11 days keto

(john) #1

I get super hot after I eat a large meal. I have terribly low energy levels. My eyes are dry. My sleep is not great. Generally do not feel good. I went from exercising 5-6 days a week to not exercising at all. I have to drink potassium/sodium powders in my water or I get heart palpitations. Regardless of that, I still wake up with heart palpitations. I fatigue walking up the stairs. All I want to do is lie down.

I have access to endless deer meat which I eat with spinach or broccoli cooked in butter and coconut oil. I top everything with pumpkin seeds and olive oil. I make fat bombs with coconut oil, butter, olive oil, cocoa powder, and a drop or two of stevia. I snack on deer summer sausage, seeds/nuts, mozzarella with tomato and basil, etc., between meals. I am constantly hungry, but the thought of more fat makes me sick.
This is day 11 and I can say earlier (in one meal) I ate an entire bag of spinach sautĆ©ed in 2 tablespoon of coconut oil topped with 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a handful of pumpkin seeds alongside some deer summer sausage (which is fairly fatty itself). This meal must have been 1,000 calories (the oil alone is 500. the seeds another 200. 300 from deer sausage) with 40ish protein, 6ish carb, and the rest fat. I ate this and still did not feel satisfied. Itā€™s like my body is begging for carbs. I notice almost no difference in terms of the easing of ā€œsymptomsā€ or generally feeling like trash as the days go on.

I have tested my ketones regularly and I am at the medium amount (maroon sort of color on the strips). Which doesnā€™t make much sense to me because Iā€™ve literally had no carbs for coming up on two weeks and I am only in medium.

I am getting all my calories, vitamins, etc. I go through about a bag of spinach and a bag (frozen) of broccoli a day.

So I am wondering given that I canā€™t exercise, I feel like crap all the time, Iā€™m completely sick of food but Iā€™m never satisfied when I eat, I canā€™t go through a day without literally drinking salt/potassium powder lest I have heart palpitations even though the bag of fresh spinach I eat has 120% of my daily potassium (not to mention the potassium in all the broccoliā€¦ in the meatā€¦ in the seedsā€¦) if this diet maybe isnā€™t for everyone? Iā€™ve decided to go until Friday ( 2 weeks) and if Iā€™m not feeling better Iā€™ll probably quit.

(Rob) #2

Sorry to hear keto is kicking you hard right now. It isnā€™t the norm, but it isnā€™t uncommon either.

It is possible that keto is not for you but across the thousands who come through here, it is almost unheard of. Typically people with similar issues mitigate them or they pass and they get on with keto. An important factor in offering advice is that we donā€™t know anything about your situation or goals. Are you obese, have chronic conditions (e.g. T2D, CVD, Cancer etc.) or are you doing it for longevity and prevention and are lean and healthy? If the later, you donā€™t need to restrict carbs so much and may well feel much better on 50/75/100g of carbs. If you are the former, then you are on roughly the right strategy already.

You raise quite a few points so Iā€™ll do my best to give my view on them.

  1. Exercise - you are right NOT to exercise while you are fat adapting (4-8 weeks) - donā€™t sweat it.
  2. Dry eyes are a thing and could be gut related (as you adapt, heal internally) or a vit/min deficiency (see below)
  3. Palpitations can come from many things but if they are new, it is probably an electrolyte deficiency. You mention Na and K but Mg is a key mediator for heart function so you should probably take that. You mention spinach as a source of K but the RDA for keto is about 4700mg so you would have to eat 2 lbs of spinach to get that. Even if you eat a standard 7oz bag, you are nowhere near it. You need more of all the electrolytes on keto since it is diuretic (you pee more) and Na and Mg are water soluble so you lose them in pee. K is not. 5000-6000mg sodium, 350-500mg Mg, 4700mg K are typical keto electrolyte numbers.
  4. If you are hungry, then you need to eat more, and it should be mostly fat. I donā€™t know how big you are but if you are BIG, then 1000 calorie meals may not be enough.
  5. Fat bombs are a mixed blessing - they increase your fat but you may react to the cocoa, stevia etc. which can give you sweet/carb cravings (often confused for hunger).
  6. Ketones on strips are pretty worthless and only show the ketones you spill in pee, not the ones you are using. Ideally you want no spilled ketones and all used in your body. Only a blood ketone meter would show this (not worth it IMHO)

While it sounds like you are being hit hard by keto flu and related issues, the positive is that it suggests you are adapting. I think you can do more (as above) to mitigate the ā€˜fluā€™ but I could be wrong.

Unfortunately, 2 weeks is not really enough time to properly test a long-term way of eating like keto which is fundamentally changing your metabolic priorities and processes. It would be a shame to quit before you see the benefits.

(john) #3

I am lean. I have fibromyalgia. I have had gut issues, heart burn, etc. Itā€™s often hard to tell what is really wrong with me because the fibro causes so many ā€œfakeā€ issue. When I was eating a mixed diet before I had to go to the bathroom after nearly every meal and was always bloated and uncomfortable. And this is eating ā€œhealthyā€ foods- fruits, potatoes, oatmeal, etc., as staples.

