... to think KETO isn’t the Panacea it’s made out to be!

[TheRealHousewife]

(Posted in low carb but no traffic so posting here) Not looking for medical advice (unless you’re medically trained) but I am interested in other people’s experience of being on a Ketogenic diet.

I’ve been eating low carb high fat for about a year. Last year my Cholesterol was bang on so I was told by the GP. Generally I feel great eating this way!

I’ve recently been referred to Rapid Response Cardiac Department due to chest pain. In the interim I’ve been prescribed a spray and have had a blood test and blood pressure test (bp up!) Surgery rang this morning as my blood lipids/cholesterol are raised too and I need to see a GP.

Contrary to what was previously thought, resent research suggests that it isn’t high fat that raises cholesterol but insulin. There is even info about this on the NHS website. On other parts of the NHS website it contradicts this and promotes low fat diets to help lower cholesterol.

I don’t have any added sugar, am low carb but do have heaps of fat & oil. So confusing and I’m dreading seeing the GP for fear of what he will tell me to eat. I know he’ll blame what I’ve been eating!

Do any of you ladies and gents have any experience of cholesterol becoming raised after starting a lchf way of eating. Thanks in advance.

Watching with interest, as I had what I think was the beginnings of gall stone rumblings last night, and I am a committed long term LCHFer. I’m having major wobbles now about what I’ve done to myself.

I’m feeling the same feesh. I’m really disappointed in myself for following a fad. Never ever followed a fad before. But to be honest I did like how I felt initially (quite a few months) on lchf. Moderation, moderation, moderation is my mantra now. Nothing to excess, including fat!

Have you visited your GP feesh? Perhaps worth a trip to make sure youre ok.

What are ‘gallbladder rumblings’ ? What does it feel like. I don’t even know where it is

I’ve always thought lchf is a dangerous fad. There is a reason no healthy peoples naturally eat like that

I think keto is an unnecessarily extreme dietary regime. I don't know what it is about keto and low-carb diets in particular that makes people positively religious in their fervour.

This is an interesting article by a proper expert RD.

georgiefear.com/2016/12/15/the-truth-about-ketogenic-dieting/

Very interesting article Athena51. Thank you for sharing.

Yes I agree Caprisunorange. I am beginning to think the only way to a healthy life and achieving a healthy weight is through a nutritious and varied calorie/portion controlled diet such as the Mediterranean diet. Reading around the 5/2 and if ways of eating, they seem good strategies to enhance the MD.

Listen to the TwoKetoDudes podcasts on YouTube you will get actual medical and anecdotal scientific information. Be very wary of Facebook Groups as they are usually a one methodology group, and one way never works for all.

Keto works, but it's different for everyone. I lose weight on 20grams total carbs or less, moderate protein and fats to satiation. Ie enough fats that my body is satisfied and I don't feel hungry so I cook using butter and olive oil, and leave the fat that comes with my protein. What I don't do is bulletproof coffee, fat bombs and MTC oil.

Think of your body as a car and the fat you want to burn as petrol. Now if you keep topping up the tank every 10km your never going to deplete the reserves in your tank.

I tried Keto once (the mn one)

I had to stop after a week. I felt so ill, sick, headaches, weak.

I knew anything that felt like that couldn’t be good for me personally.

This is interesting. Was having a conversation with someone who is very slim who has high cholesterol. I will mention about the low carb thing.

I started lchf 4 months ago, unbeknown to me I was pre diabetic. 2 months in I felt out of wack and went to the Drs and my fasting bg was 6.1, god knows what it would have been had i not changed my way of eating. I stuck to it and my fasting bg was 4.5 4 weeks later. All my tests have come back good, cholesterol, BP, thyroid - but I am going back in 3 months to have them redone. I follow Dr Ken Berry on facebook and youtube and what he says makes sense to me. Carbs were kiling me slowly. We are all different and our bodies react differently to changes in diet. I wish you well, and hope you feel better soon.

OP it's more likely that your cholesterol and possible cardiac issues are genetic (especially after you mentioned your family history) rather than diet.

the natural fats your body produces (ldl and hdl) are based on your genetic makeup and only a very small portion of that is diet related less than 20% from what i remember.

I personally hated the keto diet, way too much hassle, expensive, I felt sick from eating so much fat all the time and it didn't help my husband lose weight at all, if anything, he got fatter. I just felt sick and dizzy all the time (and we tried it for a good long time and followed it rigourously).

It's just another fad diet in my opinion.

Eat plenty of vegetables and fruit (restricting fruit is mad imo), lots of meat, some carbs and less snacks and you'll be healthy. Look at the Italians and the Spanish and the Greeks - they are really healthy and they all eat tons of carbs. But they also eat all the good stuff too, salads, chicken etc.

