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| How do you know when it's time to quit Keto and start living instead? |
The discovery that my blood glucose control had degenerated into borderline diabetes put a major wrinkle into my decision to stop dieting and start living. In order to get the numbers to come down to a more healthy level, below the point where physical damage begins, I had to go back to Keto about five months ago.
Keto is the fastest and surest way to gain control over pre-diabetes. It often can correct insulin resistance in Type 2 diabetics so that medication, and sometimes even insulin, is no longer necessary.
How effective Keto is at improving your condition depends on the type of metabolic defect you have and how extensive and permanent the damage is.
For Type 1-1/2 diabetes, where you make some insulin but not enough to support your current diet, beta cells can regrow if caught soon enough. Keto normalizes your blood glucose without placing undo stress on the body.
Physical stress seems to be a major factor in determining whether a ketogenic diet is right for you.
For Type 1-1/2 diabetes, where you make some insulin but not enough to support your current diet, beta cells can regrow if caught soon enough. Keto normalizes your blood glucose without placing undo stress on the body.
Physical stress seems to be a major factor in determining whether a ketogenic diet is right for you.
Why?
Because ketogenic diets use the alternative fat-burning pathway that isn't appropriate for all individuals. Some people can burn fats for energy easier than others.
If you've been doing Keto for 8 to 12 weeks, haven't lost any weight, and still feel hungry, washed out, and irritable, how do you know when it's time to quit?
How do you know if it's time to walk away from Keto and move onto something else?
First, let me say, that quitting Keto isn't giving up on yourself.
Quitting is simply choosing to make a different decision than the one you made when you decided to restrict the carbohydrates in your diet.
No matter what the reason was for going low carb, quitting is creating a different aim in life and making space, so you can begin to move and evolve in a new direction.
You haven't failed if Keto didn't work for you.
All you've done is experimented with one single possibility.
I realize that you might have a long history of dieting attempts under your belt. I do, too. But all of those weight-loss diets are just more possibilities -- possibilities that didn't work. Possibilities that didn't get you what you wanted.
And if Keto doesn't work for you, then there is no reason to keep doing it. That's just silly. If you're wondering if it's time to walk away from your very low-carb diet, here's what you need to know and look at to make a responsible, informed decision:
False expectations will leave you frustrated and wanting to quit, but it is not practical to expect Keto to do things for you that it was never designed to do.
Keto isn't a crash diet.
While you do lose quite a bit of water and glycogen during the first couple of weeks, once you have switched to predominantly burning fats for fuel, and become fat adapted, Keto doesn't work any better than any other weight-loss diet.
In fact, for many people, you'll lose weight slower!
What you can expect to lose on Keto is between 1/2 and 1 pound a week, depending on the size of your caloric deficit. If the deficit is large, you might lose as much as 2 or 3 pounds a week, but this is only true for those who are seriously obese or brand new to dieting.
Because ketogenic diets use the alternative fat-burning pathway that isn't appropriate for all individuals. Some people can burn fats for energy easier than others.
If you've been doing Keto for 8 to 12 weeks, haven't lost any weight, and still feel hungry, washed out, and irritable, how do you know when it's time to quit?
How do you know if it's time to walk away from Keto and move onto something else?
Quitting Keto Isn't Giving Up
First, let me say, that quitting Keto isn't giving up on yourself.
Quitting is simply choosing to make a different decision than the one you made when you decided to restrict the carbohydrates in your diet.
No matter what the reason was for going low carb, quitting is creating a different aim in life and making space, so you can begin to move and evolve in a new direction.
You haven't failed if Keto didn't work for you.
All you've done is experimented with one single possibility.
I realize that you might have a long history of dieting attempts under your belt. I do, too. But all of those weight-loss diets are just more possibilities -- possibilities that didn't work. Possibilities that didn't get you what you wanted.
