Keep breaking keto on and off for a year. Advice on how to stick to keto better? I have bought KetoMojo. I have decided to go keto for health issues. However, i find it very difficult to stay on keto.Especially since once symptoms gets worse i am effectively knocked out and spend all day and the following night in sleep.With symptoms i really do not want to eat or drink anything, have to force myself after that i get really hungry and if my willpower is not high enough stuff myself with carbs. Seems like long term carbs make my symptoms worse i swell up, get constipated and get cramps, but not always so its confusing. The doctors have not been able to diagnose exactly what it is. The typical answer i get is - It is not x. and then nothing. Also i am in decent shape i run, lift weights when feeling good. my body fat is around 14%. So i do not need to lose weight. Either way i have seen benefits on keto and my purpose here is to keep myself on keto for long enough. Any advice, help?
Keep breaking keto on and off for a year. any advice on how to stay on keto better?
Do you mind identifying your health issues?
The only way I know to stop going on and off ketoā¦. Is to stay the course. Sounds so obvious, it seems like a rude answer. But itās not. The only way to get past what you are feeling is to stay strict for however long it takes.
Hopes this makes sense.
In my experience, people who donāt feel well when starting, experience āketoā flu or are hungry are not eating enough. Iām not really one for tracking, but I did loosely in the beginning until I had a repertoire of what I could eat and what to do with those foods. Iād get your macros and loosely keep to the fat and protein macro. Donāt count or be concerned with calories! Eat three meals a day until you naturally donāt want to, and donāt snack. If you canāt sustain that without hunger or craving, increase the amount you are eating at each meal. Your consumption should be able to carry you to your next meal comfortably without hunger or anxiety about what/when you are going to eat next.
At that BMI and weight, you need to fuel your body! Iām thinking your metabolism must be pretty high as well as your intake requirements with the exercise. Eat - and donāt worry about what and how much you are eating, as long as you are soothed and satiated by your keto foods. Eat clean keto food - natural foods only, whether thatās an animal, fish or out of the ground. Get enough salt. Do this for several weeks and see what happens. You can always adjust if you want to.
Good luck! Please keep us posted.
Iāve been doing on/off keto since quite a few years now and probably will continue to do soā¦ But it doesnāt mean I donāt want to do it better, with less and shorter off times. I am actually improving but only since I tried carnivore. Meat helps (I did vegetarian keto before) 
My attitude helps too. I automatically, almost always train myself. No force, no self control or willpower, thatās not my thing but I strengthen my new and better habits. Itās slow but one can change a lot. Why would I eat a lot of carbs? Thatās not nice for me. Okay it happens sometimes but way, way, way less often than before and to a less extent too. And I keep my normal food, I just add extras. Some people seem to jump carbs on off days, it sounds super weird to me. (Even if I go insane and do it myself. That makes no sense.)
Sometimes one can figure out what is the mistake after then one is doomed without using self control and willpower. Sometimes we can avoid the mistake and all is well. Like eating too early and without a need in my case, it makes things way harder.
And keeping my carbs extremely low helps tremendously as well. But I needed to keep them high-ish before to avoid quitting, things change.
I donāt know enough to tell you where your problem liesā¦ You get hungry, fine but WHY you eat carbs then? I only do that when I have not enough nice proper food when I get hungry and even then, I obviously eat fatty protein as nothing else satiate me, I just add carbs too if I donāt have enough, not like that is a good idea but hungry me is not necessarily a very intellectual beast when robbed of good options. Planning often helps. And the mentioned training.
So, what are your problem to stick to keto? You surely have your nice keto items, why they arenāt a good option when hungry? Not available at the moments? Plan better. Not tempting enough? Maybe find something better and use variety? The carbs come and being irresistible? I am familiar with that and it took ages to make it a smallish problem only.
I just donāt know enough.
@DidzisZ The advice from @gingersmommy sounds spot on to my ears.
Am curious ā¦ What are the ābenefitsā youāve seen on keto? Are these benefits you have experienced yourself in the past - and how did you get to the point where you enjoyed such benefits?
Swelling of the gut, hard pebble like constipation, spasm of rectum. Spasms of multiple muscles toes, hamstring, back muscles and neck muscles. It comes and goes when it comes blood circulation is hampered. not the best cognition or willpower at that point. Multiple tests done mr of head and neck, colonoscopy, neurography all comes goodā¦ Quite Extensive Blood work- some inflammatory markers elevated some of the time. There is detected slight dysfunction of bowel muscles. So no clue.
If you feel better on a low-carb, high-fat, ketogenic diet, then cling to that when tempted by carbohydrate. If the carb cravings are really difficult to deal with, try some of the techniques that A.A. teaches for staying away from alcohol.
The key to the A.A. approach is to take things a day at a time. So, for example, one would not swear off carbs for ever, but only for right now. Tomorrow I can have all the glazed doughnuts I want, but today, Iāll abstain. Or on a really bad day, Iāll have the doughnuts in five minutes, just not right in this moment.
First thing you do is stop worrying about being ākicked outā of ketosis, who cares? When you do eat carbs, you burn them off and go back in. Not a huge deal, unless youāre going on multi-day benders, eating 1000g of carbs and taking a week to undo it.
