The brain fog was already there
If there’s anything movie stars should not be doing, it’s giving medical advice on Covid. Naturally that’s exactly what Gwyneth Paltrow is doing.
Paltrow recently wrote on her blog that contracting Covid-19 had left her with “some long-tail fatigue and brain fog”.
She said a “functional medicine practitioner” had recommended an “intuitive fasting” healing regime.
But NHS England’s Prof Stephen Powis said some of her methods were “really not the solutions we’d recommend”.
As part of her recovery, the Hollywood-star-turned-lifestyle-guru said she was on a mainly “keto[genic] and plant-based” diet, with no sugar or alcohol. She fasts until 11:00 every day and takes infrared saunas.
A “lifestyle guru” shouldn’t be guruing on medical subjects, especially this one.
Prof Powis, who is national medical director for NHS England, said “serious science” should be applied.
…
“In the last few days I see Gwyneth Paltrow is unfortunately suffering from the effects of Covid. We wish her well, but some of the solutions she’s recommending are really not the solutions we’d recommend in the NHS. “We need to take long Covid seriously and apply serious science. All influencers who use social media have a duty of responsibility and a duty of care around that.”
Because long Covid isn’t a “lifestyle” and Paltrow is not medically trained. This isn’t complicated.
Skipping a meal or 2 is not fasting. Try going a week without eating, then fasting and ketosis will actually mean something. Ask me how I know. :D
How on Earth can a plant-based diet be ketogenic?
I suppose the advice from a “malfunctional medicine practitioner” would be worse.
My own “intuitive fasting” regime is to not fast.That’s my intuition and I’m sticking to it.
@2 Ketosis happens when your system burns fat for energy, so the gurus recommend a high fat diet with lots of protein, usually in the form of meat and dairy. You could also eat avocados, nuts, and olive oil and skip the animals. It’s more fad diet silliness, because you can acheive ketosis easily if you fast. Real fasting though, not just skipping breakfast like Gwyneth does.
@3 There is no such thing as intuitive fasting, our ‘intuition’ is to consume enough daily nourishment. Celebrity diet theories are ridiculous, the way they actually stay thin and trim is to starve, and probably take whatever drugs they need to keep them from feeling like they are starving. It’s not mysterious.
Thank you, twiliter. When my liver was failing and I had type 2 diabetes, my rheumatologist told me to go on a low fodmaps diet. The only way I could see how that would work was to stop being a vegetarian and go on a not-quite ketogenic diet, but certainly one low in starches and sugars. It worked – I’m back down to the weight I was in my thirties, half a lifetime ago, my liver has healed and I was declared no longer clinically diabetic in 2019. I still eat vegetables, but very little of the starchy ones, and eat grains-based foods only as an occasional treat.
Glad that worked for you Tigger! :) Diet can produce some amazing transformations, but there is no single diet that works for everyone, so experimenting is good, which I did in my 30’s (also half a lifetime ago), and found what worked for my system, and made it a habit. Some of these fad diets are simply an exercise in malnutrition, which will obviously cause weight loss, but aren’t great for those of us with other health concerns. Seeing a doctor and getting solid advice is great, but listening to out of touch celebrities who live charmed lives, not so much.
Gwynneth knows all the words. She may also know all the best words.
But she don’t know what they mean.
Hey, it’s a whole new decade, and an entirely new century. We are not limited in the ways that our ignorant forbears were. If you want to change sex to be something different on “the spectrum”, then just think it and it shall be so. If you want to cure yourself of a deadly disease by denying that disease your morning Pop-Tart, then do it and the disease will wither away like a succulent in the sun. What wonders we shall see in the coming years!
Gwyneth doesn’t eat before elevensies, fine. But is it ok to feed her after midnight?
@ tigger, the low fodmap diet has a place and purpose, and I don’t think it’s fixing liver trouble. It helped my sister, but with IBS, not liver issues. It works on the idea that some people process particular sugars poorly, leading to fermentation in the gut, which produces gas, discomfort, pain and other bowel trouble. It certainly wouldn’t help everyone. And I’m pretty sure it’s not a weight loss type of diet either.
That’s rather like calling Jordan Peterson a vegetarian. It is, theoretically, possible to get carbohydrate intake low enough to trigger ketosis without eating animal products. But it is extravagantly difficult.
JtD @12, well you could live off spinach and almond smoothies with a celery swizzle stick I guess. If you wanted variety that would be extravagant and difficult. I have a friend attempting a non-vegetarian keto diet for clinical reasons and that is difficult and more expensive than his normal diet.
A Puerto Rican family member posted, “I’m on the Latino keto diet: un po-keto de todo.”