And if Keto doesn't work for you, then there is no reason to keep doing it. That's just silly. If you're wondering if it's time to walk away from your very low-carb diet, here's what you need to know and look at to make a responsible, informed decision:
Have You Given Keto Enough Time to Work?
False expectations will leave you frustrated and wanting to quit, but it is not practical to expect Keto to do things for you that it was never designed to do.
Keto isn't a crash diet.
While you do lose quite a bit of water and glycogen during the first couple of weeks, once you have switched to predominantly burning fats for fuel, and become fat adapted, Keto doesn't work any better than any other weight-loss diet.
In fact, for many people, you'll lose weight slower!
What you can expect to lose on Keto is between 1/2 and 1 pound a week, depending on the size of your caloric deficit. If the deficit is large, you might lose as much as 2 or 3 pounds a week, but this is only true for those who are seriously obese or brand new to dieting.
Eventually, the initial fast weight loss will slow down to a normal rate.
Keto has metabolic advantages, such as killing your hunger or correcting hormonal imbalances that might have been interfering with your ability to mobilize and easily burn body fat for fuel, but it isn't magic.
Like any weight-loss diet, shedding pounds takes awareness and motivation and TIME.
You aren't going to lose weight every single day, and not even every single week. Due to water fluctuations, weight loss tends to be quite erratic on very low-carb diets.
You'll lose a couple of pounds and then gain one back. You'll stall for three weeks and then drop five pounds. After that joyful whoosh, you might gain back a pound or two, before losing again.
This is because scale weight is quite deceitful. At any given time, weight includes:
I've been doing Keto for about 5 months again now and have only lost the initial glycogen and water weight that is common during the first two weeks.
Nothing more.
My weight bounces between 198 and 201, where I was just before moving to Texas. There has been NO downward trend.
No one expects you to stay on a diet that you find uncomfortable, especially if you didn't get the hunger reduction that Keto promises. Being hungry all the time isn't living.
Dr. Atkins created his low-carb diet to be hunger free. In fact, that's why he started researching diets in the first place. He wanted a way to get rid of his triple chin that wouldn't require him to go hungry for the rest of his life.
Different diets control hunger to a larger or smaller degree, but the amount you weigh and your hormonal condition also play a role in how hungry you are.
And so does the amount of protein you eat.
If you're doing Jimmy Moore's version of Nutritional Ketosis where you're eating only minimal protein, and hungry, then you probably need to eat more protein. According to Dr. Phinney, blood ketone levels above 4 mmol/L is a sign of protein deficiency. Twenty to 25 percent of your calories should be coming from protein.
Typical ketone levels range from 0.5 to 2 mmol/L, with endurance athletes sustaining a little bit more. If you're not an endurance athlete and don't live a very active lifestyle, you don't need a ketone level above 1.0 to 2.0 mmol/L.
While low-carb diets are said to be the best diet for controlling hunger, due to the moderate protein and high fat intake, that isn't always true. If you're insulin sensitive, rather than insulin resistant, you'll see hunger blunted on a higher carb diet and experience hunger when you try to ditch the carbs.
This is never discussed within Keto communities because it violates their insulin "hypothesis" that says high insulin levels drive hunger and fat storage.
Not true.
Only one in three overweight people are insulin resistant. And if you're insulin resistant at the fat cell level, your body doesn't SEE the insulin you're making, so why would it drive fat storage?
One in three people do horrible on low-carb diets because they are insulin sensitive.
The remaining third are somewhat neutral and do well on any kind of weight-loss diet. They have more freedom of choice than the rest of us.
In my own experience, the determining factor seems to be how well the body adapts to burning fats. If you don't burn fat efficiently, you're going to be tired and cranky.
Keto is well-known to produce an upswing in energy when you switch from predominantly burning glucose for fuel to fatty acids and ketones, but this surge in well-being only occurs in two out of three overweight individuals. You have to be able to burn all of that fat or your cells will starve.
Burning fats requires the body to upregulate enzymes required for fat burning, and the ability to do this is genetic. You either have the capability of burning extra fats for fuel or you do not. The ability to burn fat is directly determined by the amount of enzyme you're able to create, which can vary from individual to individual.
This is why a lower fat Keto will work for some people.
If you are insulin sensitive, and fall into the one out of three that do not burn fat efficiently, eating lots of fat might actually bog you down.
It does me.
I don't get a surge in energy when I go Keto. Keto makes me feel tired and exhausted all of the time. I don't get the increased sense of well-being that others get either.
Along with a decrease in hunger and upswing in energy, many people who love Keto discover that their cravings for sugar and starches completely disappear. As long as they eat less than 50 carbs a day, they have no desire for chocolate cake or cookies or even potatoes, bread, and rice.
In fact, when they have a "cheat day," they quickly discover that the foods they used to enjoy no longer taste good to them. They realize the cheat isn't worth the cost, since carbs don't taste good to them anymore, go back to Keto, and never look back.
However, this change in taste doesn't happen to everyone.
It certainly didn't happen to me.
Even five years later, in 2012, I was still struggling to make Keto work for me -- due to the feelings of deprivation (never being able to eat something special, even on my birthday), and the lack of energy and well-being.
I do not crave sweets when I eat carbs.
In fact, my trigger food happens to be mixed nuts. I can't stop eating mixed nuts, once I start, so I just don't bring them into the house anymore. I can measure out an ounce of hubby's carby cashews and be fine. It's just something to do with the low-carb mixed nuts.
I love them!
If you have never cheated on your Keto diet, then you really won't be able to look at this aspect, but for those who have, what happened when you ate something off plan?
When I eat carbs, I feel energetic, satiated, happy, and alive.
This is me, too. I'm bored out of my mind with sticking to very low ketogenic foods like meat, eggs, cheese, and vegetables.
While there are ways to fix these ketogenic goodies to make them more palatable and tasty, most of the tricks involve adding fatty sauces and turning those meats and vegetables into fatty casseroles. Alfredo, homemade cream of mushroom soup, and creamed spinach has become a weekly part of our menu, which is driving up my calories.
If you're a diabetic, boredom won't be an appropriate aspect in making the choice to stick to your Keto diet or switch to something more livable, but if you happen to be one of those who do well on both Keto and low calories OR you are insulin sensitive, instead of insulin resistant, then being able to add a few carbs to your weekly meal plan can make a huge difference in compliance.
Keto requires you to eat fewer than 50 carbs a day. Most Keto diets recommend only 20.
However, quitting Keto doesn't mean you leave a low-carb diet behind. The definition of a low-carb diet is 50 to 150 carbs a day. Even the Old Weight Watchers Exchange Diet falls into this definition of a low-carb diet, depending on what you choose to spend your weekly calories on.
Weight Watchers just never uses the term "low carb."
I'm not sure how the latest FreeStyle program falls into this. I haven't done the math yet. But with poultry breast and whole eggs moving to the zero-point list and produce already zero points, the diet has moved to a lower carbohydrate content, depending on how you choose to spend your points.
Most people who walk away from Keto and move to something more livable, still stay within the low-carb definition.
A few people are able to go higher, to what's known as a moderate-carb diet where you eat between 150 and 200 carbs. These people don't have sit-down jobs, but are on their feet for most of the day.
Only a select few can actually go to a high-carb diet, which is anything higher than 200 carbs a day because it is only appropriate and sustainable for very active people. They need a lot of calories to maintain their weight.
Depends on your goals and how you feel on Keto.
What is it that you want and what are you trying to achieve by going Keto?
If it's about weight loss, there are hundreds of ways to carve off the pounds that don't require you to give up your favorite foods or feel badly. If it's about health, then you'll need to take a realistic look at how Keto is affecting your health and well-being, and then analyze the livability of what you're doing.