I think people that claim they donāt have willpower donāt grasp what willpower is, itās not some magical ability to not do something forever, itās the ability to get over the terrible torture of what you want to do, the suffering is normal. Yes, there are freaks that can just go forever, thatās not normal. Normal people eat off plan sometimes, people who eat high carb low fat sometimes eat TONS of fat in a meal, difference is they donāt torture themselves about it, they just move on. With Keto thereās a guilt thatās built in, get rid of that. Eat on plan as good as you can, and when you screw up, you screw up.
Right now Iām waiting about an hour or so until my wife and son get back from swim lessons, so since I need the protein anyways and my go-to is to eat the house, Iāve have a whey shake with ice, almond milk and some xantham gum to thicken it up like a 10 scoop milkshake, itāll be about 150 cals, and fill me up like I just ate a mountain of food, once it whips up it literally fills the entire blender. Do stuff like that. If you can get through that and still want crap, eat the crap and move on.
Also, are you tracking what you eat? Most people sabotage themselves right from the beginning from under eating, or being under hydrated which usually shows itās face as hunger even though itās not. Make sure those are taken care of as well.
Given that fat loss isnāt a priority, and that you lift, why not to TKD? Get carbs in around your workouts, benefit from having more muscle glycogen, satisfy your brains want for some carbs, but burn them back off the right way and not have them hanging around to store as fat. Best thing I did physique and gym performance wise. You still get all the benefits of keto that way and it may be the little you need.
Elevated energy levels and relaxed muscles(thus better cognition) for multiple days straight. Hmm the planning worked for the time.
Thanks for the answer some very useful stuff here. Havenāt used much variety. That could help.
Has anyone mentioned magnesium yet? I have muscle cramps foot, leg, etc without taking extra. I add the powder to a big glass of water at bedtime. Mag also helps with constipation (small hard stools) and even helps with sleep. All of the above are issues for me, without my magnesium citrate powder.
This happens to me when I have not had enough salt. What is your electrolyte intake?
For me this happens regularly on any diet, on keto it seems to happen seldom. I make sure to add plenty salt one on keto.
So, I will propose you are failing the psychological game.
Dr. Boz (Keto Continuum), talks about finding your WHY!
Tony Robbins talks about this as well. If you have a big enough WHY, the HOW becomes obvious!
This game is as much physical as it is psychological. Think about how getting to the gym. You need to start by making LEAVING the gym FEELING BETTER the goal. Not the workout intensity, etc. Once you master getting to, and leaving the gym. You can muck with the workouts and do optimizations. But work too hard in the beginning, and you end up too sore to think about coming back.
So, with this. I can read in your paragraph a LACK of WHYā¦ A strong conviction.
Come up with your list of WHYs. For example, I donāt know your weightā¦ But if you think maintaining yourself gets EASIER when you get older. Iāve got BAD news for you! LOL.
Maybe it involves being an example to others you care about in your life? Maybe you want to elliminate the inflammation (because you know that can lead to cardiovascular issues if it is raising your BP, like it does mine).
Itās your job to find a MOTIVATING WHY. Link it to your health, and longevity.
Then remember that your job is to NOT go so long without food that you cannot make good decisions (which is just an excuse). My recommendation, is just ONE TIME, get that hungry. And then GET VERY BUSY. Go for a walk, a run, whatever. FORCE YOURSELF to spend 45 minutes. And notice the hunger is gone. Hunger is just a warning signalā¦ That if you FAIL to eat in the next 30 minutesā¦ Your body will be forced to DIGEST BELLY FAT.
Psychology again. There is what happensā¦ There is the meaning we assign to it.
I wish you luck. Find your why! State your desires. The first time you can push through strong hunger, and just keep goingā¦ You have PROOF it has ZERO control over you, and if it takes you 45 minutes to COOK a FRESH KETO MEALā¦ Then you know you can do it!
And just typing this has made me hungryā¦ Although It is ātime to eatā, I need to throw some burgers in the ovenā¦ No reason to not be carnivore for meā¦ Itās just a signalā¦ And if I can hold out a bit, I could use the loss of BELLY FATā¦ LOL
Have you been eating cabbage with your keto meat meals?
I have, usually lambās liver, onions, red or whatever cabbage, pancetta and mushrooms- people on here can tell you, itās my favourite dish which I try to have once a week.
Last two times? Bloody hell. The stomach cramps and constipation. Straining.
I had to lie down after taking some senokot and hope for the best.
Back on the pot I literally thought I was going to prolapse I was straining that hard with no joy.
Never as relieved when that passed. Sorry for the colourful discription, but that hurt.
Then it happened again a week later, only not as bad. Again after the same meal.
Iāve started to get a bit worried, in case there was a blockage caused by bowel cancer, but then again Iāve been fine since.
I probably just need to chew the cabbage better rather than wolfing it into me like I normally do (I love it, the way i have it steamed the sauted with garlic olive oil and butter).
Maybe worth seeing your GP again.
I find that, these days, when I get constipated, itās because I havenāt kept my salt intake up. So, to my way of thinking, your problem might not have been the cabbage. On the other hand, stomach cramps are not a symptom of low salt, and I tend to get them only when Iāve indulged in a carby treat that I really should have stayed away from, which argues that perhaps the cabbage was the culprit. In any case, itās wise to thoroughly chew our food.
Yeah, I think I OD on the cabbage. Plus I usually cook enough so that I can wolf more into me the next day.
Itās only happened twice, but that was alarming.
Carly was trying to kick the toilet door down after hearing my groans of pain, bless her.
i usually use salt though, and occasionally remember to sprinkle the ālow saltā that contains Kā¦but I sometimes take K and Mg supplements anywayā¦ 