Be careful with low carb / keto diets

[Booble]

No products with "natural flavors," MSG, citric acid, xanthum gum, ascorbic acid, or guar gum.

I'm always shaking my head at the ingredients list on everything. If I go to the grocery store with husband, he picks something up, I read it and put it back down.
It's really ridiculous. Even things like bread which only needs to be basically flour and water or icecream that should be just cream, milk and sugar. (Haagen-Daz is good like that.)
It's kind of funny how there is a war on plain cane sugar but not on polysorbate 80 and all the other creepy things in foods.

 

[Booble]

I find that I do better when I don't eat for 16-18 hours, and then walk before eating. I'd even go as far as to say I feel the most "normal" and my energy is the best after I haven't eaten for that long.

Lucky. I assume you don't have POTS or low blood volume?
If I were to not eat for 16 hours you'd need to hospitalize me!
Interesting how our bodies are all different.

 

[GracieJ]

I’m on a mostly keto diet and have been for years because those are the only foods I tolerate. It was ironic to me it was so close to full keto.

I do not lose weight, at all, and actually gained in a pattern that indicates cortisol. That weight gain came after my third round of mononucleosis, however. At the age of 60 at the time, and still working a 30-hour week, I would say stress played a huge role in that.

My digestion is pretty shot from candidiasis for years on end. Rebuilding a healthy microbiome has proven difficult. I was able to consult my state’s leading physician/expert on micro biome and thought I was home free. But, he insists ALL his patients adopt a vegetarian diet as part of treatment. It made the fifth honest attempt in my life to go vegetarian - and it was disaster! I had warned him I might have to stop. Sure enough, I was soon in a world of hurt, hungry all the time, depressed, and coping with hypoglycemia all the time. It just wasn’t worth it.

Fruits and vegetables when consumed trigger horrid candida symptoms. It doesn’t take much. They also have to be very, very fresh, or they smell moldy to me. That made trying to adopt a vegetarian diet hard! Everything stinks. That lovely green salad you think is completely fresh would smell awful to me.

Blood tests indicate that I digest fats and protein just fine. It is shot for anything else!

At one time, I did what is called metabolic testing. My ideal diet is/was high protein, high fat, low carb. I have always done best on that.

Throw in the candida issues, and inability to gain ground healing digestion overall - it has been an interesting time. I am limited to about 30 foods, so I make sure they are organic as much as possible.

Since getting professional help has proven difficult, my approach over the past four years is low and slow, reasonable servings of what I do tolerate, and micro servings of foods I might have trouble with. I can now tolerate a lovely green salad. Feels like heaven. Fruits are still a huge no. Grains are nearly completely absent. Animal protein continues to be the main part of my diet. I don’t do well if I under eat for whatever reason.

I second the thought of avoiding food additives.

Reading through this thread is interesting. We are all so different!

 

[Dysfunkion]

I’m on a mostly keto diet and have been for years because those are the only foods I tolerate. It was ironic to me it was so close to full keto.

I do not lose weight, at all, and actually gained in a pattern that indicates cortisol. That weight gain came after my third round of mononucleosis, however. At the age of 60 at the time, and still working a 30-hour week, I would say stress played a huge role in that.

My digestion is pretty shot from candidiasis for years on end. Rebuilding a healthy microbiome has proven difficult. I was able to consult my state’s leading physician/expert on micro biome and thought I was home free. But, he insists ALL his patients adopt a vegetarian diet as part of treatment. It made the fifth honest attempt in my life to go vegetarian - and it was disaster! I had warned him I might have to stop. Sure enough, I was soon in a world of hurt, hungry all the time, depressed, and coping with hypoglycemia all the time. It just wasn’t worth it.

Fruits and vegetables when consumed trigger horrid candida symptoms. It doesn’t take much. They also have to be very, very fresh, or they smell moldy to me. That made trying to adopt a vegetarian diet hard! Everything stinks. That lovely green salad you think is completely fresh would smell awful to me.

