Downside/what else

(chad) #1

So I’m not downing anything. I’ve been doing keto for About 30 days. I’m down about 25 lbs from 350-325 and feel fine. I do intermittent fasting sometimes . My hunger has started to disappear and i feel like for the first time that this could work for me more long term. Me and my wife committed for 50 days before we make a decision on extending this longer or not

So my question is what are the downsides to eating this way? I’ve read a lot of post and articles on the benefits to this WOE but I feel like the negative things I’ve read are generally from biased people who hate or don’t agree with keto. So I’m looking for people who do and love keto and from y’alls experience what are the down sides. Hair loss? Pain? Vitamins minerals? Lack of something? Kidney or Gb Stones?

And if I continue to stay keto should I be supplementing things in my diet to help for anything I’m missing if so what.

How do i avoid what ever the downsides are.

Don’t know if I asked this right but any insight would be great

(Allie) #2

Not found any yet and it’s been over three years so far…

(TJ Borden) #3

Normally I back @Shortstuff 100%, but I have to disagree with her here. There are downsides, and we have a thread (linked below) where people have vented about some of them:

(Allie) #4

But these are all good downsides :joy:

#5

The answer to our question can be approached from many different angles. In general, there should be no nutritional deficiencies that arise from a well formulated HFLC diet.

Issue 1: Many of us tend to rely on a fairly narrow group of foods/recipes that account for the majority of our meals. Thus deficiencies can arise from not working hard enough to incorporate sufficient diversity.

Issue 2: Food quality matters. Just because something has no carbs doesn’t mean it’s nutritious. LC junk food is a real thing. Soil quality effects the amount of nutrients that vegetables are able to provide. Pesticides matter. Consuming high quality animal products is even more important.

Issue 3: The optimal diet depends on what the most important health issue you’re trying to address. ie. neuro health, anti cancer, metabolic derangement. Although all may be LC, implementation rightfully varies. So too would any potential side effects.

Issue 4: If by ketogenic diet, you mean maintaining a physiological state of ketosis over the course of years, that has not been studied extensively. There are lots of anodotal stores, mostly from folks who have a compelling medical condition, like unrefractory seizures, diabetes, or MS.

I think the biggest issue that most people isn’t nutritional deficiency, it’s long term adherence. It’s one thing to stick to something for 3 months or a even a year. It’s another to do it for the rest of your life.

(Jane) #6

I can eat this way the rest of my life, feel and look 10 years younger (I don’t dye my hair and I am wearing no makeup in my avatar pic and I don’t think I look like I will be turning 60 in a few months), have lots of energy and not a slave to my hunger.

8 months ago I looked my age - haggard, tired and hungry all the time.

Downsides? Yep. Society. Social events. Eating out. Can’t just order a “normal meal” off a menu - always have to ask for something special, substitutions, etc. Not insulting my kind neighbors by picking through the food on my plate.

Maintenance and fasting makes this much easier. I am not trying to lose so having too many carbs at a meal and knocking me out of ketosis and stalling my weight loss for 2 weeks isn’t a problem since I am not trying to lose. Any extra bump in weight comes off easy with some IF or EF and I am back into ketosis quickly and feel good again.

And if you are in it for the long haul, the above doesn’t matter either. Your weight loss will start again once you burn up the carbage you ate. Just some people get frustrated and give up.

#7

I would say the biggest downside is other people.

People with ignorant comments on keto, many well meant. Medical professionals who give advice, or dictate treatment, based on dogma. Peer pressure to eat something in a social setting. Finding foods at a typical gathering, even at restaurants.

Worrying about what the chef is doing to “safe” foods (i.e. IHOP’s pancake patter in the omelets, or artificial crab). Companies adding things to foods to make them sweeter or to change texture, even lying on their nutritional labels. How labels like “no sugar added”, “sugar free”, “made with cauliflower” don’t necessarily mean a product is keto-friendly.

#8

I agree with @Janie and @OgreZed that one of the major downsides I find is other people. If I was living alone and didn’t have to interact much with other people I could really take my WOE to the limits (and beyond) and experiment much more with extended fasts and things like zero carb. I live however with my wife and daughter and while they have been more than accommodating there are certainly times where I feel like my WOE applies a lot of pressure in social situations.

For example, it sort-of restricts where we can go out to eat as a family, as some places are really keto unfriendly (even living in the USA, land of menu customization), and that’s sometimes resulted in arguments and bad feelings. Even simple things like sitting with the family on a weekend morning after a busy week and not spending quality time together: they want to eat breakfast but you’re not hungry at all, planning to skip and IF. You could sit there and just have a coffee, but it can seem to others as selfish if you don’t join in eating simply because it’s such a social thing (and less about the food itself). In the past four months I had two occasions eating out with family/friends where I gave up even trying to enforce my macros at a meal because it felt like I was ruining things for everyone else.

