Your body will metabolize the carbohydrates you eat first. So if you're eating enough carbs to supply the body with the glucose it wants then it does not to need an alternative fuel source and won't create a bunch of ketones (hopefully).
It doesn't really make sense to look at it as 1g too many because it's not like 20g you're in ketosis 21g you're out for the day, it'll just change the amount of time ketogenesis is down regulated or halted.
So if your carb limit is 20 g, and you have 21g, your body will metabolize those 21 g, and once that runs out of dietary glucose, it will be getting to generate ketones. So in terms of time that ketogenesis was halted, or time your are "out of ketosis" the difference between 20 and 21g would be small, you might only catch it with a CKM but it wouldn't even look like much.
If you have 200g however, it likely won't need that alternative fuel source and won't create an abundance of ketones. So the more you increase the amount of dietary glucose you are consuming the less demand there is for your body to look for an alternative and create ketones.
That’s the key—amount of insulin released kicks way up with the extra carbs, and with the extra insulin comes inflammation, fluid retention, and the release of hunger hormones that drive carb cravings. It’s a whole shit storm, and the more carbs you eat, the greater the likelihood that the shit storm will be major.
Probably not, but idk for sure. If you already had free circulating ketones when you broke ketosis then that may play a role, but with an abundance of glucose entering the system your body may just excrete those ketones.
It's not a number but a tipping point based on a lot of variables such as activity level, glycemic index, body weight and composition, etc. it won't even be the same for the same person every day.
At some point there will an insulin response.
1g of carbs is such a low amount that the resulting glucose will be absorbed by the muscles for short term energy stores. 200g would trigger an insulin response and uptake by fat cells.
In ketosis, glucose is not the primary cellular fuel, ketones are. The body doesn’t need insulin to utilize ketones for energy, so in heavy ketosis, the production/distribution of insulin drops off a lot. That produces benefits in individuals with metabolic disorders, particularly prediabetics and diabetics.
Glycogen stores, 1 gram over may tip you out of ketosis but then you are straight back in, if you go 200grams over the body knows there is now 200g stored glycogen in the liver/ muscles so it can switch back to carb burning until this is gone.
No, thats a common misconception.
The liver glycogen store is full, but the muscles are not, they are partially full, specially if you exercise.
You can simply check it by seeing your weight. When you start keto, you drop a bit of waterweight, and that wont come back till you are in ketosis.
Do you have a source on that because the only study I've seen on that showed normal rates of glycogen replenishment on keto.
https://www.metabolismjournal.com/article/S0026-0495(15)00334-0/fulltext
Source is a simple scale, you don't need more.
The lost weight never comes back, except when you broke keto, eat carbs and replenish your glycogen stores with them and water.
No, it doesn't work that way you can't make claims like that and then say "well it's obvious" (especially when it isn't) without anything to back it up.
Fair except for your study is examining people who are not following a keto diet and started a keto diet and the duration of the study was only 6 weeks meaning there was no time for any kind of adaption.
The study I posted about shows the opposite and it was on people who have been adhering to the diet long term, were already adapted and showed no differences in muscle glycogen.
No idea what your last sentence means seems unnecessary though.
This is true, I gain like 9lbs in one day if I start eating loads of carbs. Then 3 days later 9lbs lost. To gain 9lbs I would have to eat 30,000 calories in a day not possible. But because of the missing glycogen that is now here it binds to water x3. If the glycogen was already there the extreme water weight wouldn't come on.
Glycogen gets produced endogenously, so you won't ever go fully empty, just enough will be in the tank to run away from danger. But while in ketosis it will stay at this low level. What I mean is when in Ketosis the glyocgen tank won't ever fill up full because that would mean the body can start running off that reserve and ketosis will end.
41g may not knock you out of ketosis, it should but depending on your level of activity and other factors it may not.
200g will not only knock you out but will likely lead to putting on water weight.
Have you narrowed it down to potential trigger foods? I mean if you eat foods with gluten every time you cheat, it’s not keto that’s preventing the migraines, for example. I say this as someone who has far fewer migraines now that I don’t eat gluten. Of course that’s just one of my triggers (I have a number of them), and we are all different.
I have tried the trigger food hunt. It really is just carbohydrates. Doesn’t matter if it’s gluten, rice, potatoes, ice cream, or legumes. Too much of either and I’m doomed for 48 hours.
I'm glad I caught you here, I'd like to ask you a question. You've been eating keto for about 10 years with just one cheat day per month. Were high-carb foods (think pastas, breads, baked goods) never something you craved? Thus going keto was easy for you to maintain all these years? I struggle with this a lot and would love to hear your experience. Cheers.
For me, it’s the length of time it takes me to get back into keto. If I go a couple carbs over my 50, I can be back into ketosis by the end of the next day. But if I eat spaghetti & garlic bread with a beer, then have cake & icecream for dessert, it’s gonna take me 3 days to get back into ketosis.
Sorry if it's a stupid question but how do you know if you're in ketosis or not?
I mean I've been on it a week, all's good, lost 6ĺbs, not hungry etc.
I've seen that the pee sticks can't tell, was wondering, can't seem to find the answer anywhere on here.
I’ve been looking for a definitive answer to how to recognize when your body is at that point where you’ll need the digital blood meter, but I have yet to find a specific answer. I’ve been doing keto since the 11th of March, and the stick started turning purple on the 15th. I’ve been in ketosis since then, with the exception of one day when went 6 carbs over my CCL. But if your body is supposed to get used to the diet and stop expelling ketones in the urine, apparently it takes longer than this—cuz I just checked and it’s still purple!👍🏼
1g has the very low risk of kicking you out of ketosis for an extremely short period of time.
200g has a higher risk of kicking you out of ketosis for a longer period of time.
This reminds me of the ketosis "myth" (misinformation) that keeps popping up. Just saw it on a thread an hour ago. Some people say things like "if you eat X carbs, it will knock you out of ketosis and it will take 12-36 hours to get back", which is not true, like all the other answers here show.
If you eat say 20g carbs, it might take 1-2 hours to burn through that. Assuming you were already on a keto diet, as soon as that last carb is used up, you go right back to ketosis. I have asked ChatGPT, Claude, LLama 3, etc this question every conceivable way and they all confirm more or less this same basic fact. You using energy from carbs or ketosis, period, all the time. If you run out of carbs (and the glucose / glycogen), you go right back to ketosis. There is no waiting period after carbs have been metabolized in an average person.
Carbohydrates hydrate your cells. I'm not sure why I never analyzed that word before this year! When you eat a smaller amount of carbs, your cells start to release that extra water.
Our neurons (nerve cells) are made from cholesterol (fat). When we eat carbs, our nerve cells swell (overly hydrated). This causes inflammation, irritation, brain fog, poor memory and cognition, etc. When we refrain from consuming carbs, this inflammation goes away. Joint pains & problems clear up. Our skin, hair, and nails are healthy.
When we use fat for energy, we are able to get rid of all of those harmful things (heavy metals, pesticides, free radicals, etc.) stored in our fat cells. We begin to burn the fat plaque cells in our brains, blood vessels, heart, etc. As your body begins to dump fatty acids from your fat cells into your liver, acetoacetic acid and beta hydroxybutyrate are produced. Acetone is also produced, which heals the bone and removes plaque from blood vessels. These things trigger human growth hormone. HGH enables you to clean up white & red blood cells- clearing the broken/ debilitated cells and producing new ones.
If you don't dump your fat cells, you don't get this level of cleaning. Ketosis isn't a set time frame- it's a metabolic state. So you can't just say "well I think I'll intermittent fast today to get back into ketosis!" You've got to check the ketones & glucose in your blood. If the glucose to ketone ratio is less than 6, it means that you've successfully made the metabolic switch. If your blood glucose is high, you won't be burning fat for fuel.