Blood tests indicate that I digest fats and protein just fine. It is shot for anything else!

At one time, I did what is called metabolic testing. My ideal diet is/was high protein, high fat, low carb. I have always done best on that.

Throw in the candida issues, and inability to gain ground healing digestion overall - it has been an interesting time. I am limited to about 30 foods, so I make sure they are organic as much as possible.

Since getting professional help has proven difficult, my approach over the past four years is low and slow, reasonable servings of what I do tolerate, and micro servings of foods I might have trouble with. I can now tolerate a lovely green salad. Feels like heaven. Fruits are still a huge no. Grains are nearly completely absent. Animal protein continues to be the main part of my diet. I don’t do well if I under eat for whatever reason.

I second the thought of avoiding food additives.

Reading through this thread is interesting. We are all so different!

Fruits for me in general are also horrible, every time I eat any fruit I get the most terrible fatigue and depression with bloating. MY body is also very picky with what vegetables it tolerates even though I'm largely vegan (I will eat seafood occasionally though). It seems completely random with my vegetable reactions. I found certain types of potato (sweet potato and for some reason small white one's are the worst but the large russets aren't too bad. Can't get to the bottom of it), cabbage, lentils, and possibly peas (I'm in the process of eliminating these, less than a week out from consuming any currently). Looked at the nutrition facts of all of these things and I can't find anything that makes sense about it besides that when I consume them my immune system has a melt down. I really need to take a microbiome test but I don't think I'll be willing to shell out the money for it until the Summer at some point if the rest of my money situation is looking good enough. I can't tolerate land animal protein period, that one is also a huge mystery with me. It probably has to do with our specific microbiome conditions and other immune mediated factors affecting the microbiome in a loop. My reactions to carbs are all different too, one of my weirdest divisions in reactivity there is how for example bread can make me more brain foggy and tired yet plain oatmeal induces bloating, constipation and depression similar to fruits but fruits are worse with the physical fatigue and depression. Just eating plain sugar doesn't really do much of any of this but make me more groggy and makes my belly rumble too much past some point though I almost never eat actual sweets anyways.

 

[perchance dreamer]

The diet that works best for me is to have for every meal protein, fats, non-starchy vegetables, and a carb such as berries, apples, or a little hummus during the day and usually a medium serving of sweet potato at night. The sweet potato with dinner helps my sleep.

I don't bother with watching the amount of protein and non-starchy vegetables I eat since protein is so satiating that I don't over eat it, and I'm not tempted to gorge on non-starchy vegetables, but I do pay attention to the amount of carbs I eat.

All vegetables have carbs. I wish nutrition articles would use the terms starchy and non-starchy vegetables for clarity. It's an important distinction.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Keto / low carb diets often hurt thyroid function, among other problems related to constantly high stress hormones. It's especially hard for women due to our differences in physiology.

I heard somebody was pushing a keto diet for females that includes carbs, for the reasons you list.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Just meat, fruit, veg, potatoes, and milk (if you can tolerate it).

agree, generally...thats what I"ve been doing lately. Very little processed foods, mostly home made pots of really well cooked black beans ( a butyrate dose) , I have some fresh fruit, but generally a modest small serving.

What I wish someone had told me many years ago before I experimented with restricting carbohydrates (essentially starving myself of glucose):

My understanding is people with ME "may not" be digesting glucose properly which means we aren't typical or average people who may respond entirely differently because their systems operate correctly.

I"d love to chat with a real expert on the gut.

 

[Artemisia]

just cream, milk and sugar. (Haagen-Daz is good like that.)

Yes this is the only ice cream I buy because everything else has toxic ingredients that make me sick, and since money is tight I save it for a very rare treat.

It's kind of funny how there is a war on plain cane sugar but not on polysorbate 80 and all the other creepy things in foods.

OMG yes! You have no idea how often I think this exact thought. People will say "I quit sugar and feel much better so therefore sugar is toxic!!!" yet they don't think about how sugary junk food will contain 10+ industrial chemical ingredients. Yet they blame cane sugar. LOL. I'd take cane sugar over xanthum gum and carrageenan any day.

