Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?
monotonic said:
About a month ago I started cooking my own food, which has given me almost complete control over my diet. As a result I lowered carbs, most of which were coming from veggies such as broccoli and green beans. Now I typically eat 75-100g of ground beef per meal with 50g of butter. I experienced what I thought at first was constipation and/or gut flora imbalance. Now I'm not sure. I know from previous experience it could take a week or more for a bowel movement, so I was patient until I started having pain in my abdomen and I became bloated...
monotonic,
First, I would like to remark that writing most of your post as a single paragraph made it very difficult to read while bouncing along in a bus. Please use more paragraphs, not for your sake but for ours.
Next, I have limited time to write but I need to address the "blueberry" issue from one side only (there is yet another set of reasons not to eat them). Unless you have an allergy to them, I think it is highly unlikely that there will be any dire consequences arising from eating a few. You need to realize, however, that the GI symptoms you are experiencing may stem from microorganism overgrowth, and that the fructose (as small an amount as it may be) can make things worse and that the prebiotics in the blueberry skins can also contribute to the problem.
I don't know what is going on in your gut, and you may have to work a lot of it out yourself, supported with suggestions from the rest of us, but it sounds awfully similar to things that were going on in my gut not so long ago. You have to be careful not to make associations ("I did this and then that happened") and then treat them as causal without proof. You need also, I think, not to worry yourself with explanations that are only remotely possible at best, while there are other more likely explanations to consider first.
One thing I have learned is that if you have a lot of fermentation going on then you may be able to control it by limiting -- not eliminating -- FODMAP foods. You might, for example, try just a few mushrooms along with perhaps a green leafy that isn't on any "bad" list if you can find one. My favorite has been chard (in a variety of colors).
This is something you may need to research and experiment with to find what your body wants. I use small amounts of onion, but I cut that out when fermentation grows excessive. Onion is fairly potent, and may not work well at all for some people. Avocado is totally out for me. As I mentioned earlier, if the food has quite a few total carbs and also is high in fiber (as labeled), it may contain too many indigestible saccharides. You also need to watch out for food sensitivities, and introduce new plant foods very carefully, one at a time.
One more thing I have learned, that I don't believe I have mentioned, is that a certain amount of GI discomfort may simply be expected, and not something that you need to counteract. If your gut balance is off, you are going to feel it until it is corrected. If that takes several years, you may feel a bit uncomfortable for several years.
When it goes from gas to persistent pain, however, you may need to do something UNLESS the pain is merely due to trapped gas, in which case you may simply need to pass the gas. I have found that I can relieve persistent gas pain by lying first on my right side until whatever is going to pass has passed, and then rolling over to my left side and doing the same. Starting on the left side, for me anyway, can be extremely painful in that situation, so I always start on the right.
Mild pain not due to gas may be due to mild constipation. In that case, you might just need to wait a bit. If you experience a major overgrowth of some sort, there may be some pain in the aftermath. For me, the solution there too is to simply wait for it to go away.
I have experimented in the past with eating starch to help control the symptoms. There are two problems with that. First, it is heading in the wrong direction with respect to ketones. Second, there are no "safe" starches, no matter what anyone says. I used sweet potatoes, but even Mr. Safe Starch himself, Paul Jaminet, doesn't recommend that with a ketogenic diet due to the high fructose content! He recommends potatoes and white rice, which I find totally unacceptable. So I don't recommend increasing carb intake with starch unless you just have to, and I don't know what foods you would use to do that.
There seems to be layer after layer of misunderstanding out there about the need for "fiber" in the human gut. Normally I would recommend reading the book
Fiber Menace, but in your case you might start worrying about having end stage inflammatory bowel disease, which you probably do not have, so maybe you could put that off for a little while until you have the critters settled down.
The bottom line, from what I have been reading and experimenting with, is that the bacteria in our guts need "indigestible saccharides" -- A.K.A. FODMAPs, A.K.A. "fiber" -- which they use to survive and to produce, for us, butyrate, vitamins, and probably a bunch of things we don't even know about yet. If they are healthy, your symbiotic gut bacteria may also be able to fight off pathogenic bacteria.
The notion that our guts need "bulk" is bunk, from what I can tell, and the above-mentioned book explains why you do NOT want to stuff yourself with that (literal) crap. You are, presumably, not eating grains now so you are protected at least from highly abrasive bran, but you'd be surprised how much bulk you can produce from a smattering of veggies, and you do need to go easy on the stuff. It's the indigestible (to you) starches and sugars that you need -- bacteria foods -- not the bulkiness.
The absurd notion of needing bulk, and of needing abrasive bran, has pathological roots that you can read about if you wish too. Kellog is one place to start (the person -- one of the Kellog brothers -- not the brand name). He was a mess -- not mentally together -- and he apparently felt driven to share his self-inflicted misery with others, which he did very successfully.
I have to go now, but I will continue to monitor this topic if I can.