Newb - Paleo failed for me, will keto work, and how long before I sense Keto is working for me or not?

(Bansaw) #1

I tried the Paleo diet last year and it didn’t have a good effect on me.

I tested for high blood sugar on it, which was a real surprise, but it turned out that my body was claiming glucose from my muscles and putting some of it in my bloodstream.
I am concerned that Keto will do the same for me.

I also had an issue with the high protein on Paleo as my kidneys are borderline compromised.

My doctor (I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) assured me that Keto was different to Paleo and my body would be trained to look for fats to burn rather than be obliged to search for glucose in my muscles. I am hesitating because Paleo didn’t go well for me. I lost weight but had less energy.

Anyway, I still might give Keto a try.
My question is: how long before I sense that the Ketogenic is working for me?
I know there is an initial feel-bad keto flu…

#2

Listen to http://2ketodudes.com/archives.aspx start from the beginning. All your questions will be answered.

#3

Agree that you can learn a lot from the podcast, but also I’m wondering: since there’s a pretty big variety of recommended Paleo foods/ratios, and since folks often interpret those recommendations in different ways, what were you actually eating when you tried Paleo, and how long did you do it?

(Gail P) #4

Start with the episode titled “keto for absolute beginners,” which is the most information-dense. After that, the first few episodes are probably more of what you are interested in. That way, you will also get a lot of Carl and Richard’s history with the diet.

As for how long to wait to feel a difference, maybe ten days? It could easily be less than that, but for some people it takes longer. I knew after two weeks, because I stopped for a couple of days. I definitely felt worse!

(Renee Slaughter) #5

Hello and welcome,
To answer your question. We can’t say how You will react to keto. Everyone here is an experiment of one. Also your goals are not specified. Are you looking to lose weight or regain a measure of health? Or both? We Can tell you how each of us are doing on keto. Myself, I reversed my TD2, managed to come off a psych meds and generally feel better about life and self. Please explore the forum. Type your search in the search bar and read. See if anyone with your issues have succeeded with keto. And yes I did lose weight
Best wishes

(Bansaw) #6

Paleo was around four months. I remember it being meat-heavy though, and my energy went down.
It was very low carb (rice was cut out, potatoes, really, really low carb.) The difference I think with the Keto diet is that there is a lot more fat, and less protein.
I don’t know if the protein was pathological for me, or that my body was converting it into sugar (if thats possible).
For me, the only big difference between Paleo & Keto is the protein intake + slightly more increased fat. Thats why I am hesitating - I did bad on Paleo.

(Bansaw) #7

Thanks for asking.
My goals are:

  • Improve my CFS and have more energy, less brain fog etc.
  • Impact my Lyme disease (which I think caused my CFS)
  • Improve sleep pattern
  • Improve gut health (it was compromised after months of antibiotics)
  • I’m not horribly overweight, but could do with losing 15 lbs.
#8

The key elements of Keto are:

  1. to avoid carbs as much as possible, limited to incidental carbs like in cheese and green leaves vegetables.
  2. Eat only the amount of protein necessary to maintain your muscles. 1-1.5g per kg of lean body mass. Use an online calculator to estimate that. At 5’10" mine is under 75g a day.
  3. Don’t be scared of fat. Eat avocados, Eat bacon and fatty meats, add butter to your vegetables, add coconut oil to your coffee, eat cheese, eat macadamia nuts. Save your lard and tallow and schmaltz. Dip your meats in it. Drink Bone broth.

We are training our bodies to use the fat by not providing energy that can be turned into glucose

#9

Hmmm. Feeling lousy in the beginning from cutting out carbs is normal - low carb flu, and you would expect energy to drop for the first few weeks (or even the first two months or so) - but 4 months of not doing well is unusual. People tweak their ratios a lot to find what works for them.

Yes, your body converts excess protein into glucose (though after listening to some podcasts on Shawn Baker, who’s 100% carnivore, I’m starting to think that’s not quite as straightforward as we believe… but he’s an athlete, so will use protein differently from most of us).

Anyway - your initial question was how long before you know that keto is working for you? It’s really individual, but if you’ve gone back to higher carb, then expect the LC flu but that should really only last a week or so; it’s the full energy for intense exercise that takes longer to kick in.

