Hello! New to this forum, looking for feedback please : )

(Allie) #22

I’m sure Paul with fill in the science, but it’s basically because on keto the body doesn’t hold onto fluid like it does when someone eats carbs and the electrolytes are stored in the fluid. Because they’re essential to survival, this means on keto we have to replenish them as the body doesn’t store them as much.

#23

It is sodium, a tablespoon of salt contains about 5g sodium.
We may or may not need that much, it depends. Some of us don’t raise our original modest sodium intake or don’t eat any sodium on fasting days because our body work in such mysterious ways… But many people need more sodium than before, apparently.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #24

A recent study on human appetite found that the correlation between food intake and metabolic expenditure is not very close from day to day, but over seven or eight days, they match with great precision. So I don’t worry about fluctuations in my appetite, and my weight is stable.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #25

A couple of recent studies showed that people are healthiest at 4-6 g/day of sodium, which is 10-15 g of table salt (sodium chloride), or 2-3 U.S. teaspoons. This includes sodium/salt already in food.

My guideline is how I feel. If I am constipated and getting migraines, I know I need more salt. If my stools are too loose, I cut back a bit.

A.A. maintains that even the worst alcoholic in the world can go 24 hours without a drink. The key is not to swear off for ever, but to abstain one day at a time. Or even five minutes at a time, if necessary. Support from a group like this helps, too.

Elevated insulin diminishes the rate of excretion of sodium by the kidneys. Lowering insulin by eating less carbohydrate will permit the kidneys to return to the normal, faster rate of excretion. Getting enough salt helps the body hang on to its supplies of calcium, magnesium, and potassium, because the regulatory mechanisms are all interlinked.

(Marianne) #26

Agreed; that was my experience as well after the first several weeks. Like you, this was a natural progression resulting from eating appropriately and feeling satiated. That benefit still amazes me. I listen to my body and eat when I need to and don’t when I don’t.

Most days, I still eat within an 18-hour window. I was mainly referring to doing a 24-hour fast or longer. It wasn’t that I couldn’t comfortably, I just didn’t like the feeling of not eating for that long. For me, having a meal provided a degree of emotional sustenance, I guess, which I wanted to support. One benefit of being on plan so long has been that I have learned to take better care of myself, physically and emotionally. I am not going to do things any longer that are counterproductive to me - weighing myself, long-term fasting, counting calories, etc.

(Marty) #27

I wouldn’t worry too much about your fat intake.

As for the cramps: my guess is electrolytes. I take 400mg of magnesium bisglycinate a day, calcium citrate (I think around 800mg), and potassium citrate (maybe 2g?). Just play around with the dosages. Maybe try Thai massage, too, and a stretching regimen.

#28

Out of interest do you think having a coffee (decaff) with a teaspoon of butter in it during the fasting window un-does any good one may get from the fasting? Fat doesn’t spike insulin but Im never sure if its counterproductive.

This sounds great, so important and thanks for the reminder too. I got on the scales a few weeks ago for the first time in months and was delighted to discover how much weight i’d lost but it then triggered something in me and I started to get a bit obsessed about weight loss again and lose sight of all the other benefits I was experiencing.

(Allie) #29

Depends on your reason for fasting, it’s been discussed a lot on here.

(Marianne) #30

I am not an expert on fasting, however, it seems it is very individual. People do it to varying degrees. Some consume nothing and have only water, others modify that a bit and eat during a set window, and some I’m sure, eat nothing but maybe have a little butter in their hot beverage like you are talking about. I say go for it. There are no hard and fast rules to doing it “perfectly,” and why deny yourself something so harmless (a tsp. of butter) that gives you some pleasure and doesn’t elicit an insulin response.

Loved this - exactly! That is why, to me, the scale is the devil. It is so counterproductive. I get weighed at the doctor’s every 3-4 months and that is enough. It feels so good to not think about my weight. As long as I am eating clean and following my plan, my body knows and will self regulate where it needs to be.

(Robin) #31

@Cinders… same. Seeing the numbers triggers my old crazy thinking and I want to start starving myself to see lower numbers. NUMBERS!
RIDICULOUS

#32

Meanwhile I always said I am fine with this weight - if my extra fat miraculously becomes muscle in
a way that I get some balanced musculature :smiley: It may be not even outside of possibilities just unlikely… (The muscles for a woman with my stats, not the miraculous sudden change.)
Never cared about weight. I cared about these fat rolls in my middle. (I never was very fat though.)

I used to weigh myself every day while losing fat, I didn’t want to miss a day with a smaller number :smiley: Bigger numbers didn’t phase me much but my weight is super stable anyway, that why it’s informative to me who can’t measure myself (I measure something twice, inches differences easily. I am soft, I can get squeezed in the middle very much :D).
I stopped weighing myself when the number stopped changing. I am always the same weight in the morning. Or if sometimes not, it’s a very tiny difference. So why bother. I have fitting clothes I can use to see if something happens.

So weighing myself isn’t my problem. Unable to stop tracking more like (I do stop as I need it for my sanity but it’s a tiny break and then I resume. I am curious. And it’s just a bit annoying if I eat very simple. But I get numbers :smiley: I like numbers.)

(Allie) #33

Me too. I’ve always gone through phases of weighing myself and phases of ignoring the scales, but am now focused of muscle gain rather than fat loss so was weighing myself to keep track on my progress. I was telling myself it was just for monitoring and that I wouldn’t take any notice of the numbers, and I meant it and did OK as the scale went up gradually to a 4lbs gain… then I caught myself, slipping back into old thinking about needing to restrict food again, it wasn’t even conscious at first but must have been bubbling away for some months until I finally got consciously aware of it and made myself stop weighing again.

