Ketogenic Diet - Powerful Dietary Strategy for Certain Conditions

[John G]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

What was your diet like before you started the KD on Nov. 1? It sounds like maybe you jumped into the high fat/low carb diet too fast and your body was still used to carbs and sugar and when the two mixed you had a negative reaction to the increased fat in your diet. If you were previously eating carbs/sugar daily then going straight from that to a ketogenic diet can be jarring to the system, which may explain the light-headedness and flushing sensation. It's better to slowly work your way into this diet by gradually decreasing carbs and sugar from your system so your body has time to adjust to burning fat instead of glucose. If you jump whole hog into it, your body is going to react.

Several months ago we were OK Paleo <72 grams, no gluten no dairy-wise but we got off that partly cause we had large quantities of expiring Costco rice and beans and noodles on hand (food shortage insurance; we should have just stuck to the 20 year stuff which we also have). We went way off though by putting the beans in tortillas with cheese; soy sauce for fried rice; though sausage and eggs were still the breakfast and lunch for most days we added more carbs to them than when we were Paleo so yes we were a disaster. Slow sounds good.

 

[Beau]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Several months ago we were OK Paleo <72 grams, no gluten no dairy-wise but we got off that partly cause we had large quantities of expiring Costco rice and beans and noodles on hand (food shortage insurance; we should have just stuck to the 20 year stuff which we also have). We went way off though by putting the beans in tortillas with cheese; soy sauce for fried rice; though sausage and eggs were still the breakfast and lunch for most days we added more carbs to them than when we were Paleo so yes we were a disaster. Slow sounds good.

You really need to educate yourself before starting this diet. Going from ingesting poison and burning sugar one day to eating a high fat low carb diet the next is dangerous. I doubt it had anything to do with hypoglycemia. Doing what you were doing is going to be such of change of fuel in your system that the body reacts. It's like putting diesel fuel into an unleaded engine, something's going to go wrong. Did you read this whole thread before starting the diet? It's mentioned several times that there is a process to it. You can't just jump in willy-nilly the day after eating gluten, dairy, and soy sauce and expect everything to be fine. The fact that you were eating sausage and eggs for breakfast is irrelevant. If I were you, I would scale back my fat intake and instead eat just meat and vegetables for a period. Then after a while, cut out vegetables with the highest carb count and stick to leafy greens only for veggies. Then after another period cut out the veggies and start upping the fat intake. Your body is going to need to heal from the poison you put into it, so take it slow and don't rush things or you're going to hurt yourself.

 

[Laura]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Read the ENTIRE THREAD before experimenting, Bluelamp. ENTIRE.

 

[mcb]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

...Onions I think are inflammatory. I used to eat a lot of onions before February. I stopped to eat them since the beginning of the low carbohydrate diet and never touched them again. For me onions and tomatoes are prohibited for, I imagine, the rest of my life.

I am just catching up after losing a "notify" email message and I just saw your message.

Onions and other FODMAP foods can be a problem, depending on the quality of your gut bacteria. (See _http://chriskresser.com/fodmaps-could-common-foods-be-harming-your-digestive-health.) I can tolerate a little bit of onion, but I have to avoid avocados. Both of those are FODMAPs. If you have troublesome strains of bacteria they can produce excessive fermentation and gas from these foods, as well as LPS endotoxin.

You can test by eliminating all FODMAP foods (see the article linked above), although it really limits what veggies you can eat. If you are on a zero carb diet, you are already on a low FODMAP diet, and then it doesn't matter. If you are having problems with any one FODMAP food it is a good idea to test by eliminating them all. Otherwise, if FODMAPs are what the problem is, you will have a hard time discovering it.

Some people elsewhere have reported that they were eventually able to return to eating FODMAP foods, so it might not be "forever." If you can restore the microbe balance, you may be able to fix this problem.

While there are options like the low-FODMAP diet and the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD), it makes more sense to me to just go zero carb and see what if anything improves. Some people have trouble with zero carbs, though. I'm working through that right now myself.

 

[John G]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Did you read this whole thread before starting the diet?

