Hi. I started Keto 3 weeks ago and I have felt terrible the entire time. Headaches, naceous, fatigue, mood swings, brain fog, and anxiety. I am miserable but I told myself I would stick to this for a month so Im pushing through hoping for a miracle. I try to follow suggetions and things Ive read to the best of my ability but I am obviously missing something. I am trying my best to salt all my food even though i never really used salt much because i have high blood pressure. I just just ordered Liquid Iv to put in my water to help get my electrolytes up. I lost 4lbs my first week and havent lose any since. Its so strange though because I have noticed by late afternoon I start to feel better. Im afraid its my potassium but I try and eat avocado and veggies everyday. I drink about a gallon of water a day. It just so wild to me how some of my friends had no symptoms but im out here dying ready 2 throw the towel in. so please help.
Help...feeling terrible & ready to quit
Hi @JennyBeanz welcome to this forum.
If you literally drink a gallon of water you may be flushing electrolytes out of your system faster than you are putting them in. My only advice would be to make sure you are eating enough food and that you are not overdoing the vegetables.
How much weight do you hope to lose?
Thanks for your feedback. Im 158 (162 when i started) im looking to be 135ā¦id settle with 140 lol. Im really hoping once I get the liquid IV powder to put in my water, it will boost my electrolyte ā¦but I donāt no how much longer I can hold out.
Give us an example of what you eat over the course of a day or two and any supplements youāre taking as well as your stats, so we can get an idea what you SHOULD be eating/doing, activity level etc. On the liquid IV, you canāt drink a liquid IV, if you do I hope youāre already on the toilet with no where to go when you do it. After 3 weeks still feeling like that youāre probably just not eating right. Lite Salt is the best/easiest way to get the potassium in when your electrolytes wonāt stabilize. Youāre not going to eat enough avocados to fix that on itās on.
Drink to thirst only and add salt to your food. Gallon of water is insane and will be flushing electrolytes out faster than they can be replenished, thatās why youāre feeling crap.
Hey thanks. So normally for breakfast ill eat eggs w cheese a little bacon n sometimes advcado. lunch i will either have some lunchmeat n cheeseā¦or a cheeseburgerā¦hotdogā¦dinner chicken with veggieā¦meatballā¦sausage n pepperā¦snacks very little beef jerkey or almondsā¦sugar free jello. my activity level has been pretty bad latley cuz im so exhausted n feel so terrible since i started n lost my waitress job due to coronaā¦but have a 2 yr old n we go on walks as long as its not rainingā¦Im not taking any supplementsā¦do u suggest any? by stats do u mean my height n weight? if so 5ft 158
@JennyBeanz To get specific advice, you need to provide specific info. The more specific the better. How much of each are you eating? How many eggs? How large? Thereās a huge difference between a couple of small/medium and a couple of jumbos. How much cheese; bacon? What size avocado? āSome of thisā, a ālittle of thatā is not useful. How many and what specific vegetables are you eating? Do you weigh food portions? If not, how are you controlling your meals? Are you guestimating - what I call wishful thinking?
You also need to provide any info about health conditions you may have and/or have been treated for within a last couple of years. Any medications?
You have to help us help you. 
Ok so I will eat two medium size eggs with one slice of swiss or a small handful of mozzarella. sometimes half sometimes whole avocado n 5 strips of super then bacon. Veggies that i eat are asparagus, broccoli, mushrooms, zuchinniā¦i dont measure so maybe like half a cup. I think i mentionded in my orginal post that i have high blood.pressure i take mertroprophrol 25mg once a day
Listen to this podcast, it is likely to shock you but will help in the longterm.
My first guess: youāre eating too many carbs and drinking way too much water. If you donāt keep your carbs consistently sub-20 grams per day you will not be in ketosis or at best in/out, which is worse. Youāre not eating enough carbs to fuel your body and not burning enough ketones and fat to take up the slack. So youāre basically starving yourself. Get serious about carbs, which means you have to measure them, not guess. Measure by weight, not by how much you can stuff into a cup.
The water is flushing out your electrolytes. As noted previously, drink only when youāre thirsty, stop when youāre not. Donāt drink some arbitrary amount because you read somewhere that you need ālots of waterā¦ā
Finally, maybe youāve also made the mistake a lot of folks make when they start keto: cutting total calories. Weāve been bombarded all our lives to āeat less and move moreā. Keto cuts carbs not calories. A lot of stuff happens when you start keto and you have to give yourself sufficient fuel to let it happen. After a while you can play around with calorie control to fine tune your weight loss, but when starting out, just cut the carbs. The fewer the better. Replace the carbs with fat.
I am using this carb manager appā¦and according to that appā¦i am only consuming 20 net carbs a day
ā¦sometimes a little less sometimes little more.
Im just afraid that im not getting enough potassium and other vitamins n minerals n thats y im having all these symptoms. People say how is easy this diet is for themā¦ive been trying so hard 2 follow all.the suggestionsā¦and i feel like im getting nowhere. i apperciate your help and your time
It turns out that the water consumption weāve been led to believe is a malarky. Drink when you are thirsty.
Set to āMaintenanceā not āWeght Lossā if you havenāt done so.
I would recommend to almost everybody a (good) multivitamin, vitamin D, and magnesium assuming even a good multi wonāt give you enough seeing most of the population is deficient. Beyond that your diet dictates the rest. Are you eating meal amounts of that stuff? Iād recommend if you donāt already sign up for Cronometer and put everything in there and get a birds eye view of what your eating not only calorically but with the macro breakdown as well. Many times weāre not eating half as much / much more than we think. You may be eating way less and therefor slowly beating up your metabolism or possibly way to much for your metabolism and holding back that way. Very difficult to pinpoint without the numbers to take a look at.
UPDATE: Seeing youāre using carb manager what are you eating on average as far as fat and total calories? That thing set to sedentary activity?
So I was taking a Multivitaminā¦and it was making me extremely naceousā¦so now I take B12 and Dā¦Is Cronometer another app? The whole macro thing confuses me. Is it possible im getting to much protein snd not enough fatā¦and thats causing all these symptoms?
Hi Jennifer. Welcome to the forum.
Iām sure it feels like a long 3 weeks struggling through all those negative symptoms BUT you have come so far, I encourage you to keep going and push through. In the scheme of things, 3 weeks is still very early and if you previously had a high carb diet it may take longer for your body to adjust.
I agree that salt, potassium and electrolytes generally may be an issue. Donāt feel you need to exercise at all - the drive to exercise will come naturally once you are fully fat adapted.
The macros on carb manager are good enough for a start - you can adjust them later, if needed. But dont allow youself to feel deprived or hungry - if you feel hunger (as opposed to craving a partucular food) I suggest a butter sandwich - a slab of butter sandwiched between 2 slices of cheese (sounds yuk I personally love it).
It is not at all unusual to have a large initial drop followed by no loss for a few weeks - some people (like me 
) even gain a bit of weight (on the scales, at least).
Best of luck!
Donāt quit. If you need to cheat a little with some carbs, maybe thatās what you need to do, and taper them down as you start feeling better over a couple of weeks. Thatās what I did, and Iām down from 200 lbs to 180 lbs in 3 months. You will need to accept the struggle a bit, but donāt throw in the towel.