Even if you have diabetes, that doesn't mean you're stuck at Keto levels of carbohydrate intake. You simply need to dial in your carbohydrates to match your individual carbohydrate tolerance. This is how I do it.
Also, keep in mind that what you can tolerate in the beginning of the Keto diet won't necessarily be what you can tolerate six months down the road.
Your tolerance to carbohydrates will change as your body heals itself of insulin resistance. When you become more sensitive to insulin, you'll be able to eat a few more carbs without it adversely affecting your blood glucose level.
If you're doing Keto because you want to please other people, want to find acceptance, or because you're buying into the modern-day notion that being overweight is bad, and you're truly not happy doing Keto, you might want to reevaluate your belief system.
When I stopped dieting a couple of years ago, I lost 40 pounds just by staying mindful of what I was eating. It didn't take any more effort than that.
Today, I've reached a point where my blood glucose level has come down enough to start adding a few carbs back into my diet, so I'm definitely not sticking to Keto levels. I've started returning carbs very slowly and watching to see how each new food affects my blood sugar.
I'm doing it because I just don't feel well on Keto. I'm bored, and I have no energy to do anything. I don't have a gall bladder, so my body doesn't burn fats very well.
Once I discover the maximum amount of carbs I can eat per meal and snack that will allow my blood glucose to stay below 120 mmol/L at two hours after eating, I'll be able to start designing a meal plan that is much more livable as well as enjoyable.
Keto has metabolic advantages, such as killing your hunger or correcting hormonal imbalances that might have been interfering with your ability to mobilize and easily burn body fat for fuel, but it isn't magic.
Like any weight-loss diet, shedding pounds takes awareness and motivation and TIME.
You aren't going to lose weight every single day, and not even every single week. Due to water fluctuations, weight loss tends to be quite erratic on very low-carb diets.
You'll lose a couple of pounds and then gain one back. You'll stall for three weeks and then drop five pounds. After that joyful whoosh, you might gain back a pound or two, before losing again.
This is because scale weight is quite deceitful. At any given time, weight includes:
- muscle mass
- body tissues and organs
- water
- blood volume
- undigested food
- skin and hair
- body fat
I've been doing Keto for about 5 months again now and have only lost the initial glycogen and water weight that is common during the first two weeks.
Nothing more.
My weight bounces between 198 and 201, where I was just before moving to Texas. There has been NO downward trend.
Did Keto Eliminate Your Hunger?
No one expects you to stay on a diet that you find uncomfortable, especially if you didn't get the hunger reduction that Keto promises. Being hungry all the time isn't living.
Dr. Atkins created his low-carb diet to be hunger free. In fact, that's why he started researching diets in the first place. He wanted a way to get rid of his triple chin that wouldn't require him to go hungry for the rest of his life.
Different diets control hunger to a larger or smaller degree, but the amount you weigh and your hormonal condition also play a role in how hungry you are.
And so does the amount of protein you eat.
If you're doing Jimmy Moore's version of Nutritional Ketosis where you're eating only minimal protein, and hungry, then you probably need to eat more protein. According to Dr. Phinney, blood ketone levels above 4 mmol/L is a sign of protein deficiency. Twenty to 25 percent of your calories should be coming from protein.
Typical ketone levels range from 0.5 to 2 mmol/L, with endurance athletes sustaining a little bit more. If you're not an endurance athlete and don't live a very active lifestyle, you don't need a ketone level above 1.0 to 2.0 mmol/L.
While low-carb diets are said to be the best diet for controlling hunger, due to the moderate protein and high fat intake, that isn't always true. If you're insulin sensitive, rather than insulin resistant, you'll see hunger blunted on a higher carb diet and experience hunger when you try to ditch the carbs.
This is never discussed within Keto communities because it violates their insulin "hypothesis" that says high insulin levels drive hunger and fat storage.
Not true.
Only one in three overweight people are insulin resistant. And if you're insulin resistant at the fat cell level, your body doesn't SEE the insulin you're making, so why would it drive fat storage?
