Has Keto failed me?

#1

For most of my adult life my serum cholesterol hovered around 5.0. I began Keto at the end of August. My serum cholesterol at that time was 6.8mmol/L. Fast-forward three months of Keto diet and my cholesterol is now 7.6mmol/L.

The Doctor called me. She knows about the low carb diet and said it had obvious health benefits. She also said that 7.8 probably wasn’t too much to worry about given that I’m healthy for 57 years and I don’t smoke or drink and do plenty of exercise. She suggested reducing the fats and increasing the protein or coming in for a chat about how to reduce cholesterol through diet. I declined the diet advice.

I have lost some belly fat, I’ve gone down one belt size, which is great. My ‘fitted’ shirts fit me again. I’m fitter and stronger than before due to going to the gym regularly, and my keto diet has been the fuel for that.

The blood tests are disappointing.

I’ve had a few other struggles.

A week ago I took a train to the city center, a 25 minute trip. I suddenly felt really exhausted and fell asleep, which is very unusual for me. When I got to the station I could hardly walk. I grabbed a carby snack from a nearby shop (flapjack) and felt better after about 10 minutes, probably due to the sugar rush. That was only the second time I’d eaten sugar since I started keto!

I’ve had a lot more night cramps and at yoga since doing keto. I’ve started taking magnesium supplements and this seems to be working.

I’m writing this post to ask for guidance. I wonder if the Doc is correct about upping the protein and cutting back the fats? My meals are large but I do eat a lot of veggies. I use lard for cooking, usually 2 or 3 times per day.

Any suggestions anyone?

#2

Regarding cramping and exhaustion etc, are you keeping hydrated and upping your salt intake?

In regards to cholesterol, some similar questions and maybe some helpful answers can be found in this thread- https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/lab-results-really-bad-please-help/6666

#3

My son, who is into Keto and fitness etc, suggested I drink a lot more than I do.
I’ll check-out the link. Thanks.

#4

Another helpful link here- https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/high-ldl-cholesterol-watch-this-before-worrying-thomas-delauer/37704

(Omar) #5

is it like just one occurrence?

or you continued to feel tired.

#6

Generally I feel good. It was a one-off occurrence. I was surprised though by how quickly I felt better after eating carb. I wondered if there would have been a keto alternative.

(Carl Keller) #7

I’m no expert in regards to cholesterol but I’ve been reading/watching a lot of videos about it and the tentative conclusion I have realized is that total cholesterol is not a good indicator of risk for heart disease, contrary to what most doctors were taught and willl tell you. This is evidenced by studies that show people with less than 200 total cholesterol die of heart disease just as much as people with greater than 200 total cholesterol.

What I have found is that the ratio for Triglycerides to HDL is much more important than total and that total and LDL cholesterol were cherrypicked as most important to support the sale of statin medication. I’ve noticed this has been re-iterated in numerous articles and videos.

i am definitely not an expert in this field and neither is the man in the video below, but he is pretty good at putting what I am trying to say in layman terms. Also, the title is deceiving and is this guy’s standard MO in producing ketogenic videos. I encourage you to do your own research on this subject and form your own conclusions.

(Bunny) #8

You could eat lots and lots of processed sugar and high carbohydrates and lose 200 pounds through different satiating signal pathways causing you to eat less, problem is your still doing ketosis and would still end up with the same kind of purported damage that supposedly a low carb high fat diet is supposed to cause; so that does NOT benefit the persons point making the above video as to the cause of said “permanent damage!”

So what are the factors; level of adiposity? or unknown or not considered micronutrient deficiencies that are water soluble and once abundant in the food providing a constant equlibrium of now lost but vital nutrients?

Packaged foods?

Not even considering going on a Ketogenic diet; if a person were to just eat organic:

  1. Cycling Raw fruit (irregardless of sugar content)

  2. Cycling Raw vegetables

  3. Cycling types of protein; marine and animal fats consumed. Protein cycling; protein every other day or every third day and so on etc…

  4. Raw milk

Note: all these foods are being eaten separately not together in one meal, but let’s say three times a day!

Untouched from being processed in any way shape or form whatsoever and could strictly adhere to the above (highly unlikely), I wonder what would happen?

It would be the equivalent of what we call “intermittent fasting?” But your still eating?

This is how I eat (my definition of OMAD) with the exception of brewers yeast, nutritional yeast, chia seeds, powdered wheat grass and to make up for the lost nutrients in the ground soil; organic sulfur or MSM.

Each one of these foods is going to be processed differently by the body and effect different hormones and trying to eat them all at the same time confuses the body and gives what is termed as “over-eating” a whole different meaning!

#9

I know that this was mentioned above, but it’s salt (and magnesium and potassium) that will help you retain the water you’re drinking. Drinking lots of water will just tend to flush them out more, so if low electrolytes is the reason for your fatigue episode drinking more water without supplementing salt* will only make it worse.

*Sodium seems to help us retain the others, so for many folks just supplementing with salt does the trick.

#10

Hi @Madeleine I am quite new to keto. I read a while back about the need for 3.5g of potassium per day. That’s huge. I’ve sought-out potassium rich foods ever since. A couple of days ago I started taking a magnesium supplement because I was getting a lot of night time leg cramps (bloody painful they were). So far, so good. I’ll see in yoga this evening if they help with foot cramp!