 

[perchance dreamer]

I really feel better when I avoid grains and limit legumes, red meat, and dairy. Controlled amounts of fruit, sweet potatoes, and winter squash work well for my carbs.

 

[GreenEdge]

and created a new symptom: endless, insatiable hunger.

When I started the keto diet, for the first month or two, I had a similar experience. I saw a dietitian to check I was doing it correctly. From what I told her, she though it was likely that I was getting to the point where the body is low on energy and about to switch to fat metabolism, but each time I had prevented it by eating something. She also suggested buying a device to test ketone levels.

So next time I got close and became really hungry, I just made sure my next meal was zero carb. eg. salmon.
And that worked for me. I know I'm in ketosis when hunger disappears.

 

[Artemisia]

When I started the keto diet, for the first month or two, I had a similar experience. I saw a dietitian to check I was doing it correctly. From what I told her, she though it was likely that I was getting to the point where the body is low on energy and about to switch to fat metabolism, but each time I had prevented it by eating something. She also suggested buying a device to test ketone levels.

So next time I got close and became really hungry, I just made sure my next meal was zero carb. eg. salmon.
When hunger disappears, I know I'm in ketosis.

That's not how it worked for me at all. I could eat zero carb for days, weeks, months... and endless hunger. I never "cheated" either, though I wish I would have because my health might not have collapsed if I had cheated. (Often people will say it didn't work for me because I wasn't disciplined enough. Ha!)

Dietitians and doctors often don't have a good grasp on how the body works.

 

[GreenEdge]

That's not how it worked for me at all. I could eat zero carb for days, weeks, months... and endless hunger.

Where you drinking diet drinks or eating anything sweet?

The body will not switch to fat metabolism, if it senses sweet and is expecting energy from carbs to arrive soon.

 

[Artemisia]

Where you drinking diet drinks or eating anything sweet?

absolutely not. Sweet food and drinks have carbs. I wasn't eating carbs. And I've always avoided toxic diet drinks, xylitol, etc. Nothing with a sweet taste.

trust me, it was very low carb. in 13 months I had a few low carb veggies, like cauliflower. For several months, my diet was exclusively meat and eggs.

Tons of people (esp women) with similar experiences. Just harder to hear us in all the pro-keto noise lately.

 

[Artemisia]

Ketosis creates lactic acid as a metabolic byproduct.

pwME don't need more lactic acid

also don't need more stress hormones

really makes no sense to deprive cells of energy currency, glucose, or try to force body to convert fat and protein to glucose.

 

[Artemisia]

"Another proposed weight loss mechanism is with decreased carbohydrate intake, the body will have to undergo increased amounts of gluconeogenesis to provide glucose to the brain.10 Gluconeogenesis is an expensive metabolic process.10 Theoretically, restricting carbohydrates depletes glucose stores, and increases gluconeogenesis.10 Another mechanism of weight loss is theorized to be direct appetite suppression. In a study with 17 men, subjects were given a high protein diet with two weeks of high-carb and two weeks of moderate-carb intake. During the low-carb, ketogenic diet phase, the participants reported significantly decreased hunger, leading the authors to hypothesize that ketosis itself may suppress hunger.11 While these mechanisms provide insight into how the ketogenic diet promotes decreased appetite and fat loss, it is important to note that evidence shows weight loss from the ketogenic diet can be partially attributed to water loss. In another study, 20 obese subjects were followed for four months on a ketogenic diet. Utilizing body composition assessments, investigators noted a substantial reduction in weight due to free water loss early in the study.12 It is important to look at length of duration in ketogenic diet studies as early, dramatic weight loss may be due to diuresis."

[not sure why they don't mention weight loss due to glycogen depletion in the liver!!]

"There is evidence that women who become pregnant on low-carbohydrate diets have increased risk of birth defects."

