I kicked arthritic pain to the curb by stopping all grains and taking glucosamine chondroitin. I had pain since as far back as I could remember, often I could barely type/walk. Doing those two things made it stop. I glucosamine usage at age 50, I am now 73. If I do slip up and indulge in grains I will get pains. Going keto has really helped with that issue.
All the best sorting yourself out and welcome to the forums.
Hi @monte1, welcome to the forum! Many thoughts on reading your posting, some have been spoken to in the replies you have gotten so far.
When I started eating very, very low carb 6 months ago the 1st major issue I encountered was having everything I thought I knew about nutrition and losing weight turned on it’s head. The more I read and researched the more I discovered how wrong most of the advice and “knowledge” is. So, as much as is possible, try to put everything you have heard and think you know aside. It’s quite likely it will get in your way.
How are you measuring ketosis? The degree to which you are in ketosis isn’t important, when it comes to weight loss. It is important when using diet to address serious medical issues such as uncontrolled epilepsy. I measured my blood ketones a lot when I started. It turned out to be a terrible waste of money and stress creator. I have always had very low readings yet I have lost weight steadily and the pain and swelling from my osteoarthritis is hugely improved, to the point I no longer need a knee replacement done on my right knee.
Some of the initial weight loss is water weight but please don’t view 8 pounds as insignificant. And don’t see keto as a quick fix. People with huge amounts of weight to lose can drop weight quite quickly initially, especially youngish men. You are female (I’m guessing?) 60+ and have much much less weight to lose. Totally different body. Keto is more a healing way to eat, with weight loss as a much welcomed “side effect” for many. Try not to focus on the scale. Instead take your neck, upper arm, waist and hip measurements every month or so and use how your clothes are fitting as a guide. It’s fat loss you are after, as mentioned here, not a number on the scale. I’m not saying the number on the scale won’t go down, just saying don’t let that be your main measure of progress.
I looked up mtx. Your RA must be very bad for you to be being giving Methotrexate. It was a damn scary read!
Methotrexate Injection: Package Insert / Prescribing Information - Drugs.com
There’s one of the things the medical profession is wrong about. Fat, especially saturated fat, has been demonized. How it came to be demonized and why that got so widely accepted is a sobering story. You will find many good documentaries on youtube talking about it. Here’s a decent one to watch.
10 grams on a standard keto way of eating is irrelevant, as mentioned above.
Do a search on this site, and on google, about eating keto and autoimmune diseases such as RA. There is a lot of information about how and why it can help. My arthritis is osteo, so not an autoimmune condition, tho I do have a few less serious autoimmune conditions that have definitely improved.
Why has the professional you see set your protein so low? What is your height? Don’t fear protein, it is essential, especially for someone 60+.
The best general advice I can give you is keep your carbs to 20g or less, eat enough protein to truly nourish your body, don’t fear fat as it is now your energy source, eat as cleanly as possible (foods with one ingredient) so avoid as much processed food as you possibly can, don’t use any seed oils (extremely inflammatory, as well as other things), start reading ingredient lists and nutrition lists on food you buy and don’t get tricked by labels such as 'keto friendly", and make above ground veg, especially green leafy and cruciferous, your main source of carbs.
All the best and keep us posted!
First, let me say welcome to the forum Kira.
I bolded the probable cause for your problems. It is definitely not fat. High fructose causes uric acid to run high, which causes problems throughout the body.
Doctors love to blame fat for everything. No. It’s not the fat. Don’t fear the fat. Instead fear the sugar, and too much carbs. It promotes inflammation among many other problems.
Water is great. Don’t drink flourinated water though. Flouride is a toxin. Keto is very doable, because you are feeding your body with the nutrient rich foods you need. I thought it would be “hard,” and found the opposite. Congratulations!
No. See below. If you are not already doing so, I would supplement with vitamin K2 form MK-7. If you aren’t getting 30 min of sun every day, I would also supp vitamin D3 with it. I am a 175 lb male, and found I need far more than the USRDA of vitamin D3 in the winter to be in the middle normal range. I take 10,000 IUs of D3 every day with about 150 mcg of K2. You need to take it with fat as these are fat soluble vitamins. I take them with a full fat yogurt every morning. See if your arthritis gets better after 6 months. Since you are vegan, you could try natto as well to get your K2. Sauerkraut has some. Natto is probably the richest source in the world. K2 is made by bacilli such as Bacillus subtilis from vitamin K1. Without these fermented foods, your vegan diet is going to have basically no K2.
