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adambeyoncelowe
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I think even low carb can yield benefits for some people. Why not give it a few weeks and see? If it works, you can go full keto. You're also less likely to get keto flu too.
Mij
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
In this article is says, "Other things can trigger migraine attacks for some people, like some foods, smells, stress, and things in the environment". These non aura migraines have a trigger for me, either gluten or something else.
I also experience aura migraines since age 12, my grandmother suffered with them, they're hereditary. Foods don't trigger these types of migraines. I get one around every 3 years.
I've been on the diet for nearly a month now. I haven't had a migraine the whole time, and I would usually have one a week and certainly one a fortnight.
This morning my ketone level was 1.5. I felt very good. I mowed the lawn.
At lunchtime I had some cheesecake - I had been promising myself it for the last week. It actually didn't taste as great as I had been imagining.
This evening I was out for two hours including travel time, chatting with people. This doesn't happen very often. I struggled to find words or process the conversation towards the end. I now have a bad headache, my glands are up, there's pressure in my ears and it's tight around the back of my head. My body feels crushed, my feet burn. While making dinner, I managed to drop two lots of stuff on the floor.
So, I don't know if the cheesecake had anything to do with this crash. But I haven't felt like this while following the diet; I have had other relatively busy days that didn't make me crash.
I'm not yet convinced that the diet helps me but the circumstantial evidence is mounting that it does.
This morning my ketone level was 1.5. I felt very good. I mowed the lawn.
At lunchtime I had some cheesecake - I had been promising myself it for the last week. It actually didn't taste as great as I had been imagining.
This evening I was out for two hours including travel time, chatting with people. This doesn't happen very often. I struggled to find words or process the conversation towards the end. I now have a bad headache, my glands are up, there's pressure in my ears and it's tight around the back of my head. My body feels crushed, my feet burn. While making dinner, I managed to drop two lots of stuff on the floor.
So, I don't know if the cheesecake had anything to do with this crash. But I haven't felt like this while following the diet; I have had other relatively busy days that didn't make me crash.
I'm not yet convinced that the diet helps me but the circumstantial evidence is mounting that it does.
My understanding @Sasha, is that it's simpler than that, at least in terms of doing the maths for a ketogenic diet. Total carbohydrates includes fibre, but fibre doesn't have the same effect on the body that sugar and starch does. So, we can subtract out the fibre content of foods when calculating the amount of carbohydrates eaten.
So for example, 40g of celery has 1.2g of carbohydrates, but 0.6 g of that is fibre. So the net carbohydrates, the ones that will significantly impact whether or not ketones are produced, are only 0.6g.
No doubt the various types of fibre do affect sugar and starch utilisation one way or another, but I don't think we need to worry too much about that.
Thanks to @adambeyoncelowe for pointing out that nutritional advice panels on food differ in how they report total and net carbohydrates, with non-US panels tending to report carbohydrates as net carbohydrates (total carbohydrates - fibre). I've found in the food logger app I used, the preloaded carbohydrate figures for various foods tends to be a mish-mash of total carbohydrate and net carbohydrate. Which was annoying.
So for example, 40g of celery has 1.2g of carbohydrates, but 0.6 g of that is fibre. So the net carbohydrates, the ones that will significantly impact whether or not ketones are produced, are only 0.6g.
No doubt the various types of fibre do affect sugar and starch utilisation one way or another, but I don't think we need to worry too much about that.
Thanks to @adambeyoncelowe for pointing out that nutritional advice panels on food differ in how they report total and net carbohydrates, with non-US panels tending to report carbohydrates as net carbohydrates (total carbohydrates - fibre). I've found in the food logger app I used, the preloaded carbohydrate figures for various foods tends to be a mish-mash of total carbohydrate and net carbohydrate. Which was annoying.
adambeyoncelowe
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Yeah, it makes it very hard to actually get into ketosis and stay there.
On the subject of symptoms returning after eating carbs again...
If you do keto for a while then start on the carbs again, you'll get an insulin spike and resulting trembling, nausea, dizziness, weakness, etc, which is very much an effect of quickly reintroducing refined carbs into your body. It's possible you'd also get your symptoms back, too, but it's hard to say how quickly that would take.
