Keto, Pride and Prejudice (2026)

01/02/2015

Miss Mary Bennet and Intermittent Fasting

One of my favorite characters in "Pride and Prejudice" is the middle daughter named Mary. She seems a very shy girl always with her nose in a book. She often refers to the sermons of James Fordyce, a Scottish Presbyterian minister who published "Sermons for Young Women" in 1766 as a collection.

Mary seems to be that kind of pious young girl. Someone who really cares nothing for parties or frivolity. She doesn't exude any overt sensation of carnal lust. She appears to be temperate at her meals hardly eating anything. I don't view Mary as a person who has a robust appetite or anyone who loses control of herself.

Her character is one of remarkable discipline. She spends her hours reading, perfecting her music, helping the household when needed, and generally she appears as a pious contrast to her younger sisters who are frivolous and foolish and who lack the self control that a higher intellect imposes. Mary is more than a book worm or intellectual in the story. She is a corrective to foolish young women who indulge their passions and get into trouble.

This is what intermittent fasting does in Keto. It mortifies the flesh. It works to subdue the passions of over eating. It is a discipline. The human body wants to eat all day long. It really doesn't want to curb its appetite. It will eat as much as the brain allows it to eat. And it will balloon up as far as it can go if not restrained.

Fasting is a purposeful mental exercise which seeks to deny the body and its carnal nature what it desires every minute. Which is to over eat and eat the wrong foods creating harm. Fasting is the drill sergeant of the Keto experience. It puts the breaks on big time. It makes the privates fall into line and obey. That is why it is so successful as a part of the Keto way of eating.

When you fast you deny your body food. You purposely withhold nutrition from your body. And the body rebels. It hates not getting its way which is to eat non stop. But you can either let the body and its ugly little temper tantrums have their way or you can dominate the body with the higher life of the mind and subdue and reject its hold on you.

We have two natures: one intellectual and one visceral. Classically these two natures within one human being have been labeled the "lower" and "higher" natures in relation to where they exist in the human body. The higher nature or life of the mind, sometimes referred to as the "intellect" is thought to govern a man or woman's reasoning capabilities. It is where the argument starts about whether you should or should not eat such and such a thing. It is where conscience is located. A sense of right and wrong. A sense of propriety or what is good or necessary. And this conscience goes back and forth all day long making judgments about food.

When you want to grab a big piece of chocolate cake for breakfast this intellect or higher life of the mind stops you from doing so. It tells you in one instant argument that the chocolate cake is not an appropriate choice as a breakfast item and that eggs or oatmeal are more suitable. It tells you that at some point in your day that cake may be consumed for dessert but breakfast is not dessert time. So you typically back off and don't have the chocolate cake because you obey the reasoning your mind employs.

If you live in the higher life of the mind you will recognize the mental gymnastics I just went through over breakfast and chocolate cake. But. if you do not live in the higher life of the mind but in the visceral nature of your being, aka, the part of your lower nature which does not listen to reason and does not obey reasoning intellect or conscience, then you are going to go right ahead and have that chocolate cake for breakfast. And not only one piece but another. And anything else you want. Because that is how you live. In the lower visceral part of your being without reason and restraint.

Fasting employs the higher life of the mind as the end all be all of authority. It simply makes the intellect the boss. There is no negotiations. The visceral nature is subdued and told there will be no food. And it doesn't matter how much the visceral nature complains, whines or tries to get out of it the intellect is boss. What it says goes.

I recommend intermittent fasting on Keto for only one reason. To train yourself to subdue your passions. We all know what happened to that l***y Lydia Bennet. She let her passions run rampant and disgraced herself eventually marrying that louse of a Mr. Wickham and ruining both her life and her future.

Why would you allow yourself to lose control like that when you could have the handsome, rich, faithful and virile Mr. Darcy just by throwing that chocolate cake in the trash and having a few eggs?

I thought so.

31/01/2015

Mr. William Collins the Insufferable Expert

Mr. Collins, who was introduced into the Jane Austen novel, "Pride and Prejudice" as a 25 year old clergyman, is the most insufferable character in this novel I ever wanted to hate. He was said by Austen "to be an insensible man who was raised by “an illiterate and miserable” father, and had not been improved by education or society." Austen wrote that prior to his entry into the novel, his circumstances had “originally given him great humility of manner." However, this characteristic had been altered greatly and been replaced with arrogance and vanity due to “early and unexpected prosperity" at the hand of Lady Catherine de Bourgh when a vacancy arose for the living of Hunsford.