Vegan keto can be done, but it is hard to drop the carbs enough to enter ketosis without dropping your calories too much. Same issue for my wife. No. Protein is not generally transformed into sugar, and will not be at all unless it is needed in a last ditch effort. First, glucose and glycogen is used. These come from carbs. Sugars are carbs. Then lacking that, the body will convert fat into glucose. Gluconeogenesis from protein is essentially a last ditch option. It is metabolically expensive for the body to do, but it can be done. The body will do just about anything to maintain a blood sugar balance, because to fail this means death. I have touched on the reason you are probably in low ketosis. Carbs from veganism. It is not easy to drop carbs enough in vegan keto to stay in keto. Then, when you succeed, you will probably find you have dropped your calories, and over a period of months that will probably cause your metabolic rate to fall. However, you can do things like coconut oil bombs. Virgin coconut oil has plenty of calories and is vegan. The MCTs in it are also very ketogenic.
So, seek out the MCTs. They will help you lose more fat.(yeah, I know. The opposite of what we have all been told.) How will fats help you lose fat? Because they get changed into ketones in the liver before they have a chance to be stored as fat.
You don’t have to mention the word “keto,” by the way. It just seems to derail their thinking and alarm them unnecessarily. If you tell them you cut out sugar, grains, and starches, they will nod their head wisely and say, “Well done!”
Virginia, I am sorry to read that your mum and brother suffer psoriatic arthritis. That’s a nasty form of arthritis, mostly visible as well. A friend of mine also suffers psoriatic arthritis. She is on MTX (methotrexat) like me. She is doing great with it until she indulges in pork, bacon and other fatty meats again. Then she needs cortison in high doses. Crazy, but she can’t stop herself and rather suffers! Me, I have never cared much for meat in the first place, so am luckier there. Since I stopped all red meats I mostly have rather mild seizures (like 1 per month, mostly around a full moon, LOL). I will definitely let you know my rheumatoid factor next month. All the best for your mum and brother.
Thanks, collaroygal, your posting is very encouraging and interesting. It’s great when we find what helps us, and I feel even more hopeful that Keto will bring my rheumatoid factor way down for good.
Megan, hi. Thanks for your advice on putting aside everything I have heard and read from socalled experts. I am at it! It really makes a lot more sense talking with people who actually live ketogenic.
I measure ketosis by using keto sticks to pee on once a week. And you are right, measuring shows a totally different picture than the scales. I was measured by my nutritionist today, and I have dropped 6cm altogether around the waist. That is definitely an incredible success to me. Unbelievable, actually. My body obviously feasts on my body fat, ketosis or weight loss or not. Yay!
“Why has the professional you see set your protein so low? What is your height? Don’t fear protein, it is essential, especially for someone 60+.”
I wouldn’t know as I am leaving everything up to her in the beginning. All I know is that my nutritionist is considering my RA, and my hypothyroidism when working out my plans. For instance, today I baked a yummy linseed bread that is anti-inflammatory. My height is 172cm.
Concerning processed food I am very lucky. In my part of the world, I live in the Bavarian mountains, we hardly eat processed stuff apart from the odd pizza. We buy fresh food and have weekly food markets with farmers from around my town. We cook like our mothers and grandmothers did where recipes are being passed on from generation to generation. Our water comes directly from the mountains, so we don’t even need bottled water. Our shops close at 8pm and are closed on Sundays. So, there is little temptation there. 
I still cook every day, and with keto now even more so (keto bread and cakes) and all new recipes. I am loving it.
Hello Paul, today I told my nutritionist and she immediately said that it’s not a problem at all and doesn’t count towards the meal plans. She passed the test. 
However, the nutritionist told me, she has been eating ketogene for 2+ years…
Good news! I’m glad she was able to reassure your concerns. And being on the diet herself, she understands how it works.
Megan, hi. I just watched this documentation. It’s one of the most informative and inspiring videos I have watched on the topic of nutrition. This should be made available to everybody across the world in all languages. I have known bits and pieces from this but thanks to this explanatory documentation everything seems to have come together like I just completed a puzzle.
It explains to me why I know slim people that are diabetic, how we count calories and basically starve ourselves to lose weight only to gain it again when we start eating the carbs again, even small amounts because we are banning the fats.
Thanks again, Megan!
Btw, I recently watched a documentation on the power of the sugar industry in Europe. They spend billions to prevent European parliaments from installing laws to mark (processed) food and drinks to show consumers that these are bad for their health.