I would read a lot of stories on here and listen to the podcasts and some thing will start to become clear.

ETA - you’ve added more info since I wrote this! Can you do a search on here for some of your specific questions (CFS, Lyme, sleep, etc)

#10

A Paleo diet is more exclusionary of problematic foods, and therefore more therapeutic, than the typical “keto” diet. It’s sounds like your interpretation of Paleo wasn’t suitable for your body.

Consider a trying a Paleo diet protocol (avoid dairy and processed foods including meat) that allows you to maintain a state of ketosis. This means high fat, moderately low protein, and carbs to your personal threshold.

It sounds like your issues are along the auto immune and mitochondrial health spectrum rather than metabolic derangement (as is most common on this forum). Food quality is more critical for these issues, buy the highest quality your budget allows, try to get locally sourced food as much as possible. Eat fat from whole food sources like avocados, nuts, olives, seeds, coconut and fatty fish (ie. salmon, sardines, mackerel) and fatty cuts of beef and chicken (skin on).

For your health issues, it’s important to track ketone levels and figure out it’s correlation with your symptoms. Only a blood ketone meter has the reliablity needed.

It will take some self experimentation and tracking to nail down your specific issues. Be patient and consistent and you’ll get it figure out!

(Stacy) #11

I could feel keto working within a couple of days. That’s when the bloat disappeared and I felt …lighter, if that makes sense. I stayed on top of electrolytes and never had keto flu. I highly recommend reading everything you can, listening to the podcasts and being prepared. And I found keeping it really simple in the beginning was helpful. Meat, cheese, veg, fat, water all in the right balance for your goals.

(Liz ) #12

If you are hoping to kill off the remaining spirochetes from Lyme, which is what I hope my mom can do by going Keto, you may get a lousy Herx reaction as they die off. And possibly that’s what you were experiencing on Paleo? It takes a while for your gut to heal from antibiotics, fermented foods help. Apple cider vinegar. Fasting down the line. I was Paleo just before switching to Keto but I was using fruits, sweet potatoes, honey so it wasn’t very low carb compared to Keto. I got Keto flu for about a day, maybe day 7? Then at about day 10 I felt fantastic! But I didn’t really start to run on fat as my fuel (fat adaptation) for about 6 weeks.

It all takes a while as the body is excited to get fuel it can actually USE (unlike when we are glucose burners) and it will use what you eat to build up lean mass and reinforce bones and heal your systems.

(Brian) #13

This!

(Chris W) #14

I think the best way I have heard paleo described was its an ideology and keto is a way of eating. I tried paleo for about a year I was not strict but I did end up feeling slightly better and eating reasonable. But I fell off that horse and after a whole lot of other problems started to get bad I found Keto. I would say depending upon your BF and weight it would take about 5 days to see results and about 10 days to really feel them. You will see N=1 a lot and you may be completely different. I am learning females and males react differently as well so my perspective is as a male.

(Tessy M.) #15

Yes that is what happens when you consume more protein in a meal than your body can use at that time - it gets converted to sugar.

(Chris) #16

That’s normal and fine. It’s not just coming from muscles, it’s all lean tissue or dietary protein if eating enough.

You’d find if you tested insulin at the same time as glucose that it wouldn’t be high.

(Chris) #17

Incorrect - the glucose creation is driven by how much your body needs at any given time. If you test your fasting glucose on a diet like this as well as your fasting insulin, you’ll find glucose at the high range of normal, or high, and you’ll find insulin low. It’s something we don’t fully understand yet. You’re going to make that glucose anyway, it’s just a matter of coming from lean tissue or dietary protein.

(Tessy M.) #18

the consumption of protein leads to an increase in glucose.

(Chris) #19

The need for glucose leads to an increase in glucose in a paleo / carnivore / zero carb context. HOWEVER, it does not lead to a significant increase in insulin- which is the real culprit for weight gain. Exogenous glucose (carbs) DOES increase insulin. There’s a massive difference.

I eat around 400g of protein from animal sources daily, my BG would be off the charts if what you said was true.

(Tessy M.) #20

As discussed by Dr. Fung, metabolically healthy men with high levels of lean body mass seem to be unaffected by higher level of protein consumption.