Terrible mood on low-carb/keto diet - HELP please!!

[WoolyMammoth55]

Hi all, any support would be gratefully received!

I've got a lot of weight to lose (about 7 st) and have finally managed to get my head straight, have been sticking to a low-carb/ lazy keto way of eating since last weekend - so about 10 days in.

I've lost around 5lbs and have no cravings, not much hunger, really enjoying the food! All great :) EXCEPT that I am in a terrible, raging mood with EVERYONE in my life - not especially usual for me!

Google says low carb can impact serotonin production and lead to low mood - has anyone experienced this, and/or does anyone have any words of advice? I don't feel tearful or depressed, I just feel furiously angry about every. Tiny. Thing.

I need to stick to this way of eating for at least 12-18 months to reach my goals, and it actually feels doable - except that I don't want to yell at my kids every 5 minutes for the next year and a half... :(

Help! Any one know how I can handle this? Will it stabilise as more time passes and I get more accustomed?

Grateful for any advice <3

Can’t you do another plan that doesn’t give you the rage?
does it have to be this one?
is it worth the anger?

I would say you’re in that stage where your body is not quite running on ketones, so your brain is still looking for the glucose but not finding it.

Have you measured your ketones yet?

You need to stick it out a bit longer

I find the opposite. Carbs make me hangry and grumpy. But could it be sugar withdrawal? Sugar is very moreish perhaps you’re going through a bit of cold turkey?

It will be unpopular with the keto crowd but low carb is absolutely awful and no one can do it long term for this reason. I can show you a million studies and papers as to why it’s a load of shit that definitely isn’t for everyone

my DP has been trying v low carb and felt so terrible he had to stop. He was in ketosis as his breath stank and his pee was weird. still didn’t make him feel good.

Any diet that makes you feel like this isn’t worth it. You can steadily lose weight in a slight calorie deficit and moving around a lot more. I have 5st to lose and I’ve lost 21lbs it’s just going to take a while. I eat less carbs and less sugar but don’t have any rage or feel like this.

I’ve been working in mental health for a while now and honestly low carb is just awful for you. Your brain needs carbs to function. If it effecting you this badly, please consider a different diet plan.

I did keto/low carb for a while. Made me very depressed and cost me my marriage.

Started eating carbs again and all of a sudden I found myself dancing at the bus station.

Never in my life will I try to cut carbs out again.

you do understand it’s low carb not no carb? As your post would indicate you don’t. There is no diet called no carb. There is even carbs in cucumber. All it is is low carb in terms of the overall of your diet. And the carbs you ear comes from leafy veg etc.

im not sure why folks comment when it’s very clear they don’t understand this way of eating?

op, I am not sure why you feel like this. I would say though could it be the fact you need to loose so much weight and are mentally adjusting to the fact you can no longer eat what made you overweight in the first place? If you got comfort or joy from eating and the reduction in intake has removed that pleasure, or you ate your feelings and now don’t. That could explain it.

If you tried to cut out carbs you did it wrong. Again, it’s low carb as a percentage of over all diet. Not no carb.

@Menora I’ve been doing it for 8 years so I guess you should review your surety.

OP are you supplementing electrolytes? It’s really important at the beginning until you adjust. 3000–5000 mg of sodium and 3000–4000 mg of potassium and around 250-400mg of magnesium daily.

Sounds like a version of keto flu/detoxing..
This is the tough bit. Stick with it. But
If you still feel like that in 2 weeks then maybe it's not for you or you need to adjust it.

Please make sure you still eat well though, and don't eat lots of processed food, or dirty keto stuff.
Focus on quality whole
Foods. That might help
Your mood.

Do you know that your body makes carbs and you don’t need to eat them?

Also, your brain will switch to ketones if there is enough of them even with glucose available.

This is my job btw. Dietary Ketogenic Therapy for cancer, mental health disorders, metabolic syndrome, autoimmune diseases, heart disease etc etc etc I can go on.

@Janieforever Drastically reducing carb intake ís cutting carbs.

Stop acting so condescending about other people's experience. Something might work for you, but it does not work for everyone.

This is not going to work. The best diet is the diet you can thrive on. This is not worth it. Pick another plan.

When calories and proteins are matched, all diets are equal. There is nothing in low carb you can’t get with another diet.

For some, low carb is great , for others it is horrible. There is no one diet for everyone, find yours, I doubt it is keto/ low carb for you.

This happened to me.
I find I work better with intermittent fasting until low carb lunch.
Than a a small amount of carbs at dinner (rice, potatoes & fruit)
This works really well for me. I do better without bread and pasta. The weight piles on if I eat these. Definitely no sugar.

I'm in my 4th week and have had the opposite experience - very calm and balanced. Which makes sense, as my blood sugar isn't surging up and down all day.

As a pp said - are you a) keeping up hydration and electrolytes to compensate for the initial fluid loss and b) eating really well? There's some weird versions of keto out there - endless bacon, eggs and cheese - which would make anyone feel awful.

I eat oodles of vegetables plus seafood, tofu, eggs, yoghurt, nuts and seeds, legumes, berries. I challenge anyone to find 'millions of studies' telling me that's a bad way to live.

Do you think its because your emotional crutch has gone?

Do you mean you’re a dietitian? Dietitians are involved for the small number of medical conditions for which keto is a potential arm of therapy, such as refectory seizures in some circumstances, naturally alongside pharmaceutical therapies.

The range of conditions you’re listing is rather broader than that. Can you confirm you’re a practising dietitian?

absolutely its cutting carbs. But you wrote cutting out carbs. And it isn’t cutting out carbs. The term cutting out means to eliminate. It isn’t condescending when posters point out you’re giving poor advice.

Keep going & your body will adjust. That’s a good weight loss. I found it tough at first, but after losing a lot of weight, I now maintain & am very stable emotionally.

Zombie thread! Hopefully OP got over her moods more than a year ago!

I found a very low carb diet worsened my anxiety.

I'm about 5kg overweight (and it shows, im short) and have opted just to live with it tbh. I can manage not to gain, but Im afraid I don't have any effective alternatives to suggest as Im too lazy to have tried!

Oops!