"Struggling with Keto Flu? Share Your Experiences and Tips!"

[henrylucas]

"Hi everyone,

I’ve recently started following a ketogenic diet and have been experiencing what I believe is the ‘keto flu.’ I’ve heard it’s a common phase for newcomers to keto, but it’s been quite challenging. I’m feeling fatigued, experiencing headaches, and having trouble concentrating.

I wanted to reach out to the community here and ask if anyone else has gone through this. What symptoms did you experience, and how long did it last for you? More importantly, what tips or remedies helped you get through it?

Also, I’m curious if there’s anything specific that helped you bounce back quicker or if there are any preventative measures to avoid keto flu altogether. I’d love to hear your experiences and any advice you might have for someone just starting on this journey.

[kib1]

Welcome. If you use the search, you will find literally hundreds, perhaps thousands of references to keto flu and how to combat it. The #1 suggestion is to add more salt to your diet. Salt your food, you can even just put a bit on your tongue. (If it tastes unpleasant, you’ve had enough). You can try an electrolyte drink with sodium, potassium and magnesium like LMNT if you want to be fancy about it. Don’t skimp on water, either.

There’s a lot of info and helpful people here, hope you stick around!

[Just_Juju]

Yes, but I was lucky because I started day one with an electrolyte each morning and I believe that lessened the severity of what many people experience. I got the Keto flu once a week for about 3 weeks and it only lasted a day each time.

Understand that what it really is is withdrawal symptoms from a past diet full of chemicals, sugar, and overly refined carbs. These things are not good for your body but highly addictive, which is why your body will go through withdrawal symptoms. Some of those symptoms manifest as the flu. Others will be sanity challenging cravings and a mental state that will try to talk you out of even doing this way of eating, convincing yourself it’s way too restrictive. Think like an addict. What your mind will try to convince you of isn’t the truth.

I’ve known others that had the Keto flu only once but it lasted several days. Then others had it a few times lasting a few days each because they kept sabotaging their diets with bad carbs and while thinking they were on the diet the whole time they really weren’t, so went thru the “flu” each time their body tried to adjust to it again.

Each time I got it I allowed myself the day to be sick, fully aware I was detoxing and it was a good sign, not a bad sign. Because I received so much energy from the diet, all the other days I was fine and never had the kinds of afternoon drowsiness that I typically had every day of my life prior to Keto, so having a day of the Keto flu was manageable as my other days I was pure energy and unstoppable. lol

Baby yourself. Let it go through these symptoms. Let yourself be “sick” knowing it’s helping (like a fever helps cure an illness so we don’t rush to lower it unless it’s too high.) But make sure to get a good electrolyte and take it every morning, and maybe buy some sea salt flakes and nibble on them throughout the day.

Good luck!

[Shinita]

I never had it in the several hundreds of times I went keto but my previous diet was already a pretty good low-carb and I always was quite healthy too. I have heard about different things as reasons, one being electrolyte problems (my body is quite resilient, never had to care about those), another being carb or whatever withdrawal (never had any of that either, I stop eating something only if I don’t find it important anymore. I couldn’t do keto before my low-carb years though, I felt unwell so obviously immediately quit, being me). So I don’t have much advice beyond the electrolyte one. Many ketoers experience they need more soidum than before, apparently. I don’t have this either but I eat according to my taste and feelings. If I eat more sodium, I get salt aversion so it drops, if I could eat too little sodium (I dislike unsalted food or living only exclusively on desserts so it could happen only on long fasts but I don’t do those), I clearly would desire more sodium… So I never worry about my salt intake. Though I am curious what would happen if I could drastically alter my sodium intake (I have heard about consuming a lot of salt - well, compared to my 1 teaspoon a day, it always felt perfect to me so I guess it is but I am still curious - being very healthy too many times and there are carnivores not salting their food at all…) so I may try that at some point. But it feels nice not to care about that one thing and it always worked so well for me… So I am in no hurry. But if you feel unwell, adding salt seems a good idea. Not suddenly too much and stop if it feels bad but maybe that is the (or one of) your problem(s)?

I hope you will find the solution or the problem just goes away soon! We are all different, sometimes we need some tweaking to be as okay as we hear from many people (or it won’t happen. I never got benefits from mere keto apart from fat adapted hunger. that was neat. BUT I was already healthy and a veteran low-carber who banned lots of food groups because I was sure they weren’t good for me…).

There are other electrolytes, not just sodium, of course but I hear sodium alone usually helps.

[PaulL]

I’ve recently started following a ketogenic diet and have been experiencing what I believe is the ‘keto flu.’ I’ve heard it’s a common phase for newcomers to keto, but it’s been quite challenging. I’m feeling fatigued, experiencing headaches, and having trouble concentrating.

Yep! Sounds like a sodium deficiency, all right. Try increasing your salt intake and drinking to thirst. That should fix things. Getting enough salt and fluid is the key to eliminating the symptoms you describe.

This is why Dr. Stephen Phinney, one of the early researchers into nutritional ketosis, recommends a daily mug of bone broth. It keeps the sodium up and prevents the keto “flu.”

Just remember that insulin keeps the kidneys from excreting as much sodium as they normally do, so on a low-insulin diet you need to work a bit to keep your salt intake up. For me, the main symptoms of too little sodium are headaches and constipation; too much, and I get diarrhoea. The advantage of getting sodium in the right range is that getting sodium right greatly helps the body to regulate its calcium, magnesium, and potassium.

Welcome to the forums!