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How dangerous is a keto diet while being underweight?

Jwarrior77

Senior Member
Messages
119
When I first got ill, I quickly learned that I became intolerant to sugars very quickly leading me to believe I was hypoglycemic initially. Blood sugar tests proved otherwise. I heard many good things about the keto diet so I thought to give it a shot. I must say that it was probably the one diet that has helped me the most. My fatigue lessened, had way more energy, could think clearly, just felt way better. I did lose some weight but my body then stayed stable. I think it was starving whatever pathogen was in my body making me feel better as well.

However my doctors were concerned about it and thought there was absolutely no reason I should be on it. They also said I was completely normal and I could eat anything I want because I'm young. So I listened to their advice almost half believing it. I began eating "healthy" junk food such as organic chips and snacks. Also lots of dark chocolate. I quickly detiorated and have been stuck in a hole ever since. I have so many food intolerances and have kept losing weight despite eating carbs. I am now very underweight and can't afford to lose any more.

My question is do you think it's possible to go on a modified keto diet that's not as strict and still be okay weight wise? I know these are questions for my doctors but they don't understand this illness and weren't big proponents of keto in the first place? I'm just trying to survive at this point.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
I haven't had a problem with being underweight, so consider me ignorant of the problems involved. Does simply eating more not work? Do you reach some limit for how much fatty food you can swallow in a day, or does the food past a point just pass through undigested?
 

Juanita Vee

Senior Member
Messages
914
Location
Edmonton, AB
If you have access to a nutritionist, I would highly recommend talking to them. They are very knowledgeable and helpful. I was able to access one through work, while I was working. I'm sure there are many ways to find a nutritionist, not necessarily through work supports.

I have the same problem... I would love to eat healthier but can't afford to lose weight. Maybe try adding 1 healthy food and taking away 1 junk food at a time if you can? I have bouts of nausea, so I sometimes have to bribe myself to eat with yummy junk food.
 

andyguitar

Moderator
Messages
6,595
Location
South east England
My question is do you think it's possible to go on a modified keto diet that's not as strict and still be okay weight wise?
Sorry to hear you are in a bit of a hole at the moment. As far as I know weight loss from a keto diet is achieved by getting the body to go into ketosis. The main way of getting to that state is by reducing carb intake. So if you were to only reduce carb intake slightly you might not lose weight. But then it would'nt be a keto diet! I'd say that as your state of health is a bit patchy at the moment this is not something you should attempt without advice from a qualified nutritionist. Good luck and let us know how you get on.
 

JES

Senior Member
Messages
1,320
If you go much above 50 grams of carbs per day you are no longer in ketosis, so these modified keto diets sound a bit suspicious to me. Maybe you could stay in ketosis with slightly more carbs than that if you use one of the ketosis aiding products on market such as exogenous ketones.

Anyway, I had big issues as well with maintaining weight on the ketogenic diet. I found I really had to remind myself and be creative in order to get the required fat intake to maintain adequate daily caloric intake. For me a ketogenic diet wasn't worth it in the long run. I now follow a low carb diet where I have increased fat intake compared to a standard diet, but still allow 100-150 gram or so of certain carbs. No issues with losing weight anymore.

Intermittent keto is another potential option as was mentioned.
 

Frunobulax

Senior Member
Messages
134
My question is do you think it's possible to go on a modified keto diet that's not as strict and still be okay weight wise?

Yes and no. The whole point of keto is to limit carbs enough to force the body in ketosis. For this, you have to stay below a certain threshold, which is between 20-50 grams per day (net carbs). But keto is not a weight loss diet, it's a diet that optimizes health and allows people to return to their normal weight. It's often reported that underweight people gain weight on keto. But it doesn't work for everybody, and we ME/CFS sufferers react different than other people to some things.

There are always some initial losses from water and glucose (the body builds up glucose stores of about 5 pounds, and you'll always lose these if you switch to keto). Note that only muscle loss is something to be concerned about, and studies say that people on keto tend to gain muscle, not lose it. Even thin people have some fat that may be beneficial to lose (fatty liver and such). There are a lot of very healthy people, very lean eating keto for many years. The weight loss does not go on forever.

But you have to make sure that you eat enough fat. If there is too much protein in the diet, the body may go into a starvation state (as protein is converted to glucose, so this is like a carby undercaloric diet).

Dietdoctor.com may have more on that. Virta Health also has some science.
 

