Advice on how to ease out of the diet

(Ellen ) #7

Anxiety medication could be at least one reason. I also take anxiety medication while tapering closely with my doctor. A recent CNN show talked about these medications and the need to taper very slowly, maybe years or the anxiety will come back worse than ever. Go slow. Isolating is not healthy. Add some exercise. Have some blood work done to rule out Thyroid or other issues. Good luck John.

(Windmill Tilter) #8

It might help to have more detail on this. If you’re a type 1 diabetic or have latent gout or have an autoimmune disorder, the answers would be totally different.

As a gout sufferer, dropping out of ketosis is no small thing. The last time I did it, I wasn’t able to walk for a week…

#9

Anxiety, depression and have gone through so many medicine changes over the last half a year. The worst thing is probably a failed fast taper off anxiety med and an antidepressant at the same time a month ago (I didn’t know it was dangerous). Totally screwed up my system.

(Raj Seth) #10

Sure sounds like not eating enough. Skyr sounds like Greek non fat yogurt.
How about trying to up the real fatty meat and fish. Not necessarily the processed salt dried meats but just basic meats that you cook simply and eat?
Anxiety medications are mostly off label applications of epilepsy medications and are by in large not able to actually cure mental issues - just cloy them a bit. See https://www.chrispalmermd.com/ He is a psychiatrist using therapeutic Keto diets to treat mental issues, ie 4:1 fat to protein ratio. He cautions about the manic phase that a proper Keto diet can promote and how the medications have to be properly managed (I’m no doctor)
Could be you need to stay with the Keto WOE and manage medications to properly manage the manic phases

(Edith) #11

I agree. You are not eating enough, especially fat. Keto is about using fat for your energy. When you first start eating this way, your body is not efficient at using its own fat stores so you need to ingest fat for energy. It takes about 6-8 weeks for you to become fat adapted. For some people, it takes longer. That means your body is getting more efficient at burning fat.

Also, you want healthy fats: animal, olive, butter, not fats that come from oils such as soy, corn, canola. You want somewhere around 70% of your calories from fat, the rest protein with your approximately 20 grams of carbs per day.

Salt, you need about 2 to 2.5 teaspoons a day to get about 5 grams of sodium. When you first start keto, you lose a lot of water. With that water goes your electrolytes, particularly salt. It needs to be replenished daily. Not enough salt is what causes the keto flu.

#12

Thanks for the replies :slight_smile:

Does that mean I’m not actually in Ketosis? Or in too much Ketosis? What is it that not eating enough causes?

I have been diagnosed with bipolars. So this diet can be dangerous for me?

I’ve been trying to stop the Keto diet ( Stuck in Keto ) but everytime I try my anxiety just goes through the roof.

#13

People on keto suffer from increased insulin resistance due to the glucose sparring effect, so you can suffer from blood glucose spikes in the beginning. This lasts for a couple of days.

Increase your carbs intake to about 100 grams per day, from complex carbs (whole foods with starch).

Start eating potatoes, but not fried, as that increases their glycemic index and aren’t very healthy. Always prefer slow cooking methods like boiling or baking. Mashed potatoes are very tasty and 400 grams (enough for 2 meals) only have 64 grams of carbs and 430 kcal (out of that 100 kcal is the added fat, potatoes being fairly low in kcal).

Potatoes are also a great source of potassium, those 400 grams giving you 1181 mg, or about 35% of WHO’s recommendations. This is actually one reason for why keto doesn’t work for many people, because many sources of potassium are eliminated and the remaining ones (from what’s generally available at local markets) aren’t very good or cheap, except for tomatoes.

Also add one banana (another 24 grams of carbs) and a generous tomato salad to ensure adequate potassium.

#14

Thanks fabia. Why is potassium so important? Just in the beginning of coming out of Ketosis?

(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #15

An avocado has about 975 mg of potassium. It’s lower in carbs and higher in fat than potato or banana. That’s why people doing keto talk about them so much.

#16

Potassium is an electrolyte that’s necessary for the normal functioning of many organs, like the heart and kidneys.

Diets high in potassium are known to prevent high blood pressure and CVD in general.

When you start keto, due to the glycogen stores being emptied, the kidneys also eliminate sodium and potassium, which is why the “keto flu” happens. People on keto focus on increasing sodium intake, because it is easy (you just eat more salt).

But potassium is unfortunately dangerous to supplement, you need about 3400 mg per day as per WHO’s recommendations (n.b. US guidelines actually mention 4700 mg, so WHO is being conservative) and you’ll have to get it from food.

(Bob M) #17

This is a short-term thing. I’ve been low carb/keto 6 years as of today, and never take potassium (save when fasting multiple days, and then only because it’s in my fasting drops), and I can’t stand avocados.

#18

Could be, depending on individual, but leg cramps or dizziness aren’t at all uncommon. Also we’ve got some evidence available that keto can be deficient in potassium or magnesium; like all elimination diets, it’s easy to end up with a deficiency if not careful:

Also beware of anecdotes. People are bad at isolating variables, estimating intake, plus any dieting community suffers from “survivorship bias”.

(Bob M) #19

This might be true, save for all the carnivores who don’t supplement at all.

I think the issue is that if you eat plants, you’re less likely to get the Mg, K, or anything else in meat (or the plants themselves) due to anti-nutrients in plants.

For instance, when I started 6 years ago, I had to supplement with tons of everything, including Mg and K. As I’ve moved toward eating fewer and fewer plants, I rarely supplement with anything. I will take Mg sometimes, and Vitamin D. I will also periodically take Vitamin K2. Otherwise, nothing.

Of course, my progression is also 6 years. So, maybe I “built up” my supply of these nutrients? I doubt that’s true, though. I think whatever (mainly meat, some cheese and other dairy, eggs, rare veggies) I’m eating is providing me with what I need and limiting the amount of vitamins/minerals that aren’t absorbed.

#20

I know the carnivores are saying that, but this isn’t well supported by available evidence.

Note that if you’re feeling well, after 6 years, I’m sure your electrolytes are probably fine.

(Bob M) #21

What evidence?

And I’m saying this too, as it’s been my experience.

#22

What is K?

#23

Exactly. There is no evidence suggesting that, which makes it an unsupported hypothesis.

(Bob M) #24

Ok, this thing is basically useless:

For one, they CALCULATED the amount that was taken in. This is useless. You can’t calculate it, you have to measure it:

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Moreover, they state the following:

Throughout the diet the intakes of magnesium, calcium, iron, phosphorus, and potassium were less than recommended values, but serum levels always remained within the reference range.

If the “serum levels always remained within the reference range”, maybe their calculations are useless?

(Windmill Tilter) #25

I think it’s great that you qualified “insulin resistance” by noting that it was glucose sparing insulin resistance. It confuses the hell out of people when they hear that keto causes “insulin resistance”!

I like the way that Chris Kresser distinguishes between physiological insulin resistance and pathological insulin resistance. The former is a positive adaptation to continual carbohydrate scarcity. The latter is negative, degenerative adaptation to continual carbohydrate overabundance. They are completely opposite things. Calling them the same term confuses the hell out of people! I actually prefer your term “glucose sparing insulin resistance” to Kresser’s term “physiological insulin resistance” because it seems more descriptive.

Anyway, this article was helpful to me to understand what the heck people were talking about when they say “keto causes insulin resistance”, and it describes each type of IR in pretty simple terms:

(Raj Seth) #26

Not dangerous, but medications need to be properly managed.
If trying to exit Keto gives you mental stress, maybe that’s a sign you need to do this to be better :grinning: