I had some serious constipation around day 5/6 of keto dieting. I finally broke down and took 3 laxative tablets at once. Not so much as a rumble…
I awake early the next day with some cramps, but not much else going on. Finally I massaged my guts firmly and eventually had some very painful cramps and movement. For reference I normally go twice a day. Besides the first day with diarrhea, I had pooped only once, and it was a large hard poop that was unsatisfying.
Finally I had a decent poop after going only once for 6 days! My intestines were really inflamed from the ordeal though… I was feeling pretty hopeless on the 7th day, so I really bumped up carbohydrate fiber instead of just fiber from greens with low carbs. Success, today on the 8th day a cup of coffee got things moving more gently.
The moral of the story is don’t just focus on greens… I was really aiming to keep “gross” carbs at a minimum rather than using the “net” carb rule where total carbohydrates subtract grams of fiber to create net carbohydrates. This seemed a bit like “cheating” to me at first glance; however, it seems to be the only way to be able to poop on this diet. Another rule that I think is helpful is aiming for 3 colors on your plate.
I am keeping my carbs below 30 and also a handful of berries, 1 tomato, and as many greens as I like. I no longer bother to count carbs on any of these items. For the first time yesterday I didn’t bother adding up the numbers for my meals. One way to make things easier to intuitively calculate is to: be sure to be under the total calories by the end of the day; count carbs, but aim to have a net lower than your total; separate protein into its own category and add it “on top” of meals as an afterthought.
Basically if you keep your numbers lower than the ideal numbers you don’t have to maintain such strict accounting. For me personally this works fine in spite of the looseness of the numbers. I’m also now to the point where I can re-use meals and have a good idea of what they contain without doing more than mental math.
The last time saver, if you’re calculating your meals each day very strictly, consider crafting your last meal of the day based upon the “left over” grams/calories. Using a meal crafted for your final numbers you can avoid recording the last meal to save time. (you know you’re under the final numbers so why bother?)
As for mood, I haven’t had as much “surface level” depression; but, have been having deep feelings of hopelessness at certain times of the day. I believe this is mostly due to issues with constipation. That may sound ridiculous to some, but if you’re doing all this restrictive behavior in diet and your pay off is feeling bloated and like crap, it’s very discouraging. I’m hopeful I’ve finally figured out a “groove” that will solve the constipation issues. I also had a couple cups of mint tea before bed which I think relieved some of the inflammation in my intestines to make it easier to poop today.
The easiest part of this diet is sticking with it or staying below the ideal numbers. The second easiest thing is the accounting. The hardest thing is easily maintaining regularity in bowels and overall health.
Finally on a very annoying note: electrolyte imbalance. Not only is this diet not conducive to foods with naturally high level of electrolytes; but, you actually need roughly 30% more electrolytes due to lower levels of insulin which is a regular of electrolytes. The reason this is annoying is because most of the “starter guide” type of articles about ketogenic diets fail to mention the major issue of electrolyte imbalance.
For magnesium I tried about a teaspoon of dissolved magnesium sulfate (epsum salt) in water. This actually made my headache go away; however, I woke up in severe pain. My nerves at the base of my spine and my left shoulder felt like they were stabbed with an ice pick. I went to the grocery store and purchased a “no salt” salt alternative, potassium chloride. After about 1/4 tsp and a couple of hours, my pains went away.
This is actually very enlightening because after a night of heavy drinking I have those same types of pains. So if you’re struggling with that kind of nerve/muscle pain after drinking, try a little potassium chloride. On another annoying note, most of the keto advice on websites/blogs isn’t very scientific. For example potassium chloride is a form of potassium you can acquire; however, if you want something more similar to the potassium in avocados and other produce, you’ll want potassium citrate, not chloride.
You can find these items online for purchase; but likely not at your local grocery store in a pinch. I wish these “starter guide” keto websites would be thoughtful enough to consider electrolyte chemicals and formulations to rebalance electrolytes.
I consider the major electrolyte imbalance to be the nail in the coffin for the theory that our ancestors would eat a keto diet “naturally”. There’s simply no reason our ancestors would avoid a starchy root or vegetable if they had the opportunity… they were constantly trying to survive and avoid starvation. Also, most humans have lived in one way or another in unideal conditions. They couldn’t just purchase an avocado or a bag of potassium citrate.
Our ancestors would need to rely on whatever they could as a source of nutrition and calories without much discrimination. This diet is not conducive to good health in unideal conditions such as seasonality and unnatural highly refined chemical/mineral nutrition sources. Yes, I realize our ancestors could wander to a cave and lick salts; however, that is an ideal situation that is presumably not globally accessible. Certainly salt from the oceans coupled with seaweed would be the closest to ideal in many areas.
Regardless, I believe this ketogenic diet to be in the category of a modern day bio-hack that leverages ideal modern nutrition to create an unnatural physical state that can be maintained throughout seasons and over years.
One last note for my own records… after taking 3 laxative tablets I noticed the next day I felt closer again to my 2nd day of keto diet. I suspect they contained sugar which set back my progress… either that or my intestines were so inflamed that nutrition was not being absorbed readily.
I feel back on track at this point as long as I can maintain this balance of fiber based on carbohydrates.