I did read the whole thread but I read it wrongly. The mentioning of "process" posts referred to the Life Without Bread Thread and I didn't go look at that for transitioning to Ketogenic. I figured since Paleo went well when we did it so would this and it was mentioned some studies showed jumping into Ketogenic worked OK. I did eliminate the fasting part since it seemed you don't want to do that with blood sugar worries. We will start out Paleo.

 

[loreta]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

...Onions I think are inflammatory. I used to eat a lot of onions before February. I stopped to eat them since the beginning of the low carbohydrate diet and never touched them again. For me onions and tomatoes are prohibited for, I imagine, the rest of my life.

I am just catching up after losing a "notify" email message and I just saw your message.

Onions and other FODMAP foods can be a problem, depending on the quality of your gut bacteria. (See _http://chriskresser.com/fodmaps-could-common-foods-be-harming-your-digestive-health.) I can tolerate a little bit of onion, but I have to avoid avocados. Both of those are FODMAPs. If you have troublesome strains of bacteria they can produce excessive fermentation and gas from these foods, as well as LPS endotoxin.

You can test by eliminating all FODMAP foods (see the article linked above), although it really limits what veggies you can eat. If you are on a zero carb diet, you are already on a low FODMAP diet, and then it doesn't matter. If you are having problems with any one FODMAP food it is a good idea to test by eliminating them all. Otherwise, if FODMAPs are what the problem is, you will have a hard time discovering it.

Some people elsewhere have reported that they were eventually able to return to eating FODMAP foods, so it might not be "forever." If you can restore the microbe balance, you may be able to fix this problem.

While there are options like the low-FODMAP diet and the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD), it makes more sense to me to just go zero carb and see what if anything improves. Some people have trouble with zero carbs, though. I'm working through that right now myself.

Thank you Megan for the article. I will read it. Onions were a big part of my diet before February. Onions are very important in the Mediterranean diet, onions everywhere, onions here, onions there! So I know that no more onions for me. I almost not eat vegetables anymore. My problem is sugar that I put in my coffee or tea, I try sometimes Stevia but arrrgh, it tastes not very good. I can eat avocados with no problem at all but I don't eat them very often.

The other day I hear in the radio about a new health program that this country has started for obese people: they wanted to give them Gaspacho who is a genre of cold soup just made by vegetables!!! It is incredible the lies that are everywhere in that sense. I am choked to see how people accept what these "intelligent nutritionists" are saying everywhere and I feel so lucky to be part of this forum, you can not imagine. It is very difficult to practice external consideration when your friends are so programmed about vegetables and fruits and carbohydrates. Sometimes I give them information but it is a lesson for me to be quiet, not explode and accept that they are poisoning themselves. I say to myself: a year ago I was me too poisoning myself, also. So be quiet.

Have a nice day.

 

[Ollie]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I can't give the recipe for the cake because I don't measure stuff when I cook. I can tell you the ingredients and if you are familiar with the chemistry of cooking, you can probably replicate it.

The "flour" of the cake was ground cashews and arrowroot flour, half and half.
plain powdered gelatin
baking powder
I mixed all of the above together first.
Then, in a separate bowl:
Butter
Xylitol
vanilla
eggs
I creamed all that together and then added the flour mix.
Finally, we added powdered cocoa until we thought it looked and tasted just right. It was a rich, dark chocolate.

Basically, I made it with the proportions of a pound cake and used 10 eggs. Didn't make it too sweet either. Baked it in a bundt pan in a slow oven for a little over 2 hours.

For those wishing to make this cake, and are less than familiar with the chemistry of cooking, the generally accepted ratios for a pound cake are: equal parts of butter, ('sugar' - Xylitol), eggs, and 'flour'.

This may help, or not. :)

 

[Gaby]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I did read the whole thread but I read it wrongly. The mentioning of "process" posts referred to the Life Without Bread Thread and I didn't go look at that for transitioning to Ketogenic. I figured since Paleo went well when we did it so would this and it was mentioned some studies showed jumping into Ketogenic worked OK. I did eliminate the fasting part since it seemed you don't want to do that with blood sugar worries. We will start out Paleo.

I was also thinking that you should read the Life Without Bread thread, as it does have a lot of information that is missing in this thread and that is vital to the transitioning period.