After both times though it was super easy to IF the next day and get back right on. KCKO.

(chad) #9

Ok so I get the social issues of the keto diet. That part doesn’t really bother me because I’ll just skip the meal or do something to avoid the situation. I don’t work in a corporate type setting so I don’t really have lunch meetingsand stuff likethat. I dont have much in the way of family events either.

So besides the social stuff no one finds it hard to get certain vitamins or minerals in there diet? No one has any lack of nutrition that the need to take certain vitamins for. I don’t know muchabout nutrition so eating like this just worries me. I have high cholesterol and high blood pressure. Both I take meds for. I was pre diabetic. I haven’t been to the doc in several months. I plan on going to get a few tests done just to check my self out. I just feel like this diet is to good to be true.

I miss carbs sometimes but really enjoy being able to control my hunger. I’m just scared that this way of eating could be hurting me in some way that I won’t see coming till it’s to late

This feeling might be because I’ve been taught to eat so different for 33 years. I just want to hear the bad sides and I’m not hearing any lol. Just feels to good to be true

#10

I have had a different experience than most here. I do not care about meals out or what my family or friends think. I have no problem eating out provided we do not go to a pizza or chinese place. I do not worry about trace carbohydrates that the chef may put in my au poivre sauce or in my mushroom souffle. I went on vacation with my family in July and on two occasions was not interested in dinner and sat and drank water and chatted with everyone. It was particularly interesting to watch a carbaholic friend of my family grab every piece of bread and take the excess home (they were cool looking pretzel bread), While I had never met her before, she is a woman of 70 who had recently lost about 20 kilos restricting calories and fat and seemed to be keeping it from coming on again. As for insulting friends, people who are picky eaters never worry about that, it is only people who are or used to be heavy that would ever consider eating due to peer pressure.

I did have weird symptoms a year ago. Here is what I posted
https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/gout-yet-another-weird-symptom/16862

ACV finally helped that and every time my toe starts hurting I take ACV and it seems to go away

I do have to be careful to stay hydrated or I do start feeling UTI symptoms coming on (lets say after 48 of not drinking enough, I drink about 3 quarts a day normally. I also have gotten more colds in the last year than I ever have

Not about 2 months which is the longest stretch since I started keto 17 months ago buthere it is summer. As a result I am a little more paranoid about it, a relative is getting over the flu and I wanted to be nowhere near her recently. I am usually not the least bit worried about getting sick

While I play around with different supplements, there is nothing I take consistently

(Jane) #11

I am only 8 months in so not what I would consider long term.

I wasn’t taking any meds before keto and don’t take any now so nothing has changed in that regard.

My cholesterol has always been a little elevated (> 200) but my ratios have always been good so my doc scribbled “great labs!” on my blood work at 3 months on keto.

We’ll see what they are at 1 year, 3 months next Feb.

#12

Hi Chad,

I am in my 10th week now and I don’t see any downside for myself. My carb cravings are largely dissipated and I have also lost 25+ lbs. I have increased my activity level and my former knee/foot pain is GONE. My hair is not falling out. I guess 1 thing I have noticed is that my facial skin has been flaking and peeling, although it is less than it was. Along with that, I have had various cysts and what-nots on my face disappear. So I guess my skin is remodeling. The severe excema outbreaks that I was getting pre-keto are mostly gone, except for a few small spots. My really obese stomach has reduced by 50% and I know have a fat roll in my lower abdominal area that I didn’t have before, but that is also reducing. My biggest size fat clothes are too big and baggy and I have to bag them and donate them to Goodwill.

Agree w/ @Baytowvin that the Keto Complaint Dept thread has a lot of great complaints! :grin:

(mole person) #13

There have been two major downsides for me. First, I’m a year and a half into it and I’m still struggling with some constipation issues, though these are sloooowly improving. Second, my energy levels are so high that I quite frequently have nights where I sleep very little. Sometimes as little as 3 hrs, though 5 hrs is more common.

However, on the plus side of the equation. I feel 20 years younger energy wise. My mood, never particularly poor, is now just high on life all the time. I look better. I’m doing things I used to love but thought I’d got too old for a decade ago because they’d started to seem just physically too taxing…and I’m doing them all the time now. My undiagnosed abdominal pains, which had been terrible enough to require narcotic pain relief, are almost entirely gone (as are the drugs, Hallelujah!) . Same with my migraines. My skin is better than it’s been my entire life. I recover from workouts in half the time. I haven’t been sick since I started (although that could just be luck, I’ve always had a decent immune system). And finally, I have complete control over my weight again.

If all of this is what comes of poor nutrition than may I have some more poor nutrition, please. :wink:

#14

FANTASTIC!

I second that!