The Keto Flu: HELP Explained
Changing your eating habits can be hard, but our HELP can make that change a little easier. The Health, Energy, & Longevity Plan is a free resource that distills knowledge from a community of physicians, scientists, journalists, and patients, gleaned from the scientific literature and from expert opinion to help you know what you can do to achieve your health goals.
The Keto Flu, as it is colloquially known, is the term that describes the symptoms that can occur when you start limiting your carbohydrate intake. Around the 4-5 day mark of your new diet, you may find yourself experiencing symptoms like dehydration, headache, brain fog, muscle pain, and fatigue.
These symptoms are completely normal, and will usually vary in intensity from person to person depending on how carb-heavy your previous diet was. They come as a by-product as your body adjusts from running on glucose to burning ketones for energy instead. The symptoms only last a few days, but here are a few tips to deal with them as you wait for your body to adapt to your new diet.
Solution: Water and Electrolytes
Tip 1: Make sure you are drinking plenty of water, even more than you might think!
To put it simply, when you switch to a ketogenic diet your body starts to retain less water due to the changes in the insulin levels in your blood. What this means practically is that your body is going through water faster, and you aren't getting the same bang for your buck when it comes to water consumption. If you drink the same amount of water that you did before you started limiting carbs you will be dehydrated!
Tip 2: Supplement your diet with extra electrolytes.
The other, perhaps most important, cause of your symptoms is a drop in your electrolyte levels. This happens for a couple of reasons. First, because your body is retaining less water, that means that it is also retaining fewer electrolytes. Second, the Standard American Diet (SAD) is full of added sodium which is one of the main electrolytes that your body uses. When you switch to a ketogenic diet, you are usually eating fresher, less processed foods with a lower sodium content.
You can add more electrolytes to your diet by eating foods that are high in sodium, magnesium and potassium.
If that's too much work, you can drink zero sugar sports drinks or just add a healthy amount of table salt to your water.
But the best, and more appetizing, way to make sure you are getting enough electrolytes is to add LMNT drink mixes to your water.
LMNT drink mixes are tasty and contain 4x as much sodium and 2x as much potassium as a 20 oz gatorade. You can buy it through their website linked above, or stop by HELPcare Clinic Austin and we'll get you set up with what you need.
The proceeds from our sales of LMNT drink mixes go to HELPcare Foundation, which helps to fund HELPcare Clinic memberships for members of our community in need.
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