Keto is amazing I got unexpected results

(Consensus is Politics) #22

I would recommend trying a known quantity of water (say a .5 ltr water bottle or equivalent). Take small amounts of salt and add to it, maybe 1/8 tsp at a time, and see where your “taste tolerance” is. Remember how much salt it took to get there. From that you can just about figure out how much salt to use per what ever volume of water you use. Simple math.

I’m currently using about 2 tsp per 1/2 litre of water, while at work. I often only drink 1 to 2 litres while at work, and this seems to do me well. With one exception… One particular day I was too busy to stop and make my salt water. Or even drink any all day. I was never dehydrated, as far as I could tell, and felt fine all day. But later that evening, I had a slight muscle cramp in my neck. I ignored it (way wrong answer!).

Come 3:00 AM I awoke with a horrible cramp in my neck that hurt to the point of nearly knocking me out. Having experienced this once before, I knew what to do. I eventually got out of bed, a serious feat, and made my way to the fridge.

Oh crap! No more pickle juice! So I grabbed a 1/2 litre bottle of water and added 2 tsp of salt, and drank it over the next minute or so. Went back to bed. After 30 minutes the cramp persisted. I was kicking my self for not saving the last jar of pickle juice, being the fastest cramp cure I have ever used, always took less than a minute. So I had another bottle of water with another 2 tsp of salt. Five minutes later I felt a sudden wave of relief. I had a mental image of sodium soaking into my muscles and massaging out the cramps. Back to bed and when I awoke I was still very very sore, but the cramp was gone.

I knew better that to let that happen, but I got complacent. Big lesson.

Keto Vitae!

(Keto life n' a little hippie ) #23

Cramp during sleep I only experience if I fall asleep in a rather cold bedroom without covers. If my feet get cold during sleep I can get leg cramps. Haven’t done anything else but to put em back under the cover and it has been ok. Except one time I slept with an open window and temps dropped below zero, one foot sticking out of the cover and the cramp was so hard it didn’t stop, had to take a hot hot shower for it to let go.

I never thought of the cramps being salt related, but it could be. Do you know if being cold can trigger cramps, and if so can too little salt still be the root cause? I guess in my head I kind of pictured the cramps as an early sign of bad circulation in the blood vessels due to my sedentary lifestyle. I think I even was too scared of the answer to ever bring up those cramping incidents while at my doctor.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #24

Cramp could be caused by any number of things. And bad circulation doesn’t have to be the result of anything you did or didn’t do; it could be hereditary.

(Jane) #25

It happens to me sometimes on day 3 of my fasts. I measure glucose and ketones when I fast out of curiosity and have seen my glucose go from the 50’s to the 90’s on black coffee and water. My body made it from protein (hopefully loose skin! LOL)

(PSackmann) #26

I add a pinch of salt to black coffee at work when I’m feeling a bit tired, and also put a pinch of salt inside my lower lip, it absorbs quickly. Or sprinkle some on a small pat of butter when I’m feeling nibbley.

(Susan) #27

In 6 weeks, wow, that is great. I have been following all your threads (I thought) but I must have missed this. That is fantastic, keep up the great work =).

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #28

This is the process of “gluconeogenesis” and is perfectly normal. Certain cells in the body, most notably our red blood cells, cannot metabolise ketones, so they must have a supply of glucose. So you can see that a certain minimal amount of blood glucose is essential; it is when the level rises too high that it starts to cause damage.

Gluconeogenesis is the reason that the body has no need for carbohydrate in the diet. It’s also one of the reasons that a certain minimum amount of protein intake is required (there are others). Furthermore it is accompanied by ketogenesis, the process of making ketones. You can’t have one without the other, because a diet low-enough in carbohydrate to make one of them necessary also makes the other one necessary. Fortunately the human body has had two million years of evolutionary pressure in which to develop, refine, and balance these mechanisms.

You might be interested to learn that the liver can also, when necessary, make glucose out of fat and ketones out of amino acids. Under normal circumstances, however, these processes are minimal, because gluconeogenesis from protein and ketogenesis from fatty acids both give a higher yield. Though it’s nice to know, I think, that the body has lots of backup options for accomplishing its goals.

(Bob M) #29

I am hesitant to say this, but this most likely is not true. I have eaten massive amounts of protein, 200+ grams, per meal and get basically no blood sugar rise. So it’s doubtful coffee could cause this. At one time, I thought coffee caused blood sugar rise, so I delayed drinking coffee until much later in the morning…and I still got a blood sugar rise. My blood sugar goes from a low around midnight until a high around noon, then goes down all day until midnight. Nothing I do changes this, even fasting only causes the entire curve to come down (after multiple days of fasting, my more blood sugar is lower… but still goes up until about noon, but not as high as when I eat).

(Keto life n' a little hippie ) #31

I can not believe how well keto and 72 hours fasting is working. This is amazing. I’ve bought jeans twice since I started because old ones started sagging, and tomorrow I need to shopping again. I was so amused when I tried to climb into a pair of jeans “cargo shorts” this evening to go to a BBQ. The new shorts was sagging already. I wasn’t planning on doing new weigh in before next weekend. But I had to do it today. Because this was just huge news. And I found the tape measure as well.

Since I started this thread another milestone came today. I wasn’t expecting this number.

Today I’ve lost a little more then 2 inches around my neck, 4 almost 4.5 inches around my belly and a good two inches around my chest. And I have lost another 9 kilo, or 19.8 lbs for you non metric freaks. And that is since the first post in this thread, like what 3 weeks ago? I haven’t even looked up the total number, but this huge. And this keto train is still picking up momentum.