You'll quickly learn to avoid carb-heavy foods if, like me, you hate that insulin spike. Carbs simply don't taste as nice for me, either, while proper fats start to taste very succulent and nourishing so long as I'm following the diet. If I go back to a carb-heavy diet, however, I quickly start craving carbs again.
Blood sugar no doubt plays a part in my overall symptoms. I think metabolic syndrome is a commoner co-morbidity than most of us realise.
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Sasha
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I thought that initially, but then I read someone saying that you could increase the amount of non-fibre carbs you ate by adding fibre.
Maybe they were just confused! I can't remember where I read that.
adambeyoncelowe
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
They were confused. You can't eat 100g of sugar and offset it by eating 80g of fibre. Fibre doesn't bind to or cancel sugar or starch.
In the above example, a food item with 100g sugar and 80g fibre would have 180g total carbs and would still have 100g net carbs. However you look at it, that's still five times the recommended amount for your diet.
'Net carbs' means that if a product has 100g of total carbs, of which 20g is fibre, 60g is starch and 20g is sugar, you'll consume 80g net carbs and 20g fibre. The fibre doesn't reduce the sugar or starch. Annoyingly, the UK food label will say 80g of carbs and 20g of fibre, while the US label will say 100g of carbs and 20g of fibre. 20g hasn't disappeared, but in the UK you don't need to do any maths. If you're not careful, you can easily eat that food and think it's only 60g of net carbs, when it's a third higher.
This makes sense once you realise. I used to look at things and think, 'How can this item have 5g of total carbs, and 14g fibre? Wouldn't that make it -9g of net carbs? How can that be possible?'
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Sasha
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
So are the net carbs on a UK packet the 'of which sugars' bit?
Carbs come in basically three sorts: sugars, starch and fibre.
Sugars and starch both count as carbs in the Keto diet, fibre does not, as it is indigestible.
So in the UK, if a label says: Carbohydrate 20g of which sugars 6g, Fibre 2g.
Breaking that down, it would be 6g sugars, 14g starch, 2g fibre.
That means for your keto diet you count that as 20g (sugars and starch)
In other words, use the figure listed as carbohydrate.
Sasha
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I'm looking at a packet of ToFoo tofu (made in the UK) and on the back it says:
Carbohydrate, 1.1g, of which sugars 0.7g and fibre 0.5g. So sugars + fibre is greater than total carbs.
I thought that was maybe a rounding error but on the Ocado website (UK grocery store) it gives info for bell peppers as:
Carbohydrate 5.8g, of which sugars 5.6g and fibre 1.1g.
So again, sugars + fibre is greater than total carbs.
Am I looking at this wrong?
adambeyoncelowe
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Yes. As Trish and Keela and I have all said, the UK listing for 'carbohydrates' is sugar and starch only. It does not include fibre.
adambeyoncelowe
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
To put it another way, when logging bell peppers, log:
Net carbs: 5.8g
Fibre: 1.1g
Don't deduct the fibre from the carbs, because UK labels do that for you already.
Net carbs: 5.8g
Fibre: 1.1g
Don't deduct the fibre from the carbs, because UK labels do that for you already.
Sasha
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Thanks! Sorry I didn't understand you both the first time. Sometimes things just dance around in my head (and often just dance straight out again).
adambeyoncelowe
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
That's okay.Thanks! Sorry I didn't understand you both the first time. Sometimes things just dance around in my head (and often just dance straight out again).
It is confusing. UK labels just take the maths out of it for you.
I'm not actually on the diet (yet) but I've been doing some reading and calculating. I think the protein figure is a rough guide - it's not exact science. The idea is to get enough for your needs, but not so much that it makes it hard work for your system to cope with. I would guess a middling figure for you of 50g would be fine.
As to looking at the diet plans. Most of the ones I looked at have about 2000 to 2500 calories a day in total, which is about double what I as a small, old, inactive female need (my fitbit calculates I need around 1100 calories a day, which is roughly what I eat).
So for me, if I were to use one of the diet plans, I would more or less halve everything!
As to looking at the diet plans. Most of the ones I looked at have about 2000 to 2500 calories a day in total, which is about double what I as a small, old, inactive female need (my fitbit calculates I need around 1100 calories a day, which is roughly what I eat).
So for me, if I were to use one of the diet plans, I would more or less halve everything!