Now you may be on this Ketogenic diet yourself as I am and it may challenge you to know that there are any number of experts in the diet and fitness industry who will tell you that you are on the road to a heart attack or worse. But there are also the "experts" inside the Ketogenic diet industry who will do the same thing by letting you know incessantly what you can and cannot have. This too is utterly unacceptable.

I don't like to be controlled by anyone. About anything. Especially strangers of which there are many on these Ketogenic websites. I would never take advice from anyone I don't know. Period. It is not in my nature to do so anymore. I used to when on many other diet and fitness regiments but I learned all those people were as screwed up as me binging, smoking, drinking, starving and working out to compensate for their screwed up lives.

I am a fiercely independent woman who knows her own mind and I think I am beginning to know my own body as well. After many years of listening to the "experts" and their advice, which never produced any success in my health or weight loss, I have decided to turn them off. Completely.

There is a big problem in societies at large. That of the insufferable know-it-all of which I have been one in many areas of my life giving out sage advice here and there and often unsolicited. But it is all b.s. I really don't have any expert advice on dieting and neither does anyone else. Because if they did we would all be fit and trim with perfect health. Of which most of us are not.

It's easy to give advice. All too easy and most people feel very free with telling you how to live your life complete with what you should be eating and drinking and doing 24-7. But they don't do what they tell you to do. Nope. Human beings are full of hypocrisy and duplicity.

We are not taught from an early age to trust our own gut. We are not taught to reach for what we want. We are constantly told what to do, how to do it, when to sleep, when to get up, when to eat, when to drink, when to study, when to talk, when to keep quiet, in an endless oppressive regime of societal control for which we are all miserable night and day.

I explained a while back I was fed on oatmeal as a child which hurt my stomach. I wanted eggs. I was denied eggs because of course they were at a higher cost. When out to breakfast I wanted steak and eggs. But I was denied. Higher cost. I wonder how much of this expert advice on "whole grains and fruit and vegetables" has to do with cost effectiveness? I have had it up to here with how much things cost as a way of pushing bad food on me. And often this advice is told by some "expert" I was or am not allowed to challenge.

Just like the insufferable Mr. Collins who ends up being a nobody in life until he is infected with the haughtiness of a rich, wealthy, know-it-all and over educated insufferable woman as Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Who thinks because she is super rich and super educated she can just treat people like they are worthless peasants. And look down on them. And then she trains Mr. Collins to do the same.

It's getting very ridiculous out here in diet land. And in society in general. Where opinions are quoted as facts and where if you don't follow how someone else is working their program then you are met with a whole bunch of advice you never wanted nor solicited. And I have had it up to here with people recommending me one more diet and work out book. Even Ketogenic ones. I want it to stop. I just want to get up and eat my program and do my yoga and not be inundated with anything else. It is completely oppressive and suffocating.

Trying to control others is the height of disgustingness and disrespect because it suggests that they are not trust worthy individuals who have an inner knowledge of what to do for themselves. And it suggests that the person giving all the advice, the "expert" is somehow superior. Which they are not. Everyone has problems. No one is perfect. And people shouldn't act like they know better than others when they know they have problems of their own they need to fix. Someone just told me something really important, "people often have public lives of success and private lives of failure." People who overtly try to control people are often working on others as a way to not work on themselves. It is a way to avoid the hard work they need to do in their own lives. They focus on controlling others instead of themselves when in reality what they need is to develop their own life of self control. They really don't trust themselves and they don't trust others. Hence the need to try and control them.

That is why I recommend that you trust yourself. Trust your own judgment. Work your own program. Don't ask for advice. Don't solicit one piece of advice from anyone. We have got to start trusting our inner selves. That part of us squashed for years as kids. That part of ourselves that knows what we want. That knows how to have health and take care of ourselves. No one can advise you better than yourself. And you shouldn't let people control what you eat, drink, or do in life. Because giving your power away to people is the first step in losing your life to the insufferable expert who deep down you know is part of your poor eating habits and poor health.