So mainly trying it for the cognitive and hopefully digestive benefits. I definitely have almost no bloating on keto and the heart burn is hit or miss. On the whole probably down a bit. Maybe Iā€™ll try adding in a bit of fruit or sweet potato.

The thing with the potassium just leads me to believe humans are not supposed to eat this way, at least long term. When an entire bag of spinach and broccoli plus all the meat and seeds is not enough potassium for a <170 lb male doing no exercise and not sweating something is not right with the diet in my opinion.

(Jay AM) #4

Capnbob said it best.

Iā€™ll also add that even venison summer sausage isnā€™t very fatty. But, fat is what makes you not hungry so, if youā€™re starving, you need more somewhere. Savory fat bombs do exist, butter, heavy cream. You are doing well adding fat it to everything. As potassium goes, Iā€™m not sure how youā€™re supplementing or in what amounts but, you may be like me and not need to supplement daily. You may need more sodium (also like me). Itā€™s worth experimenting with. What youā€™re describing sounds like either low calories, low fat, or low electrolytes. Or a mix.

Itā€™s not just keto, humans as a whole donā€™t get enough potassium or many other nutrients. But, keto does do something specific. You lose a lot of water in the first few weeks and with that water goes sodium and when sodium goes down, potassium often does too.

(Ron) #5

I am in week 8 of and have been working through exactly what you described, for the last 6 weeks. It has only been the last week that things are finally starting to settle down and I am starting to feel better. I finally recognized that my body was adapting and using fat for fuel just within the last week, even though I have been in ketosis for the last 6 weeks (have a blood meter to verify). I was pre-T2D so I think my insulin resistance was high and took some time to bring it down so ketones could be used.
Donā€™t know if this is right but hope it helps to give you a comparison.

(Rob) #6

The potassium thing is an interesting thought but I think itā€™s a red herring. We used to get so much more of the electrolyte metals in our meat and veggies before the soils were depleted by intensive agriculture.

So, lean with underlying issuesā€¦ could be that this rare combination means that it isnā€™t for you but I would stress again, that an unpleasant adaptation in not unheard of and your other issues may well be contributing.

Keto is anti-inflammatory not that I have a clue how relevant that is to FM (which seems to be a set of symptoms in search of a cause) but there is some discussion of keto and FM here:

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/search?q=fibromyalgia

You will no doubt get more from checking these out that I can. The forum search function is your friend, especially in specialized issues like this.

I would certainly consider more carbs. 20g is a guarantee of ketosis for even deranged metabolisms but if yours isnā€™t, you can have and maybe need more. Try 75g? Other lean ketonauts have done this and felt better for it. It is no failure to not do 20g, in fact it is a badge of metabolic health.

(john) #7

Oh and sugar cravings. Now, before, always. suggggar. I could eat until full but never felt ok until I had sugar. skittles, doughnuts, anything. I would eat whatever and then have an unpleasant sugar high, like I could feel it coursing through my veins. Then Iā€™d go ride my bike very intensely for 30 minutes. So much energy. But somehow it was quite unhealthy. Maybe something wrong with my insulin response? But then Iā€™m pretty lean. 12-14% Iā€™d guess. Former triathlete before the fibro. I remember often not feeling like Iā€™d had a meal unless it was ended with something sugary. But having the sugar didnā€™t make me feel great either. Like I then had to exercise to remove the unpleasant high. Then soon after Iā€™d want more sugar

(Rob) #8

This is another thing that suggests your adaptation will be harderā€¦ you may be experiencing a cold turkey withdrawal if you are physiologically addicted to sugar.

Another vote for a few more carbs (but preferably not too much sugar, to break your habit) and pushing on. If you do have weird insulin secretion, keto is your best bet for regulating it.

(john) #9

Maybe I need some new foods. Been eating the same things. This shrimp n green bean soup with tons of butter and olive oil hit the spot. Could still go for some sour skittles

(john) #10

My blood pressure was 122/78 in the middle of December, 120/80 at the beginning of February, and today it was 158/80

Gonna ditch the low carb for a while. If I wanted to try about 100 grams, would I need to change anything? Iā€™ve heard saturated fat is only a problem if you have high insulin levels. Would 100 carbs be enough to cause concern toward saturated fat ?

(Championsidewinder) #11

You really shouldnā€™t eat fruit but if you want to try some, go with raspberries or blackberries but just a 1/4 cup or so, but I have found it just makes trying to adapt much harder

(Championsidewinder) #12

Yes, venison is low fat, and eating too much can kick you out of keto, I try to find more fatty meats, and eating too much fat to soon can make you feel sick, I know I was, Iā€™m just not sure when I know I am fat adapted, I still feel icky if I donā€™t get enough sodium and potassium, so put a pinch of no-salt and a pinch of pink salt in my bottles of water

(Championsidewinder) #13

I think I read somewhere that fibromyalgia is caused by being deficient in magnesium, watch this https://youtu.be/mY49nmHaano, dr John Bergman talks about how to reverse fibromyalgia