5 weeks today, can't shake dizziness

#1

Hi all -

Tough sledding for me now…

I started on January 1st with a goal of losing weight (M - 57 - 6.0 ft tall - I started at 253 and am targeting 195) and seeing some of the health benefits that folks such as yourself have raved about. The good news:

I’m down 14 pounds - most of this was in the first 2 weeks but my losses have remained steady since then.

I’ve found this WOE to be mainly enjoyable - I still am craving carbs/sugar. Mainly later in the day when I’m watching my 2 sons gobbling down cookies. :slight_smile:

A typical day for me is 3 slices of bacon plus a couple of soft boiled eggs for breakfast, lunch is a salad with 5-7 net carbs (light lettuce, couple of cucumber slices) and a combination of steak, bacon and chicken as a topping (no dressing or straight olive oil). For dinner I’m doing typically 2 bone-in chicken thighs (skin on) and either cauliflower in grass-fed butter (5-7 more net carbs) or broccoli. When I snack I grab a slice of cheddar cheese or 1/4 cup of raw pecans (2 net carbs)

Now the hard part…

The first two weeks I was dead tired but I chalked it up to Keto flu and KCKO. The 3rd week I started getting very dizzy - I’ve read all about electrolyte imbalance so I started taking magnesium potassium aspartate tablets twice a day. (This is in addition to 2-3 cups of broth I’ve been doing since the beginning). The electrolytes seemed to help - each day my dizziness was getting less and less. Then 2 days ago I forgot to take my morning dose and the dizziness came back strong. I got back on schedule but I’ve not been able to shake the dizziness for the last 72 hours - I also feel very weak and am strongly considering downing a bunch of carbs for the first time since I started 5 weeks ago.

I’ve also not seen the surge of energy folks talk about - I assume I may not be fully fat adapted?? I bought the Keto-mojo monitor after a couple of weeks and strangely I was registering 0.3 or below (LOW) for the first week I took measurements - after that I have remained consistently at 0.8 or higher with a high of 1.7 a couple of days ago.

Starting to lose my will a little and thought I’d reach out to you kind people before I toss 5 weeks of hard work aside for a sandwich!! :slight_smile:

(Allie) #2

Blood pressure maybe? Are you getting enough salt?

#3

I’ve thought of that - when I lie down I get really dizzy which would correlate to low blood pressure. I would think the daily broth would have taken care of the sodium??

(Consensus is Politics) #4

Do a little research on the salt intake. You probably need a lot more. IIRC salt is the ‘Don’ when it comes to electrolytes. If its low, the rest might as well be low too.

This comes from memory, which at times seems to be faulty. Doing better since I’ve been Keto, but I’m still human, Keto or not.

Salt was my gut feeling when I read your post. I see it was also mentioned before I did. Start there. Figure out how much you are getting, and research how much you should personally get in your diet. I think I had to triple my daily dose to stay balanced.

(Allie) #5

Have a listen to this. Most people need a lot more salt than they think.

(Consensus is Politics) #6

Thanks @Shortstuff Allie, I was just about to thimb through the 2KD podcasts looking for that.

#7

Thank you Shortstuff - I’ll tune into that now. I just took down a cup of broth with some added lite salt for potassium and I’m not spinning as much. Hopefully this is the fix.

Thanks!!

#8

A keto diet is not about net carbs. Its about being in ketosis. Listen to your body. If you honestly feel better eating more carbs, than increase your intake. I’d suggest healthy sources like sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, and not from sugar or grains.

Most clinical practitioners have a few patients who truly don’t do well on a LC diet. You may be one of those people, but before you throw in the towel, experiment a little more.

#9

OK - take it from me. No need to experiment - 1/2 teaspoon pink Himalayan salt added to BPC is TOO much!!

(Stan Brooks) #10

You might want to try something like Gatorade Propel water.

(Sarah ) #11

You can’t increase carbs very much and still be in ketosis, so that’s a little confusing. Do you, there’s more wiggle room than you think, or that carbs won’t shut down ketosis?

(Sarah ) #12

Either look up recipes for keto ade or buy an electrolyte supplement

#13

The oft quoted 20g of carbs is arbitrary. Many people have greater carb thresholds. All of my immediate family can eat 50-100g and maintain a state of ketosis. I am insulin resistant, but with a fasting regime can incorporate a significant amount of carbs.

Glucometers are cheap and easy to use, so there’s no reason to guess or use a rule of thumb. With a few days of testing, anyone can determine their individual tolerance.

(Allie) #14

Once someone is adapted they can play around and find their own carb tolerances, but not ideal to do this while still trying to get adapted.

#15

I test pretty much every day with keto-mojo and maintain less than 20 grams net carbs in my macros - if I go beyond this (say 25-30) I can see my ketones go down from a typical 1.5 to 0.8 almost immediately.

So it seems I don’t have a lot of room (maybe 20 net carbs above 20??) to play around with. This suits me fine as I have no great desire to eat any more carbs than I am.

(Dana Hagberg) #16

It is not a bag thing to end your fast a little early if you’re feeling bad physically. You could always stop until you’re feeling better and then start back up whenever you’re comfortable, if nothing else is working to get rid of that dizziness.

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #17

Best to put salt under your tongue, gets into the blood stream earlier. Based on what you reported eating I would think you need a tad more fats with the electrolytes as well. Fats are your friend, you don’t have to pig out on them but you should get them in through out your day.

A big load of carbs will only make you feel terrible, especially so if from the starchy ones, like the grains and potatoes. I did that early on, and paid the price, weight gain, bloat, and felt like a terrible hang over. BTW, I worked myself up to about 50 gram of carbs per day, once you are a fat burner, you can cope better with a few more carbs. And 20g isn’t written in stone :relieved:

Good luck on sorting yourself out.