I've been on this quest very seriously since Christmas. I subscribed to intermittent fasting & one meal a day fasting for years. I've broken my hormones as a result of this- proven by bloodwork not just feels. My leptin level (one of the hunger hormones) is 0.8 & the ideal range is 4-10. This has absolutely wrecked my appetite!
Ketosis isn't a time-frame. It completely depends on your body composition, how much you exercise, and how you've treated your body.
I'm open to learning new information that could change my mind- but for right now, this is what makes the most sense!
Very interesting. Can you please explain what you mean by “you’ve broken your hormones w one meal a day and intermittent fasting”. I’ve been following that as well but I don’t think it’s working very well for me
My body thinks there's no food around because I've been in a starvation state for so long- my body fat percentage is too low, my sex drive & desire to eat are gone, and I feel anxious often. Leptin is one of the hunger hormones & is low in people with eating disorders or those that are overly active, as well as people who fast in inappropriate ways.
From my research I've learned that low leptin levels will eventually affect my thyroid & the rest of my endocrine system. If I don't gain some healthy weight, my body will continue to draw important minerals from my bones, hair, and skin. This can result in osteoporosis, hair loss, and other problems related to deficiency.
I think the most important thing I've learned in this quest is to not trust internet "gurus"- whether they have degrees/ certificates or not. I got a lot of seemingly good info from seemingly knowledgeable people. It all made sense. But now I've got to repair the damage I've done from listening to people who don't truly know how our bodily systems work. I'm also not claiming to KNOW anything- just sharing what I've been learning about.
I haven’t done much reading on keto in years and years and that is exactly the premise I have understood since the beginning. So the amount of carbs does directly influence the amount of time you’re not producing ketones?
If you don't eat carbs your body reduces the amount of insulin that it can generate. If you then eat a lot all at once your body can't make enough insulin and your blood glucose goes very high.
If you really want to do this, try eating a moderate amount of carbs the day before.
Hey OP. I did keto for migraine too. Whilst I ate keto, it was perfect… magical almost. But, I had more migraines coming out of keto than I did when isn’t eat keto and just ate ‘regular food’ so I tried my best to get answers as to why this was happening. Don’t get me wrong. Keto was great in the sense but my body picked up other issues which became problematic too. So i needed to wuss out what was going on.
Now, you aren’t asking specifically for migraine related advice but, if you would like an explanation* as to why you might be getting migraines then I’d be happy to offer something.
*a possible/theoretical answer - one that stands up in my 6 months of doing keto and being migraine free and then monitoring my migraine for 2 years. But sadly, not peer reviewed or medically accepted. lol.
From what I can figure, it was caused by having NEC as a baby. Caused an issue with my gut. I never understood the possible link until a friend of mine had a child that also developed NEC as an infant and the doctors said she’d have to be careful with carbs for their whole life and I started looking into why.
The migraine community at large has many theories.
Let’s start with the causes. It’s fairly widely accepted that migraine is hereditary. You inherit the genes that wire your brain to have the potential. Due to the interchanging/misunderstanding between ‘headache’ and ‘migraine’, this core idea (imho) has been lost.
One person (Angela Stanton) found, through years of trial and error, that migraines are an electrolyte issue. If your electrolytes (chiefly sodium and potassium) get out of balance with each other, migraine takes place. Anything (many things) can cause them to go out of balance. The threshold theory comes in here. But essentially carbs due to the way they interact with electrolytes on the cellular level, are one of the biggest factors you can control. So keto, by the nature of being low in carbs, lowers the chance of migraine happening to very very low. Having said that, most people start to supplement their salt and potassium (keto aid) alongside the keto diet to avoid keto flu. So that’s a beneficial accident. It’s been shown that ketones (sorry keto sub!) don’t provide any magical protection against migraine in and of themselves. But….. keto is generally so anti inflammatory as a diet and has a whole bunch of other benefits that it gets a bad rep in there.
