I’ve been able to weigh in the 160s at three points in my life. 1) when I was 20 2) when I ate “Mediterranean” in my 30s 3) when I ate keto in my early 40s.
About 4 years ago, when I was last in my 160s, I went through a divorce, lost my job of 10 years and moved states all at once. Then, I met my new wife shortly after this, only she was English so I went through an immigration process with her, etc, right after the first list of traumas (navigating the immigration process is traumatic, expensive and uncertain). During this time I ate to medicate. Pizzas, chips, candy, etc. I went from the 160s up to above 200.
The keto diet was precisely chosen to get rid of the junk. It was the last diet I had success with. Not really sure why it failed this time, but I gave it 100+% effort and just couldn’t make it work.
David, as an add on have a look at Ted Naiman’s work. He is a lean medical doctor that talks about protein and mineral leverage ideas. The thing that interests me is that he times his carbohydrate eating. He eats about 100g of carbs per day but he strategically eats it after eating the fat and protein part of his evening meal. The carbs aren’t mixed in with the fat and protein.
This targeted eating results in lower blood glucose excursions after that meal and presumably lower insulin response. He then does not eat again for about 16 hours and by then he is in measurable ketosis. That is a 100g carb diet that he still regards as low carb because the average daily carbohydrate intake he estimates is about 300g per day.
Ted doesn’t eat carbohydrates in his breakfast meal as he mentioned that it has him 'chasing carbs all day", so he has a protein and fat based breakfast.
There may be a few strategies here that interest you? That may help toward your health goals.
I think the Peak Human podcast or the Fat Emperor podcast have the latest interviews with Ted.
What you are describing here is an observed nervous system response recognised in some people. It is often highlighted in lists as one of the reasons why the ketogenic diet is “dangerous”. The evidence is there, especially with the increased blood pressure. I reckon one of the dangers might be that a medical doctor would be prescribing all sorts of medicines if they saw it. Lucky you found the nutritional treatment.
The autonomic nervous system can be stimulated by dietary inputs. The sympathetic nervous system is stimulated by the low carbohydrate state with increased heart rate and resultant increased blood pressure along with cortisol and sometimes adrenaline release. It is a physiological stress response. The body that has grown used to being fuelled by carbohydrates with associated blood glucose excursions and insulin responses every 2 or 3 hours senses the change and resists it. Plus the addiction aspects of some dopamine and endorphin responses in the brain suddenly change from regular pulses to being absent (going cold turkey). Just you try and take away some of this forum’s member’s coffee and you’ll see the response played out. The stress response elevates blood glucose from internal stores, hoping for some carbohydrates to be eaten soon. Which you did.
This response can be felt and recorded during the fat adaptation period in the ketogenic diet starting phase. The gut biome changes, different enzyme systems are ramped up to digest and distribute fatty acids, ketones start to be produced and lots of them are spilled from the body (in urine and breath) as cells in the body need to adapt through organelle changes, mitochondrial change to the new available fuel. The lower insulin releases sodium at the same time as glycogen is released dragging body water with it and the whole electrolyte balance of the body has to readjust. Those electrolyte changes can have direct effect on heart rate and rhythm. The reward centre in the brain is sending messages to the memory centres saying “remember where you found those sugars and carbohydrates, go looking for them again and get me some”. It can be quite discomfiting.
Crikey, I hope not too many nervous newbies are reading this. It’s like something penned by Joseph Conrad or Stephen King, just not as good nor as compelling.
I know I am sensitive to heart palpitations and heart rate changes and that increased heart rate can feel like a constant anxiety, others have even described it as an impending sense of doom. The high blood pressure can instigate head aches and in some people high screeching tinnitus.
But hey, I’m a nutritional ketosis fan.
Eating carbohydrates stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. Whereas the sympathetic nervous system stimulation results in a stress response (fight, flight, freeze response), the parasympathetic response is a relaxing response (rest and digest). It’s that contented, dozy feeling one might experience after a family feast. The carbohydrate food is the addictive antidote (I might say unfortunately due to my dietary bias) to the sympathetic stress response. It just means that reverting back to a higher carbohydrate intake may preclude one from experiencing the benefits of low carbohydrate nutritional ketosis.
But there are other ways to have your carbs and eat them and maybe also experience ketosis. The other levers to pull are mentioned in my previous post:
Time restricted eating/ eating meals without snacks in between with greater than 12 hours of not eating over night
Targeted carbohydrate eating with just eating them as the final part of the last meal for the day
Increased physical activity, higher intensity may result in higher chance of ketones.
