I’ve been on the keto diet for five weeks now. I follow the diet strictly and have almost exclusively home cooked meals. I have the proper blend of fat to protein and carbs. I try to always have plenty of water. A minimum of 1 gallon a day plus I drink 1 to 2 servings of heavily salted water. Since I have started the diet I have not had close to a solid bowel movement. I have diarrhea daily. It can’t be dehydration as I am forcing myself to drink as much water as possible.
My carbs are from vegetables or the acceptable Keto-freindly dairy products. I don’t want to quit the diet as I have already lost 10 pounds with very little exercise (I am recovering from back surgery).
I keep mixing up the food but nothing helps.
Should I incorporate some type of cheat- meal to get things back on track? I have been so disciplined I don’t want to go backwards.
Bathroom problems
Try cutting out the extra salt. Just salt your meals normally. Give it a couple of weeks to see.
That is really a lot of water–a gallon of water is 16-8 ounce glasses! You are probably flushing out your electrolytes. We need a lot of sodium on Keto, about 5g per day, I think I’ve read, as this way of eating is diuretic.
I drink water when thirsty and salt my food to taste, seems to work for me. Lots of salt water can definitely cause diarrhea.
I would definitely lose the salt water. That’s basically a laxative. Just salt your food, like others have said.
Hi there,
Sorry to hear you’ve been having this issue, and congrats on sticking with the discipline for 5 weeks!! 
A minimum of 1 gallon a day
Clue #1 !
plus I drink 1 to 2 servings of heavily salted water
Clue #2 !
I agree with the others that the good news seems to be that you can cut back on water and on salt and your troubles could be over!
I asked advice from others about my D, and was surprised that the very things I was doing to prevent Keto flu seemed to have been the triggers in my case. I cut back the water to 1.5 litres and stopped my salt drink.
There was one other thing that was the biggest trigger though - magnesium supplements. Do you take them? If so, you might want to experiment with cutting them out to see if that helps too.
have been so disciplined I don’t want to go backwards.
And nor should you have to! I hope you keep at it 
All the best with your back surgery recovery too!
To give you an idea, I have the opposite problem and in order to help things move along, I add LOTS of salt to my water. I’m almost positive that’s what’s causing your problem.
it is most likely you do not have the right gut flura (bacteria) 
Taking a prebiotic with a probiotic increases the frequency of bowel movements, and improves stool consistency 
Eat sour Kraut or pickles in addition to your veggies 
Quick fix Eat Plain Yogurt and Black berries
Another problem is too much saturated fat which can cause too much bile 