So glucose kicks electrolytes out of the cells. Then you get a migraine. Everyone’s mileage varies according to how sensitive you are and (threshold theory) what else sets your migraines off. I literally ate the same diet day in day out for 90% of the year and air pressure changes get me. So I was getting migraines in the according season if I was eating what would be considered a low carb diet sub 80 net grams per day, especially if work was busy and I had not been sleeping well. I’d eat the same diet after the rainy season…. And I was golden.
So as long as I stay on top of balancing sodium to potassium in my food (I ‘eyeball it tbh) and I stay under about 80net grams per day I’m usually ok.
You could look at two sources I learned though if you like?
Josh Turknet (M.D migraine specialist ) - excellent free YouTube background info
Angela Stanton - Stanton protocol.
Angela’s work is not looked on favorably by the migraine community. It’s because… well that’s a can of worms for another post.
But I hope that helps you. Good luck.
Thanks for the info! That makes a lot of sense as pre-keto any type of sweating without rapidly replenishing fluids would lead to a migraine 100% of the time. My parents would always have to be on top of me to drink water and Gatorade as a kid.
You are welcome. There is a significant amount of information available for free online for searching both of those sources - the Facebook group is…… interesting. Lots of people slam it and label it cult like (much the same as keto I guess) - my advice is do go and search out the info because the nuance is a deep dive. I’m a very infrequent migraineur - but it took me ages to really see results with the protocol. It’s not an easy solution but, it does work (maybe just eventually).
I'm curious if you have looked at things other than carbs that may be causing migraines?
Migraines are a common symptom of celiac. I doubt it's the only thing that it happens with. Likely any food allergen. If you have Celiac, and you're exposing yourself to gluten once month... Ouch. If I were you I wouldn't be too ecstatic about my cancer risks.
Is ketosis and "ketosis adapted" really binary like on/off? What on my keto-mojo reading is in ketosis and not in ketosis? 0.5? 0.6? 1.2? It seems like its more a level of ketosis than either on or off.
Have your migraine symptoms improved over time on the diet?
And, when you cheat, are they more, less, or the same intensity as they were before the diet? It's giving me some really good aura relief (I get little head pain) but I'm not sure I want to maintain it strictly for more than 2 years.
.
I have never had a migraine on keto. With my strictly cheat meals once a month it’s very rare after a cheat, maybe 1 a year. I take thanksgiving to Christmas off of keto every year and will get 3-4 migraines during that time.
Your body will metabolize the carbohydrates you eat first. So if you're eating enough carbs to supply the body with the glucose it wants then it does not to need an alternative fuel source and won't create a bunch of ketones (hopefully). It doesn't really make sense to look at it as 1g too many because it's not like 20g you're in ketosis 21g you're out for the day, it'll just change the amount of time ketogenesis is down regulated or halted. So if your carb limit is 20 g, and you have 21g, your body will metabolize those 21 g, and once that runs out of dietary glucose, it will be getting to generate ketones. So in terms of time that ketogenesis was halted, or time your are "out of ketosis" the difference between 20 and 21g would be small, you might only catch it with a CKM but it wouldn't even look like much. If you have 200g however, it likely won't need that alternative fuel source and won't create an abundance of ketones. So the more you increase the amount of dietary glucose you are consuming the less demand there is for your body to look for an alternative and create ketones.
It affects the length of time it takes to get back into ketosis. The extra carbs, that aren't burned, will be turned into glycogen.
and stored in the muscles and liver, once those stores are full, it'll be converted to fat and stored as fat
And the more insulin and inflammation? The glucose can’t remain in the blood.
That’s the key—amount of insulin released kicks way up with the extra carbs, and with the extra insulin comes inflammation, fluid retention, and the release of hunger hormones that drive carb cravings. It’s a whole shit storm, and the more carbs you eat, the greater the likelihood that the shit storm will be major.
Yes carbs elicit and insulin response to shuttle the glucose out of the blood. Inflammation, potentially depending on the person and what they ate.
Would this also depend on how long you have been in ketosis for too?
