How to make sure I'm getting all the vitamins?

(Tárik Ng Dabbous) #1

So, I’m kinda lost. Some people say I should take supplements, others say I don’t.
How do I make sure I’m getting the minerals and vitamins enough from a keto diet? Can I find a week plan somewhere to what to eat? Cause that would help for begginers.
Thanks, everyone.

(Joey) #2

Excellent question - and quite understandable given the wide range of opinions on this topic.

My first inclination is to offer all kinds of advice based on my own research (tempered by my own concerns/issues). But that probably wouldn’t be truly helpful to you in your own situation.

Instead, I would suggest doing some legwork to see if any of the following vitamins/supplements might make sense for you …

  • Vitamin D3
  • Vitamin K2
  • Fish oil supplement
  • Electrolytes (NaCl and Mg) to support proper hydration

There are folks who strongly believe in taking (or refraining from taking) these and others, but I would start here and do some basic reading. There are some excellent resources available based on actual science, like

  • Dr Holick’s “Vitamin D Solution”
  • Dr. Dennis Goodman’s “Vitamin K2 - Missing Nutrient”
  • Dr. Kate Rheaume-Bleue’s “Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox”
  • Dr. James DiNicolantonio’s “The Salt Fix”

Every reference link provided in each of the above checked out to my personal satisfaction that their views are based on reasonably reliable peer-reviewed research - not marketing hype or quackery.

I acknowledge that there’s a lot to absorb. But it’ll be best for you to do your own legwork to decide what’s right for your situation, rather than have someone (like me) on the internet dispense specific guidance that may or may not be right for you and your concerns.

Best wishes! :vulcan_salute:

p.s. - Except for maintaining proper electrolytes right away, the rest of the supplements are for long-term health support and there’s no instant crisis that you must take any of them immediately. My wife and I take certain supplements above daily - but that’s only after doing the research to confirm it’s the right choice for us. Maintaining electrolytes when cutting out carbs is essential right away - so don’t skip that step today.

#3

I take a multi vitamin. Unless something shows up in my bloods to make me reconsider, I’ll just continue. On the whole my diet is pretty varied, but I also go on binges where I eat tons of eggs and bacon and little else, or chicken soup with veggies, or burgers, etc. Probably over time I cover the bases. In any case, I test yearly and so far it’s all good, so I’m sticking to it.

(Alec) #4

Anybody who tells you they know how many vitamins you need is lying. Even the RDAs calculated by some scientists a long time ago were estimates at best, and they were making it up at worst. The vitamins YOU need depends on a host of things, including what you eat. For example, if you eat a load of carbs, you will need a decent amount of Vitamin C from somewhere. If you don’t eat carbs, the amount of vitamin C you need is minuscule… why? Because carbs use the same uptake pathway as vitamin C… if you eat carbs, you need plenty of C to compete and get taken up by the body. This is why carnivores don’t get scurvy. They eat very very little vitamin C (there is a bit in meat, but not much), but we never get scurvy. Why? Because we get all the C we need from meat, but it’s a tiny amount compared to the RDA.

So, much depends on a variety of factors that are individual to you. So how do you know you are getting the right amount? Bottom line, you don’t. But one way you could have a go at finding out whether you are deficient in anything is to get some tests done and see if anything comes up abnormal (according to conventional medicine). Another more rough and ready test: do you get sick or ill quite easily/often? If you do have a lot of ailments, that (to me) is a sign that the body is not getting enough vits and mins.

One key point: humans through the last few 100,000s years were eating almost exclusively fatty meat… they didn’t have chemists to go pick up multivitamins… they survived and thrived without additional vitamins… so can we.

Not much help, I am afraid, but my 2 cents worth on this interesting question.

(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat ) #5

Really nice replies.
I hope they help out Tariik because they certainly help me.
It was a great question

#6

My opinion is pretty close to Alec’s.
I can’t take supplements as something in me is against it when I don’t feel I must. And I don’t feel it.
I eat enough meat, little carbs and hope for the best :wink: I don’t notice problems, of course it’s possible that I would be better with more of something… But I can’t have any idea about my needs as it’s individual, our diet changes it (see Vitamin C on carnivore. while I don’t do carnivore, I am usually close enough and my extras are low in Vitamin C enough that I eat super low Vitamin C and still didn’t get scurvy yet… or had any other sign something is amiss is that is a thing. other symptoms, I mean, of course we need some Vitamin C. but very little in the almost total absence of carbs as Vitamin C has a smaller role then and our need drops).
By the way, I wonder about Vitamin C a lot. As I cook the hell out of my meat most of the time. I even have carbier days (with very low Vitamin C intake). Still, no scurvy. The meat I eat must contain some Vitamin C despite the long cooking… As my eggs and dairy have none.

