Ketosis

Let's talk about ketosis.

Has anyone here ever experienced it?

Right now I'm trimming down and slipping into it-

I feel a heavy brain fog as it takes my mind a little longer than normal to convert thoughts to words. I have a pretty strong case of cotton mouth. I have zero energy, no motivation and a general feeling of depression.

you should probably specify what ketosis is haha

Ketosis is a state of elevated levels of ketone bodies in the body. It is almost always generalized throughout the body, with hyperketonemia, that is, an elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood. Ketone bodies are formed by ketogenesis when the liver glycogen stores are depleted. The ketone bodies acetoacetate and β-hydroxybutyrate are used for energy.

Click to expand...

it mearly means your body is using fat for energy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis

i tried it once and tbh hated it. had the exact feelings you did.
i think the depression is due to low blood sugar.

I'm sure I have it as I consume virtually no carbs at all. I've been eating almost nothing but homemade hemp butter for a couple of weeks. I do eat chicken and fish, too, but have disease that makes me unable to process most vegetation... plus multiple food allergies. Hemp has made life easier, considering.

But anyway... I guess it makes sense now why mouth has been so dry. I consume enough water so I've been a little confused.

As for blood sugar and glucose for the brain, eventually your body starts converting protein into glucose. For some it may not work, but if healthy you'll do fine. The Inuit eat a diet nearly devoid of any vegetation/carbs and do fine.

I'm trying to quickly cut some weight too and started the ketogenic diet (not quite as high fat as they recommend because I'm looking to lose and not maintain my weight) 5 days ago. I've had no energy and been rather irritable during that time but that's to be expected.

Your body thinks you're starving so it's quite a shock to the system.'Keto flu' should only last a few days or a week for most and after that, your body gets used to it. You need to make sure you're getting enough protein (but not TOO much because it will start to convert that to glucose) and enough fat as well.

Here and Here are 2 excellent guides/FAQs on the subject.

Fyasko. said:

yi tried it once and tbh hated it. had the exact feelings you did.
i think the depression is due to low blood sugar.

Click to expand...

How long did you try it for? Most people who try it stop because of the initial side effects. Did you maintain it long enough to get past these?

twentysix said:

As for blood sugar and glucose for the brain, eventually your body starts converting protein into glucose. For some it may not work, but if healthy you'll do fine. The Inuit eat a diet nearly devoid of any vegetation/carbs and do fine.

Click to expand...

Your body typically only converts protein to glucose if you consume VERY large amounts of it. It might also do this if you are not consuming enough fat or have enough body fat to sustain you but for most people using this diet, this isn't the case at all.

^i only did it for about a day and a half,
i know the side effects pass but i couldn't really afford to go any longer since im in school now ya know?
Renz & Cane let me know how the results are when you start seeing them

^ I definitely don't blame you. The side effects are quite annoying.

I'm looking to drop about 10-15 pounds in the next 3 weeks if I can but so far I haven't been able to exercise much because I've been so fatigued. I'm hoping I'll adjust within the next couple days so I can resume exercising more.

^well best of luck
losing 10-15lbs in 3 weeks sounds too good to be true
i think i'll try it on Thanksgiving/Christmas break when i dont have to worry about the side effects messing with my schoolwork.

For the record, I'm about 5 days in now eating between 15-20 carbs per day and no where near 90% of my calories are coming from fat. I've lost 3-4lbs and already feel a lot better. I'm no longer fatigued and irritable. I doubt I'll maintain this much loss throughout the duration, but it's encouraging so far To be fair, I am still taking ephedrine and caffeine to help curb my appetite some and of course drinking LOTS of water.

15 pounds total is probably unreasonable but I don't think 10 is out of the realm of possibility. If I were very overweight and had more to lose, losing 10lbs within the first weak is very possible according to the guides I've read.

I've lost 50+ lbs total since June and I'm trying to expedite the last 10-15 I want to lose now. I'm 6'0, 180 right now.

Eh, I'll do keto again when I actually need it. I'm currently sitting at below double digit body fat again. The general moodiness and depression I was having was counter productive. I was about to make my family hate me.

Regardless, I would only do keto again if I was back at 20% like I was when I first started working out. After a few weeks of doing keto for the first time I was at 5% body fat and pretty unhealthy looking. (I'm not saying I dropped 15% body fat through keto, keto just got me down to 5% from where I was previously)

Me getting down to 125-130 pounds at 5'11 is NOT good. That was about 2 years ago. Now I'm at a nice solid 160.

Just gotta stop drinking 40s on the weekends.

As I see it. You should add more fat to your diet. If you do, it's likely that you will have more energy. I follow the primal blueprint diet and dip into ketosis on occasion but don't notice it because I eat a fairly high amount of fat. I posted my results of a 30 day primal challenge I did in October on my blog. ComeTrekWithMe.blogspot.com

Just my .2 cents.

I have been going pretty low-fat and haven't suffered from lack of energy after the first couple days because I still have my own fat for energy.

I haven't felt full lately doing relatively low-fat ketogenic but the weight is coming off quickly. It's not something I'd personally pursue or recommend long-term but I'm only doing this for a few weeks max and I still feel pretty good. I played basketball for 4 hours yesterday, half of that being full court 5-on-5 so I don't think I'm suffering from fatigue.

I do have annoying dry mouth and of course the bad taste from ketones in my mouth but that's a pretty fair trade-off in my eyes

Keto flu is the worst. I always mistake it for the real thing.

what do you guys exactly eat?
is it just no carbs/sugar or what?