Ketogenic Diet: Transitioning, Experiences, Reasons, Cautions ...

[Nancy]

Well I'm sure you're learning a lot from all the experimenting and measuring. It sounds like a lot of effort is going into it.

[apod]

Well I'm sure you're learning a lot from all the experimenting and measuring. It sounds like a lot of effort is going into it.

It's quite the puzzle with all of the interlocking pieces and available diet / lifestyle / supplement strategies.

Tonight at dinner I had leftovers with a fairly identical, but slightly lower-carb / higher-fat meal (~3,000kcal divided across 2 square meals.) I traded the bananas and sweet potato for prunes, almonds, and cashew butter, then traded my whey protein shake for wild salmon (lightly pressure cooked / curried.) This meal immediately followed relatively easy, light resistance exercise (sprouted red rice, adzuki beans, blue/raspberry/prunes/honey, 1oz almonds, 1oz cashew butter, 6oz salmon, kale/collards, onion/fennel/mushrooms, cacao, green tea) without any supplements.

I've read normal fasting glucose ranges up to 100 mg/dL.

Dinner was from 6:10-6:45 (~170g net carbs)
BG reading @ 7:15pm -- 77mg/dL
BG reading @ 7:45pm -- 90mg/dL
BG reading @ 8:25pm -- 97mg/dL
BG reading @ 8:45pm -- 115mg/dL (2h30m+ after my first bite )
BG reading @ 9:10pm -- 99mg/dL

It seemed like I had much better glucose disposal this time around without much of a spike (or my stomach is just packed full of food / starch / fiber with digestion moving very slowly.) A 15g to 30g net carb meal (leafy very low-GI veg) at 70-80% fat often lands me close to that same 100-115 mg/dL range.

I feel like I'm close to reaching some happy medium between the level blood sugar management and cognitive boost that follows a low-carb diet (and benefits from maintaining generally low-insulin levels)... and the body composition, performance, and hormonal boost that follows from intermittent periods of higher carbohydrates & insulin secretion.

[Nancy]

It's interesting to see how the different meals effect your blood sugar. You're eating really healthy, kudos! Thank you for sharing that information. You are figuring out a balance it looks like. I, too, feel better cognitively when eating low carb, but it is probably hard to strength train well while doing a ketogenic diet I would think. And strength training is very good for health, I believe.

[Nancy]

Well I just woke up 2:30 am from sleeping feeling nauseous, light headed, unwell. Very unusual for me. Checked my blood pressure: 132/100. My blood pressure has been good this past year, so quite surprising. The only changes I've made is increasing fats and lowering carbs. I'm wondering if it's from increasing my saturated fat with the coconut oil and/or my caffeine from the coffee. I had the caffeine at 7:00 am and 3:00 pm. I don't normally have coffee at 3:00 pm. But I like that coconut oil and i had a lot of work to do. I had an early dinner consisting of tofu and steamed cabbage. Lime water to drink. All our usual supplements like fish oil, tumeric etc. Nothing to eat after 7 pm. I did add salt to my dinner.

[Nancy]

I had problems on Atkins last fall, so maybe my system just can't handle either saturated fats or ketogenic diets. Or it was just the caffeine.

[circular]

I'm still grasping how much electrolyte replacement I require when ketogenic. I had similar symptoms until I upped my salt and potassium. Salting food wasn't enough. I add 1/8 tsp each Real Salt and Lite Salt (part potassium) to a glass of water morning and evening. I use iodized sea salt in my food. This seems to be enough for me, but some talk about supplementing more. Oh I also tried three magnesium-potassium aspartate a day on Dr Gundry's advice. It may go toward helping the light-headedness/weird feeling, but not the cramps they were supposed to help. I continued to have muscle cramps so I've added calcium and magnesium morning and evening and my calves feel more relaxed so far. I'll probably drop the mag-pot aspartate.

[apod]

I'm still grasping how much electrolyte replacement I require when ketogenic. I had similar symptoms until I upped my salt and potassium. Salting food wasn't enough. I add 1/8 tsp each Real Salt and Lite Salt (part potassium) to a glass of water morning and evening. I use iodized sea salt in my food. This seems to be enough for me, but some talk about supplementing more. Oh I also tried three magnesium-potassium aspartate a day on Dr Gundry's advice. It may go toward helping the light-headedness/weird feeling, but not the cramps they were supposed to help. I continued to have muscle cramps so I've added calcium and magnesium morning and evening and my calves feel more relaxed so far. I'll probably drop the mag-pot aspartate.

It seems like the transitioning period is when this can really get out of whack... especially if you're gung ho about it and pull protein down at the same time, keep your activity up, drink lots of water, and stay put in VLC ketosis. My calves are like hydration/electrolyte-concentration sensors -- once they start to cramp up it's a pretty strong signal that I need more Salt, Potassium, and Magnesium in my diet (And calcium? which I never supplement.)

With a food scale, I've measured that I need right around 12g of supplemental salt (~4.5g sodium) during this time with liberal amounts of "Lo-Salt" (2/3rd Potassium Cl & 1/3 Sodium Cl), bumping me up somewhere around 5g+ of added sodium per day before any condiments / foods. I find I start really gravitating toward salt-cured foods. I usually do ~200 mg of Mg per day, but I ramp this up to 400mg when I'm ramping up sodium & potassium. After a few months of stable ketone levels, this requirement seems to come down a bit and things level out, where my diet is less coated in salt and I'm less thirsty. I'm not noticing any issues while cycling in and out. Looking on a blood pressure monitor, I don't notice much correlation with my sodium intake. Ymmv.