29/01/2015

"She Is Not Handsome Enough to Tempt Me"

So you are on this new way of eating. Maybe it has been only 30 days since you started or maybe more. But for however long you have been on your program you probably have at one time or another realized that your progress is not going as you planned.

That is because without even realizing it you set yourself up on yet another plan which is flawed from the beginning because it has unfounded assumptions and unrealistic expectations you cannot meet. You went into it thinking that you would lose such and such each week and that by such and such a date your weight loss would be complete. Silly you. That is not how life works.

Life is flawed. It is fraught with unpredictability. One minute you are home. Another minute you are invited to a local country dance where some big rich snob of a man insults you. Not handsome enough? Did he just say I was "tolerable" but not handsome enough to tempt him? Can you imagine being Elizabeth Bennett just minding her own business and looking forward to an evening of frivolity only to be insulted by some strange man? Tolerable? No woman with any self respect wants to be referred to as tolerable. That is like some guest indicating to you that the Thanksgiving meal you just slaved over for days barely tastes good. It's not just insulting, it is rude, ungrateful and deeply offensive. Miss Bennett had every right to be furious and say so. No doubt she probably felt so mad as to stick a fork in a cream filled pastry or guzzle too much wine. We have all done it. Over eaten when insulted or hurt. Hurt and disappointment in life are two of the most basic reasons or triggers for why people binge.

You may be feeling offended, insulted or hurt about some recent comments people have made about you and your weight. And you may have internalized them into vicious self criticism and self loathing. Perhaps destructively so. Life is hurtful enough without being reminded by unfeeling and judgmental people that you are overweight. You know you are overweight. You have a mirror. No one needs to remind you. You see yourself in the mirror every day and you wish you had that athletic body of yesteryear. You stick to your eating plan faithfully. You work out and still the scale does not budge. That is also hurtful and maddening. It is the number one reason why people start and stop diets year after year. Unmet expectations.

Expectations about losing so much weight over such and such a time are completely flawed thinking. Because human beings are all individuals who cannot be stamped with an expiration date. We are not dairy. We are human beings and from the beginning we all have been forced to be packaged into one dreary mold after another as if we were a block of cheese. Which I love, but of which I am not. At least I hope I am not turning into a block of cheese though I eat mounds of it. Thank God I am not on that Paleo diet anymore! I was forbidden cheese. That is torture to a French woman such as myself.

Which reminds me of another torture I refuse to acquiesce to and is that of the insidious and sinister "Physicians Height and Weight Chart." A self defeating set of numbers we all grew up with which is bogus. It does not take into account how people actually feel in their bodies. I know women and men who are under the weight or over the weight on that chart who feel fine and have optimum health. The chart was a creation of the USDA did you know that? Yes. The AMA (American Medical Association) and the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture and probably the FDA (Food and Drug Association) all teamed up. Check out who sponsors the USDA food pyramid you were taught in that doctor's office. The USDA. Department of Agriculture. Wheat farmers. Grain farmers and others. They have pushed wheat and grains on us for years. I was taught that wheat and oatmeal were power foods to keep you thin and your cholesterol down. It's a lie. I was fed a rich starch and grain based diet and I was a fat kid and am a fat adult.

These charts and their sponsors have to make money off of you. And the easiest way to do that is to make people believe that what the "experts" are saying is true and helpful and healthy. But they are not. A grain rich diet is not healthy. Vegetables are healthy. Everyone knows that. Your parents told you. But the rest is bogus. And these "basic dietary guidelines" are from an industry that is in the business of making money off your pain, hurt and lack of self control because a whole diet and fitness industry has been spawned from one failure after another in eating this way.

Most people are completely aware and know why they are overweight and why they do not feel good. It is not rocket science. We have all lost control somewhere along the line in our calorie intake and our calorie expenditure. Weight gain is a result of mathematics. And you can gain weight on Keto if you eat too many calories from fat and protein as well. We all have to control ourselves.

