Hi everyone
I felt great on the first 2 days of Keto, but today has been really tough. I feel like my legs are weighted, faint nausea and misery, and this electrolyte drink is DISGUSTING. It’s Musashi Electrolyte (watermelon) and I can’t abide it.
It’s important for me to continue though, I’m currently 250lb and staring diabetes, high blood pressure and NAFLD in the face. I’m nearly 47 and have been feeling like living death for far too long.
Any advice for me?
47F 250lb/ 5’6’’
Your symptoms are called Keto Flu, keto flu happens at the beginning transition stage of your Keto journey, it lasts usually 5 days or months, it varies to individual, as I know, most people only need a week to pass this phase. I took around 4 days to feel good at the beginning.
First of all, you need to let us know what you eat every day, because you need to make sure you do it right.
Don’t use flavoured electrolytes if you hate the taste. Just add salt and take magnesium supplements. If you think there are any other minerals or trace elements which would help you, check the composition of the electrolyte package and buy the ingredients in separately to make your own.
Oh my, just like Polly said, don’t drink stuff you hate. I personally hate salted water so I never drink it 
Not like I ever need supplementing sodium but if I do and it must be salt itself, I just eat the salt I needed a little extra magnesium on vegetarian keto, I took pills there, no bad taste.
My guess was keto flu too… I didn’t have it myself but I am very okay with lower than usual sodium intake.
As far as I know, keto flu isn’t mandatory so get your electrolytes!
I am curious how you eat as one can make mistakes there too…
Drink plenty of water. It’s really important to stay hydrated. Make sure you are taking a good magnesium supplement and getting enough salt and potassium. I actually take all my supplements with a sugar-free electrolyte drink. I use one by Dr Berg because it is the only one I found that has 1000 mg of potassium in it and I needed that. It gives me good energy too. I recently ran out before my next delivery arrived so I tried a few packets by one called IQ Mix and was surprised that it tasted good too, but it had less potassium so it’s just for when I run out to get me through a day.
I was in the same boat as you. I am only 5’2” but had just peaked at 200 lbs, which is pretty bad for my height. I was miserable. I think I was 198 the day I actually started Keto. I now am down to 156. I did it slowly over a 2 year period so that it would be sustainable. It has been worth every step of the way for how much better I feel. I’m never going back. I still have 20-25 lbs to go but feel fantastic. I felt fantastic the first month I did Keto. I didn’t lose right away either. As a matter of fact I only lost 1.5 lbs by the end of my first full month. And I think only 4-6 lbs by the end of month two. There was no big drop of water weight for me so it was frustrating at first. My body had a lot of healing to do. But I was off all medications by the end of that second month, that’s how good I felt.
I would get Keto flu one day a week only, for about the first 4 weeks. I would just lay down on those days. Pamper yourself. Stay hydrated. Let your body do its inner repairs that it will need to do by giving it the rest it needs. Don’t give up. Things take time at first and you have to give it a chance. There is a lot of great information here about the beginning days that really helped me get off the ground. Read read read. The more you understand the easier it will be. Ask any questions anytime. There are a lot of really knowledgeable and helpful people here. Best of luck to you.
Not everyone has a big one. I lost 2kg/4lbs of water weight in my first 7 weeks until fat adaptation and no fat… Not like I ever lost fat on keto, of course, it’s me (there are reasons it’s very hard for me to get an energy deficit) but even my water weight was small. But I was a middle ages short woman without water retention problems at 69kg (67 without the extra water), how could I have lose a ton of water? 
And even those water weight changes went away later.
It wasn’t frustrating to me but I was used to stalling on low-carb AND I did feel this is the right direction. And I barely got any benefits, I just felt I need to do it. The big changes came with carnivore. I wrote “chances” instead of “changes” first but yep, those too 
The keto style we start with may not be our final woe. But for some lucky ones, it may be. Maybe with natural little changes for reasons.
My first keto trial was a failure, by the way. I was too close to my high-carb times and my body couldn’t handle it, I felt horrible and quit almost immediately (I don’t do hard things and I was fine with my low-carb, I just couldn’t lose fat anymore). But when I was ready to do it, it went well, no keto flu or anything though I had a tiny weakness/dizziness around day 4-5, just like when I fasted for 5 days with zero sodium (just subtler)… My electrolyte knowledge came later. I just never met that info before 
I imagine it’s always harder if one comes from a diet very different from keto… But even after low-carb (years and I didn’t feel restricted), there were certain hardships. But we totally should eliminate keto flu at least.
thanks for the responses everyone!
I have dropped carbs to below 20g a day.
Fats around 70% of calories.
Foods eaten in no particular order: eggs, butter, cream, milk (in tea only), low carb bread (2g per slice), nuts especially macadamias, salmon, chicken, mettwurst, bacon, broccoli, spinach, cheese, coffee (one cup with cream only), strawberries, raspberries, blueberries (less than 80g each day for berries) heart salt (the stuff with potassium as well as sodium).
