Saying hello to Ketos

(Eve) #122

That is very helpful, as usual! I don’t eat beef or pork , the latter because it gives me bad acid indigestion and bloating, and the beef because of how intensively farmed most cattle are. However, l take your point, and shinita’s as well, that the protein l am eating just probably isn’t satisfying me. Fish, chicken and eggs are my staples. SO, l will worry less about overdoing the protein quantities. Also, @MattWisti, it may be that the carbs are stimulating my appetite, as you suggest. Or at the least, not helping. So, more protein, l will “embrace beef” and see what happens.
Thanks again all of you - what would l do without this forum :blush::+1:

#123

@0cac544b99285298bde6 Fish, chicken and eggs are fine. Just make sure you eat the fatty parts of the chicken, not just breast, and fatty fish, not only tuna, such as salmon, herring, macheral. Eggs, in my opinion, are one of nature’s most perfect foods - as long as you eat both the whites and the yolks and don’t overcook. By that I mean, don’t ‘hard boil’ eggs.

PS: Our Pleistocene and prePleistocene ancestors evolved for more than 4 million years eating ruminants in the form of so-called ‘megafauna’. Unfortunately, all the megafauna are extinct and cattle are all we have left that comes even close nutritionally. Cattle spend most of their lives grazing and only a few weeks getting stuffed with grain to add some fat.

#124

That still may work, try to have more protein first if it would be hard to change your items, maybe that is not even needed for you. These aren’t the best for me satiation wise (eggs are good just not the best) but we are all different regarding these things. And with 80g protein, it’s very easy to imagine that no matter what you eat, it just won’t be enough - as I have exactly that.

Good luck to find what works for you!

Why? I’ve read yolks are better raw or almost raw but they are still great in any form, aren’t they?
(I surely won’t stop eat hard-boiled eggs as they are so useful but I prefer them softer myself - hard ones still have their role. But I don’t even care about raw whites and their potential problems as I eat enough eggs “properly” too, I don’t need to be perfect).

(Eve) #125

I love eggs in any form, but my favourite is a runny yolk! Hard boiled are very easy to carry around though.

#126

Although hard boiling appears to make egg protein more bioavailable by altering its structure, it also reduces other nutrients such as:

xanthophylls = a class of bioactive compounds that play an important role in preventing age-related macular degeneration, which matters to me since I’m older and already have impaired vision

Maybe I’m just nit-picking because I think taste suffers from hot/long cooking. I like my eggs softly poached in a cup of butter. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

#127

Sounds good :slight_smile:
I always poached mine in soup :slight_smile: Or had soft eggs in purgatory…

Oh I don’t mind losing nutrients, I eat way too much anyway. Not nutrients, food. I am supposed to get my nutrients even without some of my eggs. Yes, of course I want to use what I eat but losing a little shouldn’t matter. Okay, there are exceptions. Vitamin A, it’s great if I get less of it but I doubt it would help much. Oh well. My body doesn’t complain about overdoing it yet.

I don’t like hard-boiled eggs so much (except the whites. I prefer hard-boiled whites and soft-boiled yolks, if I ever could make that combo somehow… but it’s probably impossible) but they are still eggs, they are very good and they come handy. It’s often a lot about convenience when it comes to hard-boiled eggs, not just for me. But I do need them for certain dishes.

My fav egg dishes involves whipping eggs :slight_smile: I have a raw dessert and my eggy sponge cakes. I make them a lot, most of my days have one or both. If I keep having 5-6 raw egg whites on some days, I will need to think about my biotin… But probably not. I researched here a bit, nope, my biotin intake must be quite high. I needn’t to worry about it at all.

Eggs aren’t a problem in any form for me. Liver is the problem. Too nutritious. Life isn’t easy. Oh well.

(Eve) #128

I have a question about electrolyte supplementation. I am not sure whether I am taking enough Na/K/Mg because l continue to get ketone adjustment problems - and it has been a while l have been on the diet. I have dropped my carbs even more just recently and maybe coincidentally or not, seem to being having a harder time. Every day l drink water with 1/2 teaspoon of lo-salt, 1/2 teaspoon himalayan salt and then a scoop of Mg citrate. Does anyone take more than this?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #129

It’s probably not coincidental. If your serum insulin has dropped sufficiently, your kidneys have probably returned to the normal rate of excreting sodium, which is slowed by elevated insulin. This means that people on a keto diet have to work a bit to keep their sodium intake up.

The good news is that getting enough sodium usually helps the body regulate potassium and magnesium (and calcium, too), since the bodily mechanisms that regulate them are all interlinked. But proper salt intake seems to be the key. With the right amount of salt, it may not be necessary to supplement with the other minerals.

A couple of studies that came out a few years ago both showed that daily sodium intake in the range of about 4-6 g (10-15 g of table salt, NaCl) is healthiest for everyone, even salt-sensitive hypertensives. If you look on YouTube for a presentation by Dr. Andrew Mente, one of the leaders of the PURE study, he explains this in detail (he gave a couple of talks that should still be available on the Low Carb Down Under channel).

Personally, I find that low sodium gives me headaches and constipation. Too much sodium makes my stools mushy. If I stay in the sweet spot, all is well. I should probably add that most long-term carnivores eventually find that they no longer enjoy salting their meat, and find that somehow they still get enough sodium, but this is a natural development of being on that diet, and should not be imitated, but rather allowed to occur, if it ever does. (Some long-term carnivores still continue to need dietary salt.)