#11

One good piece of news from my blood results is that Triglycerides dropped from 2.25mmol/L to 1.84. That’s positive, right?

One lesson I will take away is to be a bit more careful about what I am eating. I take a relaxed view to keto - if my keto pee strip shows within the scale, I keep on doing what I’m doing. However, it seems like a tweak or two might be useful, though now I’ve looked at some videos I’m not bothered about the results as I was yesterday.

#12

Be careful with potassium! It’s a tricky one to get right, and too much is dangerous (though you should be fine with whole food sources).
Sodium is the main one for Keto folks, and many of us take more in addition to generously salting our food.

(Todd Allen) #13

Swapping in monounsaturated fats like olive and avocado oils for saturated fats works for some to lower LDL.

Although LDL is called bad cholesterol due to the association with heart disease risk it has plenty of positive roles . What we refer to as cholesterol is actually the lipoproteins which transport a variety of lipids and lipid related compounds and not just cholesterol. Cholesterol has useful functions such as creating myelin the essential insulating layer of neurons and is a substrate for many hormones and vitamin D. The lipoproteins transport phospholipids an essential component of for cellular membranes and some organelles. They transport important fat soluble vitamins such as vitamin E. Lipoproteins play a role in the immune system and neutralizing endotoxins.

High LDL doesn’t by itself cause heart disease as there are people with extremely high LDL and no heart disease. It is likely that having stable normal blood sugar and low markers of chronic inflammation are good signs of reduced risk from high LDL. Having larger LDL particles (and lower total particle count) and a lower ratio of LDL to HDL are associated with reduced risk.

(Edith) #14

I think @ChrisW is on to something. You need about 2 teaspoons of salt at day and 2-3 liters of water a day on keto.

I learned my lesson with the salt. I had gotten lazy with the salt supplementing and developed terrible cramps that moved throughout my body. It was actually a little scary. As soon as I upped my salt they went away.

I also had trouble with heart palpitations. The doctor said I needed 2-3 liters of water a day with keto and when I upped my water intake, the majority of the palpitations went away.

It looks like your blood levels of triglycerides are certainly going in the right direction. So, it does look like keto is working for you. Now, you just need some tweaking.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #16

Muscle cramps can be the result of a potassium deficiency. Not a good thing when the muscle in question is the heart, as Dr. Phinney points out! But keeping sodium at 5 g/day (that’s 12.5 g of table salt) helps keep potassium and magnesium regulated, so it’s good all round.

As far as cholesterol is concerned, there is no real science to back up the idea that it is a risk factor for heart disease, or even a reliable marker for risk. Yes cholesterol is present in arterial plaque, but so are fire trucks at fires—does that mean we should try to get rid of them? People often bring up the matter of familial hypercholesterolemia, but only about half the people with that condition develop heart trouble. The rest live perfectly normal lives, never have heart problems, and die at perfectly normal ages of something else. The people with FH who do develop cardiovascular problems are the ones with variants of fibrinogen and clotting factor VIII that make their blood much more likely to clot.

In a recent lecture, David Diamond, a neurophysiologist at South Florida University, said that he and his colleague, Uffe Ravnskov, have come to the conclusion that clotting abnormalities are probably the true cause of cardiovascular disease (probably exacerbated by high levels of glucose and insulin from the standard American diet). In particular, Prof. Diamond feels, a key cause of damage to the coronary arteries is likely to be clotting in the vasa vasorum, the blood vessel that supplies the coronary arteries (they are so big that they need their own blood supply, apparently). Clots in the smaller branches of the vasa vasorum cause arterial damage, and plaque as a response to that damage. I don’t know if he’s actually proved this yet, but it is a plausible mechanistic argument in favor of his position.

In any case, don’t worry about cholesterol until you’ve been keto for at least six months. By then, the numbers are likely to have improved.

#17

Thanks for all the supportive and informative replies everyone.

I am now taking a magnesium supplement and the night time cramps have gone. I still got them at yoga though I think this is more a physical issue in the sense that I’m sat down mostly all day and my body isn’t used to the demands of yoga. I recently made myself a stand-up desk.

Re magnesium, this is good - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6qk9GlKFL0

I’ve made a list of potassium rich foods. I couldn’t find any supplements that provided more than what I can easily get from an avocado, so I didn’t bother. 3.5g per day is a challenge - roughly 4 avocados!

One tweak I will make is to eat less. I love this diet from the taste perspective and I very often push through the satiety boundary! That’s unnecessary. After Christmas I might look into intermittent fasting, not for weight loss but for the autophagy benefits.

I’ve found that people ask me about my diet. I never prompt these conversations, but something will trigger the subject of food, for example I was at a business meeting and when the sandwiches came out at lunch time, I only ate what was between the bread, which caused instant questioning. It seems a lot of people are suffering from health issues that are mentioned often in videos by e.g. Doctor Boz and Dr Eric Berg (two youtube channels I watch).

(Running from stupidity) #18

Dr Boz is good, despite the unfortunate name…

(Todd Allen) #19

Potassium chloride such as in salt substitute products such as LoSalt and Lite Salt is a reasonable source of additional potassium and while more expensive than conventional salt it is cheap compared to most supplements. I use it more as an addition rather than as a salt substitute.

(Chris) #20

Check it out. @DaveKeto is a very unbiased guy and has uncovered a lot of great information without trying to force it as fact or medical advice. TL;DR you’re probably fine.