 

[Laura]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I can't give the recipe for the cake because I don't measure stuff when I cook. I can tell you the ingredients and if you are familiar with the chemistry of cooking, you can probably replicate it.

The "flour" of the cake was ground cashews and arrowroot flour, half and half.
plain powdered gelatin
baking powder
I mixed all of the above together first.
Then, in a separate bowl:
Butter
Xylitol
vanilla
eggs
I creamed all that together and then added the flour mix.
Finally, we added powdered cocoa until we thought it looked and tasted just right. It was a rich, dark chocolate.

Basically, I made it with the proportions of a pound cake and used 10 eggs. Didn't make it too sweet either. Baked it in a bundt pan in a slow oven for a little over 2 hours.

For those wishing to make this cake, and are less than familiar with the chemistry of cooking, the generally accepted ratios for a pound cake are: equal parts of butter, ('sugar' - Xylitol), eggs, and 'flour'.

This may help, or not. :)

Forgot to mention that I also put in probably a teaspoon and a half of D-ribose for the chemical boost it gives to baked goods in terms of "caramelizing." I also used less xylitol than would have been used in pound cake proportions. Weight-wise, I would say that the "flour mix", the eggs, and the butter were roughly equal.

 

[Gawan]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

True. As a mother of five children who tended to assess her self-worth by whether or not there were leftovers at the end of the meal, cooking to make people I love happy is deeply engrained. But, I've mostly gotten over that though I do still think about doing some creative things in the kitchen with what IS well-tolerated by everyone. Like for breakfast, we have the standard bone broth that is on the stove ALL the time, then bacon, patty sausage and link sausage. So we have a platter with a nicely arranged selection of meats and another plate for eggs for those who can tolerate them. Sitting at the table and talking is the one time of the day when many of us are together. We sort out problems, talk about the weirdness on the planet, analyze stuff, share what each of us is working on, and so forth. So it is nice to have something on the table that appeals to everyone. Eating is socializing. Otherwise, I just get a cup of broth and have it at my desk while working.

Then, there are celebrations. We had a birthday here during the initial stages of KD and no one wanted to go off the diet, so we just had a selection of seafood for the "celebration."

We celebrated Ark's birthday a week ago and I spent half the day in the kitchen preparing fried chicken, gravy, sweet potatoes, cabbage slaw and a gigantic chocolate cake that was super low carb and wonderful. It was an experiment that turned out extremely well and nobody suffered from the meal and I even doubt that anyone was knocked out of ketosis.

So, indeed, we need to move away from the materialism: food is fuel. But sitting together to eat is also a social activity and cooking together is also social, especially when you have 10 or more people to feed. No one person here does ALL the cooking, but some of us do a lot of it.

It does make food more special to eat on rare occasions a bit different (sweet potatoes, some chocolate ...), so it could as well be a bit more socializing in this way, since it is different then the normal KD diet. Personally I'm looking forward to christmas, to cook something different :).

 

[Chu]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

It does make food more special to eat on rare occasions a bit different (sweet potatoes, some chocolate ...), so it could as well be a bit more socializing in this way, since it is different then the normal KD diet. Personally I'm looking forward to christmas, to cook something different :).

Yes. And it's not hard to imagine paleo people having a nice meal together, with something "special" once in a while.

To my surprise, even after Laura's cake (which was absolutely delicious, by the way!), I just had broth the next day, and within roughly 12 hours (as opposed to 36-40 hours the first time I switched to the KD), I could feel I was in ketosis again (bad breath, energy coming back...). So that was a good surprise! Maybe once we've been in ketosis for a long period of time, our bodies get so used to it that the brain "remembers" and goes back to getting the right fuel faster than when we started. And that means that we can tolerate some things we didn't use to, just not on a regular basis or in big quantities, and as long as we make sure that they are not so "evil" to begin with, like the cake, which was a combination of pretty safe ingredients for everyone. That's good to know, for special occasions. :D

 

[mcb]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

...I almost not eat vegetables anymore. My problem is sugar that I put in my coffee or tea, I try sometimes Stevia but arrrgh, it tastes not very good. I can eat avocados with no problem at all but I don't eat them very often.