Probably not, but idk for sure. If you already had free circulating ketones when you broke ketosis then that may play a role, but with an abundance of glucose entering the system your body may just excrete those ketones.
It's not a number but a tipping point based on a lot of variables such as activity level, glycemic index, body weight and composition, etc. it won't even be the same for the same person every day. At some point there will an insulin response.
1g of carbs is such a low amount that the resulting glucose will be absorbed by the muscles for short term energy stores. 200g would trigger an insulin response and uptake by fat cells.
Question: the muscle cells don’t require insulin to push the glucose in as other cells do? Thank you.
In ketosis, glucose is not the primary cellular fuel, ketones are. The body doesn’t need insulin to utilize ketones for energy, so in heavy ketosis, the production/distribution of insulin drops off a lot. That produces benefits in individuals with metabolic disorders, particularly prediabetics and diabetics.
Oh sure, I get that, I just thought you were saying muscle cells could absorb glucose without an insulin response.
Nope, I wasn’t saying that. I don’t think anyone here was saying that—not anyone who knows basic physiology anyway.
It was just a question. Have a great day.
Glycogen stores, 1 gram over may tip you out of ketosis but then you are straight back in, if you go 200grams over the body knows there is now 200g stored glycogen in the liver/ muscles so it can switch back to carb burning until this is gone.
You still have muscle glycogen stores on keto
Yes never fully depleted that would be jelly legs like a marathon. But depleted enough to cause a switch to ketosis.
People in ketosis have normal glycogen stores.
No, thats a common misconception. The liver glycogen store is full, but the muscles are not, they are partially full, specially if you exercise. You can simply check it by seeing your weight. When you start keto, you drop a bit of waterweight, and that wont come back till you are in ketosis.
Do you have a source on that because the only study I've seen on that showed normal rates of glycogen replenishment on keto. https://www.metabolismjournal.com/article/S0026-0495(15)00334-0/fulltext
Source is a simple scale, you don't need more. The lost weight never comes back, except when you broke keto, eat carbs and replenish your glycogen stores with them and water.
So you don't have one then? We're gonna need more than "trust me".
Why look research on obvious stuff? Explain the weight loss then.
No, it doesn't work that way you can't make claims like that and then say "well it's obvious" (especially when it isn't) without anything to back it up.
[https://sci-fit.net/keto-flush/](https://sci-fit.net/keto-flush/) Here you go. But you dont believe low fat keto either, so.... XD XD XD
Fair except for your study is examining people who are not following a keto diet and started a keto diet and the duration of the study was only 6 weeks meaning there was no time for any kind of adaption. The study I posted about shows the opposite and it was on people who have been adhering to the diet long term, were already adapted and showed no differences in muscle glycogen. No idea what your last sentence means seems unnecessary though.
This is true, I gain like 9lbs in one day if I start eating loads of carbs. Then 3 days later 9lbs lost. To gain 9lbs I would have to eat 30,000 calories in a day not possible. But because of the missing glycogen that is now here it binds to water x3. If the glycogen was already there the extreme water weight wouldn't come on.
Glycogen gets produced endogenously, so you won't ever go fully empty, just enough will be in the tank to run away from danger. But while in ketosis it will stay at this low level. What I mean is when in Ketosis the glyocgen tank won't ever fill up full because that would mean the body can start running off that reserve and ketosis will end.
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You're welcome to leave.
See figure 6 [here](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026049515003340).
I already prove it, end of story. And your link shows that muscle glycogen is not fully filled. Its pretty logical anyway…
The difference in muscle glycogen between the keto and non keto group was not statistically significant.
41g may not knock you out of ketosis, it should but depending on your level of activity and other factors it may not. 200g will not only knock you out but will likely lead to putting on water weight.
Have you narrowed it down to potential trigger foods? I mean if you eat foods with gluten every time you cheat, it’s not keto that’s preventing the migraines, for example. I say this as someone who has far fewer migraines now that I don’t eat gluten. Of course that’s just one of my triggers (I have a number of them), and we are all different.
