Having a ridiculous day = Refeeding

#1

Refeeding today because I don’t know what is wrong. Everything just feels off.

I started IF 18:6 around 2.5 weeks ago. I have been strict keto. I have taken electrolytes, Himalayan salt + supplements + increased spinach/kale/mushroom intake for potassium. I have increased calories (to 1200) as recommended in previous threads and reduced protein ( to <80g). Getting 7 hours sleep on average. I do have some stress due to multiple assessments and exams this month (decided to get a degree at this “young” age of 35 by distance learning). I stopped excercising 1st of August to focus on this and have been quite sedentary since. I also finished my period on the 2nd and it was quite short but pain free (which is unusual)

I am constantly dizzy…and somehow also have vertigo. I am retaining about 10lbs of water and certainly gaining rather than losing weight. Resting heart rate is down one minute and high the next.

My body does not like something I’m doing and I don’t think it’s been this bad since I started keto in February.

I stopped IF this morning with the goal of just refeeding to maybe 30g of carbs today with the hopes of confusing and resetting my body. So far, had almonds, cashew nuts, spinach, kale, chicken, lemon water breast and I have some peanut cookies baking in the oven (made from pure peanut butter, defatted coconut flour, butter, sweetner and almond flour). I have decided on no supplements or Himalayan salt or any electrolyte crap today because I really don’t know if it’s making me better or worse.

I don’t know what is wrong but I do want it over. It’s been days like this. I’ll be back to keto tomorrow, I hope. Just had enough for today. Sigh.

(Susan) #2

Download Cronometer.com it is free. You can then put your age, current weight, etc on there, and it will help you sort your macros -so you will see how many fats, proteins, carbs and calories you are getting.

Basic Keto should be 20 grams or less of carbs, (the 30 you suggested is way too high). NO Sugar, adequate proteins and healthy fats, water and electrolytes, salt, magnesium, potasium.

The peanut butter, almonds, and cashews are making you ill, they are all high carbs and are used more for maintenance, not while trying to do strict keto and lose weight. No wonder you are feeling sick, you re really confusing your body =(. If you get the cronometer and type in all the foods, you will be surprised. If you don’t keep your carbs to 20 grams or less you will not be in Ketosis.

If you don’t stay Keto, and do this:

you are confusing your body, and will for sure be feeling lousy. You cannot jump in and out of keto and expect your body to feel well… you need to commit and stay on track =). Good luck.

#3

Thanks Susan. I’ll try downloading that but I have been doing keto since Feb and I am pretty much aware what my macros should be exactly.

If you read my post again, you will see that I did not say I have been consuming nuts, sweetners, peanut butters etc prior to today. I said I was expericing these horrible symptoms despite being strict keto, going as far as omitting sweetners and nuts, even on IF. I don’t even like peanut butter, but I need to do something and strict keto is not making me better.

My point is that despite staying on my macros, getting my electrolytes, avoiding sweetners, avoiding nuts, supplementing, keeping it strictly keto…I still have all of the symptoms described in my post

I know Keto is a WOE but what’s the point of I am doing all that is required but still feel like I am going to pass out any minute. I am certain that is not an intended benefit of this WOE.

I am saying that I don’t know why this is happening and I have to try something else for today so I don’t pass out.

The only reason I am introducing them today is because clearly the strict keto/IF is not working (from just a pure health perspective) for me, for today. Again, I don’t know why it’s not working, it just isn’t. I don’t want to spend my day with the room spinning around me because I have to remain strict keto.

I am just trying something else today which is upping my carbs, which may or may not kick me out of ketosis for a few days but if a reset stops the dizziness and vertigo and water retention…I’ll take it. I have three exams in the next two weeks and dizziness really gets in the way of any meaning studying…another reason this is frustrating as keto was supposed to help with focus/concentration etc.

How I felt up until this morning is contrary to all the benefits keto was supposed to give.