I have heard in podcasts that not all Stevia is made the same way, and I have found that the brand I use makes a difference. I now only use SweetLeaf stevia, in the clear liquid form, and I don't use it much. I think it came up in one of the Ask The Low Carb Experts sessions that there are potential issues with the way the sweetener is extracted. If I run into it again, I will save the reference. The speaker said that there were only two brands he would recommend. I have lost track track of the other brand -- it was something new and different that I was not interested in trying.

With regard to avocados, you can be FODMAP sensitive and eat FODMAP foods occasionally without noticing much. Problems can be hard to identify, because they don't show until until the food reaches your large intestine, which can be up to 3 days later depending on your diet (it should be sooner on a low-veggie keto diet).

I was eating onion and avocado every day, while wondering why I was so gassy and having other unexplained symptoms. No one food seemed to account or it. At one point I eliminated eggs, just to see if I had missed something when I did that the first time, and to help make up the calories I doubled the amount of avocado I was eating. At about the same time the aforementioned blog post was published, and I began to make the connection.

After eliminating FODMAPs for a month, I recently tried a challenge with avocado to see if anything had changed - 1/4 California avocado (lower in carbs) for 3 days. It did not go well (gas, pain, constipation, and possible endotoxin effects), and now I need to strictly avoid avocado. It has taken a couple of weeks to fully recover from that test. My guess is that onion or garlic would provoke a similar response if consumed in comparable amounts, but I am not putting myself through that again any time soon to find out. At least I can be fairly certain now about avocados, which I really liked.

I am currently having a measured amount of sweet potato (20 net carb grams) and a bit of Swiss chard with my breakfast, to prevent the headaches, abdominal pain, and constipation that I experienced on zero carbs, but no other veggies. I also have finally purchased the dumbbells and ankle weights I needed for a full resistance exercise program and I am going to do that for at least a short while before going back down to zero carbs. I started out in poor condition, and it can take a lot of individualized experimentation, not to mention patience, to see results.

The other day I hear in the radio about a new health program that this country has started for obese people: they wanted to give them Gaspacho who is a genre of cold soup just made by vegetables!!! It is incredible the lies that are everywhere in that sense. I am choked to see how people accept what these "intelligent nutritionists" are saying everywhere and I feel so lucky to be part of this forum, you can not imagine. It is very difficult to practice external consideration when your friends are so programmed about vegetables and fruits and carbohydrates. Sometimes I give them information but it is a lesson for me to be quiet, not explode and accept that they are poisoning themselves. I say to myself: a year ago I was me too poisoning myself, also. So be quiet.

Have a nice day.

I think you can share a certain amount of information, with care. If you are doing a particular thing that is different, and seeing a clear benefit, you should be able to say something about that. You don't have to imply that the world would be a better place if everyone did the same as you. You don't even know that. But you should be able to share certain things about what you are doing with others.

I don't see my friends in person very often, but I do share things with them through FaceBook. Some things I suspect many of them would rather I didn't share, but different friends respond positively to different things. They are a diverse group, ranging from "right-leaning" to the extreme left, so I couldn't please everyone if I wanted to, but I try to keep things at a level that will at least be reasonably well understood, and at a volume (posts per day) that won't put them off.

 

[loreta]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I think you can share a certain amount of information, with care. If you are doing a particular thing that is different, and seeing a clear benefit, you should be able to say something about that. You don't have to imply that the world would be a better place if everyone did the same as you. You don't even know that. But you should be able to share certain things about what you are doing with others.

I don't see my friends in person very often, but I do share things with them through FaceBook. Some things I suspect many of them would rather I didn't share, but different friends respond positively to different things. They are a diverse group, ranging from "right-leaning" to the extreme left, so I couldn't please everyone if I wanted to, but I try to keep things at a level that will at least be reasonably well understood, and at a volume (posts per day) that won't put them off.

I give a book by Atkins to my friend in fact because I know she is not ready for a Paleo diet at all. And her husband is diabetic, there is a good information about diabetes in the book, very easy to understand. I am afraid that one of his sons, around 30 now, will be diabetic one day: my friend give to him too much sugar and the young man is not aware of the danger. He is like a little bird that accepts everything of his parent, not questioning anything. Mothers in Spain are, specially with sons, extremely protective. It is complicated: the program in this woman is very strong. Sometimes I give her information.... but to no avail. It is sad but this is a reality we confront everyday. What I see is that when people is not ready to change, is not ready to change. You can give a tonne of information, is like give to them nothing. So I prefer to close my mouth the majority of time. In Facebook is different, I put a lot of information. But I am sure... nobody reads it.