Fasting (not eating) - but this one is a chicken & egg game, where it is easier to fast when nutritional ketosis provides satiety and appetite control
I understand how you feel. I lost some weight on keto but my weight just yo-yo’d the cravings never stopped and it’s unreasonable to think I will NEVER cheat.
I went off keto for a few weeks, about 3 weeks now. I can say that my weight has ballooned back up with water weight. A lot of issues I had before have come back too. So I will personally return to keto, but Keto does not fix my weight problem.
I have been trying Keto for 2 years.
Positives:
Clearer skin
Little or no edema in my legs/feet
Less moody/mood swings
Less/No brain fog
Better sleep
Negative trend in weight (though excruciatingly slow)
Cheaper (not snacking and spending money on garbage foods)
Negative:
Can be expensive if buying good quality foods
Lots of negativity around it from the science community
Difficult to do anything with friends that involves food or drinks
unnecessary burden on family that invite me over for dinner
my 100 year old great grandma doesn’t understand and makes me rice… and then waits for me to come home from work just to feed it to me… who would say no to that? I am not that big of an ass hole LOL.
Lost weight quickly (water) then a complete stall for months. Lost a little more, then another stall for months (rinse and repeat)
No long term studies to know if we are putting ourselves at risk for something else in the process
Not the most sustainable diet environmentally if you go moderate to heavy meat based.
I don’t hate keto, but I no longer preach it to others. I no longer know if I believe keto had/has anything to do with my weight loss, or if just making healthier choices, drinking more water, getting more sleep, and not eating garbage did it.
If I cut out the garbage food, sleep more, and drink more water… most of my issues go away without keto. I was losing weight without keto, it was slower but there was no Yo-Yoing of weight, constant struggles to avoid eating foods I never lost cravings for, and felt restricted.
I will be returning to keto though like every desperate delusional gf that would rather be with him than without XD… gotta live for the good days I guess.
I’m sure my fate is the same as my mother. Try hard and lose anyways, exercise, eat well, take care of yourself, and get fat anyways. At least I will have nice muscles under all that cottage cheese on my legs
We do the best we can. I don’t think any of us asked to be in this bizarre flesh body. We just find ourselves here on this ball in space dealing with eating, something our bodies evolved to do for millions years before we were born.
An odd thing I ran into with keto is when I would accidentally eat too many carbs and my body would soak up water and make my muscles swell up 5lbs over a day.
Franko, you seem like quite a knowledgeable vet around here. Any idea if this exact same response can happen for someone attempting to go off keto after a long stint on very strict 20g or less regimine for over a year?
What you’ve described matches exactly the way I started feeling when I recently attempted to stop eating keto and go back to carbs for a few weeks. My brain basically stopped working, couldn’t concentrate on anything, and had trouble following even basic conversations with people. This led to my anxiety ramping up higher than I have ever known, and my kidneys seem to have started acting up too. Depression came back in full force and I was at wits end until I just went back to keto, though at a slightly higher carb level than before, maybe 40g or so.
My mind is now doing MUCH better, and I generally feel better in terms of digestion and energy levels. Though I am still concerned about my kidneys due to some strange warning signs I’ve noticed that appear to all correlate with kidney dysfunction. They have lessened since going back to keto though, so I am going to wait a bit before seeing a doc about it. I’m in my early 30s, kidneys should not already be shot.
Anyways, just wondering if you knew anything about this or could point me towards someone that does.
You described the weaning process that people will use to test their carb tolerance after a year of healing.
Abrupt changes in diet usually have direct observable changes as you shared and corrected.
The kidney concerns are a bit vague. But if that is your concern go and organise some testing.
Blood Urea Nitrogen test is quite variable and can indicate a higher protein diet. Whereas serum creatinine testing has more significance. Protein loss in the urine would be a concern as would glucose. Blood in urine should be checked immediately. Kidney pain/ back ache in the region of the kidneys may indicate infection, inflammation, or kidney stone formation.
If you’re concerned get checked. If it’s nothing then at least that news reduces the worry.
If you want knowledgeable you should check in with @brownfat Todd.
I’m pretty sure that this is a ketogenic forum but if I was a a newbie to it, I would be scared to death. The only other time I posted, I was worried about being stalled because I hadn’t lost anything for 10 days but had lost 100 pounds overall. Someone very nice told be that was’t a stall. it was a speed bump. He was right. I’m approaching 16 months on keto and it has literally change my life. I was 73 and weighed 395 and had lost all interest in things I loved. I have lost 123 pounds; my heart rate(64)blood pressure(119/78) and all my blood work is outstanding. My short term goal is to be under 250 for my birthday in March which would put me under my marriage day weight. LOL I didn’t mean to go off like this but was upset at the negativity I was reading on a ketogenic forum. My family would vouch for all this and I see people I haven’t seen for awhile and they say “Tony. is that you?” The only drawback is, I have resorted to buying clothes at Goodwill because I was changing sizes too fast to buy new. Go Keto.
amwassil
(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.)
