This is the one I’ve used:
Keep in mind, I drink a couple of quarts of water every day so I was getting a lot more than just one serving’s worth of the electrolytes listed. The one you linked to is much higher per serving, so it’s probably more of a once a day drink. Also the one you linked to has stevia. Most people try to avoid sweeteners if they’re fasting.
Look at a keto lifestyle as that, it is a marathon not sprint. None of us gained it overnight nor will we lose it overnight. Just focus on low carbs, lots of fat, protein, salt and hydration. I personally would not fast at all until after 4 to 6 weeks. I dont think your body is ready until then. Maybe even longer. Listen to your body, it will tell you what it needs.
I started doing Keto in February but didn’t start doing any actual fasting (beyond IF) until May. It is better as @MommyJilly2005 says above, to take your time. Remember the tortoise won the race; slow and steady =).
Keto is generally about getting healthy…not primarily weight loss. It sounds like you’re gauging your “good results” primarily from the scale. Any other diet in which you experienced pain, tingling, and numbness would be a huge red flag to, yes, quit the diet.
Luckily, with keto, it probably was “just” an electrolyte deficiency that can be easily corrected. But it should also be a warning to you that MORE (or faster) is NOT always better.
Starting keto with a fast, followed by strict keto with fasting days…you really haven’t given your body time to become fat-adapted. Sure, you’re in ketosis, but you’re pretty much just starving yourself right now.
I know how appealing it can be to lose pounds quickly, but some of what you’ve written sounds as if you’re in a rather unhealthy state of mind.
I find magnesium a tough one. I’d need to est FAR more food than I do to reach 400mg or above and then I read mag citrate can make you dependent on it sk how do you make aure your magnesium is up?
Maltodextrin is about the worst thing you could use because it will spike blood sugar and insulin.
If I don’t get a headache, I assume I’m doing ok. I use one mag citrate and one mag oxide supplement. The mag oxide is only 250 mg so that’s the one I take most often when I’m fasting because the bigger one makes me nauseous.
I prefer mag glycinate because it’s less likely to have a laxative effect (for me) and more likely to be absorbed.
Welcome to keto! You have crash landed right in the middle of it! A four day fast to get yourself jump-started is pretty radical. Unless you are a type II diabetic with hundreds of pounds to lose and blood sugar out of control I wouldn’t ever suggest that, even then I think it’s a large shock to the body. That really would require medical supervision who is familiar with fasting and not think it a crazy starving tactic. It’s not a race, it’s a life-long marathon. PLUS you did it without the knowledge of the importance of the electrolytes. You may want to slow it down a bit, just stick to whole real foods and natural fats such as butter, olive oil, and coconut oil, and stick to less than the 20g carbs/day. Eat to satiety… until you are satisfied. And repeat as often as necessary. With the real whole foods only, you shouldn’t have a problem with too many carbs. That’s the simplest way to start. If you decide to keep fasting, be careful of how you re-feed. Do something high fat vegetarian for your first meal, and don’t gorge yourself. Sorry if I sound a bit rough, I’m just worried about you, you’re jumping in over your head without all the proper information and we don’t want anything bad happening to you. Just because something is good, does not mean a whole lot of it is better.
I totally believe that your electrolytes were gone. With all the crazy exercise you did - I’m guessing you were trying to empty out those glucagon stores asap - it would use up a lot of sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Plus you’re peeing it all out because it’s no longer bound to the glucose molecules.
As for a suggestion on a supplement - I would try that Brenda Zorn concoction but if you’d rather a short cut, I ordered Keto Chow Fasting Drops for fasting times (use the Electrolyte drops for everyday keto). Sodium regulates potassium so be sure to keep up the sodium. https://shop.ketochow.xyz/collections/electrolytes and you can order it from Amazon. I got mine in 2 days here in the States.
This is a great book to read about salt.
Alright, good luck… keep it simple and try to slow down a bit. We’re rooting for you!!!
Very low carb diets such as popular keto were invented for weight loss, so if that is your goal, keto is a great option! It turns out they also help with a lot of medical conditions and will really improve your health along the way, if you have any health conditions that need improving.
But don’t fall for the hype. Most people (and controlled studies support this), lose about 1–2 lbs./week on average, especially after a quick drop from water weight at the beginning. Keto is not a crazy miracle diet–unless you consider that fact that you’re on a weight loss diet and you’re not constantly starving a miracle. Or that improving your health along the way is a miracle, unlike low-fat diets where you’re constantly deprived of major nutrients that you need and pumping your body full of sugar, gluten, and other crap.
I agree that pain, tingling, and numbness are huge red flags. Don’t try to do everything at once–and make sure you get some electrolytes, especially during that adaptation phase.
Actually, it was used in the 1920s to treat epilepsy
Well, Banting was around…when? In the 1860s? Anyway, since medically ketogenic diets aren’t really the same as popular keto, I guess I never really remember that in the list. I’m glad we’ve learned so much about nutrition and how low carb diets can heal and prevent so many conditions, whatever label we put on it. But for many (if not most) people keto is primarily about weight loss–that’s why they come to it and that’s what their goals are.
