Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he tried the ketogenic diet once, and it quickly became what he referred to as a “near-psychotic event.”
Rubio told podcast host Katie Miller — who is married to White House adviser Stephen Miller — that he’d tried the popular high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet, and the constant lack of sugar had made him so angry that he often felt like he might snap.
“I did, one time, maybe four or five years ago, I tried this thing called keto,” Rubio told Miller. “You’ve heard of this?”
Miller said she had, and Rubio continued, “And you just eat all this protein, so you go through this massive withdrawal from sugar and carbohydrates for the first 72 hours. It was a near-psychotic event for me.”
Jeanette Rubio, sitting beside her husband, laughed out loud, confirming, “It’s true. It’s true.”
“It’s like, if I did [keto] in this job, I would be in there, ‘Mr. President, we must bomb, you know, Paraguay,’” Rubio said, adding, “And it’s like, why? I don’t know, I’m just really mad, I haven’t had any sugar,” he laughed.
“It’s true!” Jeanette said again.
Rubio clarified that he wasn’t saying the diet itself — which focuses on restricting carbohydrates so the body burns fat instead of sugar — was necessarily bad, only that it was most definitely not the right choice for him.
“I’m not against this diet. I’m not asking that we ban it. I encourage people to try it,” Rubio added with a laugh. “I’m just saying it’s not for everyone. That’s what I’m saying.”
During the wide-ranging interview, the Secretary of State also shared his thoughts on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s diet — and weighed in on the merits of the classic 1975 movie “Jaws” compared to the cult classic “Sharknado.”