Can sleep apnea patients follow keto diet

(Marie Andre) #1

Hello, I’m Mary. Since I have sleep apnea, I use a CPAP machine to help me sleep. Since I started experiencing pcod troubles three months ago, I have put on a lot of weight. I wish to resume my regular life at this point. I already experience enough sleep apnea issues. I’ve heard that following a ketogenic diet is challenging. However, I genuinely want to lose weight. Please, could you assist me with this?

(Joey) #2

Welcome @Mariesays! You’ve come to the right place.

A good corner of this forum to start out with might be here…

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/c/newbies/getting-started/l/top

There are lots of good resources in various categories (find them at the top of your screen) to suit your most pressing immediate interests. Hope this helps get you started. :vulcan_salute:

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #3

There’s no reason you can’t cut back on sugar, starches, and grains, even if you have sleep apnea. If you cut your carb intake low enough, your insulin will drop and you will be able to shed excess fat. Insulin is the major hormone causing the body to store fat, and carb intake is what really drives insulin secretion.

In fact, many people have found that their sleep apnea improved on keto, and not just because they lost fat. Lowering insulin helps reduce systemic inflammation, which is also part of the problem behind sleep apnea.

Be sure to check out that thread Joey linked to. It has lots of good information.

#4

PCOD? Polycystic Ovarian Disease? I am not a doctor so I would speak with your primary care physician, gynecologist and even an endocrinologist before beginning any change to your eating.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #5

PCOS in women, and erectile dysfunction in men, are some of the main symptoms of metabolic dysfunction, also known as insulin-resistance. So cutting the carbohydrate is very important, in order to lower insulin sufficiently. If the OP is of child-bearing age, she will need to be careful, because she might find herself pregnant as a result of the healing keto can bring. There used to be jokes about this among the younger women on the forums, when I joined a few years ago.

(Robin) #6

There is EVERY reason to go keto. My husband was on a cpap and when he went keto for a year, he no longer needed it.

Unfortunately he slowly started adding carbs back in until he was back to his regular crappy food and once again needs it.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

Time for my favourite Andreas Eenfeldt quotation: “Keto is like showering. If you stop doing them, you lose the benefits. Life is unfair like that.”

(Allie) #8

It isn’t, honestly, and will be very good for you.
We will support you and guide you.

#9

It depends. It shouldn’t be for most people, actually, at least not after some time. The beginning may be harder. It depends how addicted one is to their carbs (addiction isn’t good so one should lose that), what other restrictions there are (with very many other restrictions it may be tricky. I never would try vegan keto, that’s hardcore)… The very beginning may be hard as the old recipes won’t work and there are no new ones yet but if one likes simple meat with vegs, that helps, I did vegetarian keto and that was trickier but I already did paleo and low-carb so it wasn’t such a big jump. I actually had “what on earth could I eat?!” moments on paleo in the very beginning… But again, I had no meat. It’s so much easier with meat. WAY easier.

But it’s individual, some people can’t stop eating carbs, keto is not hard but impossible for them.

DON’T believe it’s unsustainable just because people not doing it say so. Try it first. Maybe it will be moderately easy and motivating. When I went low-carb, I immediately knew there is no way back so I figured out how to eat. It wasn’t hard for me but it wasn’t keto yet. Keto was impossibly hard back then but later it went smoothly (I just missed my vegs but even that didn’t make it hard to do it for some months). Many people have it way easier right out of high-carb then I did.