So I’ve done a low carb diet and it’s given me good results. A few days ago, I noticed that my breath had a metallic taste. Looking it up, I discovered I was in ketosis, which is when your body starts getting most of its energy by burning your fat rather than burning carbs. This can be excellent for losing fat but it does pose problems.
How do I supply my brain with enough energy? I read that energy burned from fat is sometimes unable to cross the blood-brain barrier. I would like to avoid the headaches and zombie feeling.
How do I maintain at least somewhat adequate energy levels for light activity? I don’t partake in much physically demanding activity aside from a little working out but I found that I ran out of energy even for simple tasks and slept a lot.
How do I prevent my body from eating my muscles? I don’t want to lose significant muscle mass beause of this. I eat at least 100 grams of protein per day.
Do you only feel like shit for a few days as your body gets used to the switch from carbs to fat?
Anything I should know, watch out for and do when it comes to ketosis?
I’d got a bit fat, so the last ten weeks, I’ve skipped breakfast (I don’t really eat it anyway), run 4 miles before lunch, had a salad based lunch, then a normal dinner. I can taste the acetone on my breath, but it’s not so bad I don’t think. I apply no nutritional category restrictions (carbs, fats, protein etc)
I haven’t noticed any deterioration in my mental capacity at work and there have been no obvious mistakes (I’m a lab based research chemist, so I do need to think a bit).
I do get a bit of weakness occasionally, but I use a tried and tested formula. Guts and drive. No magic formula, just ignore it and get on with it. I did try a really tough bike ride before eating and after 4 hours got so weak I could was struggling to stay conscious. Stopped, ate, fine after 15 minutes.
As for the biological consequences, no idea I’m afraid.
For keeping your brain swimming in those sweet ketones, coconut oil (or MCT oil) can’t hardly be beat, especially early on in adaptation. I have a teaspoonful mixed well into a cup of coffee most mornings.
You will probably feel fatigued for a day or two, so just take it easy on the exercise for a week then slowly build back up into it. Being strict about ketosis will make this much easier long term.
The reason your body will scavenge your muscles in weightloss is to produce glucose for your brain. In order to make sure that muscle loss is minimal, keep a reasonable calorie deficit (25 calories/lb of body fat or less), make sure you are getting enough protein (at least .75 grams/lb of lean body mass), and don’t shoot for zero carbohydrates, shoot for about 25-30 grams per day (your brain will still use about 20 grams of glucose a day even when keto adapted, so you might as well eat it).
I felt like I had the flu for less than a whole day, but since then I feel better than ever.
I did this 8 or 9 years ago, full-on Atkins, no-cheating. My side effects when ketosis kicked in were more of a buggy feeling like I was dying for a smoke or something. Crawly skin, itchy eyes, sort of nervous. Didn’t really lack energy. I had beat cigarettes some years before, with similar results, so I determined to just steel myself and suffer through the “withdrawals.” Again, similar results; after 2 weeks or so I started feeling human again. My coping technique besides eating all the fat, bacon, eggs, etc I wanted was to drink water. Whenever, I mean whenever, I got the urge to run naked to the store and stock up on carbs I’d pound the water. Probably kind of crazy but it actually helped to have something I could nervously consume which I did ALOT. Once I got through the krazies, probably the neighborhood of 10 days, it was smooth sailing. Lost a ton of weight and eventually adapted back to a sensible diet. Worked for me great and felt great. If anything had more energy but like I say the side effects were temporary and for me mainly just sort of nervousness and some relatively mild constipation initially.
For me, while in ketosis earlier this year, splashing my face with cold water periodically throughout the day would jolt me back to life.
Drank coffee throughout the whole day, sipping it. Instead of drinking my usual 16oz mug, I drank 2 or 3. YMMV of course; drink tea if you’re not used to it.
Took two showers a day sometimes (no need to actually wash yourself, just stand in the shower).
transition in more slowly. Don’t torture yourself by doing this overnight. take about 2 months or more to get into ketosis.
Try to eat more raw or lightly-cooked food, that tends to help with energy levels. Sashimi, raw butter, virgin coconut oil, avocados, etc. Well, avocados won’t give you energy, but they’re a good way to vary your fat source.
