You have started on your keto journey.. and it promised to be the answer! The answer that you have been looking for, the truth that you have been sold on… it is supposed to be fantastic! No cravings, extra body fat melting away, stable mind and thoughts… the magic pill! Week into it and you can’t think straight! You feel sick.. you have no idea why! You have been eating your greens, ghee, MCT oils, nuts and seeds, avocados… what went wrong! You feel like you do when you have a flu! You can’t think straight, body seems heavy and weak and the damn heart keeps jumping around. What’s going on? Is Keto bad for you?
Relax! If you are feeling all the symptoms that I just described, be happy! You are doing it right. What you feel is your body figuring out how to work with fat as the energy source. Let me correct myself… it is relearning the way it was supposed to work. Do you know when you are born, you are in deep state of ketosis? You have forgotten that and so has your body. What you are feeling is your brain starving, even though your body is happy and satiated. You don’t feel hungry at all.. your cravings are gone, but you feel horrible! It is not your body, it is your brains! Your brain is so used to running on glucose that it has forgotten the taste of fat! So, you feel like how you do when you have flu… fatigued and you can’t think right! Have patience and give it few days. When your brain lights up on fat, it will be brilliant, constant and clean! You will love living on the constant high that is keto life!
So what you can do to make it easy on yourself? First, drink lots of water… when your body sheds the stored carbs, it also sheds lots of water. So hydrate yourself. Then, take salts.. not the processed white salt.. but the real salt loaded with minerals.. the pink salt! When you lose water, you also lose salts and that is one of the key reasons you feel sick. Minerals are essential for pretty much most of the metabolic activities in your body. Being short of them is going to make you feel sick. So, every morning and evening, take a big glass of water with a tea spoon of salt. To make it fun, add juice of one lime! It will taste delicious and nourish you!
So, my day 5 was fun! I’m us since 6AM, drove 2 hrs, kept up with 9 year old the whole day. It is night and I’m running on 2 cups of keto coffee! The body feels great, but the brain is going on ‘keto-flu’ on me! It will be fine in a day or so. The keto flu this time around is mild. I remember, the first time it was more intense. I would be at work and composing emails. When I would read them back, they would make no sense! I was extra careful few days sending emails.. making sure I re-read them couple times. But when the fats lit up.. it was diwali!
So.. don’t freak out! Diwali is on its way… keep going!
My macros for today are awesome! I’ve moved all sugars and milk out of my diet. So, carbs are super low. That is how it needs to be. My calorie intake is still < 1200. It is quite low. Don’t work.. few weeks and I will be up to > 2400! In the initial days on keto, the body is working on the stored fats. It will soon start needing the micronutrients and also extra calories for energy. When that happens, the hunger and food intake will go up naturally. Enjoy! Very best.. and wish you health and happiness!!!
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