Body refuses ketosis in high stress work environment

(*Rusty* Instagram: @Rustyk61) #2

I think I understand where your at. Basically your saying that when there are no guest on the boat you can eat Keto and be successful, and when you do have guests, you crave and eat fruits and other sugars/carbs. Is this correct? I’d guess (without knowing more) that you are just going in and out of ketosis every few weeks and have not become fat adapted.

#3

Agree with @rustyk61, you might not be fully fat adapted. Regardless, cravings can be stress reaction vs real hunger. I personally crave carbs when tired and often at the same time thirsty (but it doesn’t always register in my brain that both are occuring). Have you tried eating fat instead of carbs? E.g. spoonful of butter/coconut oil. Might sound gross at first, but is quite surprisingly effective - and eating fat does not make you fat - but it will fuel you. And who says running around for 14h+ isn’t exercise! at least in my world it is. Nice that you have time for yoga though.

(Solomom A) #4

If you can find an expert to help you manage the stress, that may be helpful. Many stressful events (eg. exercise, public performance, etc.) raise blood sugar and kick a lot out of ketosis. In your case this is something you have to put up with all day for several months for which reason a professional help may be helpful.

(Jenika Doherty) #5

I think the questions was misunderstood. I do not eat fruits, i havent eaten fruit in a year. I dont consume any sugar whatsoever. I am eating a high fat diet, spoonfuls of oils, green veg, avos, eggs, seafood and minimal nuts. Thats my diet and it works, but when i am with guests onboard i can feel my body go out of ketosis. I dont change the way i eat but i start to have cravings, i retain water, i gain weight, i dont feel full, my energy levels drop, etc etc. I am fully fat adapted. I have a very deep understanding of my body and am certified in sports nutrition. I was honestly excited to go back to work keto and have that awesome streamline never ending energy that i experience but my body falls out of ketosis.

(*Rusty* Instagram: @Rustyk61) #6

Sorry for my misunderstanding! Sounds like it’s probably stress related. Do you do any testing to find your blood ketone levels?

(Donna ) #7

I wonder if adding intermittent fasting and electrolytes to your regimen might help?

(Ken) #8

Ah, here’s a better understanding of what is happening. If you’re not adding in more carbs, you’re merely burning all your ketones. You’re still in Lipolysis, which is the whole point, ketosis is only one aspect of it. This is the problem with calling the concept “Ketogenic” as it causes overemphasis of ketone production, creating the “Nutty Keto” syndrome, preventing a wider understanding of Lipolysis. Keto is the misnomer, Lipolysis is the actual process.

If you need more energy, up your meat and fat calories. More hard boiled egg snacks for example.

(Jenika Doherty) #9

But my body isnt burning fat. I actually gain fat. It takes about 2-3 days for my body to re-enter ketosis at the end of a trip but i am left with additional weight.

(Michael) #10

Interesting that you crave fruits. You might have Scurvy! (Bear with me)

I was intending to fast all day today but I went out of Ketosis just before lunch. The only time this has happened to me before was when I had a cold just after Christmas; It was also a very stressful time for me at work. Coincidentally, I had run out of Vitamin C, which I take in mega-doses daily. I think I was out of Ketosis for two days at the time. On resuming Vitamin C supplementation I was back in Ketosis.

So today at 12:30 I took about 10, 000 milligrams of Vitamin C, went home at 1pm and had 5 rashers and quite a few olives. As of 2:30 pm I am very much back in Ketosis with a reading of 40PPM Breath Acetone. I had been feeling a little low yesterday but I now realise that I was fighting the onset of an illness, perhaps another cold; I had enjoyed the Easter celebrations, was in/out of Ketosis and was very excited and stressed by a football match on Sunday which entailed a 4 hour round trip and the only Stadium food available was potato chips aka french fries.

Vitamin C needs to be consumed in the diet by humans. The recommended daily intake is in the region of 80mg. However, 2,000mg is recommended by many proponents. Vitamin C plays an important part in metabolism and can act as both an anti-oxidant or pro-oxidant as required by the body.

Vitamin C supplementation suffers from the same biases as the Ketogenic diet in medical circles.I would like to document this better with references etc… and I intend to do so in future when I can get around to it.

So I would say get your hands on some Sodium Ascorbate and have it on standby for your next cruise. Sodium Ascorbate taken in large amounts can cause digestive discomfort until one becomes accustomed to it. As a direct acting and non distressing form of Vitamin C I would recommend the liposomal form which can be found in either liquid or sachet form.

Here is my BrAce plot for today so far:

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(Pete A) #11

This is fantastic @Acetix . With a multi and magnesium I do 500 C. I could do more in a heartbeat to compensate for the Keto-deficiency, and being a years long Dr Linus Pauling fan.

