First time in remission with ketogenic diet

Is the idea to stay on a ketogenic diet in the long-term?

I'm surprised no one has measured its safety beyond 24 weeks (that's not what I would call 'long term', especially if people are on it for years).

 

Thanks for the info! Yes I’m going through my own high reactivity phase at the moment, it’s like crashing around from meal to meal . Thanks for the tips!

 

It has. That was just the first study I found.

Here's a longer study, looking at children with epilepsy (note that children are still growing, so the size issue probably doesn't happen for adults, although fractures would be a risk factor for our population): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/17109786/

And another: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1059131111001683

It's considered safe, so long as you watch out for fractures, kidney stones and low growth in children. My own experience has been positive. It's definitely reduced some of my low energy swings and the mood dips they brought with them (I'm not diabetic). My energy feels more consistent.

That said, I'm not sure people need to do keto over the very long term. A lot of the benefits seem to persist in epilepsy, so it's possible that a 6-12 month stint might reset enough aberrant metabolism that you could then go onto a less severe diet afterwards.

You'd probably need to avoid a very carb-rich diet, though, unless you wanted to undo the good work. But paleo or just low-carb (under 30% of total calories) might work. You'd probably have to experiment somewhat.

 

Coconut oil will increase LDL. Mine went quite high but my high level of HDL balanced it out so not too concerned.

 

@Trish I lost about half a stone over the first few weeks. (I started in April) I’d have liked to loose another few pounds, but heigh-ho at least now my weight is stable. And easily stable. I never found it easy to maintain my weight when I are carbs.

Actually, I’d like to be the weight I was in my current profile pic, I’m still about 10lbs above the weight I was then. LOL

 

Fasting helped me last year. I tried various fast durations, and during them only drank water, coffee (with splash of milk) and electrolytes. In the end I did 2 x 36hr fasts most weeks! But when I started keto, I paused the longer fasts. I still don’t usually eat before midday, nor after 8pm, and sometimes go to 20 hours, because I find if I am to be active, I do WAY better on an empty stomach.

I did paleo a few years ago, & it didn’t give me anything like the effect of fasting or low carb. Also I seriously missed milk products. I returned to eating dairy after 5 months and had no adverse effects. Not the same with gluten! I’ve been gluten free for over 5 years now. Made the mistake of “checking” a few days ago as I so wanted a wee taste of some lovely fried black pudding that a family member bought. My gut is still complaining. So I won’t be doing that again in a hurry!

 

In the Objective section of your link it says :

I would ignore a diet paper from 2004 on the breakdown of saturated and unsaturated fats that one should eat. Saturated fats are not the demons they have been painted as for the last few decades. See this link on the subject :

https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2018/...t-cannot-raise-cholesterol-levels-ldl-levels/

Does anyone know if that is healthy body weight? Or body weight as it currently is?

 

I think it's body weight as it currently is for protein.

Yeah, I missed the bit about saturated fats. I have no problem with those.

 

You can do all the above. See the keto macro calculator link I posted, plus any app you might use will have the same thing to set your goals.

 

I think it depends on what your weight is. If you weigh 250 lbs definitely shouldn’t eat 250g protein per day.

In some of my earlier thread replies I stated that keto sites generally state slightly different things about consuming adequate protein. Some say:

1. Standard keto macro breakdown of 75% fats, 20% protein, 5% net carbs
2. Protein 1 g per kg of body weight
3. Protein 1 g per kg of lean body weight (body weight * (1 - body fat %/100))

I personally think it’s best to just start with the standard ketogenic diet and let a keto calculator (in an app or online) set your goals for you after you fill out all the parameters.

Then after doing the fast and starting the diet it’s crucial to do accurate glucose and ketone blood monitoring and determine your GKI fairly often. This will tell you if you are doing it right for your body or not.

In general, if you haven’t tried this diet yet don’t overthink it up front, especially while having ME. In the state I have been this summer if I overthought everything I would’ve never done it.

 

I'm considering giving this a go but I'm worried it'll be really expensive? For people who do it, is it much more expensive than a standard diet?

 

It’s really hard to answer this accurately... I could make a standard diet really expensive if you like to eat lots of costly things.

 

Not really. Myhill has a handy shopping list for people with restricted energy here: http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Keto...ation_or_cooking.29_for_the_severely_disabled

Some things are very cheap, others not so much. Lidl has cheap 95% pork sausages, linseed, coconut oil, etc, which are all great.

Oh, and one thing I only learned recently: US labels don't show net carbs, but UK ones do (so you shouldn't deduct fibre again from the carb content). I was doing that and having three times more carbs than I realised!

 

This was what I did. For about a year I did as low-carb as I possibly could without being on traditional keto diet. I ate no fruit, no added sugar, no breads or carbs. Now I'm on a slightly more relaxed diet.

But I'm considering going back, after reading this thread!

 

no good for me as I'm a vegetarian, and before anyone says 'soya', I also have the issue with oxylates,
my digestion cannot handle quorn (fungus based), and pulses are no good for low-carb. I currently weigh around 114lbs (having put on a few pounds since last year) and I'm 5'6"............so in the words of the Dragons, I'm out.

 

Yes, that's probably wise. Nuts can work, but you'd be cutting out so much I don't think it's possible.

 

I tried the Palio diet for a couple of months about 15 years ago with no change.

I’d be willing to go full Keto, especially if it only had to be strict for a year. However it would be a lot more work than my current diet so I’d rather see more research on it for ME/CFS before I committed.

I’m glad it’s helping some people though.

 

For those vegans and vegetarians following this, you can actually do a vegan or vegetarian ketogenic diet. Please look on the web and you will find a trove of information on this.

Realistically yes I understand it would make an already somewhat restricted diet more restricted, but just wanted to put it out there that it is generally feasible.