Calorie surplus + additional carbs = kicked out of ketosis?

#1

A strange thing happened to me yesterday- I was hoping to learn from it.

After 4 months, I lost all the weight I wanted to with keto. I started lifting weights about 1 month ago; and chose to put myself in a calorie surplus (but still keep keto macros). My reasoning was that I wanted to be able to maximize muscle building. I’ve had a slow but steady gain in my weight during the month.

With the weight-lifting, I feel like my blood sugars were improving. On keto- I had gone very low carb; even eliminating vegetables. Lately, I had been seeing a lot about CKD, and TKD. So I thought I would try to up my carbs a little (still less than 20gm/day and still from relatively good sources).

This seemed to be working fine until yesterday. I had a pretty typical breakfast- 3 eggs a lot of cheese and 2 sausages. The only difference was that I added a half cup of spaghetti sauce (says 5gm carbs) and had about a half cup of macadamia and almonds. Afterward, I felt more tired and groggy than usual pretty much like how I used to feel after a carb meal in the old days. I didn’t think that much about it. Figured I was just tired. This lasted about 3-4 hours; then I started feeling good, again. I skip lunch. Dinner was pretty typical also- 1 can of tuna with mayo and a lot of cheese. The only difference I had a fairly small salad (really just lettuce with a little caesar dressing; and about a 1/4 cup of macadamias and almonds. I also had a few fat bombs for desert. I noticed I felt “off” the rest of the evening. Again, I didn’t think that much of it. I checked my BS and blood ketones before bed, like I usually do and found that I was kicked out of ketosis.

That surprised me- and made me wonder if I was able to feel that- being in and out of ketosis through the day. Also, made me wonder if it was possible those few changes to my diet could really have an impact like that- especially in light of CKD and TKD strategies.

Thanks.

(Consensus is Politics) #2

I went through a similar event. Nothing to do with exercise except for after the fact.

I ate a bit too much protein. There might also been upwards of 5 grams of carbs, but I work pretty hard trying to keep it as close to zero as possible (I’m a T2D).

I had begun to worry about eating too much protein, and by bedtime I really felt off. To me the feeling was analogous to the feeling of high blood pressure, like there was a pressure just under my skin pushing outward. I did at least 10 BP checks on two different devices, all were normal. I checked my BG twice, and it was 158! I immediately jumped on the stationary bike for 30 minutes (it might have been an hour) to see if I could dump some of that. I worked at the ride too. It wasn’t my usual pace, watching Netflix and sipping on water. Oh no, I was on a mission. I broke a sweat, which I don’t normally do on a daily ride. The BG dropped down into the 90’s. I felt much better, seeing the (to me) rapid drop of sugar. Note: it had been at least two hours after eating when I took the 158 readings. I felt better I think because it was ease of mind. I still had the very odd sensation something wasn’t right.

The next morning I expected my BG to be higher than normal for a morning reading, yet it was lower than ever for a morning reading. It was in the 80’s instead of the usual 115 (+/- 5). The strange sensation was gone.

I’m wondering if it was just a placebo effect, or Psycosomatic?

I’m not one that is normally swayed in that manner. Placebos never work on me. My ex would do that to me all the time. Give me something for pain, like aspirin when the pain was much higher than an aspirin could take care of. She’d always say, “look, I found one of those codine pills you had for your back pain before”, it never worked.

(John) #3

I tried TKD myself a couple times and felt the same, but was out on a bike so couldn’t test my BG (no ketone meter). Last week I wanted to try before the gym and had 35g of carbs, bun with my burger. Didn’t feel so great at the gym and when I got home I checked my BG was 236! Double checked to be sure. About 2 hours later before dinner I felt bad again and checked and this time 81. This is very typical of me pre-keto, chasing BG, spiking and crashing all day. My wife is keto as well and tolerates more carbs than I can, she had the same lunch and when mine was 236 hers was 89.
It’s been almost 18 months since I started and still have issues like this if I eat carbs, this is a lifestyle whether I like it or not.

#4

Thanks for the replies.

I got back in ketosis, easily today; and felt good. No added carbs today- lol!

I guess I’ll have to monitor; maybe try it again another time to see if it was real.