I used also Stevia in liquid by the brand Stesweet. Tomorrow I will check if I can order Xylitol. I never saw it anywhere but maybe I can order it in my natural store. Stevia has tendency to give me nauseas.

 

[mcb]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

...I give a book by Atkins to my friend in fact because I know she is not ready for a Paleo diet at all. And her husband is diabetic, there is a good information about diabetes in the book, very easy to understand. I am afraid that one of his sons, around 30 now, will be diabetic one day: my friend give to him too much sugar and the young man is not aware of the danger. He is like a little bird that accepts everything of his parent, not questioning anything. Mothers in Spain are, specially with sons, extremely protective. It is complicated: the program in this woman is very strong. Sometimes I give her information.... but to no avail.

My housemate, who is not a part of this forum but who is more-or-less low-carb paleo now, has tried giving away books. I am not aware that it has made a difference so far. It could make a difference if they are truly asking for something to read.

I have a long history of trying to "rescue" people, that has cost me a great deal in consequences over the years. I really don't think there is anything you can do from that approach, so be careful. A bit of information delivered the right way (and there is no one right way), however, could make a difference.

I once mentioned to a coworker that I know, during a conversation, that I consumed a lot of saturated fat. I believe I was consuming some at the time. It was interesting, because I could see him pause for a moment and do a kind of double-take. What it does, I hope, is plant the idea that there might be more than one way to think about fat. Otherwise, if everyone just says fat is bad for you then there is no reason to think about it at all.

It is sad but this is a reality we confront everyday. What I see is that when people is not ready to change, is not ready to change. You can give a tonne of information, is like give to them nothing. So I prefer to close my mouth the majority of time. In Facebook is different, I put a lot of information. But I am sure... nobody reads it.

I don't know who is ready to change. If I can occasionally slip something in that points away from common belief and toward something I have found to be true, I do. Perhaps that's just conversation. The more I learn, the greater the discrepancies between what I see to be true and how people around me behave. I can't fix that. There might be something I can do in my job that could make a difference, but I have to take care to approach it an appropriate way.

I used also Stevia in liquid by the brand Stesweet. Tomorrow I will check if I can order Xylitol. I never saw it anywhere but maybe I can order it in my natural store. Stevia has tendency to give me nauseas.

That was my problem with the other brand of stevia. I haven't noticed it so far using SweetLeaf, and going easy on the amount. I would actually prefer to use xylitol, if I weren't trying to lose weight and keep carbs to the least amount I can tolerate.

 

[Carl]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

It does make food more special to eat on rare occasions a bit different (sweet potatoes, some chocolate ...), so it could as well be a bit more socializing in this way, since it is different then the normal KD diet. Personally I'm looking forward to christmas, to cook something different :) .

Yes. And it's not hard to imagine paleo people having a nice meal together, with something "special" once in a while.

To my surprise, even after Laura's cake (which was absolutely delicious, by the way!), I just had broth the next day, and within roughly 12 hours (as opposed to 36-40 hours the first time I switched to the KD), I could feel I was in ketosis again (bad breath, energy coming back...). So that was a good surprise! Maybe once we've been in ketosis for a long period of time, our bodies get so used to it that the brain "remembers" and goes back to getting the right fuel faster than when we started. And that means that we can tolerate some things we didn't use to, just not on a regular basis or in big quantities, and as long as we make sure that they are not so "evil" to begin with, like the cake, which was a combination of pretty safe ingredients for everyone. That's good to know, for special occasions. :D

And the transition back is much smoother than before, just some broth and a good session in the gym, as long as we keep the primary mode of fat burning. It's good for external considering when eating with family who are not on the KD too. I was not enjoying the thought of having to just say "bacon and eggs please" at the Christmas dinner , I think I'll put some effort into taking charge of a delicious low carb cake that everyone can enjoy.