[doesn't sound too healthy]

"

Conclusion​

Although ketogenic diets are popular and patients show great interest, their use must be approached with caution. There is data showing impressive short-term weight loss, but most analyses suggest that long-term, their efficacy is comparable to other hypocaloric diets. At least part of this effect may be due to difficulty with long-term adherence to such a restrictive eating pattern. In addition, some of the weight lost during the acute period of following a ketogenic diet may be related to water loss, rather than true fat loss. Thus, the impressive short-term weight loss numbers may appear inflated. For patients with type 2 diabetes, it is likely that any weight loss achieved with the ketogenic diet could lower A1c and help reduce the medication burden. Care must be taken to taper diabetes medications appropriately to reduce the risk of hypoglycemia.

Lastly, long-term safety and health have yet to be proven, especially with regard to lipid profile alterations and cardiovascular impact. "

[they're clearly not thinking about effects of chronically elevated stress hormones which are more concerning]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9312449/

 

[Rufous McKinney]

OMG yes!

now Mexico is ruining their sodas...which used to be still made with normal cane sugar. You could stop in a small local Mexican market and their sodas are delicious (and often in smaller sized bottles).

Now its all these WEIRD sugars/faked things/ plus probably the corn syrup (I don't know entirely as I cannot possibly consume one)

 

[Artemisia]

now Mexico is ruining their sodas...which used to be still made with normal cane sugar. You could stop in a small local Mexican market and their sodas are delicious (and often in smaller sized bottles).

Now its all these WEIRD sugars/faked things/ plus probably the corn syrup (I don't know entirely as I cannot possibly consume one)

!!!
You are one of the few other people I've seen to comment on this. Do you live in Mexico? I lived several years (Oaxaca among other areas) there and on my last visits a few years ago I noticed you could not get a real sugar soda anywhere. Somehow other people I know living in Mexico don't notice the drastic change in flavor!!

So you can get "mexican coke" made with cane sugar in the US but not Mexico. Crazy!!

Sorbitol is toxic IMO. I get headaches and gut issues from it. Cane sugar is not a health food but it's not "poison" like it's being hyped currently.

 

[Booble]

Yes this is the only ice cream I buy because everything else has toxic ingredients that make me sick, and since money is tight I save it for a very rare treat.

OMG yes! You have no idea how often I think this exact thought. People will say "I quit sugar and feel much better so therefore sugar is toxic!!!" yet they don't think about how sugary junk food will contain 10+ industrial chemical ingredients. Yet they blame cane sugar. LOL. I'd take cane sugar over xanthum gum and carrageenan any day.

High-Five, Arte. It makes me crazy too. It's just sugar. From the sugar cane plant. Sheesh!

 

[Booble]

now Mexico is ruining their sodas...which used to be still made with normal cane sugar. You could stop in a small local Mexican market and their sodas are delicious (and often in smaller sized bottles).

Now its all these WEIRD sugars/faked things/ plus probably the corn syrup (I don't know entirely as I cannot possibly consume one)

Yes!
I stopped drinking/eating anything with high fructose corn syrup years ago. (And never drank/ate anything with artificial sweeteners.) There is a Mexican food truck near me that still sells Mexican code with cane sugar. Every once in awhile I treat myself. Mmmmmm.

 

[Booble]

My food each day is pretty much this:

Breakfast: hard boiled egg, oatmeal, blueberries,
Drink: Unsweetened cocoa powder in hot water
Drink: water

Lunch or Dinner: Organic chicken and less often organic local hamburger, with a starch (rice, potatoes, pasta, or homemade bread) and steamed or roasted veggies (either one or a combo of carrots, broccoli, corn, peas, green beans).
Drink: water

Third meal: PBJ or cereal or toast or light salad
Drink: water

Snack 1: banana or slices of apple or other fruit or fruit blended into a smoothie

Snack 2: couple of cookies (Back to Nature chocolate chip) or small cup of Haagen-Daz or piece of homemade cake or muffin