How to Not Get Keto Flu
- Reduce Carbs Gradually – don’t go cold turkey your body needs time to change how it processes fats and sugars (carbs) in your system.
- Increase electrolytes (salts – sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium). Eat more pickles, seeds and nuts, green leafy vegetables and add some sea salt to your meals.
- Drink more water. As you eat less processed food you will be eating less salt. Less salt causes dehydration which can cause headaches etc.
Here some foods to think about adding to your diet as you wean yourself off carbs.
For Sodium: Unsweetened pickles, chicken or beef broth (higher sodium content), Sea Salt (Pink Hymilain is good)
For Potassium: Avacados (the new super food), spinich, salmon, broccoli. Some suggest bananas but they are too high in carbs and sugar. Sweet potatoes are often mentioned but again they are too high in starches which turn to sugars.
For Magnesium: Avacados (again super food), nuts and seeds, brussels sprouts, cabbage, salmon.
For Calcium: Almonds & other seeds, Non-sweetened yogurt if you want dairy, rhubarb, leafy greens like spinach, kale and colard greens. The later two can be easier for your body to absorb the calcium, as they are low-oxalate greens.
My Keto Experience!
It’s day four into my Keto journey. I had read about it, I was waiting for it. It was here!….Kinda.
The infamous Keto Flu, the signaling of changes in the body. Mismanaged electrolytes land you smack in Flu town, population you. Luckily for me, I had been downing water like I’d been wandering the Sahara desert for 40 days, and following the standard “How to Keto” advice. In bullet form that is.
- Water
- Sodium
- Potassium
- Water
- Magnesium
- Water
I got off easy. I had one afternoon of feeling excessively weak in my arms, very tired and some pain in my knees. After a few hours of feeling rather average, I took a semi-serious snippet of information from a reddit poster and added a tea spoon of lite-salt to a glass of water and took it like a shot of tequila!
How Bad Did I Feel The Keto Flu?
To my surprise it wasn’t half as bad as I was expecting. After a brief period of wondering if I’d done the right thing I began to notice that I was feeling better….much better! The days that followed were like being re-born. I woke up ready to go! I was wide eyed and bushy tailed all day. The notorious 3-4pm work day hump was gone, I felt like I could go for days! I’d never remember feeling so energized. Not I want to run around like a child hopped up on Red Bull energized, but lasting, endurance level energized.
I didn’t, and still to this day no longer need to “take a break”, not in the sense that I used to…. Do a task or two then want to sit down eat and take a load off for an hour or two…
Is this what normal people have all the time? Have I unlocked some secret life hack? No, I just stopped eating carbohydrates and sugar like they were oxygen.
So if your new on your Keto path and facing the Keto Flu, the best advice I have is to watch your hydration levels and push through. If your reaction to Keto Life is anything like mine you will have energy for days, feel like a million bucks and swear to never look at a <insert your vice food here> the same again.