But I am aware that many people functions better with supplements. Maybe they didn’t find their ideal woe, maybe their need is bigger for some reason or whatever. Surely the ancient folks had problems too but their circumstances were wildly different anyway. Supplements may be overrated, many people think we simply must eat a bunch of it and big amounts, that’s wrong but I don’t think no supplement for everyone is right. Maybe on their ideal woe but maybe not even then.

We have our own dietary rules… I did vegetarian keto and had leg cramps (not too bad ones and nothing a few Mg pills a month couldn’t solve it but even that amount annoyed me, I really dislike supplements and tend to forget about them). I don’t have this problem on carnivore or close to it as long as I eat a decent amount of meat (my low-meat early carnivore-ish times were way better than my keto ones but not perfect regarding cramps).
As far as I know, I still eat way too little Magnesium for the official RDA but I still lost the problem.

If you worry or are curious, you may take tests after some time on your keto diet. And now too, that helps you to see what changes keto brings…

#7

Scurvy - NHS (www.nhs.uk)

#8

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(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

The first step is to eat real, whole food. That alone will solve most of your problems, because the vitamins that come naturally in food are often more bio-available than the vitamins added to fortify processed foods.

While I myself feel that a well-formulated ketogenic diet should, in most circumstances, not require supplements, I have no objections to people taking supplements who have a demonstrated need for them. For instance, my doctor wants me to take Vitamin D, so I do.

What I dislike is the “Oh, let me take a pill for that” mentality taught to us by Western medicine, and the concomitant idea that our body couldn’t possible manage to function properly without our being there to make it behave.

Also, there is all this research out there that suggests that X “might” have health benefits. Often it turns out to be false, and occasionally X turns out to be actively harmful. The reason is that the original idea comes from epidemiological research that notes a correlation between X and certain health outcomes. These ideas come from studies of few participants, and the effect sizes are generally very small.

Moreover, it is a statistical principle that you cannot claim that X “causes” the health effects from this study because such correlations are often the result of confounders not accounted for in the data analysis. Fortunately, the researchers and the press reports generally use words such as “might” or “could”, which tip us off to the fact that we are dealing with epidemiology here, and not a randomised, controlled study, which is the only way of actually confirming or rejecting the hypothesis.

(Tárik Ng Dabbous) #10

Thanks for all the replies. I guess just trying to eat a lot of green leaves, good fats and meat is a good way to go. And taking the electrolytes Sodium, potassium and Magnesium in the start. I read about some ketorades with light salt, normal salt and apple vinegar and lime. I guess that should help? Thank you all!

Btw, I only take Vit D and Omega 3 as supplements.

#11

I’ve read this statement on here a lot, but I’ve yet to see the scientific evidence to back it up. Can someone share?

Almost all mammals can synthesize their own vitamin C so they don’t need to get it through food. Only primates and I think Guinea pigs (maybe bats?) do not. I previously shared a study showing that Inuit on a traditional diet do in fact show signs of sub clinical scurvy and probably relied on seaweed in their traditional diet for vitamin C.

I track my vitamin and mineral intake using the cronometer app. I would rather up the carbs a bit than risk suboptimal intake.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #12

A study by Eric Verdin and his team shows that elevated insulin activates a gene complex that inhibits the body’s endogenous defences against oxidation, whereas β-hydroxybutyrate turns that gene complex back off, thus restoring our endogenous defences:

Shimazu, T., Hirschey, M. D., Newman, J., He, W., Shirakawa, K., Le Moan, N., Grueter, C. A., Lim, H., Saunders, L. R., Stevens, R. D., Newgard, C. B., Farese, R. V. Jr, de Cabo, R., Ulrich, S., Akassoglou, K., Verdin, E. (2013 Jan 11). “Suppression of oxidative stress by β-hydroxybutyrate, an endogenous histone deacetylase inhibitor.” Science, 339(6116), 211–4. DOI: 10.1126/science.1227166. PubMed PMID: 23223453. PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3735349.