I’ve bought some milk thistle, magnesium and probiotics too, will start taking tonight to help with sleep, digestion and liver function.
The food looks okay, how much do you eat? Many people tend to undereat on keto, at least in the beginning… And we may have our specific needs for the macros… I have this with protein but I am just hungry if I don’t eat my minimum amount and eat more.
I was tracking the first couple of days, calories around 1500-1600. Didn’t track today, felt too awful and couldn’t be bothered.
And make sure to get plenty of fats in the beginning. That’s what helps with appetite by giving good satiety. You will just use it as a lever after a while but in the beginning it’s important to get a lot of it. Do you like beef at all? Beef and pork are great for a good balance of protein and fat. Nice fatty steaks and roasts and chops. Over time the only steak I enjoy now has become the ribeye. I had NY strip last night and it’s just so inferior. LOL I never knew that before Keto!
Your food looks good, just make sure to eat enough.
When I first started with keto, I felt somewhat nauseated too. Back in the old days, I would soothe my stomach with sugar or starch when I felt that way, and suddenly I couldn’t do that. (or to put it another way, back in the old days my constant intake of sugar and starch probably protected me from feeling nauseated, and suddenly that carb supply was gone.)
I’m not exactly sure how things changed, but about 2 months in I realized 1. I wasn’t feeling that nausea any more, and 2. my mind wasn’t reaching for carbs if I did feel it.
I don’t have any great advice for soothing nausea on keto while you’re adapting. I did find that drinking a bit of vinegar in water sometimes helped (I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but it can help the muscles at the top of the stomach tighten so the stomach acid isn’t coming up.)
Congratulations on the first steps, and sorry if it’s rocky going for a while. I wish you great success, for me it’s been an amazing change once I got used to it!
We definitely need enough to get our energy - but too much (even if the calories aren’t too high) may cause problems too. I only had that on carnivore, I just couldn’t eat my usual 65% fat, I got nauseous (me! eating a little fat, I could handle twice as much just not without my plants) so I had to drop it for a while (what was it, 3 days? I can adapt quickly ). It’s easier on keto with vegs and other filler items but maybe it’s different for people coming from low-carb…? 
As the fat content may drastically raise, even in grams, not (just) in volume as I had it on carnivore.
If one can’t handle a high enough percentage of fat, eating more protein for a while (or ever if it’s not too much) may work. Or may not, protein usually satiates people quite well.
Welcome!
Lots of questions here about what/how you’re doing it. My first thought is possibly that you aren’t eating enough. In the beginning, I ate three meals a day and had a butter coffee with my breakfast. It carried me through the adjustment phase more than comfortably and removed my cravings for carbage and prevented “keto flu.”
This is a journey that you will continue for a while. Feed your body clean food (one ingredient, generally - okay if you combine them, but nothing processed). Stay hydrated, but if you find the electrolyte drink really offputting, I’d stop it. I happen to love salt, and I make up for it pretty much by salting my food liberally. Drink plain water if you can, no artificial sweeteners. I am 5’7" and started at 230, 60 years old when I started. I would say I dropped all my weight (70 lbs.) within 8 months, and I loved what I was eating the entire time.
Good luck, and bring your questions here. We want to hear about your journey.
Just make sure you are eating enough to feel satisfied. Your meals should carry you comfortably from one meal to the next without having to snack. Enjoy feeding yourself, especially in the beginning. If you are hungry, weak and miserable, you won’t feel like continuing. Believe it or not, if you eat well for 4-6 weeks, you body will realize that you are going to feed it amply and regularly. Most likely, you will start feeling that you can easily cut out one of your meals without any issue whatsoever. It will be a natural progression, not something you have to consciously “try” to do.
Hang in there!
The key is cutting the carbohydrate, so your insulin will drop, which will let your body start metabolising fat. Put enough salt on your food, and you won’t need electrolytes.
NAFLD should resolve fairly quickly after you cut out sugar and alcohol from your diet. Sugar, ethanol, and branched-chain amino acids are all metabolised in the liver, by the same metabolic pathway. This pathway is easily overwhelmed, and when it gets overwhelmed, fat begins to accumulate in the liver. It doesn’t matter whether the FLD is caused by alcohol or not, it’s still FLD.
Give yourself plenty of time on keto before you start thinking it doesn’t work. It’s not a quick fix, it is a new way of life. For one thing, it takes around two months or so to adapt to the new metabolic regime, even though we enter ketosis almost immediately. (And even though fatty liver disease also resolves quickly.)
Keep your carb intake very low, and then eat enough fat and protein to satisfy your hunger. Do not skimp on calories, and do not fear fat. As long as your carb intake is low enough to keep insulin from interfering, you will lose fat. You might even put on some muscle, and your bones might grow stronger, too. So keep calm, and keto on!