhtar, the initial skepticism about the ketogenic diet is normal and it is the high-fat part of the ketogenic diet that generates the most amazement.
“Unfortunately, we’ve been led to believe that fat is unhealthy and fattening when in fact… it’s especially important for hormonal health, since fat, protein, and cholesterol make up the building blocks of hormones,” she says. .
Ms. Khir’s mother, now 84 and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, moved in with the family in 2018, became paranoid and tried to run away. Although Alzheimer’s disease is not curable, Ms. Khir believes that she has been able to slow her mother’s decline by having her follow the ketogenic diet.
“My mom typically eats eggs, chicken, and broth with added whey protein and enjoys keto cakes, like chayote ‘apple’ cake, that my son makes for her,” says Ms. Khir, who believes that the high-protein diet has helped her mother also maintain some muscle mass.
Although the ketogenic diet is considered by some to be notoriously difficult to follow, the Farooq family feels deprived of nothing and believes that following a diet comprised of “real foods” is a joy rather than a sacrifice.
“The key to making our keto life a success is to see what we can eat rather than what we can’t, and the list is very long,” says Ms. Khir, who plans to make roast duck, steamed fish , mixed vegetables. and a ketogenic dessert for the upcoming Chinese New Year.
Five years into their lifestyle, what began as a family project for the Farooq has resulted in weight loss, a better quality of life and lasting improvements in health. As for Ms. Khir, she now only takes metformin, a medication to treat type 2 diabetes, and low-dose insulin.
Her interest in the ketogenic diet inspired her to enroll in a nutrition course with the Noakes Foundation in South Africa. “Because of my training and my own experience, I can now advise people on how to reverse diabetes and obesity,” she says. SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
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