It almost feels like it's difficult to even "absorb" the electrolytes and stay hydrated when you're used to having more insulin around to help facilitate this. There are a few branched chain amino acid supplements that come with an electrolyte mix and a few sports / vitamin mixes that use a pinch of maltodextrin or dextrose. Under some circumstances, I've found these can be useful.

[circular]

Alas, I am at a crossroads again. I continue to gain weight on the ketogenic diet, because due to my other health issues I can't exercise enough to offset 1) the additional calories coming in through fat, 2) the Ketotifen I take that causes weight gain, and 3) the HRT I'm on which can cause weight gain. The one more temporary issue is that it's been too hot to go out for my walks, and I can't use the machines at the gym for non--weight-bearing exercise. My hunger is more level, but not if I cut back on the fat intake.

What made me face this catch-22 is that I had some store credit at Best Buy (for non-US folks who may not know, it's an electronics store). After walking all over the store for a couple hours thinking through my options, I stumbled on this gadget I'd never heard of called Skulpt. It pairs with your smart phone using bluetooth and measures body fat and muscle quality. You can put it on all different muscles and compare left right etc. I'm sure it's not 100% accurate, but from what I read online it's moreso than calipers and other cheap and easy methods, not that there's anything particularly wrong with those methods. My results were positively dismal overall, and that's with increased weight bearing exercise lately.

Suspiciously, the software makes macro ratio suggestions based on your data and adjusts them as your data changes. I'm too tired of my body being against me to even go find out where their recommendations come from, but they're telling me that based on my body fat and muscle quality rating I'd do best with 30% protein, 35% carbs and 35% fat. Something tells me maybe that's right, at least for now. The low protein Gundrian approach doesn't seem right for this situation. However, at 30-35-35 I worry about what some call the 'metabolic no man's land'.

I feel like I'm back to square one. I seem to get different benefits from different diets, and different problems from different diets, but I would not be giving up on keto except the weight gain issue is making me want to back off. I do think my ketones have been higher than necessary, so I can try to find a better balance and still have ketones. It must be a very fine line between low ketones and 'metabolic no man's land', whatever that's really supposed to mean.

I don't tolerate any 'affordable' exogenous ketones.

Just when I think I can stop thinking about what to eat and coast! Argh.

Actually I don't care if I weigh more if I'm fit, but I'm not nearly fit enough.

So confused.

[apod]

Alas, I am at a crossroads again. I continue to gain weight on the ketogenic diet, because due to my other health issues I can't exercise enough to offset 1) the additional calories coming in through fat, 2) the Ketotifen I take that causes weight gain, and 3) the HRT I'm on which can cause weight gain. The one more temporary issue is that it's been too hot to go out for my walks, and I can't use the machines at the gym for non--weight-bearing exercise. My hunger is more level, but not if I cut back on the fat intake.

What made me face this catch-22 is that I had some store credit at Best Buy (for non-US folks who may not know, it's an electronics store). After walking all over the store for a couple hours thinking through my options, I stumbled on this gadget I'd never heard of called Skulpt. It pairs with your smart phone using bluetooth and measures body fat and muscle quality. You can put it on all different muscles and compare left right etc. I'm sure it's not 100% accurate, but from what I read online it's moreso than calipers and other cheap and easy methods, not that there's anything particularly wrong with those methods. My results were positively dismal overall, and that's with increased weight bearing exercise lately.

Suspiciously, the software makes macro ratio suggestions based on your data and adjusts them as your data changes. I'm too tired of my body being against me to even go find out where their recommendations come from, but they're telling me that based on my body fat and muscle quality rating I'd do best with 30% protein, 35% carbs and 35% fat. Something tells me maybe that's right, at least for now. The low protein Gundrian approach doesn't seem right for this situation. However, at 30-35-35 I worry about what some call the 'metabolic no man's land'.

I feel like I'm back to square one. I seem to get different benefits from different diets, and different problems from different diets, but I would not be giving up on keto except the weight gain issue is making me want to back off. I do think my ketones have been higher than necessary, so I can try to find a better balance and still have ketones. It must be a very fine line between low ketones and 'metabolic no man's land', whatever that's really supposed to mean.

I don't tolerate any 'affordable' exogenous ketones.

Just when I think I can stop thinking about what to eat and coast! Argh.

Actually I don't care if I weigh more if I'm fit, but I'm not nearly fit enough.

So confused.

Hey, I've got one of those Skulpt devices on my desk -- would not buy again, haha. I did buy into the latest Withings scale, and I'm digging that a lot more. This one (very roughly) measures Bone Mass, Lean Mass, Muscle Mass, Fat Mass, and Water Mass. It also measures a "Pulse Wave" reading from my heart and records the pulse. The nice thing is that I just step on it in the morning, then step off and it wirelessly syncs all of the data. It's a beautiful little piece of technology.

Ultimately, I think a sustained uninterrupted HFLC ketogenic diet has a tendency to mess up serum leptin, which increases caloric intake -- particularly with a lower protein intake. On the last blood test I ran while eating HFLC, my serum leptin was below the minimum detection threshold (< 0.8ng/mL.) Although, perhaps energy balance is eventually reached at a higher set point of body fat or low leptin helps to promote longevity via calorie restriction gene signaling? Lately, I'm experimenting with C8 MCT oil -- this stuff is fantastic, although I'm cautious of the extra SFA and methylglyoxal production. Tricky stuff.

[SusanJ]

(((Circ))) I know the feeling about just wanting to coast with diet.

My SIL just started walking in the pool on hot days - the indoor pool has a "fun" section (slides, etc) where the water circulates and she walks against the current. No swimming necessary. Maybe a possibility for you?