I get a little frustrated when when people who are struggling to lose weight are told that they’re doing the wrong thing because supposedly this isn’t a diet, isn’t a primarily a way to lose weight as it has been since Banting, but is about something else. I think that it’s misleading and encourages people who really want to lose weight to quit and do something else to lose weight. Keto can be about healing health conditions. But it can be, and has been for well over a century, primarily about weight loss. It’s just fine for people to continue to think of it that way and use it that way. Just as it’s fine for people to use it to heal health conditions and not be interested in losing weight.
Hi!
I’ve been reading this faithfully. Thank you everyone for writing me!
I have stopped fasting. I agree, after reading here, that it may be unhealthy for my body right now. My body is already in shock from switching to keto (I eat under 20 g of carbs). So that is in shock enough I guess. I am strictly eating keto but am no longer fasting; I no longer feel faint, have tingling, numbness, etc. I’m also drinking Essentia water, vitamin water zero and bought the electrolyte supplement that ZuleikaD recommended.
I guess it’s been two weeks now and my body now has one BM per day (I had stopped having BMs except for every 3-4 days while fasting).
Actually, everyone I do not feel like I peed a lot. I think I wasn’t drinking enough water.
I am doing this for weight loss and a healthier body. I too see no problem doing this for weight loss. Therefore, I proclaim I am doing it for weight loss.
I cut my swimming back down to 60 minutes per day.
Since I made these changes my weight has gone up two pounds. 
According to the keto urine strips, I am still in ketosis. Still in the purple range…wonder how long until I’m fat adapted and my body is better at it.
I do not miss eating bread! I am a strange person who never cared for breads, rice, and pasta so I am happy to pass. 
This diet is expensive. I have already spent $400.00 on food for it. Ghee butter? So costly. Do I really need MCT oil?
Thanks!
You really don’t need to be spending extra money on it. You don’t need the ghee butter (cheap butter is just fine) and you don’t need the MCT oil. You also don’t need to spend money on any special electrolyte supplements.
Even the cheap angus chuck pot roast meat is fine (you don’t need ribeye). Or even the 80/20 ground beef at the grocery store (no one said you had to buy the grass-fed stuff). Just buy normal groceries (avoiding the carbs).
Keeping your water and electrolytes up is very important, eating no more than 20 carbs a day, No Sugar, enough protein, some healthy fats, you should be okay and your body will adjust and lose weight. Keto is a slow and steady lifestyle change. You will be fine, just continue =).
Doesn’t have to be. I’ve never used ghee or MCT oil or whatever. No matter what method of eating you follow, you can find “healthy” choices that people are willing to charge you more for. For myself, keto means I no longer need insulin, so I could eat lobster and caviar every day and still be saving money.
I do cheap and easy keto meal preps based on the proteins that are on sale in a given week.
One example on that link is a chicken meal prep I did. Over 6# of chicken and nearly 3# of low carb veggies. Nearly 7000 calories. Cost less than $10.
Now that my mom is doing keto as well, I make her up a batch of Egg Loaf from time to time. That costs less than $2 for a dozen of them. They last her over a week. She uses them to satisfy her sweet tooth.
Since magnesium is at the center of every molecule of chlorophyll, would you really need to eat all that much more to get enough? Especially since, when getting enough salt, the body hangs on to its magnesium better?
To crib from Dr. Berry at Ketofest, the low-carb diet originated in France in the 1820’s. William Harvey heard about it at a conference in Paris in the 1850’s and passed it on to William Banting, when Banting consulted him about his obesity. Banting’s Letter on Corpulence spread the idea through numerous printings (it was a best-seller for decades), and low-carb for fat loss was standard medical practice into the 1980’s when Ancel Keys and his followers finally managed to squash it.
A type of ketogenic diet for treating Type I diabetes was standard until the discovery of insulin in the 1920’s, and I believe the ketogenic diet for epilepsy was developed around 1908.
I’ve tried nearly every kind of magnesium. It has a big flush effect on me even in small doses. I have not tried threonate because every brand on amazon contains rice flour which I react to. Recently though I read about and got magnesium “bisglycinate” (slightly diff form than simply glycinate), it’s a 200mg serving, and I take it about 3-4 times a day spread out over the day. So far I’ve had no issues with it at all. Fwiw.
PJ
I know it’s not exactly the point of this thread, but in case the context is relevant to the OP or of interest to anyone else…
I find these dating statements really odd. The reason ketosis is such an effective state for our health isn’t because someone in 1860 (or 1920) came up with a ratio of macronutrients and in that year we suddenly developed the ability to produce and use ketones. Ketosis is an effective state of health for humans because burning fat is one of our natural states, perhaps our default metabolic state. Various researchers/fads may have figured this out and popularized it for different reasons (epilepsy, weight loss) at particular moments in history, but they didn’t invent the diet; they simply uncovered something that is natural to human physiology.