A lack of self control or the old fashioned notion of a lack of "temperance" at our meals (self denial) coupled with a sedentary lifestyle produces weight gain and the accompanying self loathing that can take its toll in a big way. We all know we cannot indulge ourselves with food at random. We must pick and choose our meals carefully for optimum health. None of us can act like eating an inordinate amount of calories, sweets and fats will maintain weight and health. Life doesn't work that way.

It is one thing to loathe yourself at one point in an attempt to make contrition for your gluttony and amend your own life and health for "letting yourself go" but it is another thing for some stranger to make fun of you in some off colored remark out of the blue. Which is totally unacceptable. No one should be making remarks about your weight in any derogatory way. It is the height of social impropriety and should never be tolerated.

But I will venture into the fray of remarks about weight to deliver one important message I think would be appropriate for you today and it is this:

"To know you is to love you." You are so much more than what you weigh. You truly are and if people only knew how smart and lovely you are they would hang their own head in shame for making those uncalled for remarks. They would EAT their words and choke on them.

Oh. Was that too harsh? Let me put it more ladylike. Once Mr. Darcy really came to know Elizabeth Bennett and her wit, charm and smarts he fell completely in love with her didn't he? Yes, of course. Because he came to realize that his first impressions and judgements were completely wrong. And people's first impressions of you as an over weight person are just that too. Completely wrong.

You are so much more than what you look like or what you weigh. There is so much worth inside of you. And you and I have got to stop looking on the outside of things and looking at ourselves as a futuristic number on a scale. Because numbers do not tell the whole story of our beauty and worth. You have a deep inner beauty and talent that has barely begun to blossom. You have wit and charm. You are smart and handsome. Yes! You are handsome enough to tempt some rich and virile man like Mr. Darcy. That handsome part of you is the part of you that should be winning. Not the self loathing. Ditch the self loathing and some imaginary number on a scale.

Get off the bathroom scale and get out of your head for once. Go outside. Look around. Breathe. Walk down your street. Greet the people you meet. Even strangers. That stranger you are meeting with your lovely smile could be your Mr. Darcy. Did you ever think of that while you were obsessing in your bathroom standing on your scale? No? Well I have just given you a beautiful and handsome thought now haven't I?

Now get out there and be charming, witty and handsome. The only expectation you should have today is how big and bright you can smile at every handsome stranger you meet. I am positive one of them is your Mr. Darcy if only he could find you. Opportunity always meets preparedness. And if all else fails get a puppy and go to the dog park. No one can resist a handsome woman with a puppy even if her yoga pants tell a different story.

21/01/2015

Miss Georgiana Darcy and Wickham Manipulations

So like Miss Georgiana Darcy are you when you go on a diet. You are so trusting with this new diet plan aren't you? Yes. You are so naive as to think that you can trust this diet plan to miraculously sweep you off your feet and shed all those unwanted and ugly pounds. But diets don't work that way.

Diets are more like the relationship with Georgiana Darcy and Mr. Wickham. They promise happy feelings for awhile. If you lose some weight. If you gain there is hell to pay. There is scolding and more manipulations. They promise a future of wonderful health if you stick to them. If you don't you get sick and disgusted and told it is your fault you just weren't trusting or consistent enough. They promise certain securities if you follow their advice to the hilt. If you don't follow that advice they threaten to fail you. But what if you do not lose weight, obtain health and follow all their advice until the desired weight loss? What if you get frustrated or tired with how long it is taking and slough off? After all that false promising and manipulation, all that stringing you along, they abandon you at the first sign of real trouble leaving you feeling heartbroken and full of despair. Dieting is downright depressing.

Diets don't work. They simply don't. Because you and I have been on one diet after another. Each one promised "if" we followed through to the letter we would achieve such and such weight loss in such and such amount of time. The diet promised if we kept our calories and fats below a certain level that all that unwanted and unsightly weight would disappear. They also said "if" we added exercise then our weight loss would be even more dramatic. Then they told us to drink enough water to drown a camel for life.

Diets are full of promises they cannot deliver on "unless" you stick to them. Which we both know you and I are not going to do. Because human beings are predictable. They are inconsistent. They procrastinate. They are prone to falling into temptation when it comes to food and binging. We have all had the best intentions but as weak creatures we end up falling to temptations and manipulations sooner or later. And then even if we have shed some weight we go on a binge and gain it all back. And then some.

