Hi there! I’m new here, and I’ve been living a Ketogenic lifestyle for about 8 months. I started eating this way after being a vegetarian for about a year. I gained a good bit of weight, and I was miserable. So I decided to make a change! I lost the 20 or so pounds I gained over the last 8 months. I’m started pretty strict, and stayed that way for a while. I cheated some here and there, but went back to being strict. Anyways just recently out of the blue my stomach is extremely bloated. It’s quite annoying. I have changed nothing in my diet. I literally look 6 months pregnant. And it’s like it gets worse everyday. I’ve always been healthy, I see my doctor regularly. There’s nothing at all out of whack. I have absolutely no idea what this could be. Does anyone have any experience with this or any recommendations of a supplement that helps with bloat. I would truly appreciate any information.
Extreme Bloating
What are you eating? Intolerances can happen at any time without anything being changed.
My diet consists of eggs, chicken, steak, bacon, cheese, fresh vegetables and salads. It’s super simple. I also drink coffee black. And water is my only other drink. Sometimes I make a keto desert or dough, but other than that I eat fairly simple and I’m typically happy like that.
This page has a great symptom list - you might want to see if you fit the list.
First one is “Sudden onset of bloating and excess gassiness (either belching, flatulence or both). As in, you can pinpoint the day in which things went from fine to bad.”
https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/2014/03/25/sibo-a-four-letter-word-for-bloating
Eggs are a culprit for many people, veg for many others. Really you could do with keeping a diary of both foods and symptoms so you can look for connections, also try and remove one thing at a time for a few weeks each to see your symptoms change. Not a fast process which is why many people jump into carnivore rather than trying to figure out the actual cause, then carefully and slowly add back one thing at a time to see if the trigger(s) can be identified.
Have you had anything medical recently such as a abdominal surgery or anything requiring antibiotics?
To answer…kids /pool yes very healthy. No surgeries and I don’t even have noticeable gas. The only dairy I eat is eggs, sometimes cheese but not a lot. I do eat a serving of veggies at least once a day. And thank you for the links and videos I’m going to watch them and look into doing some research. I can’t even explain how much this is bothering me. I’m 5’7, thin build. 145 lbs. 2 weeks ago my stomach was flat, normal. I could lose another ten lbs comfortably but I’ve been happy with my weight. I love this lifestyle. I have so much energy and feel fantastic. This bloating though is making me literally crazy. If it doesn’t stop, I will have to see my doctor about it. I just found it strange that all of a sudden it appeared. As a precaution I took pregnancy tests even though my tubes are tied. All negative.
I’m assuming your have all of your lady parts if you took a test. They can be the cause of a bloated appearance, if something is wrong. You are having healthy poops and don’t have gas, so may be it’s not even in your intestines. I hope it resolves, but a trip to the doctor might be your best bet.
What sort of dough? Until I went keto I didn’t realize I was gluten intolerant, wheat used to really bloat me. Now I avoid anything with wheat in it. Probably best to try eliminating a few things to find the culprit.
The dough is made with cream cheese, mozzarella, egg and almond flour. I only make it once a month though. For keto style pizza.
Nothing obvious there unless you have a dairy intolerance. If that was me I’d be gradually eliminating certain food groups to see what difference it makes without them. That’s how I discovered I was gluten intolerant.
Right, dairy has never given me any problems. I’m going to figure this out some how. I suppose I’ll give it a week, maybe cut out dairy and see if that helps. If not perhaps I’ll talk to my doctor about it. I liked the video though, they suggest pink Himalayan salt is definitely the most valuable salt. As well as watch the broccoli and cabbage. One main thing I noticed is how artificial sweeteners can have negative effects. I may eliminate using them all together if the week of dairy free has zero effects.
Great thing is there’s not many things to test when your eating habits are already simple.
What’s obvious to me is that you may well have an enzyme imbalance throughout the entire 30 some feet of your GI tract, which is creating stagnation. You mentioned you were veg the year before - so switching to animal-based proteins is a huge shift for the gut, in addition to possible longer term microbiome imbalances and intolerances which are common. Another possibility is a fungus like Candida, which is also common and requires its own sort of cleanse regimen.
Highly recommend an enzyme pre-cursor/proenzyme protocol (I managed my gut/hormone needs with Ginger capsules supplemention, one cap per meal, for over 6 months whilst restoring my enzymatic health - and now I just take one most days). It’s great for gut circulation and for moving excess gas. Or, full on isolated enzymes like from pig, papaya, pineapple. The lab enzyme supplements can become a dependency though, and they’re more expensive.
If enzymatic approaches don’t help, you may want to check out a Candida protocol. Ketosis in a certain range can actually feed the systemic growth of Candida - and aiming for the ‘keto cusp’ with a bit less fat (or less of certain kinds of fats, depending on the person) and a bit more carbs can create more agility for healing according the Drs. Eades (in their classis LCHF/keto book Protein Power), and others including Ricki Heller PhD, interviewed here:
https://www.healthfulpursuit.com/2016/05/what-eating-keto-does-to-candida/
Another angle - if you’re like most people in industrial culture and have a history as a sugar-burner plus several series of antibiotics in childhood or adulthood - is in focusing on restoring the good bacteria in the large intestine which are often crashed out in numbers. One can do this by utilizing resistant starches, which stay intact all the way to the location where these bacteria live, and which they eat! Once these good bacteria populations in the large intestine are thriving they produce TONS of butyrate, way more than what we get from butter - and butyrate has additional benefits for the brain and healing in general due to boosting brain-deriveed neurotrophic facter BDNF. There are 4 kinds of RS, with specific prep techiniques, I use chilled and refried basmati white rice - and try to take it at least a few times a week - it does wonders for my BDNF boosting and mental outlook. I learned a lot about this from the pharmacologist Dr. Grace Liu’s work, and also microbiologist Norm Robillard’s work.
Our cellular bodies are mostly bacteria (over 90%, more here: https://mpkb.org/home/pathogenesis/microbiota ), and the microbiome balance changes about 20 minutes after eating anything - it’s an ongoing adventure!
Hope this helps! 
Thanks for all the great information! I’ll definitely do some research on it!! I truly appreciate it:)