Hi. I am brand new, and brand new at using forums so I don’t even know how to start my own entry. Not sure if this is the correct category. I’m a food addict and T2D and see this diet as my only hope after almost 40 years of carb bingeing/addiction. I consider myself at the 8 day point, following the calculated macros (from “Conquer Type 2 Diabetes with a Ketogenic Diet” by Davis and Runyan), planning meals so that I spread the macros across three meals. I have spent a fortune on macadamia nuts and grass fed everything and coconut oil and my tiny freezer is stuffed the gills. In the FAQs I read that three days on the KD and you are deeply into Ketosis. I’m sorry, but WTF? My keto strips show trace or low at best. I’m weak and fatigued–can just barely walk the dog-- and I’ve been weepy all week (no female stuff, I’m 67). My blood sugars have improved but seem to have crept up a little the last couple of days without observable cause, my sleep is crappy, I’m apparently not in ketosis, I’m not mentally alert or physically energized. My lean goal is 68k; I’m doing 68g protein, <20g carbs and 115g of fat and I log this. I drink 8 oz of water every hour and salt the heck out of things. WHAT IS WRONG
Struggling Newbie. Also question--doesn't bacon have 1 carb, even $14/lb uncured/unsmoked bacon?
Not everyone gets into ketosis at the same rate. Younger people, in general, get there faster than older people. Also, just because you are making ketones, doesn’t mean your body knows how the use them efficiently. That means you will have low energy until your body adapts to the new fuel source. That is called fat adapted and that can take up to a few months, again seems to depend on age. I’m 52 and it took me about 8 to 10 weeks to notice a return of my energy, especially when exercising.
I have not read the book you mentioned but supplementing electrolytes, especially salt, is very important. Salting your food is not enough. You will need another 1 to 1.5 teaspoons of salt per day to meet your keto sodium requirements. Not enough salt can really make a person feel terrible.
If your blood glucose goes up, try lowering your protein. That seems to be helping me get my blood glucose lower.
I hope this helps. It takes time for your body to adjust. Be patient. 
I’ve been in and out of Keto for the last eight months. For me in the beginning…it took a loooonngg time to really get into real Ketosis. I think it took, minimum, at least six weeks for me. (My theory, backed by no science) is that perhaps if you have lots of inflammation in your body it is a harder and longer transition. My hormones were very erratic, with anger, very bad depression (worse than usual, just black moods), and lots of tears. The only thing that kept me going was after about two weeks I had one day, ONE DAY, where the clouds parted and I felt, no kidding, euphoric. Like, so happy. The next day was back into the darkness but that one day made me feel like possibly the Keto rumors were true so I just had to stick it out. After three and a half weeks I had another good day so I kept going. The good days started coming more often.
Once I came out the other end of the tunnel it was magic. The biggest difference is in depression. I don’t take anything for it now and I’m so so fine. My acne cleared up (I’m 41 but have had it all my life). My sinuses cleared up, and my blood sugar is great. My sleep is still problematic, but I’m hoping staying on Keto for a long time will eventually right the ship, fingers crossed.
So without doing a deep dive on your macros and having you list everything you’re eating, (There are far more keto- educated people here to provide input on that front) I’ll leave you with that food for thought. Perhaps you’re just going to take longer because there’s more to detox and more inflammation throughout the body.
I don’t know about the bacon.
Some people never show more than low ketones. If your showing ketones, you’re in ketosis. Higher levels don’t necessarily mean one is MORE in ketosis than someone with low ketones. It could simply mean their body is wasting more of the ketones, whereas someone with low ketones is using them better for fuel, which is what you want to happen when you are fat adapted.
Oh boy, sounds too much like what I’ll be going thru. I’ve been a depressoid for years, and considering what I ate and for how long there’s no doubt a shipload of inflammation. I’m glad to know that hormone crazies can be brought on by this process. Whew, I’m not alone! My goal is to get off insulin but off of depression meds too would be so sweet. It’s so hard to be patient after all the hype. Thank you and everyone for your responses.
Oh, I looked up bacon again on a couple of nutrition sites and they said 0 carbs (a thick slice has 0.17). Not sure where that 1came from.
With T2D it can take as long as week to get into ketosis, deep ketosis is probably a ways a way right now. It really depends upon your metabolic health and the level of your IR.
You are telling us your lean goal, but not your current weight which is more applicable now. Until you keto adapt which takes about 2 weeks for most, and you will probably be longer, your energy is going to be a little on the low side. As your insulin levels drop you will start to flush out water and salt with it, so you are on the right course as far as adding salt. As long as you don’t have kidney issues add as much salt as you can. Once the ketones start to flow a lot of changes will start to happen, and you will start to heal damage, I think the most important parts of this phase are understanding proper intake and not being hungry. As you near fat adaption, your hunger and ablity metabolise fat directly at the cellular level will make things easier. But don’t kid yourself you have damage its going to need time to heal. As for the items you bought there is nothing wrong with them but they are not necessary if its a budgetary issue.
@mtncntrykid may be of some help, along with others, people who use IDM as well. I am not familiar with that book either.