#13

Vitamin C is more than just an anti-oxidant. It is also required for collagen synthesis, for example. I don’t see how this paper addresses vitamin C requirements in humans.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #14

I don’t think we really know what amount of Vitamin C we actually require. All the research was done on a population that was already eating a high-carb diet, and it’s clear already that people on a low-carb, high-fat keto diet need far less Vitamin C. One problem is that we don’t know how much people are actually getting, because it is assumed that the Vitamin C content of meat is 0 (zero).

The association between Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) and scurvy in medical thinking is the result of the British Board of Admiralty’s decision not to allow ships to return to port more frequently (so they could stock up on meat animals), but rather to solve the scurvy problem by shipping limes and lemons aboard ship (much easier to pack away in the hold, and much less messy, lol!). Allowing the sailors to get fresh meat from time to time would have also solved the problem, but not in a way that the Board of Admiralty felt met their needs. Scurvy stopped being a problem once onboard electrical generation and refrigerators allowed the stock of fresh meat to be plentiful aboard ship, regardless of the length of deployment (and also, ships are required to return to port more frequently to refuel, so two-year deployments out of sight of land are now a thing of the past).

All these things need to be taken into account, and we should not proceed on the basis of assumptions that might or might not be valid.

#15

I just go by what my body says. Lately a bit of lemon in my water really perks me up, so I’m making a habit of it - and I will continue to do so until that effect wears off.

I don’t really think that we need the exact same thing at all times, I don’t buy into any of that. I think that we are not only genetically very different from each other, but that also we ourselves go through changes.

I think that when we crave something (and I am not talking about addictive or habituated cravings), we need to pay attention.

#16

You supplement, the soil is near dead and you have no way to know what you’re actually getting from meat. You can do a micronutrients test, but if you’re not supplementing the common stuff we’re all deficient in to begin with, you’re wasting your money as you’ll be deficient in a ton of stuff. Get a good quality multi, supplement in the stuff we’re all horrible for like magnesium and Vit D, do that for a while and then if you wanted, do a micronutrients test and see where the shortfalls are.

(Robin) #17

Yes, we are full of co traditions here. As varied as as we are the same. Each of us tries to find what makes us feel better. I take some supplements… I have dropped some and added some… according to what I am going through or nw information. I may be wasting my money, but I’ll never know.

(B Creighton) #18

I find my personal keto approach to be very nutritious. I eat about a 1/2 pound of some kind of meat daily, cruciferous vegetables(and a few others), and some fruit (berries and avocados and sometimes red grapefruit). For example I buy frozen or previously frozen wild salmon individually shrink wrapped to minimize oxidation and that is going to provide vitamin D, DHA and EPA omega 3s, astaxanthin, etc. I will often eat it with asparagus, broccoli or cabbage steamed, buttered, and seasoned.
Another meal I enjoy is oven roasted lamb from Austalia I get at Costco. That means mostly likely grass fed. Yesterday I ate that with brussel sprouts, and today with broccoli. Very tasty.
I still supplement though, because I want to ensure I get what I need. Unfortunately, our modern farming methods have depleted our soils, so many people are now deficient in magnesium, etc, and the propensity to grain feed the animals we eat, has made our foods deficient in vitamin K2. So, to be more sure I supplement this vitamin as well. I take a whole food vitamin partial dose. Even with all this in the winters I supplement with 10,000 IUs of vitamin D3 daily as well to keep my vitamin D levels in the middle normal range. I just didn’t realize how important this was til blood testing showed at the rock bottom of nomal even by Thanksgiving - not even into winter. I haven’t had my past winter infections and sicknesses for several years now - except I did get Covid for 2.5 days with a very mild 2 symptoms which I barely noticed.

(Tárik Ng Dabbous) #19

Isn’t 10,000 IUs per day too much though? I take 1,000 IU per day

(B Creighton) #20

1,000 IUs is the US RDA. When my doctor told me to supp 10,000 IUs after I was tested at 30 - the very bottom of “normal,” I thought like you did, so I took 5,000 IUs instead. When I retested a month or so later I was only up to 31. It took 10,000 IUs to get to the middle of normal at 60 during the winter. We can easily make 10,000 IUs of vitamin D in just a half hour or so of full sun, which I did not know. But, where I live now I don’t get that sun in the winter. I would fall into the deficient range in the winter at 1,000 IUs. I don’t need it the rest of the year because I get sun, but in the winter, I take 10,000 IUs daily. That is largely November to March. So, it largely depends on how much sun you get and your ethnicity. The darker your skin the longer the sun exposure you need.