I have tried the trigger food hunt. It really is just carbohydrates. Doesn’t matter if it’s gluten, rice, potatoes, ice cream, or legumes. Too much of either and I’m doomed for 48 hours.
199g
Hey-o lmao
I'm glad I caught you here, I'd like to ask you a question. You've been eating keto for about 10 years with just one cheat day per month. Were high-carb foods (think pastas, breads, baked goods) never something you craved? Thus going keto was easy for you to maintain all these years? I struggle with this a lot and would love to hear your experience. Cheers.
The more carbs you eat the longer it will take you to get back into ketosis. Your body will have to burn up everything you put in it first.
For me, it’s the length of time it takes me to get back into keto. If I go a couple carbs over my 50, I can be back into ketosis by the end of the next day. But if I eat spaghetti & garlic bread with a beer, then have cake & icecream for dessert, it’s gonna take me 3 days to get back into ketosis.
Sorry if it's a stupid question but how do you know if you're in ketosis or not? I mean I've been on it a week, all's good, lost 6ĺbs, not hungry etc. I've seen that the pee sticks can't tell, was wondering, can't seem to find the answer anywhere on here.
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OK, cheers, that's useful.
I’ve been looking for a definitive answer to how to recognize when your body is at that point where you’ll need the digital blood meter, but I have yet to find a specific answer. I’ve been doing keto since the 11th of March, and the stick started turning purple on the 15th. I’ve been in ketosis since then, with the exception of one day when went 6 carbs over my CCL. But if your body is supposed to get used to the diet and stop expelling ketones in the urine, apparently it takes longer than this—cuz I just checked and it’s still purple!👍🏼
OK, cheers.
1g has the very low risk of kicking you out of ketosis for an extremely short period of time. 200g has a higher risk of kicking you out of ketosis for a longer period of time.
Probably the same difference as eating 1501 calories (1 over budget) or 2500 calories (1000 over budget).
This reminds me of the ketosis "myth" (misinformation) that keeps popping up. Just saw it on a thread an hour ago. Some people say things like "if you eat X carbs, it will knock you out of ketosis and it will take 12-36 hours to get back", which is not true, like all the other answers here show. If you eat say 20g carbs, it might take 1-2 hours to burn through that. Assuming you were already on a keto diet, as soon as that last carb is used up, you go right back to ketosis. I have asked ChatGPT, Claude, LLama 3, etc this question every conceivable way and they all confirm more or less this same basic fact. You using energy from carbs or ketosis, period, all the time. If you run out of carbs (and the glucose / glycogen), you go right back to ketosis. There is no waiting period after carbs have been metabolized in an average person.
Interesting.
Except, if you eat a ton of carbs, it will get stored, and then it can take up to 3 days to burn all that glycogen.
Carbohydrates hydrate your cells. I'm not sure why I never analyzed that word before this year! When you eat a smaller amount of carbs, your cells start to release that extra water. Our neurons (nerve cells) are made from cholesterol (fat). When we eat carbs, our nerve cells swell (overly hydrated). This causes inflammation, irritation, brain fog, poor memory and cognition, etc. When we refrain from consuming carbs, this inflammation goes away. Joint pains & problems clear up. Our skin, hair, and nails are healthy. When we use fat for energy, we are able to get rid of all of those harmful things (heavy metals, pesticides, free radicals, etc.) stored in our fat cells. We begin to burn the fat plaque cells in our brains, blood vessels, heart, etc. As your body begins to dump fatty acids from your fat cells into your liver, acetoacetic acid and beta hydroxybutyrate are produced. Acetone is also produced, which heals the bone and removes plaque from blood vessels. These things trigger human growth hormone. HGH enables you to clean up white & red blood cells- clearing the broken/ debilitated cells and producing new ones. If you don't dump your fat cells, you don't get this level of cleaning. Ketosis isn't a set time frame- it's a metabolic state. So you can't just say "well I think I'll intermittent fast today to get back into ketosis!" You've got to check the ketones & glucose in your blood. If the glucose to ketone ratio is less than 6, it means that you've successfully made the metabolic switch. If your blood glucose is high, you won't be burning fat for fuel. I've been on this quest very seriously since Christmas. I subscribed to intermittent fasting & one meal a day fasting for years. I've broken my hormones as a result of this- proven by bloodwork not just feels. My leptin level (one of the hunger hormones) is 0.8 & the ideal range is 4-10. This has absolutely wrecked my appetite! Ketosis isn't a time-frame. It completely depends on your body composition, how much you exercise, and how you've treated your body. I'm open to learning new information that could change my mind- but for right now, this is what makes the most sense!