Someone in one of these millions of posts once said that whatever health problems you’ve had in life become exacerbated on Keto while you’re healing. I’ve always been depressed and had sleeping problems, and true to form, both those things became almost unbearable as I transitioned off carbs. I knew I have hormonal issues because I have melasma on my face, but the wild rage mood swings I went through during induction were shocking to me.
It is hard to be patient. I’m hoping it’ll someday clear up the melasma, because it’s over my lip and so upsetting. I’m working on patience as well.
Just stay the course. I wish everyday sentiment and general medicine would catch up with this, doctors and friends many times disagree with practicing Keto. There is truly something to it all when you start to feel ‘good’ for the first time in your life in your 40s. It makes me sad at all the time wasted due to a lifetime of disinformation.
Good luck to you!
You are drinking too much water to ever get a deep result on a pee stick.
Pee sticks serve no purpose beyond making newbies freak out (besides properly freaking out T1 diabetics who are in keto acidosis).
Like others have said, depends how it’s cured.
Many are done with brown sugar. Definately adds carbs.
If one ketos on for a month, they are doing great, 6 months awesome and a full year stellar! It’s a lifestyle change that is so great for 98% of everyone, but most think it’s a fad, a way for hucksters to make money, it will pass. NOPE, the ketogenic diet is here to stay. The ones that are sick and tired of being sick and tired are going keto, with mostly great success and realizing many benefits. That doesn’t happen in 3 days. Clean keto is best, meat products and leafy green vegetables, water, coffee and teas. Dirty keto is low carb bread products, processed foods, hidden carb products. Never Atkins, all that is a great example of extreme process. I love some Atkins products, but very dirty keto. Give it some time, tweaking as you go. If you trip and stumble, get up, dust yourself off, and keto on like nothing happened. After 45 days have a cheat meal, every 100 days a cheat day, or not. I will never go more than one day every great so often. Don’t worry about pee sticks, if you are worried check your blood sugar 2 hours after eating a suspect food, if spiked you are sensitive to that food. Blood ketone tests are best, I have a keto mojo machine. Keep calm and keto on.
There aren’t any national brands I know of that are 100% sugar free. There’s one or two brands that Whole Foods carries, one of them is Nature’s Rancher and the other has a big “Paleo” sticker on it. I’ve also seen duck bacon at the Kroger in Lawrenceburg, IN. I’m sorry, I don’t recall the brand name.
The duck bacon tries to pretend to be low fat, and I guess it is. Regular pork bacon is generally 7:7 for a normal slice, while duck bacon is 5:5. Now, that’s still a one-to-one fat to protein ratio, but because it’s two grams less per slice, they can say it has whatever percent less fat than pork bacon, and that claim scared me off duck bacon despite it being not only sugar free, but made out of duck. Duck fat is generally regarded as one of the most delicious forms of animal fat.
Duck and lamb…manna from heaven! 
Our Loblaw’s family of grocery stores up here in Canada actually have a “naturally smoked” bacon (“President’s Choice”) that’s 0 carbs per 2 slices/59g. If you can find it in the US (not sure if they have stores south of the border), it should be similar if not the same - generally speaking, just the packaging changes (all of ours requires english/french labelling).
I really wish the US would adopt the per-100-grams model that you see in some other places. The obsession with whole numbers should tip off everyone that the labels are wrong, and obsession with multiples of five (round numbers) should completely and utterly give the game away. I can see the argument against counting calories.
Heh. I’ve actually been beating up on one of our federal agencies to standardize on 100g nutritional labels (they can make including the volume for the 100g optional) - the important part is to get those macros published for a larger weight so consumers can effectively calculate their nutritional information.
(also pushing that they create a national database that all food and supplement manufacturers have to populate and give public access to everyone)
Hit a bit of a stone wall…think I’ll have to add the head of the agency to the thread to get some movement.
Good idea. Especially the database. You make the database available for any app. Now, the person can say that they’ve eaten x grams of y and can chose their decimal place.
Let’s accept the fact that we all have smartphones, and even if we don’t, there’s web apps.
Yep - and if I can get the Canadian government to do it and make it freely accessible online, then even if the FDA doesn’t follow suit, at least everyone in the US (and elsewhere) will still be able to access the data we have. (for the most part, companies keep the recipes the same across countries, unless there’s market conditions that force them to alter them for that geography).
Seems like we’re two peas in a pod. This pea is 67 (5’6" and apple shaped at 203). Try not feeling almost suicidal when you realize all the decades you did nothing even when you were told you were pre- and then T2D and all the ruinous things that have happened to you body because of that… Accountability is a bitch. This is all so helpful and I have had so many replies–I’m very grateful.
Is there a t-shirt that says “Keto On”? As a T2D for way too long, I am at the place where this is my last hope, truly. I know in my gut this is the right thing to do, I believe the science. And I specifically did not check into keto after reading that some famous whatever was doing it. It was watching The Magic Pill that did it for me.
I’m also 67 and female. Started keto in January at 5-1, 171 pounds. No cheat days–I have no interest in feeling lousy again. Current weight 135. I feel great all the time and rarely hungry. Normal blood glucose and fasting insulin dropped from 37 to 12. Almost normal.