There was an opposite example from Chile, where they mark food with black signs when they contain “bad” ingredients. The more black signs a food has, the worse it is to one’s health. 3 black signs means “do not buy”. They showed that even kids check the items in the supermarket and tell their parents not to buy this or that because it has 3 or more black signs. It could be this easy…
The U.S. sugar industry, according to published memos of the Sugar Foundation, paid a number of nutrition researchers to vilify saturated fat and downplay the risks of sugar. One of those researchers was Ancel Keys’s friend Walter Willet of the Harvard School of Public Health.
Hi guys,
today is week 4 ending and I have dropped close to 12lbs. My nutritionist is rather happy, since I have lost mostly visceral fat and my waist has lost 6cm. Super, because I’d rather lose on the body than in the face.
Anyway, can I please have some advice on my diet. For about a week or so I have not been hungry at all, i.e. I don’t fancy any food. This is totally not me. What’s wrong with me? I mean, I am glad in a way. Who wouldn’t be on a diet?!
However, my nutritionist has conditioned me that I need to eat in a normal way (I tend to binge eat but am not a binge eater per se).
Questions:
Is it ok to skip dinner or is it counterproductive to the keto diet?
I can imagine that my body clings to the fat when it is not getting anything to eat at all. What is the experience here? Is it common to not want to eat during keto diet?
I would tend to have a bullet proof coffee instead of eating (I still drink the light version with coconut fat). Is this a good idea? Or can I just skip the whole thing tonight and stick to my water? (My dinner would be turkey, green beans and mushrooms, for breakfast I always have a bullet proof coffee, for lunch I had 1 piece of nutcake and 50g of blueberries.)
Thanks.
I see no problem in eating less when not hungry as long as it’s still not undereating.
Keto says absolutely nothing about timing. Eating once or twice or 5 times? Do whatever works best. Not everyone can just decide to eat a fixed number of meals and/or in fixed mealtimes easily.
When fasting, everybody loses fat as it’s pretty much impossible not to (unless it’s some extreme situation when all the energy comes from the muscles, pretty tricky and bad situation, the person probably works quite poorly then)… A short fast should be fine though probably not good for everyone. Longer term undereating is bad for the metabolism and other things so indeed, you should eat without hunger if you don’t get hungry. Your body needs nutrients.
I wouldn’t think so. For a short time yes but longer term… A normal body signals that it needs nutrients.
But many people want less food than before, it seems quite common.
I don’t have that myself, my body always wants a lot of food. I may have less than zero appetite sometimes but I still feel the need to eat.
I think it’s common that we have different phases. I had weeks without hunger (but had my “need to refuel” signs). I had unusually hungry times. Sometimes I desire my meal and other times it’s just a chore. And whatever is common, almost anything is normal as we are so very different, at different points of our journey.
Bullet coffee… If you need the calories, it is probably a good idea. If your macros are like what you wrote before, you surely need them all.
Thanks for sharing your experience and thoughts, Shinita. 
I did have some bullet proof coffee just to pacify my mind and feel good.
It is not uncommon to not be hungry when doing keto. It is the norm.
Have you checked out the fasting threads on the forums? If not I suggest you do some reading over them. Also the 2ketodudes podcasts have a lot of good info about this issue. No, your body doesn’t cling to the fat when you don’t eat. Your fat is there because our ancestors had to deal with famines, so your body is built to use the stored up fat when you get nothing to eat.
You are doing great so far so keep doing basically what you are doing. KeepCalmKetoOn.
This is known medically as “the anorexia of ketosis,” and it’s perfectly normal. One of the many problems of a high carb intake is that insulin interferes with the appetite hormones to keep us hungry (think of a bear eating berries to get fat for winter hibernation; losing hunger and stopping eating would be counterproductive). When carb intake drops, and therefore insulin drops as well, it stops making us hungry, and so appetite drops to a level that allows excess stored fat to be metabolised along with dietary fat. If you are eating to satiety, then you will gradually find yourself eating more, over time, as your excess fat gets used up. Right now, you have enough excess fat to fuel a chunk of your daily energy needs, but as that fat goes away, eating to satiety will keep you eating enough, until you are at the point of supplying your entire energy needs from your food intake (since all the extra fat will be gone). This is how it generally works in principal, though of course there is a lot of individual variation at work.
The key is to either eat to satiety or to fast; restricting calories tells the body that we are undergoing a famine, and it needs to hang on to its resources for as long as possible, to get us through. So continue eating to satiety and let your appetite be your guide.
Pantothenic acid, B5, is known to help relieve the pain of arthritis. Dr Gominak has some videos explaining the use and dosage and here is a link to a book about it. Check the reviews.
In the early stages I was never hungry either, but I ate anyway. You just can’t drastically cut calories and hope for any lasting results.