You see Mr. Wickham was a master manipulator and tempter. Just like your diet with all its false promises if only you would follow it with the strictness of an Olympic gymnast training for the gold. But we all know you are not at that level. You never will be. But Mr. Wickham made Miss Georgiana Darcy believe she was at some level with him that she was not. The level of deep love and commitment. They were nowhere near that level. She fancied herself in love. He was not. Life is so cruel that way. A young, shy woman can believe herself to be in love with a ruthless scoundrel. It has happened to many a young girl. Many a woman.

You see Mr. Wickham manipulated and flattered Miss Darcy and made all kinds of promises to her leading her on about their beautiful future together but all he really wanted was her money. Does that sound like your current diet? And the last diet? And the last? How much money have you spent on these diets which promised you a svelte and toned future? I bet you have spent plenty.

The diet industry is a multi billion dollar industry bent on getting you to buy their food, their books, their manuals and charts and pay their fees. They are master manipulators and sales people. They have plenty of wares to hawk. It is their job to manipulate you with their programs. To get you to join. Pay the fee. Buy their books and foods. Buy all their latest exercise gadgets. They exist to make money off of your problems. And they have slick marketing tools and conveniently packaged items you pay through the nose for. And we all fall for it time and time again.

In addition the diet industry is coupled with the fitness industry which takes your sign up and monthly fees and promises you the most annoying fitness cheerleader you never want to meet. And you go for awhile. But then you cannot stand this little six pack ab of a dweeb. And you stop going. Then you feel guilty and sign up for another gym and cannot stand that annoying dweeb either. And lose plenty of money doing this over and over again. I know. I have joined and quit so many gyms I lost count.

That is because all diets and fitness programs and gymnasiums follow a cookie cutter method that does not work for you. If it did you would be thin and have a six pack ab. Which you do not. These places you go to work out support people bent on serious modeling or movie star careers. They want to get the starring role in the next Batman 17 movie starring Christian Bale and Halle Berry. Have you seen the abs on those two?

You know you are not going to achieve that. Work out all you want. You have to eat less than zero calories a day and work out for 18 hours leaving you only 8 hours of sleep and no time to earn a living. It isn't going to happen and you know it. Watch the interviews of Christian Bale and Halle Berry for their starring roles. They will tell you of grueling diet and exercise routines to get "ready" for those roles. You aren't going to keep that up and you know it. Everybody knows it. No one can keep that pace up. No earthly human.

So what do you do to get into some kind of decent shape that is not the grueling regiment of a movie star or model? I will tell you what I am doing. I am not on any diet or exercise program. I am on a live it. I don't plan to pay any fees to lose weight nor buy cardboard package food that is to be found in a grocer's freezer or delivered to my house. I don't plan to give my money to a gym so some little kid can say, "way to go Mrs. Levesque!" when I do a push up. I don't need a personal cheerleader and I don't need to eat out of a cardboard container and a microwave.

I can cook my own food and I have tennis shoes. I can walk. I can do a sit up at home. I can do a jumping jack. I can buy my own food, cook my own food and figure out what to eat. I was skinny as a teenager and I weighed less at other times in my life and I can figure this thing out. On my own.

And I won't be manipulated by the Mr. Wickham types like Jenny Craig or Mr. Gold and his gym or any other dude or dame who wants me for my money. I'm keeping my cash to see Pride and Prejudice number 56. I don't care how many times they remake that movie I'm keeping my money for that. And of course ribeye steaks. And butter.

12/01/2015

The Sickly Miss Anne de Bourgh and Soft Food

From the moment I laid my eyes on the sickly Miss Anne de Bourgh I couldn't help but think of plague. It was a real thing in England this "Black Death" and she embodied a person who was about to keel over from it.

I had to laugh when her snotty mother Lady Catherine de Bourgh insisted that Anne and Mr. Darcy were meant for each other. They had been "intended" for each other since their infancy. Well it is one thing to have a baby that is well. But when that baby gets into her late teens or early twenties and looks like death on a stick walking then what kind of denial does a mother have to be into in order to think she will be able to marry a daughter off like this to a virile man?