You really need to change your sources. The brain can’t “burn” fat, only sugar, but the body can turn fat into sugar; it also will break up glycogen to obtain small-chain sugars (glycogen is long-chain sugar, stored in the liver specifically for this - starches are similar, but starch has branches and glycogen does not).
The idea of “energy burned from fat” being different from energy from any other source is making my physics books weep.
The brain can use glucose molecules for energy, but it can also burn ketones for energy. Fatty acids cannot cross the blood brain barrier, but ketones and glucose can. When you are not in a ketone producing state, fats are broken down and used as fatty acids. When you are in ketosis, some of those fats are broken into fatty acids, others are turning into ketones.
Energy burned from fat is a clumsy way to talk about intermediate products your body makes from foods to generate ATP.
The OP is starting from the notion of energy being burned outside the brain and transported there… how? Instead, what’s transported to the brain is glucose, to be “burned” in situ.
If you know of a transportation mechanism for energy inside the body which doesn’t involve chemicals, I’m all ears (something which, by the way, is an anatomical impossibility).
When fats are broken down in the liver for energy, ketone bodies are produced as by-products. Those ketone bodies can be used by the brain for energy, once the body has adjusted to a low carb diet. On a high carb diet the brain uses glucose, as you said.
To the OP: it does take a few days to a week or more for the brain to switch over. Coconut oil I have found to be helpful.
Also, if you are doing this for weight loss, consider looking into interval training and weight training also, if you aren’t already (once you have gotten through the low-carb “flu”). Both are very good at improving weight loss.
Eat when you’re hungry, get plenty of calories, drink lots of water, exercise. Don’t be afraid of salt- some folks find they need to eat more salt when they low carb. Help yourself lose fat and stay strong by lifting weights.
Thanks for the info. I’m finding the switch over period rather rough and since I’m already at a BMI of 21, I think I’ll either stay at this point or lose a further 5 pounds through non-ketosis means. The adjustment period makes me unable to exercise and sometimes dizzy.
For those who’ve made the adjustment, do you find that once you’re in ketosis, you generally feel better or worse than when you’re not?
It seems that a state of ketosis would be very easy to lose. If you’ve been in ketosis for several weeks or months and have 100-200 g of carbs for 1-2 days, does your body go back to glucose-based energy? Do you then have to go through the ketosis adjustment process again?
I started eating low carb again in January, so the better part of a year now. Generally I would eat higher carb for a day every 2 weeks. I never noticed a problem switching back and forth. Last week I actually took a whole week off (combination of a trip for a wedding, my birthday, and a couple of other things). I’ve had no problem going back to the usual since (which for me is meat, eggs, green veg, butter, coconut oil, and a few nuts). If I took months off, then yes, I would need to readapt.
What I love about being keto-adapted: I don’t get energy lows in the afternoon. I can happily go longer stretches without food (I put coconut oil in my coffee in the morning, then don’t eat until afternoon). I feel so much better. I have fewer migraines (I’ve had them for almost 30 years, and nothing has ever worked to improve them). I’ve painlessly lost 45 pounds, have the energy to work out, and build muscle more quickly. Eating carbs, I feel like a sluggish couch potato (and it shows).
Eat more fat. Coconut oil and especially coconut milk will knock my ketostix from pink to purple in an hour, and my energy - already pretty good being below 20 g/carbs a day - noticeably increases.
Hi folks - i’m type 2 diabetic on metformin and have recently started commuting to work by bicycle. Turns out, without meaning to, I’ve stumbled into ketosis, the two ways I know this are:
I have the smell of ammonia in my nose after exercising
I’m itching all over
Very odd, not sure if this is a good thing with my diabetes, however it would seem that as metformin prevents the liver from converting glucose to fat, and the fact that my insulin levels don’t allow sufficient glucose into my cells, fat is being burned from elsewhere in my body, breaking down and combining hydrogen with nitrogen from metabolised amino acids to form NH3 which is respired out of the body.
I’m guessing the itching all over is a response to toxins, or a change in my kidney function, which i’m getting checked out.