Are you a “jiggly” fat person or a TOFI – Thin outside, fat inside?

Jack Spratt’s wife, it appears, had the right idea. She ate all the fat, while Jack ate all the lean, which, as Totnes author Maia Sutherland tells us in her new book, makes our nursery rhyme character a prime candidate for diabetes and heart disease.

“Metabolic Mayhem” will surprise those of us who have been brought up to despise fatty diets, because Maia advocates a diet full of fat and plenty of protein.

What is doing the damage, she says, are carbohydrates. Her diet – her way of life now, along with her mother, Karen – is ketogenic. It’s not her invention but it has, she says, been her salvation.

The inspiration for the book and for discovering what ketones do, and how our bodies create them, was the early death of her father. Many of you will remember Ali, an antique dealer, whose stall in Totnes market was a trove of wonderful things.

One day, Maia says, she received a parcel for him – she lived next door. Later that day, Ali was found dead of a heart attack. He was 62. “He was classically metabolically sick, but he didn’t know,” she believes. “If I had known then what I know now, his life would not have had this ending,” she writes. His parcel remains unopened.

Her mother Karen, also well known in the town as an artist, also had heart disease. And Maia too had been living with aches and pains she could no longer ascribe to middle age. Together, they decided to change their diets with the aim of improving their health.

Ketones are a source of fuel produced by our livers for us to survive and thrive on when food has run out, Maia advises in the book. Via fasting or a ketogenic diet, the body changes its fuel source from carbs to fats via a process of ketogenesis, the making of new ketones.  Maia, now 52, describes her travels in India, where rice is a staple food. She and her mother managed to avoid nearly all carbs while there and even inspired her friends to follow the keto way. She says that with some foods enabling illnesses including diabetes; “…every culture has got their version of foods they can switch.” she said.

One immediate benefit , especially for those fasting, is weight loss, but that’s not the only or even the best reason to embark on this way of eating, A huge benefit, she claims, is mental clarity. She says ketones are also anti-inflammatory – her aches and pains have gone, as have her mother’s. “When you drop carbs, you drop insulin levels, then your body becomes a fat burner and then you go into this natural process of using up your reserves. It’s bliss when you do it!”

Back to that jiggly fat….

“Jiggly fat is ‘safe’ fat, but belly fat isn’t. If you have a good waist to hip ratio then you are probably just carrying jiggly fat…” The hidden, visceral fat – seen often on men with skinny legs and arms but a pot belly, the classic ‘TOFI’ – is the unhealthy fat. This isn’t Mai’s theory – she’s not a doctor (she’s an acupuncturist) – it is a well known, well researched area of metabolic science.

But the diet industry’s voice is louder than that of ketone evangelists. “The low fat craze…. we are eating ourselves to death! Change your breakfast to eggs and bacon.” – ” Instead of having a cappuccino you can have coffee with cream. Simply, you want under 20 grams of carbs a day – that’s half a bagel.” – [Less than 20 grams of carbs is an extreme keto diet and should only be undertaken with medical advice –  Most successful low‑carb diets use 50–130g/day, not 20g.]

Now she’s self-published the book, Maia plans to record an audio book and possibly start a podcast. “I want it to go really well in India” according to research one in five diabetics in the world are in India. “We have had decades of very depressing ways of going about dieting where women especially feel incredibly restricted. It’s about self blame and it doesn’t work and then they blame themselves again.”

Her book, full of family and travel, as well as dieting advice, will inspire some and horrify others. No toast? No chips!