One in three people do horrible on low-carb diets because they are insulin sensitive.
The remaining third are somewhat neutral and do well on any kind of weight-loss diet. They have more freedom of choice than the rest of us.
In my own experience, the determining factor seems to be how well the body adapts to burning fats. If you don't burn fat efficiently, you're going to be tired and cranky.
Do You Have More Energy on Keto?
Keto is well-known to produce an upswing in energy when you switch from predominantly burning glucose for fuel to fatty acids and ketones, but this surge in well-being only occurs in two out of three overweight individuals. You have to be able to burn all of that fat or your cells will starve.
Burning fats requires the body to upregulate enzymes required for fat burning, and the ability to do this is genetic. You either have the capability of burning extra fats for fuel or you do not. The ability to burn fat is directly determined by the amount of enzyme you're able to create, which can vary from individual to individual.
This is why a lower fat Keto will work for some people.
If you are insulin sensitive, and fall into the one out of three that do not burn fat efficiently, eating lots of fat might actually bog you down.
It does me.
I don't get a surge in energy when I go Keto. Keto makes me feel tired and exhausted all of the time. I don't get the increased sense of well-being that others get either.
How are Your Cravings for Sugar and Starches?
In fact, when they have a "cheat day," they quickly discover that the foods they used to enjoy no longer taste good to them. They realize the cheat isn't worth the cost, since carbs don't taste good to them anymore, go back to Keto, and never look back.
However, this change in taste doesn't happen to everyone.
It certainly didn't happen to me.
Even five years later, in 2012, I was still struggling to make Keto work for me -- due to the feelings of deprivation (never being able to eat something special, even on my birthday), and the lack of energy and well-being.
I do not crave sweets when I eat carbs.
In fact, my trigger food happens to be mixed nuts. I can't stop eating mixed nuts, once I start, so I just don't bring them into the house anymore. I can measure out an ounce of hubby's carby cashews and be fine. It's just something to do with the low-carb mixed nuts.
I love them!
What Happens to You After a Free Meal?
If you have never cheated on your Keto diet, then you really won't be able to look at this aspect, but for those who have, what happened when you ate something off plan?
- Did you feel drowsy and tired?
- Did you start carving carby foods and lose control?
- Did you feel bloated and suffer with inflammation?
- Did your hunger go up?
- Did you feel depressed and lethargic?
- Did it make a difference in your reaction?
- Or did you still feel drowsy, tired, starving, and bloated?
- Did you feel satisfied and satiated?
- Were you able to stop after one serving with no craving for more?
- Did your overall hunger for food go down?
- Did you feel energetic and alive after eating carbs?
When I eat carbs, I feel energetic, satiated, happy, and alive.
Are You Bored with the Food?
This is me, too. I'm bored out of my mind with sticking to very low ketogenic foods like meat, eggs, cheese, and vegetables.
While there are ways to fix these ketogenic goodies to make them more palatable and tasty, most of the tricks involve adding fatty sauces and turning those meats and vegetables into fatty casseroles. Alfredo, homemade cream of mushroom soup, and creamed spinach has become a weekly part of our menu, which is driving up my calories.
If you're a diabetic, boredom won't be an appropriate aspect in making the choice to stick to your Keto diet or switch to something more livable, but if you happen to be one of those who do well on both Keto and low calories OR you are insulin sensitive, instead of insulin resistant, then being able to add a few carbs to your weekly meal plan can make a huge difference in compliance.
Definitions of Keto, Low-Carb, Moderate-Carb, and High-Carb Diets
Keto requires you to eat fewer than 50 carbs a day. Most Keto diets recommend only 20.
However, quitting Keto doesn't mean you leave a low-carb diet behind. The definition of a low-carb diet is 50 to 150 carbs a day. Even the Old Weight Watchers Exchange Diet falls into this definition of a low-carb diet, depending on what you choose to spend your weekly calories on.