I live in Korea and the majority of people eat rice three times a day. But they have the second lowest obesity rates in the OECD. Most meals are rice, some kind of soup, lots of side dishes (vegetables/eggs) and some kind of main meat/tofu dish. If people go out together to a cafe, they will normally share a cake between two or three people. Desert, as a rule, is not eaten, if it is, it's fruit. The only really fat people I ever see are kids 10 and under, presumably because eating westernised snacks and chocolates has become popular in the past two decades or so.

From this, I really believe that carbs are NOT the enemy. Faddy, disordered eating, on the other hand, definitely is.

The new research into low carb states that plant based fats should be eaten in moderation, but the complete cutting down of carbs and replacing them with a ton of animal days can reduce life expectancy. There was a programme recently about Smart Carbs, which made more sense to me. It went back to the old eating wholegrain and slow release carbs and not processed beige carbs. I haven't been able to find any more information on it though. Not sure why.

the great thing about 5:2 (for me!) is that it reset my eating habits.

-it's OK to feel hungry
-I don't NEED a snack between meals
-veg can fill you up
-carbs are ok, but wholesome carbs (fibre) are great

I used to be fond of the LCHF diet but unfortunately there is now quite a body of high quality research to suggest that replacement of carbs with high levels of animal fat and protein is significantly associated with mortality (all causes but including cardiovascular disease).

The research suggests that the Mediterranean diet is better, it doesn’t have to be high carb but the carbs are of high quality (whole grains, legumes etc). And it helps to replace some animal fat and protein with plant sources.

zzz people do weigh everything, or use guides where people have already calculated everything already

My friends been doing it for a few years and lost loads of weight. Unfortunately her cholesterol is raised and she recently spent time in hospital , she thought she was having a stroke. She refuses to even think that it could all be diet related but I’m not so sure

I have tried LCHF/Atkins/bootcamps on here quite a few times over the years. I find it hard to stick to. I don’t lose much weight after the initial week or two weeks. And I feel really queasy all the time.

Healthy fats are good. Too much cream/butter and animal fats etc are not good for most of us.

Crap white processed carbs are not good. Wholesome healthy carbs are good and necessary. But not in huge quantities.

My cholesterol was raised a few months ago so I’m trying to exercise and lose weight and deal with it. No idea if my forays in LCHF affected it.

OP I don't really understand ketos but do have a friend who ate in a LCHF way till having some bloods tested. She lost a lot of weight but then readjusted to allow more carbs and a lot less fat.

I'm really sorry to hear you are going through this and I hope it gets sorted. My totally unscientific view is that we're all different! best wishes to you

Keto gave me/ worsened an eating disorder. The worst ever yo yo/ diet binge disordered eating a form of bulimia really going through cycles of ketoing and bingeing... ended up losing and gaining back 10lbs in a month, never again..

Thank you all for your honest replies.

Blummin’ typical. GP surgery rang me last week that I need to see GP. No appointments for 2 weeks and can’t book in advance. Book on the day only. Once I got through this morning, none left. It’s a chasing game.

In regards to lchf diet, like I said I did feel great on it. I didn’t feel I did it to extreme. I did calorie count with it (I know die hard fans say you don’t count calories), otherwise how would I know I was within my TDEE range. It’s really easy to over eat when it comes to fat as it’s so calorie dense.

I’m really confused by it all. Perhaps the posters who’ve suggested my issues are due to genetics might be bang on. I’m not even confident about being reassured when I see my GP as most of them advocate for low fat diets (where fats replaced by sugar), high carb diets.

On a positive I do prepare most of my food from scratch. Don’t have white goods (white flour, white rice, pasta, cake or biscuits). I don’t have sugary foods and rarely drink alcohol.

I think I might give the 5:2 a whirl as that is basically a calorie counting woe. I don’t consider it a faff to cc.

Sorry to hear that PrincessDando. How are you now?

Obviously this is anecdotal, but my dh used to be a committed low carber but switched to a plant based diet about a year ago. He has an annual full health check up/medical for work and his cholesterol has halved since starting the plant based diet.......he eats nuts/avocado/oil, so still lots of fats, but no animal products at all.

I’m going through very similar to you TheRealHousewife. Not being so full on Keto but had been eating LCHF combined with 16:8 and had also signed up to the Bootcamp.

A couple of weekends ago I was floored by dreadful chest and stomach pains and was convinced I’d got gallstones. Having a scan this week to rule it out but doc thinks it’s more likely to be reflux and IBS triggered by the change in diet.

The pains have gone now but my tummy is very unsettled and I’m still getting lots of bloating and discomfort.

I’m trying to avoid all processed food but eat three meals a day. Any weight loss attempts have gone out of the window because I just need to concentrate on eating food that doesn’t upset me.

I’ve been reading all the Rebelfit stuff again and am really going to try and get out of the diet mentality. I’m feeling very foolish and like I’ve done all this to myself by following silly diets