There wasn't a snowball's chance in Hades that the virile Mr. Darcy would every marry Anne de Bourgh. Because virile men want virile women. Like the cherub cheeked and bright eyed Elizabeth Bennett who was an "excellent walker." Athletic and virile men like Darcy will always pick suitable athletic and healthy women. They like to match with their mates. And what would have been Anne's probable outcome upon pregnancy with Darcy? Vomiting and death and miscarriage. To be sure. No. Anne de Bourgh had no chance in marriage and little chance in life of surviving much longer. And zero chance of ending up with Mr. Darcy.

Now you may be dealing with a toxic body like Anne de Bourgh. And why is that? There could be a number of reasons. Genetics. Some defect passed down. Perhaps you have been in an accident which caused degeneration. Or you caught a serious communicable disease that has morphed into something else inside your body. Perhaps you have a rare cancer. There are many reasons that your body can be toxic.

But like Anne de Bourgh, and whatever her reason for poor health might be, it was not helped by her English diet. A diet which consisted in many sweets and carbohydrates. An inordinate amount of white looking food. White bread. White pastry. White potatoes. In English society the darker bread made with whole grains were not eaten by the upper crust society of Anne de Bourgh. No. That whole grain food was eaten by the lower class peasantry which typically were healthier.

Upper Crust English society typically started out their day with toast made from white flour with butter and jam. Or they had scones or biscuits. Perhaps they even had French croissants. Many also had fried potatoes and meats. And they had plenty of jam and fruit and sweets as well. All throughout the day. With their tea. They drank tea all day long and nibbled on sweets.

So you can imagine a little sick thing like Anne de Bourgh nibbling her sweeties all day. Her little biscuits and crackers. Her little cookies and cakes. All manner of little nibbles all day long. And coughing incessantly. Sugar makes you cough and gives you terrible heartburn. Many people have reported that once going off all sugar and sweets they immediately were cured of sour stomach and heart burn.

But all we know from the movie "Pride and Prejudice" is that Anne constantly coughed or wiped her nose. Another symptom of excessive sugar or carbohydrate intake is chronic sinus problems. And why put up with all the unnecessary outcomes of sugar and carbohydrates when you can just as easily nibble on vegetables?

But I do not see Anne as the kind of person who would munch down on crunchy celery or carrots. No. That would take too much effort with teeth and jaw. And she was an exhausted little pampered creature as are most children and adults who eat sweets and pastries. I know I was. My husband brought me boxes of donuts and pastries for years. I preferred them. And like Anne I wanted something soft and comforting and easy to eat. Crunchy things to eat are too loud and too much effort in chewing. Like Anne I was a "soft food" kind of girl all the way.

I ate nothing but easily chewed and prepared "soft" food. I ate donuts, bread, mashed potatoes, cream puddings, all manner of pastry, ice cream and anything else that required very little effort to prepare and eat. I was lazy and slovenly. And I have to admit I was like that person in Proverbs 19:24, "the sluggard buries his hand in the dish." Yes. I was that person.

And you may be a "soft food' kind of man or woman as well. And this is your problem in life. That you do not do the work of health which is chewing on hard things. You take the easy way out and reach for those soft little cookies and cakes. That soft ice cream loaded with sugar and carbs. Those soft donuts. That big piece of bread with butter and jam. Those countless nibbles you give yourself all day long putting on pound after pound.

Soft food is toxic. It is death to your body. And it was the reason that Anne de Bourgh was sick and would continue to be sick and meet her early death. And it will be your early death and undoing as well. If you don't change.

It takes effort to get off soft food. It takes effort to chew a piece of meat or a salad with raw cucumber, celery and carrot. It takes effort to make hard food. That is probably why so many people buy vegetables but do not make that salad leaving all the lettuce and other ingredients to rot in their crisper. Because they are lazy and used to soft food. Hard food requires effort. It requires cooking and chopping.

So if you want out of your toxic body you are going to have to reject soft food and get into hard food. Or you will most surely end up like Anne de Bourgh. And not only meet with sickness, exhaustion and early death but you will miss out on your big prize.

That of the rich and virile Mr. Darcy.

Keto, Pride and Prejudice

01/02/2015

31/01/2015

29/01/2015

21/01/2015

12/01/2015

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