What is the keto flu and how to avoid it? Learn the basic mechanisms so that you
understand why it happens and you can avoid it and comfortably transition into
that healthy keto lifestyle so a lot of people they get all excited about
ketogenic lifestyle they want to lose the weight they want to feel better
they've heard so many stories and then they jump head in and three to five days
later they feel terrible and some of the symptoms can be headaches fatigue nausea
cravings dizziness brain fog muscle cramps irritability the list is pretty
much endless and a lot of these things are often associated with a flu so
that's why they call it the keto flu but of course it's not a flu at all there is
no infectious agent it's just that you're feeling as if you had the flu so
you're not going to contaminate anybody and there is no bug involved but what's
really going on why do you feel so bad well there's really two reasons it's not
rocket science it's very very simple first is that you are doing a change
okay so for decades you have taught your body how to get energy out of
carbohydrates you've taught your body to install a machinery that can use
carbohydrates but it doesn't know how to use fat it knows how to convert
carbohydrates into fat and put it on your body but it doesn't know how to use
that fat so its main source of fuel is carbohydrate and now you're pulling the
rug out from under your machinery literally overnight and it only knows
how to use a carbohydrate and you just took it away so now your body has no
source of energy and it's scrambling and it's changing but it doesn't really know
where to get it so you
get hypoglycemia and you get all these different things so realize that you
built a machinery to do one thing and now you have to build a machinery to do
something else namely to learn how to use fat again so all your cells are
going to change the enzymes they're gonna have to up regulate production of
enzymes and receptors and it doesn't happen overnight some people can do it
in a week or two some people are gonna be more like several weeks or maybe even
months before they're fully adapted before they've established a machinery
that can use fat instead of carbs so that's the first reason you're feeling
so terrible you just change so fast that your body has no idea where to get the
energy or you're starving it in a sense the second reason is fluids so
carbohydrates are stored in the bone in the form of glycogen and glycogen is
sort of like a sponge that it holds on to a lot of water so imagine that you
have a bucket of saltwater and you dip the sponge into it and then you take it
out and you squeeze the sponge and all the water runs out well when the water
runs out it's going to take the salt with it and that's what happens in the
body as well so glycogen holds on to water and then you burn up the glycogen
because you're not adding any more carbs and then the water that the glycogen
held on to is going to leave the body that's the first three to four pounds of
weight loss that you experience within the first couple of days it's fluid loss
and when you lose that fluid it takes your minerals with it and these minerals
are crucial for your brain for your nervous system for your metabolism there
you even need more minerals to handle the transition from carbs to fat because
your body goes through many changes so you're increasing the demand
on the body but at the same time you're robbing it of minerals because it's the
change that it hasn't it's it's too fast to change anytime you change something
your body is gonna have to adapt and if it's too fast it's not gonna be able to
cope you're losing fluids and it has minerals so it's as simple as that so
how do we get into a ketogenic lifestyle without feeling terrible well here are
the steps that you do first you increase the water intake you increase salt and
you increase minerals don't be afraid of salt make sure it's a good salt not the
sterilized industrial table salt but a sea salt or a pink salt minerals come in
vegetables okay so salt table salt or rather pink
salt has primarily sodium in it and you're also losing potassium and
magnesium and calcium so you want to try to get plenty of all of those and
vegetables is the top source vegetables have tons of potassium and magnesium
then you want to increase your fat because part of the reason is that maybe
you're not eating enough a lot of people will start just cutting out the carbs
but they're not in the habit of eating anything else so now they don't know
what to eat and they haven't put enough fat in to make up for the carbs that
they're taking out so now if you're trying to turn your body from burning to
stop burning carbs and instead burn fat but you're not adding enough in the diet
and your body hasn't learned to use the fat on your body
now you're low on both carbs and fats you're literally starving so therefore
you want to make it gradual okay a lot of people they're so ready they so want
to get into this and and we as humans were impatient we want instant results
we want to do it now and I would advise to not do it all at once
for all the reasons that we talked about but when you do it gradual when you take
some carbs out you want to put something else in and there's so many diets out
there where people jump in and then they get off the doesn't matter what you call
them and one that comes to mind is whole xxx which it's a great diet it teaches
you how to eat Whole Foods but the very idea of 30 days gives people the idea
that you get on it and you get off it and it's such a sudden change that you
feel terrible and you can't wait to get back to eating the way that you used to
so gradual means two things first it gives you the chance to change habits it
gives you the chance to learn new foods so you take something out that's high in
carbs and you put something else in that's low in carbs and higher in fat
and as you change this may be a few things per week you gradually transition
into a lifestyle that you can maintain and as you do it gradually and you teach
yourself some new habits you also teach your body some new habits you give it a
chance to gradually go from using carbs as the primary fuel to using fat as the
primary fuel okay so there's two things it's your cellular habits and it's your
own human personal habits so I think that you should start cutting it back
maybe - if I want to give you some numbers this isn't necessarily right for
everybody but if you start cutting it down to maybe 80 grams a day of net
carbohydrates and then you go down gradually from there maybe reduce it by
1015 grams a week and that way you can gauge how you're feeling if it's too
fast you can back off a little bit and don't be in a hurry you have the rest of
your life to do this number four exercise you want to be really careful
with exercise but you do want to do exercise so what
my videos on aerobic versus an aerobics and and videos on exercise that I've
done so you understand these principles but exercise is great because it reduces
insulin resistance and when the body needs more energy it tends to burn more
fat and increase ketone production so that's a good thing what's bad about it
is if you do exercise too intense because now when you're short of fuel
your body will start screaming for carbs it will make cortisol it will raise your
blood sugar and it will make you feel really bad it'll make you feel a lot
worse than if you didn't exercise but if you do very gentle exercise like walking
or yoga or stretching then the exercise will actually help you instead so low
intensity exercise to activate the body but not so intense that you start
producing lots of cortisol don't count calories because a lot of people they
get into it they're gung-ho they want to make it happen right now I cut back the
carbs oh yeah I can do this but again they don't put the fat in and they think
oh well I can do this if I don't eat so much I can lose the weight even faster
that's not what this is about it's about finding a lifestyle you can do for the
rest of your life take your time and don't count calories let your body find
the balance so as you cut back the carbs as your body learns to use fat instead
you will stay full longer you won't get hungry you won't need snacks between
meals you can go eight hours between meals but don't push it let it happen
let it just develop the way your body wants it to and then you can get through
all of these with no discomfort no deprivation and no hunger so please
share this video with everyone you care about because we want to get this
information out so more people can get healthy please leave your comments and
questions below let me know you've experienced some Kido flu or what
how your experience has been if you have at any additional tips please feel free
to share those as well and thanks for watching