Not giving up, but after doing all the “right things” to no success (I am referring to the dizziness, fluctuating heart rate, overall unwell feeling and vertigo here specifically) I need to do something different today. If it works great, if not, I’ll be back to normal keto eating tomorrow. People have done unplanned refeeds on less healthy foods and still managed to go back into keto. If it works, I’ll be elated - I just need to feel somewhat close to normal again.

(Susan) #4

Ohh =(( I am sorry. I used to have vertigo, etc when my blood pressure was high. Maybe you should go to the hospital or doctors office and actually get checked.

If it doesn’t resolve itself by tomorrow, I think maybe you need to get seen by a doctor though. I hope that it works for you, doing this reset. Good luck.

#5

Thanks Susan.

I just used the OMRON blood plessure monitor. My Systolic is 115 and the Diastolic is 76. My heart rate is 86.

I got the chart below from the heart association website and it seems my BP is normal-ish (although not as low as it should be) My heart rate is 86. This morning it was 65 and it fluctuates like that even when I am just sedentary and studying.

blood%20pressure%20readings%20chart

I don’t know, I know this refeed is not what Keto is about but I just can’t do one more day of doing everything right while feeling absolutely crap. I am trying to see if this will at least change something, but not by eating pizza and ice cream…rather upping carbs slightly to 30 using things that could have been keto friendly and trying to get my electrolytes through food because the salts/supplements just don’t seems to be making things better.

(Susan) #6

If you cannot figure it out, I still think maybe you should see a doctor is all. Take care =).

#7

Your blood pressure is perfect but it seems like you might be really sensitive to heart rate variability. There’s a few things that can contribute to this but I recommend getting your potassium and calcium levels checked. I would caution against using potassium but you might benefit from sodium and magnesium still. These won’t cause the symptoms you’ve mentioned.

As far as the carbs go, we all have different thresholds- I know everyone says 20 to be safe, but I played around with testing both ketones and glucose and my blood registers ketones above 0.8 and glucose less than 100 even when I go up to 30-40g- I don’t go that high every day, but honestly it’s helped me stick to the diet and avoid the pizza, donuts, ice cream etc that i see at work all the time

(John) #8

Through experimentation, I have learned that I feel and function better when I keep carbs a bit higher than the generally recommended 20 grams, but not TOO high to where it triggers more hunger signaling and snacking.

Rather than have some daily macro targets that I try to hit every single day, I eat fairly inconsistently. Some days are higher carbs, some lower. Some days more food, some less.

When I eat higher carbs, it is still “keto” foods, just more of them. Not bread, cookies, and pasta. But berries, walnuts and plain unsweetened yogurt, bigger servings of broccoli and salads - that sort of thing.

As long as you don’t slip into a binge or total backslide mode, upping carbs to see if that makes you feel better is not the end of the world. You can always reduce them again later.

#9

Thanks, I am definitely thinking of dropping by the doctors I think the most confusing thing most of all for me is the electrolytes. I have tried to use the various recipes, tried to make sure I am getting potassium from foods so that it’s not pure supplementation, I even use multivitamins. Tried not to go above the potassium limits etc It’s just hit or miss, especially over the past few days, doing all these things did nothing to help.

Your reasoning about the carbs is why I decided to go slightly higher today. I have been on IF for a short time and sometimes barely getting 10g of carbs. Maybe that pushed it over the edge, I don’t know. I think I am just in a fight or flight response stage at the moment and I’m just trying to see if slightly upped carbs for a day will bring some relief without completing sabotaging my WOE.

I mean, the cupboard at home is full of KitKats and Ferrora Richer chocolates and that’s not even up for consideration. I don’t even want them. I just want to feel good/better again.

#10

Thanks John.

Yes, that’s what I’m trying to accomplish. I don’t intend to go over 30g eating keto type foods for today only. I am making everything I am eating today myself, no junk food as cheating is not the point. I just want my body to focus on something else and hope that brings relief to my current symptoms.

Tomorrow, wether or not I see immediate result, I’ll KCKO and hope that it does.

#11

What are you using as a limit? The RDA recommendations have always seemed too high for me and it’s the balance between sodium and potassium that will cause your body to retain water in different places. The body tightly regulates sodium and potassium in the blood , so if either of these levels show up out of range of a blood test it will be long after you notice side effects like palpitations.