I don’t feel I sacrifice anything. In fact I feel much better, because after a huge Ben&Jerry, a large pepsi and a tall bag of potato chips I always felt bad. Not right away of course. Thex I felt amazing, but when I eaten so much so that my stomach was overcrowded, then I started to feel bad, regret the eating, and feel ashamed.

Now I feast all week and fast during weekends. This week I started fasting a day early because of todays BBQ gathering. So after 72 hours of fasting, 2 small walks this weekend I still managed to eat very well with my friends, fatty meats and a keto salad with sour cream, and all avocado, great spicy olive dressing on top of the salad. I was drinking water, but I still had a great time. And I wake up fresh as daisy tomorrow. :smiley:

When I started keto half my body was fat. It is fantastic to see the BMI and bodyfat is lowering, feel the waistline is getting slimmer and actually having to buy new jeans because the one I got are sagging. That past two decades I’ve only bought new pair of pants because I out grew my last ones. One size up all the time. And finally I can buy smaller sizes. Don’t get me wrong, I must still shop at Big&Tall shops, but just the feeling of knowing this keto life is taking me to a new tomorrow.

Finally I am taking care of myself. Eating right, doing small walks, thinking about my own health and finding new ways to get even healthier.
¨
Big shout out to this community for the friendly people that hangs here, the insane amount of skilled and smart people that take their time to help newcomers like myself. If my spirit is low I can just stop by here and read and within minutes I can feel inspiration getting sparked, and I am again ready to continue on with this epic journey.

For the very first time in my life I am in control over myself. I control what I eat and when I eat. I am no longer a slave to my crazy cravings or overwhelming hunger waves. I can’t even begin to describe the amount of pleasure this gives me. Because I’ve tried so many hard diets before, and I failed so many diets before. But being on a diet have sucked bloody hard from the very first day and it was a huge battle to stay on those diets. And in the end, I caved and went back to familier patterns, use food as my comfort blanket, over eating, binge eating, and overall not caring about myself. If I felt bad, I could cure it with pastry, sugar or pepsi. And each time I failed a diet I got a little less confidant, a little more ashamed over myself and a little more beaten down. And I couldn’t find a way out it!

Keto is not a diet. I can do this. With ease. And I enjoy it to. I eat well, I feel satiated and I can even manage to not eat for 3 days. All thanks to this wonderful forum, you guys and the genius keto way of living.

(Susan) #32

That is awesome! Grats on all your new losses, very nice.

(Keto life n' a little hippie ) #33

Thank you very much momo, you are definitively one of the very special people here, you have been so kind and supportive since I found this forum. So thanks a lot for you support. It warms my heart.

(Susan) #34

You are very welcome. I know that you have worked really hard, so I am happy for you with all the progress you are making. I admire the dedication you have working to be the best you can be. I am looking forward to seeing how you do and hearing about your adventures at Boot Camp =).

(hottie turned hag) #35

Me too. I hope finding keto food won’t be hard when at camp.

Excellent progress, have some cuteness from me

:bird: :alien: :monkey: :t_rex: :bug:

(Keto life n' a little hippie ) #36

I am so excited tonight I can’t calm down and fall to sleep. I’ve been so joyful and have felt such enormous rush of happiness tonight I can’t contain myself and as I live alone, you guys are the audience of choice.

62 lbs is the total weight loss, or 61.7 lbs. whatever many ounces you weird people call it. I feel on top of world tonight so lets just call it 62 lbs even. And it has not been a chore, it hasn’t been tough, and I haven’t had to fight urges, cravings and hunger every single day, and when those days have come it has been manageable.

Food, snakcs, sweets&treats, eating, binge eating, comfort eating, social eating, you name it. I’ve had problems with all of it. As long as I can remember I have never been able to turn down pie, cake, junk food or anything sweet really. When I was young it didn’t really matter much, because I was active and fat didn’t really pile on. And when I started to get fatter and fatter I really tried to take on the battle but I’ve lost that fight every time. And when you loose over and over it gets to you. Or it got to me. I think I must have given upon on myself.

It is almost a crime we never was taught any of this in school. Thinking back as long as we ate our greens and had our juice in the morning then it was all good. Nobody talked about suger addiction or the downfall of unused carbohydrates in your blood stream. As long as I can remember, any talk about healthy eating have been the same. Count your calories and eat your greens and eat every three hours. Well screw that.

Fcuk if I knew it was this easy to live a healthy life I would have started in my mid twenties.

(Jane) #37

I wish I’d known it in my 20’s also.

You can thank processed food companies and their quest for more profits for the misinformation. It was and is deliberate, they take advantage of doctors being so poorly educated on nutrition and infiltrated every level of government to get policies set in their favor.

I am 60 years old, my labs are perfect and I take no meds. And yet my primary care doctor told me last week to “eat low fat, low salt and exercise more”. My husband and I just smiled and nodded. That advice kept me fat for years and his joints aching. She is from India and young and is already showing signs of inflammation.

(Katie) #38

If I knew in my mid 20s or even 30s what I know now…oh geez…think of all the pain I could have skipped! All the doctors and issues I would have missed.

The good news is…this can all be reversed, we caught it in time!

(Libby) #39

If I had a time machine, the first thing I’d do is go back and slap a few faces. Maybe mine, too. Lol!

(Jane) #40

So true! Unfortunately too late for my Mom but I got a new lease on life so grateful for that.

(Failed) #41

About 20 to 30 years ago on a low-carb forum, one woman said she had gone to the doctor after losing 150 pounds on low carb. When she told him how she lost the weight, his immediate response was “well that’s all water weight then.” She laughed at him and replied, “Do you even listen to what you say?”

(hottie turned hag) #42

:astonished:

Ok here’s a tired old joke in medicine that was old when I was in school (80s) but is apropos here:

Q: What do you call the fellow who graduates last in his class from med school?

A: Doctor.