Anyone else here on the keto diet?

I did the Primal blueprint for around 3.5-4 years. This was not to lose weight but as a result I did and had to introduce more carbs as I wanted to maintain my weight but be healthy. I don’t follow it as strictly now but still do a pretty good job. It was basically no processed foods and no refined sugar. I feel terrible for the first 2-3 weeks and then really felt the benefits after that.

I'm a PT and I cant endorse this kind of 'diet'. It's an unnatural state for the body to be in, and it feels like another way to cheat your body into doing something it's not supposed to do.

You're welcome to do whatever you like of course, but I would never encourage my clients to go down this route. There's so much more to life than watching the scales (they don't tell you how strong you're getting and how much healthier you are) and comparing ourselves to unrealistic ideals pushed by the media influence. Each to their own though I guess.

I’ve found that drinking more water and adding magnesium really helped when I first started keto—it stopped the headaches and made me feel a bit more normal those first weeks.

Man I'm having a tough time getting fiber in my diet. I have psyllium husk and ground flax seed, but I'm a sorry baker, and I don't like the texture they add to my food. I haven't had anyone complain about smells from me yet, but I can definitely taste the keto in my mouth even after brushing my teeth. I'm gonna go through a lot of mouth wash on this diet for sure.

Yeah boredom's kinda my problem too. Well, really it's just making these foods that I like, but replacing the good tasting stuff with healthier stuff that brings the whole dish down in how enjoyable it is. But it's for the best, since I can't portion control for the life of me. Thankfully with all the hunger suppression I've got going on, now I'm finding myself often with leftovers on my plate.

I think you're right about avoiding keto branded stuff. I keep hoping that seeing that on a label will mean it's made by people who know how to make keto products actually taste decent, but that never seems to be the case. I've been making my peace with slow cooked meats, omelettes, cheese and konjac noodles for the most part. I can eat nuts, but the texture never reads to me as food, so I always end up feeling like I'm eating pieces of debris. I've never been good at eating vegetables, but I'm trying to get my head into eating spinach, cos the iron boost does more for me than caffeine does.

I think my threshold for carbs is closer to 20g than 50g, because my ketones started dropping after a week of adding a little milk to my morning coffee. I'd like to have tortilla wraps again, I'd just need to find one with carbs low enough. I used to be able to find these small 1g carb ones that weren't bad for taste, but can't seem to find them anymore.

It is kind of weird what you can eat on keto, I get you there. I've got a brisket slow cooking in bone broth right now that feels like something I shouldn't be allowed to have.

I will do more reading on what I can eat. I guess the trade off for price is effort. Thanks for the input.

Good lord the bathroom issues. I started hydrating more, and now no gut sensation feels safe.

The bad breath and toilet problems mostly go away after a while. The number 1 rule is to drink more water than usual and secondly, to eat more insoluble fibre or drink fibrogel (but not too much or it's much worse!).

I found that once I got to my weight target, either because I knew what I was doing by then or because my body was fully fat adjusted, the bad breath, toilet issues and excess sweating when exercising were all gone. I think that stopping it at that point, you've lived through all the bad stuff so that's always a negative to the diet.

It has been claimed for years now that people with epilepsy or diabetes can benefit from the diet (epilepsy society, diabetes) and many of those stick with the diet for years.

Lotus said:

my husband kindly let me know that I had "keto breath"! 

It was this plus the bathroom issues that put me off it in the end - just too antisocial when the person you live with is sensitive to smells.

I did my own tweaked version of a ketogenic diet years ago to lose weight. For the first couple of weeks I ate just meat, eggs, fish, cheese, sugar free yogurt, nuts vegetables & salad with mayo, but there wasn't enough fibre to suit my gut. So from the 3rd week I started having All Bran cereal for breakfast. I didn't use the test strips, but my husband kindly let me know that I had "keto breath"! 

There are differing opinions on whether it's good to stay on a Keto diet long term and I don't do it now as I'm happy with my weight, but I still have a lower carb intake than most people. But if I wanted to do it again I wouldn't buy stuff like ready made pizza bases. I would add in small portions of foods that are high in fibre such as fruit, sweet potatoes, carrot fries or roast parsnips as the fibre lowers the insulin response and keeps blood sugars more stable than low fibre carbs.

So a very low carb diet that I would enjoy would include natural yogurt with fruit for breakfast, a lunch of salad with ham or tuna and mayo, and for dinner I'd have meat or fish or an omelette with green vegetables and a small portion of sweet potatoes, parsnips or carrot fries. For snacks I'd have a piece of cheese with a few cherry tomatoes, a small piece of dark chocolate, or fruit with cream. Unfortunately I cannot eat nuts now as I've developed an intolerance 

I did it a fews ago, it was when low carb high protein diets were a big thing. I basically just cut out carbs almost completely. I only ate when I was hungry which was about twice a day.

After the first week I felt really weird but shortly after that I started to feel better, my fogginess disappeared and I felt so much clearer. I basically just ate meat, fish, cheese, eggs and salads excluding tomatoes, red peppers, carrots, sweet corn etc. I can get boring very quickly. I kept it up for about 6 weeks as I'd exceeded my weight loss goal and people were getting concerned by the rapid loss.

I was on the diet for about 5 years. I never ever bought anything that any company had put the word "keto" on the packaging. They just treat it as a marketing word and it isn't useful when shopping.

I found keto really good for my endurance, weight control, calorie intake and I ate a load of stuff I won't even have in the house now. I binge eat (I'm no longer on the diet) so, keto was good for me because I knew that if I went off the diet, I would have punishment getting back on it and I wanted to be on it.

I basically ate anything I wanted as long as the total net carbs were below 50g by the end of the day. Nut butters, cream, butter, cheese, all the meats, nuts, some vegetables (not root or anything sweet), eggs, salad (without tomato, potato, most dressing...) Instead of bread, I'd use tortilla wraps and for snacks I'd have celery dipped in something nice. I used to love a sort of egg custard made with a load of eggs, a load of cream (or philadelphia) and sweetened with stevia or some other sweetener.

I know none of that sounds healthy but I honestly never felt better than when I was on that diet. Why am I no longer on it? Other people. Going out for something to eat with somebody, they would always insist that they can't eat anywhere but this place where there would either be nothing for me or the "chef" could do a really crap salad specially for me. I gave up in the end.

You really need to look at packaging of everything that you might like to eat. You might be surprised by how much you can eat. It shouldn't cost more than eating non-keto if you stay away from the dodgy marketing brands.

Good luck with it!