#12

Hi Carol,

Yes, I agree that the 4500mg limit is very high and I have personally just kept to using supplemets/salt to achieving 1000mg and then getting anything between 1000-2000 fr diet (I eat spinach, kale, mushrooms, drink raw cocoa powder, and off course things like egg, meat etc have the odd 100mg here and there)

In my initial keto months, I wasn’t even supplementing this hard and I was fine. I had a supplement that gave me like 400mg potassium, 200mg Sodium and 200mg magnesium. I only put some table salt ocassionally in water to drink back then etc and I definitely felt better then than I do now. Which is bizzare, because I increased the salts and added IF etc to get additional benefits from my Keto Journey. It’s done the opposite somehow.

That’s why I am only using that supplement that I used to use for the next 3 days. Maybe my body just has an excess and needs time to regulate things. Then I’ll gradually add back 500mg of sodium/potassium until I find a balance that’s right. Maybe that will do the trick - I guess I’ll have to wait and see. Right now, even my face is bloated like a balloon (slight exaggeration but I am retaining water facially), but I’ll take that over the other horrible symptoms. It’s just ridiculous.

(Bob M) #13

I do something similar. I often have very low carb (basically zero) meals, but if I feel I need carbs for some reason, I’ll add in some fresh salsa (which, oddly, causes zero blood sugar rise according to my CGM), maybe tomato, onion, more pickles, etc. Sometimes, yogurt + 85% chocolate, some dried coconut. (I have to watch yogurt, as I almost always overeat it.) So, not a huge change, but slightly more carbs.

(John) #15

Exactly the opposite for me. I feel much better when I make sure to include moderate quantities of vegetables, than I do when I go near zero carb.

I think it really is an individual journey for each person to figure out what does and does not work for them.

(Bob M) #16

I’ve found that veggies are problematic at times. For instance, spinach is very high in oxalates. Kale is inedible to me. I love cooked mushrooms, but don’t eat them much. For reasons unrelated to their carb content, I’ve reduced my vegetable intake.

#17

I know I used to eat Spinach quite a bit when I started keto. I only added kale in the past few months. I think I’ll remove kale first if need be as things seemed to be fine in the earlier months when I was mostly spinach.

I have eaten quite a bit of mushrooms during my IF over the past few weeks. More than i’d normally have so perhaps that needs to go for now. It’s one of the reason I felt I couldn’t be low on potassium as I was getting quite a lot from it.

I think like KetoFitTrek said, we may well all have different tolerances to these veggies. Which unfortunately makes it difficult to learn from what other people do

Anyway, I’ll go back to what used to work / give me no problems, which was moderate spinach. Maybe I’ll add back small amounts of kale/mushrooms back again in the future.

For now, I’m just all about going back to what was basic for me. No IF, no excessive supplements, well salted food, potassium from food, herbal teas and just trying to be less stressed about it all.

(PSackmann) #18

@JustMo, have you considered increasing your protein a bit? Not everyone does best on reduced protein, some of us have higher needs than other. Also, could you be retaining fluid because your period isn’t really over, just paused?

#19

I think the period is over because that sticky cervical thing indicating the start of another ovulation cycle is out. My period has always been short but it was shorter this time, but it ended like a week ago. I have read IF affect period hormones but who knows.

Protein wise, I have tried to stick to that 1g/kg of body weight thing. When I workout (stopped briefly at the start of the month), I may take more but now that I don’t workout at the moment, I am usually around or just below that target. I don’t really understand the protein connection with my symptoms so don’t really know if to go up/down to improve my symptoms or if it’s not connected at all to what is going on.

(PSackmann) #20

Not an expert here, it’s just one of the things you mentioned, that you had reduced calories and protein right before the symptoms started. Dr. Jason Fung, who isn’t a big proponent of lots of protein, suggests a range of .8 to 1.5 g/kg, so it won’t hurt to see if your body prefers more protein than you’re giving it.