Weight Watchers just never uses the term "low carb."
I'm not sure how the latest FreeStyle program falls into this. I haven't done the math yet. But with poultry breast and whole eggs moving to the zero-point list and produce already zero points, the diet has moved to a lower carbohydrate content, depending on how you choose to spend your points.
Most people who walk away from Keto and move to something more livable, still stay within the low-carb definition.
A few people are able to go higher, to what's known as a moderate-carb diet where you eat between 150 and 200 carbs. These people don't have sit-down jobs, but are on their feet for most of the day.
Only a select few can actually go to a high-carb diet, which is anything higher than 200 carbs a day because it is only appropriate and sustainable for very active people. They need a lot of calories to maintain their weight.
Is It Time to Walk Away from Keto?
Depends on your goals and how you feel on Keto.
What is it that you want and what are you trying to achieve by going Keto?
If it's about weight loss, there are hundreds of ways to carve off the pounds that don't require you to give up your favorite foods or feel badly. If it's about health, then you'll need to take a realistic look at how Keto is affecting your health and well-being, and then analyze the livability of what you're doing.
Even if you have diabetes, that doesn't mean you're stuck at Keto levels of carbohydrate intake. You simply need to dial in your carbohydrates to match your individual carbohydrate tolerance. This is how I do it.
Also, keep in mind that what you can tolerate in the beginning of the Keto diet won't necessarily be what you can tolerate six months down the road.
Your tolerance to carbohydrates will change as your body heals itself of insulin resistance. When you become more sensitive to insulin, you'll be able to eat a few more carbs without it adversely affecting your blood glucose level.
If you're doing Keto because you want to please other people, want to find acceptance, or because you're buying into the modern-day notion that being overweight is bad, and you're truly not happy doing Keto, you might want to reevaluate your belief system.
When I stopped dieting a couple of years ago, I lost 40 pounds just by staying mindful of what I was eating. It didn't take any more effort than that.
Today, I've reached a point where my blood glucose level has come down enough to start adding a few carbs back into my diet, so I'm definitely not sticking to Keto levels. I've started returning carbs very slowly and watching to see how each new food affects my blood sugar.
I'm doing it because I just don't feel well on Keto. I'm bored, and I have no energy to do anything. I don't have a gall bladder, so my body doesn't burn fats very well.
Once I discover the maximum amount of carbs I can eat per meal and snack that will allow my blood glucose to stay below 120 mmol/L at two hours after eating, I'll be able to start designing a meal plan that is much more livable as well as enjoyable.
This article appeared in my Pinterest newsfeed today and it was perfect timing. Even tho this article is over two years old, it is exactly what I'm going through right now. Briefly, I've been doing one form or another of Low Carb since menopause in 2001. I started Keto in Oct. 2018 and lost 45lbs in the first four to five months (the menopause weight gain), then the weight loss stopped. I never got the energy, the great sleep, the lack of hunger or cravings, etc., that everyone on the blogs, groups and forums raved about. I still have insomnia, brain fog, severe depression, severe fatigue, some gut issues. I don't have cravings but I do MISS some foods like apples, potatoes and sourdough bread. I have not 'cheated' since I began Keto but after nearly two years, I'm re-thinking what I'm doing and asking myself if I can continue living this way, the way I thought was the perfect healthy way of eating. No one talks about the downsides of it or that it's not for everyone. I'm tired of logging and charting and journaling every morsel of food and stressing over macros and the scale. The scale has begun to creep UP lately too. Imagine that, strict Keto yet gaining weight! After ZERO weight loss in almost two years! Anyhow, time for serious reflection and reconsideration of this. I'm think I'd do well back on basic 'Low Carb'. I've tried everything else with minimal success.
ReplyDeleteMy weight did the same thing when I tried to go zero carbs. Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I know it will be helpful to others who find their way to this article. Right now, I'm doing Keto to get my blood glucose numbers back down. But I'll be slowly raising them come next week.
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