(Rebecca ) #34

I have done the same thing in the past…let the scale dictate my emotions, food etc. I let my clothes be my guide now. I have my annual check with my Dr in 2 weeks and despise them having to weigh me. I turn around backwards and swear them to secrecy!:flushed:

#35

I’m brand new here and haven’t written in a forum for…well a long long time. Forgive me if I do something wrong.
Re; distilled water. I changed to distilled water a year ago as I realized no filter removed fluoride or medications or dozens of substances in water. I bought jugs at first then bought a distiller and drink it plain. Have for a year.
If you’ve used a tds tester you can see tap water has a lot of dissolved solids. My tap is 365 to 425 ppm, the higher number with hot water. To my amazement my fancy water pitcher only took it down to 330. I make 1-2 gallons distilled a day and drink it and rinse hair with it and water plants with it. Mites and gnats disappeared on plants. TDS in distilled is zero.
On to the mineral thing. I’m sure you’ve heard if you’ve read or listen to distilled water discussions that water is not where you get minerals. You get minerals from food. Clean water is very important. After drinking this delicious water I started craving eggs, avocados (love them! ) plain Greek yogurt with berries, steak pork chops and ribs(didn’t need sauce. Delicious cooked on wood fire at park) and broccoli. I love veggies. I loved them as a child but really loved them fresh when I got older not in cans like our family ate. I melted cheese on eggs and sometimes put a little salsa on them. I now realize I was eating keto. Except when I hit the Ben and Jerry’s or got poor for awhile and was forced to eat cheap pasta baked goods and malto meal.:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: My point? I believe distilled water reset something and made me crave the right foods. I would just drink plain distilled water, which is rain water minus all the pollution, Magnesium is easy to get and calcium from eating food. Minerals need to come from living things. You can’t suck on a nail for iron.
Sorry. I got started and couldn’t stop the rant.
Nice to talk to you though. :slight_smile:

(Geoffrey) #36

I would disagree with this on the fact that in testing my well water it showed that I had 29 ppm of minerals in my water. So much so that we had to put in a water softening and filtration system in our house. The water tasted great but the minerals were clogging everything up and we were going through a new coffee maker every 30 days.
It’s also a well known fact that out foods no longer have very many minerals it it due to the abhorrent practice of mono-crop farming. The natural minerals have been depleted from the soils.
It is widely believed that our ancestors received their minerals from drinking natural stream water because they ate very little plant food.
If you are eating Redmond’s Real Salt or any mined pink salt you are getting minerals. Dissolve some in water some time and you’ll see the the minerals that are left over at the bottom of the glass. Do we absorb those minerals? I don’t know for sure but they are getting into our bodies.

And even though this thread is two years old I’ll comment on the fat issue in that you’ll know if your eating too much fat simply by how often you need to go to the bathroom. Your body will only absorb so much fat and when it’s had too much it will expel it out in the form of very loose stools.

#37

I wonder how much fat one needs to eat for that (and how individual it is. very, I suppose). Just simply overeating fat (a bit all the time or very much for 1-2 days… I try to minimize fat since ages so I don’t have experience with, like, 200-300g fat longer term) does absolutely nothing noticeable in my case. Loose stool happens only on higher-carb (still healthy but I prefer my carnivore ghost wipe :stuck_out_tongue: ). To me, I mean, of course people’s experience vary a lot. If I eat twice of my already more than enough fat intake once or twice, nothing happens (unless I eat several times my carb intake too, that changes a lot of things).

(Geoffrey) #38

I suppose you are correct. I haven’t experienced it but I have constipation issues that more fat doesn’t seem to work on. According to Dr. Chaffee an over abundance of fat will simply be expelled through diarrhea.

(Bob M) #39

If that’s true, there goes the CICO (calories-in; calories out) idea, at least to the extent you’ll never know how many calories you’re expelling.

When I tried eating a high fat diet, I can’t remember whether I had more diarrhea or not.

#40

CICO still apply but normal people just gain fat when overeating fat I suppose (when metabolism quickening and other such things aren’t enough). We know it happens to some people though most of us just don’t overeat to the necessary extent without carbs… I never worry about fat gain on keto as I don’t overeat enough there and a little just triggers my metabolism quickening, the same that happens on higher-carb. I doubt my body just throws out fat (or protein as I easily overeat that too) but it is a possibility, apparently, at least for some people. It must be individual, it seems quite odd to throw out precious energy… Even though metabolism quickening results in the same… I wonder if that has any use. I definitely don’t get extra energy or notice anything, never get extra warmth either. Maybe some people get something out of it. My body just gets the memo famine has very slim chances, hopefully :smiley:

#41

I do agree our soil is depleted. Meat and nuts come to mind when I think of minerals. Animals eat the plants and do the processing to make the marginally absorbable minerals in plants more bioavailable. I generally think of plants as the “other nutrients” factories.
From what I understand, your body can’t easily if at all absorb inorganic minerals. This is why years ago supplement manufacturers started making minerals in more bioavailable forms like calcium citrate instead of oxide. You’ll notice health sites recommending certain forms over others. This is why. They come closer to those from living organisms not mineral deposits in rock.
The worst part is that those inorganic minerals have to be removed from your body and if you are ingesting more than the body can excrete it will then deposit them in joints, arteries. or anywhere it can. I can’t remember the exact quote or what doctor said it but paraphrased: To find a reason for aging, look to the water one drinks.
Distilled water isn’t bound up with all the junk other water is. This makes it a super magnet for all the junk that needs to be removed from our bodies.
Thank you Geezy for replying. I didn’t take note of how old this thread was. I don’t use forums anymore.