Seven7

Seven
Messages
3,444
Location
USA
My question is do you think it's possible to go on a modified keto diet that's not as strict and still be okay weight wise?
I have been in Keto and I can not loose weight or do depending on Macros.
If you follow your MAcros you can even gain if you want to.
You can add MCT Oil to teas, all drinks.... Avacado (instead of half gro for whole one)....
If you balance you can get the desire result based on your weight, just increase fat when you do not want to loose wight.
 

Frunobulax

Senior Member
Messages
134
Absolutely. I put on a bit of weight when I went back to eating 2 times a day (plus a bulletproof coffee in the morning). The thing about keto is that it helps losing fat if you don't eat, and it allows you to go for a long time without being hungry. But if you do eat enough fat you'll even store a bit of it. Throw in just a few unprocessed carbs once a day, which won't raise your insulin a lot, and you'll gain weight.

Again, people underestimate how much water they lose in the first 2 weeks or so. 5 pounds from glycogen alone (a pound of glycogen solved in 4 pounds of water). Then for many people kidneys become more efficient, we need less salt, we lose more water. All this is nothing to worry about. Overweight people can lose 10 pounds of water in the first week alone.
 

Learner1

Senior Member
Messages
6,305
Location
Pacific Northwest
@Jwarrior77 Having read your initial post, In wondering if you might have an oxalate problem? Oxalates are found in most plant foods. one of the tools Mother Nature used to protect plants. Foods that are free if oxalates are fats and animal proteins - fish, meat, eggs, cheese, etc.

I've found many ME/CFS and fibromyalgia patients have oxalate problems, many because they've been on antibiotics that kill off oxalates degrading bacteria in their guts, which are difficult to grow back. Additionally, a lot of vegetarians and vegsns and "green smoothie" fans develop oxalate problems because they eat extraordinarily high amounts of oxalates daily - common foods like most grains, spinach, legumes, nuts, root vegetables and dark chocolate are all high in oxalates.

You mentioned "healthy snacks" and dark chocolate destroying your health and keto helping. An oxalate problem would do this.

To verify, you could do a Great Plains Organic Acids Test, which can tell if you have high oxalates and whether or not you have the genetic version of oxaluria (these are the folks that end up with painful kidney stones).



Reasons oxalates may make you feel bad include:

- they increase oxidative stress and deplete antioxidants like ALA, A, E, and glutathione

- they deplete minerals by binding to them and can eventually cause osteoporosis

- they deplete B6 used in over 200 processes in the body, and due to this, then deplete the body of sulfur, important for many essential tasks

- they cause deposition of sharp calcium oxalate crystals throughout the body, in eyes, thyroid, lungs, kidneys, musces and joints, damaging cells and mitochondria and causing "mysterious" pain

- they can cause rashes and inflammation

- they cause all sorts of intestinal discomfort

- they can cause weight loss due to gut irritation and malabsorption and depletion of nutrients

It may not be your issue, but it's common enough and most doctors (aside from kidney doctors) are unaware that this snarky problem exists. Other possibilities may be good allergies it intolerances, mast cell activation, gut dysbiosis, or need for digestive enzymes.

To reduce oxalates, a low oxalate diet, with animal protein, dairy products, a wide variety of healthy fats, low oxalate vegetables and fruits, pumpkin, sunflower and flax seeds, and white rice (not brown) and corn is needed.

In addition to the diet, high dose P5P (B6) supplementation to prevent sulfur wasting helps. People take citrate in the forn of calcium, magnesium, or potassium citrate, garcinia cambogia, or lemon juice in water before every meal. And replenishing depleted minerals and/or antioxidants may be a good idea.

The website lowoxalate.info and FB group Trying Low Oxalates are good sources of info.

As for weight loss, I did lose weight switching to this diet, but I also dropped my hydrocortisone dose at the same time. I lost 17lbs in 2 months, which was a little scary, as I wasnt overweight to begin with and was eating a normal amount of food, but my weight stabilized and has been the same now for the past 5 months. My BMI went from 24 to 21.8.

I tried keto a couple of years ago, but found I needed too much protein - I have the amino acid problems found by Fluge and Mella. I wasn't very happy when I started the low oxalate diet, until I ate what felt good, which turned out to be about 50% fat, 20 to 25% protein, and 25 to 30% carbohydrates. I think if I wanted to gain weight, I'd have to raise the carbohydrates, but that's hard to do when I'm allergic to corn, so the only grain I can eat is white rice, and The vegetables I eat are all little carb, so the only way I could do it would be to eat more low oxalate fruit.

But, perhaps if this was your issue, being on the diet might calm some of your other problems, perhaps allow you to gain weight.

Best wishes