(Ken) #12

How do you know your gain is fat? It may only be water and glycogen. You have to totally recompensate glycogen, then eat a Carb based pattern with a chronic excess of calories to regain fat. It’s not an easy thing unless you eat lot’s of carbs and/or carb-fat combinations. Sounds like only partial glycogen recompensation to me…

(Jenika Doherty) #13

My waterweight drops after re-entering ketosis and doing a bit of HIIT training to burn of glycogen stores. But i am left with 2+ kg extra weight

(Ken) #14

What is your total weight gain, and over what time period? How many carbs did you consume daily over that time period? Were those extra carbs added in while still consuming fat?

(Edith) #15

It seems that while you are working you are exercising all day, every day. I would think because of all that activity your electrolyte need increases. That deficiency may be causing the hunger, cravings, and stress.

Edith

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #16

The post about scurvy brings up a related point: be sure you’re getting enough organ meat. Organ meat is not only fatty, it also contains many more micro-nutrients than lean muscle meat. I remember reading somewhere that the 1927 experiment on Stefansson and Andersen when they returned from the Arctic was considered a failure by the researchers, because they did not develop scurvy as expected! Stefansson recounted an episode during the experiment when they were prevailed upon to eat more muscle meat and less organ meat: he and Andersen started to feel really ill, but the problem cleared right up once they had a dish of organ meat.

I think that’s truly offal! (Sorry, I’ll show myself out . . . )

#17

I recently listed to this podcast. Some interesting points. While the whole thing is long you may want to listen at the highlighted points. Attia talks about Phosphatidylserine as something that will reduce cortisol levels, especially at night. I have not tried it but it might be something to consider. Try it before your busy season to make sure you have no adverse reaction

https://www.ihmc.us/stemtalk/episode001/

43:12: We’re evolved to deal with acute stress; chronic stress is a newer, more difficult phenomenon.

44:12: Attia calls literature on meditation “messy.” His advice? Pick one and run with it. His choice is transcendental meditation.

45:20: “Phosphatidylserine” is a wonderful sleep agent that suppresses the adrenal glands in the evening.

46:06: “There’s no doubt that keeping cortisol levels in check requires the most work.”

49:19: Our ancestors spent one third of their lives sleeping. The benefit must have eclipsed the survival risk because we’ve held onto this habit

May be worth looking at

Keto Transition Insomnia
(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #18

I love Peter Attia. His very moving TED talk is part of why I ended up going keto.

(Michael) #19

I should have less jokey about the scurvy reference in relation to going to sea for up 5 weeks at a time. A Mediterranean cruise normally means stopping off at numerous ports so there is no issue with the availability of fresh nutritious vitamin C laden food. What I meant to highlight is the use of larger doses of Vitamin C to help fight inflammation from whatever source, stress included. In my n=1 experiment vitamin C supplementation seems to work for me.

#20

Jenika, this sounds like a super high stress work environment, rife with chronic stress. I’ve worked in service roles, and the 24/7 sorta on-call feeling on a yacht must certainly have an impact - as well as the fact that habitat and work-life rebalancing are very primal, along with safety and happiness around possibly drunken customers, etc.

You may well be having stress related cortisol surges that are interfering with your fat-adaptation or other metabolic processes.

Cortisol surges can also render strength training routines much less effective, as the cortisol interferes with various cellular changes (a big subject, touched on in Body By Science I believe, am no expert on it but have my own n=1 experience about it).

Not to sound like a broken record around here on the forum - but supplementing with Ginger capsules may help you enormously. It reduces cortisol to the point of allowing the body to recompose stubborn belly fat. It’s a superfood and does a bunch of other great stuff for health & healing. You might want to research it a bit here on the forum and online. It’s quite an ancient medicine and rejuvenator. I take 2 caps twice a day.

Also, re organ meats - liver has an exceptional array of B vitamins, fabulous assistants for stress mgmt. You can take dried grassfed beef liver caps (I take 4 a day) the day before guests arrive and each day on shift - it will deliver some great benefits of liver without having to cook it etc. Some brave souls I imagine add liver powda to smoothies, etc.

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(Michael Heffez) #21

I will save your life right now! I was going through the exact, and I mean the exact same thing as you. I was on the keto diet, and strict keto for nearly 2 years until I have had a near seizure like episode. What I finally found out afterwords was that it was anxiety attacks. If you are working that long of a shift, you are putting an immense stress on your body and your body is going to use up all that glucose which may even come from your brain leaving you extremely stressed and craving the glucose, hence your body is going to need carbs to function and I promise, you will not gain weight. After about a year on the keto diet it was impossible and I mean virtually impossible for me to lose any weight; in fact I was gaining weight this is all whilst doing intermittent fasting and being strict keto but I was bike riding about 4, 5 to maybe six hours a day. I empathize with you and will give you this piece of advice to save your life: get off the keto diet ASAP. You can revisit it in the future for perhaps a short term. But the cons definitely outweigh the pros, especially in our circumstances. All that amazing energy and all is good however, if your body is severely stressed out, and I mean chronically stressed out – primarily due to the combination of keto & exercise, you are going to eventually experience these panic/anxiety attack symptoms which are extremely frightening. I would advise to abort the keto diet, take what you learned from it, and transition into an extremely low carb diet and you will see that your body will thank you for doing so.