#130

Daily to my morning 800 ml of coffee, I add 4 grams of an electrolyte mix, which is 1:1 Redmond’s Real Salt and French’s NoSalt, and 3 grams of generic magnesium citrate. Workdays, 4 or 5 days each week, I drink a liter of water with approx 5 grams of Himalayan Pink salt mixed in.

I guess that makes me an Old Salt ! :pleading_face:

(Eve) #131

Perhaps I should double up the electrolyte drink then?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #132

Try it.

Personally, I’d start by increasing salt, since getting it under control automatically helps with potassium and magnesium, but that’s just me. Do more of the electrolyte solution, and see what happens. You don’t need our permission to experiment, you know. You can just do it, and see if it helps. There’s a lot of individual variability in these matters, and your kilometrage is almost certain to vary.

(Eve) #133

:+1:

#134

Hi keto friends!

I am new to posting here, but I’ve been reading the forum for a while. I notice you guys mentioning electrolytes. Has anyone noticed potassium potentially going too high if you take too much potassium chloride at once in a supplement? I had noticed feeling a little nauseous and headache-y sometimes after starting to drink some LMNT every day. Around that time I had some blood work and my potassium was elevated above normal range. And coincidentally soon after that I heard Megan Ramos mention on her Fasting Method podcast that she had tried a popular electrolyte mix recently that gave her symptoms of too much potassium even with only 200mg potassium (which is what LMNT has). Needless to say I have since dropped the LMNT and just started using mostly salt and some magnesium with very little added potassium for my electrolytes, and that feels better. Maybe some of us are more sensitive.

More about me, I am a woman in my early 50’s. I have recently been trying to up my keto game a bit, after being inspired by Dr Bosworth’s Keto Continuum. Last year I had tried monthly rounds of a Longo-style fasting mimicking diet, which worked okay, but the results were proceeding way too slowly, probably because I wasn’t sticking to low enough carbs between rounds. Since late last year, I have switched to a lower-carb diet and then added a 36-72 hour fast each week with just water, salt, coffee, and tea. Over the past 10 months I’ve been able to lower my A1C from 6.3 to 5.7, and I expect it to be out of the prediabetes range by my next blood work appointment if I stay the course. I joined the forum after reading about the importance of support groups from Dr Boz, and deciding that maybe I should start actually posting for accountability. I don’t know anyone in real life who is doing keto.

Thanks for all the interesting posts over the years!

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #135

Welcome to the forums!

As for your question about potassium, it is wise to be careful, since too much or too little potassium (hyper- or hypokalaemia) can be deadly. I’m glad you feel better without the extra potassium.

Keeping sodium in the right range (about 4-6 g/day, or 10-15 g/day of sodium chloride) is important, because it helps keep the other electrolytes in balance as well. Many people find that with the right amount of sodium they don’t need to supplement magnesium, potassium, or calcium. If you think you do need some extra potassium, a good way to get it is “lite” salt, which is half sodium chloride and half potassium chloride. Magnesium is found in green vegetables and in bone marrow, among other foods.

(Robin) #136

Welcome! So glad you joined in.
You got this!

#137

Thanks Paul! I definitely feel better with extra salt. Especially when first getting back into keto again after being out of it. I can actually feel light-headed with low blood pressure when trying to get out of bed if I don’t keep the salt up.

I have read before to be careful with potassium supplementation, and I’m glad I happened to have blood work this time to show me the difference it makes. I didn’t think 200mg was particularly high, although I have read they usually limit the amount in a supplement to 99mg per serving. Yes, I too have read that both high and low blood potassium can be bad. Mine was only a point higher than normal, but it also corresponded to feeling off, so I don’t take any chances with it. It may have corresponded with me having also some high potassium foods like avocados that week. But like you said, just keeping our sodium levels up helps us maintain our potassium.

#138

Thanks Robin, your story is inspiring!

(Eve) #139

I definitely need some advice here, if anyone can help. I have found that l am missing several important strains of good bacteria in my biome and so my practitioner is prescribing me the appropriate probiotics plus a prebiotic to support their growth, called prebionutri powder which contains several soluble prebiotic plant fibres including inulin, marshmallow, green banana starch, apple pectin, acacia gum and arabinoglycans. I can’t find the carb content but there are 5g of ingredients per required dose. So, l am now panicking that it is going to kick me out of ketosis but realise that healing my biome is crucial to my overall health. So, do you know whether taking this prebiotic will be OK alongside maintaining my keto WOE? Feeling very worried …

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #140

I’m sorry you are having to cope with all this. In the old days, it was considered enough to eat live-culture yoghurt. If you take all the recommended products, how much carbohydrate does that amount to? If necessary, you could probably cut out something else, to fit under your limit, right?

Try going to the Web sites of the various product manufacturers. There should be a tab or page detailing the ingredients and giving a nutrition panel. It should help to have that information.

(Eve) #141

Thanks Paul. I did go to websites and even though all ingredients were listed, there was no breakdown re fat/ carbs etc. I have emailed them to ask. But l suppose at the end of the day you are right- if l start to lose ketone production/ use, then l will just have to cut out something else.
I just wanted to see if you knew of anyone who was taking prebiotic fibres successfully on the keto diet.