#31
@Anthony_O_Connor You won’t get any negativity about keto from me, Anthony! Congratulations and keep on truckin’. I’m all in for keto. I’m 74 going on 75 too soon. I think keto’s the best thing you can do for yourself.
But with that said, I’d love a Mediterraneaum diet if it worked for me. Yum! Best Wishes to you on it. And if you ever need to mix it up, you can go back to Keto, or Carnivore, or even IF, ADF or XF.
I thought that was great idea too a very long time ago but did not know Ted was doing that also after reading your post, but then you will hear the exact opposite, that ‘it does not matter‘ and I see stronger evidence for the ‘does not matter and makes no difference’ argument?
Being the devils advocate I cannot see how it would make a difference “with lower blood glucose excursions[2];’ what difference does it make scientifically, does that mean your some how healthier?
Richard (the dude’s) was kind of getting frustrated at me when I was going on about separating carbs (sugar) from proteins and fat a couple of years ago.
[3] “…For example, if you eat only carbs like bread at one meal minus any fats or fatty proteins, then your energy intake for that meal will automatically be lower and over time you will lose weight. …” …More
[4] “…But as humans we do tend revisit theories even ones that apparently do not work. After all if the food combining theory had worked 30 years ago and people had managed to lose masses of weight by only eating carbs at one meal and only eating proteins at another, then we would by now all be applying the principles of food combining and no one would suffer from overweight anymore. …” …More
I am also a bit concerned with high heart rate and blood pressure since starting Keto, so your post here is interesting for me. Could you please clarify for me, do you believe that this nervous system response only happens during the fat adaptation period and therefore should recover in time? I am just coming up for 5 weeks now and the prospect of lower blood pressure was definitely one of the motivating factors to try this way of life.
I totally love your post, Anthony, and I totally agree. I LOVE Keto so much, and even when I am on a plateau/stall at times, I still love Keto just as much. I know that my body is just re-calibrating during those times.
My only regret with Keto is that I didn’t discover it earlier!!
My blood pressure was at over 200 (up to a max of 240 at the hospital/over 140. they were freaking out) and now it is very very normal, it dropped to normal within a month of Keto. I follow a very regimented Keto with no junk added --people that seem to have trouble seem to be eating artificial sweeteners and not sticking to the strict under 20 grams of carbs from what I have observed… so I guess it depends what you consider Keto! Often times the people posting that they are having trouble is because they are not actually adhering to the guidelines… or cheat a lot, then complain and blame it on Keto when it is not Keto but themselves not following it…
Thanks, Polly. My blood pressure is normal, my asthma is almost non existent, my aches and pains have diminished a lot,I am down from a 4X to a 1X in pants, down 61 pounds, and feeling a lot better. I still have 100 pounds to go, but Keto is my Lifestyle eating way forever now.
From my understanding, the quick answer is that the high heart rate and blood pressure should resolve after a period adaptation to a well formulated ketogenic diet.
The challenge is working out what a well formulated ketogenic diet is for the individual.
Many people work out the level of carbohydrates quickly and quite well. The protein and fat tolerances and optimisation takes a bit more work.
The nuance is in the micro-nutrients and electrolytes, and that is where persistent heart rate or rhythm problems (with the attendant blood pressure) can get quite individualised and into deeper physiology. That stage probably requires a low carb practitioner to help work things out, as the answers may be in other biomarkers in blood and urine tests that need tracking back to triangualte a root cause (e.g. an electrolyte depletion).
Interestingly, what can happen is that starting a process of healthier dietary focus than a previous way of eating may unmask disease conditions in some individuals. That is to say it is not the direct fault of the diet, but the diet brought about the hastening of a diagnosis.
The fight, flight, freeze, sympathetic nervous system response may be exacerbated by the ketogenic eating, if it has its cause elsewhere. If a person has a very stressful job or relationship, for example. Poor sleep habits, history of stress or anxiety disorders. The other general health considerations outside of diet can set up a physiology that may be unmasked when starting the way of eating. If those non-dietary factors are not resolved, then the high blood pressure and heart rate issues may persist past adapting to the diet.
The quick answer is that the high heart rate and blood pressure should resolve after adaptation to a well formulated ketogenic diet.