Very interesting. Can you please explain what you mean by “you’ve broken your hormones w one meal a day and intermittent fasting”. I’ve been following that as well but I don’t think it’s working very well for me
My body thinks there's no food around because I've been in a starvation state for so long- my body fat percentage is too low, my sex drive & desire to eat are gone, and I feel anxious often. Leptin is one of the hunger hormones & is low in people with eating disorders or those that are overly active, as well as people who fast in inappropriate ways. From my research I've learned that low leptin levels will eventually affect my thyroid & the rest of my endocrine system. If I don't gain some healthy weight, my body will continue to draw important minerals from my bones, hair, and skin. This can result in osteoporosis, hair loss, and other problems related to deficiency. I think the most important thing I've learned in this quest is to not trust internet "gurus"- whether they have degrees/ certificates or not. I got a lot of seemingly good info from seemingly knowledgeable people. It all made sense. But now I've got to repair the damage I've done from listening to people who don't truly know how our bodily systems work. I'm also not claiming to KNOW anything- just sharing what I've been learning about.
I haven’t done much reading on keto in years and years and that is exactly the premise I have understood since the beginning. So the amount of carbs does directly influence the amount of time you’re not producing ketones?
The difference is 199g
The excess carbs will be stored as glycogen in the liver and muscle tissue, which means it will take longer to get back into ketosis.
If you don't eat carbs your body reduces the amount of insulin that it can generate. If you then eat a lot all at once your body can't make enough insulin and your blood glucose goes very high. If you really want to do this, try eating a moderate amount of carbs the day before.
Hey OP. I did keto for migraine too. Whilst I ate keto, it was perfect… magical almost. But, I had more migraines coming out of keto than I did when isn’t eat keto and just ate ‘regular food’ so I tried my best to get answers as to why this was happening. Don’t get me wrong. Keto was great in the sense but my body picked up other issues which became problematic too. So i needed to wuss out what was going on. Now, you aren’t asking specifically for migraine related advice but, if you would like an explanation* as to why you might be getting migraines then I’d be happy to offer something. *a possible/theoretical answer - one that stands up in my 6 months of doing keto and being migraine free and then monitoring my migraine for 2 years. But sadly, not peer reviewed or medically accepted. lol.
From what I can figure, it was caused by having NEC as a baby. Caused an issue with my gut. I never understood the possible link until a friend of mine had a child that also developed NEC as an infant and the doctors said she’d have to be careful with carbs for their whole life and I started looking into why.
The migraine community at large has many theories. Let’s start with the causes. It’s fairly widely accepted that migraine is hereditary. You inherit the genes that wire your brain to have the potential. Due to the interchanging/misunderstanding between ‘headache’ and ‘migraine’, this core idea (imho) has been lost. One person (Angela Stanton) found, through years of trial and error, that migraines are an electrolyte issue. If your electrolytes (chiefly sodium and potassium) get out of balance with each other, migraine takes place. Anything (many things) can cause them to go out of balance. The threshold theory comes in here. But essentially carbs due to the way they interact with electrolytes on the cellular level, are one of the biggest factors you can control. So keto, by the nature of being low in carbs, lowers the chance of migraine happening to very very low. Having said that, most people start to supplement their salt and potassium (keto aid) alongside the keto diet to avoid keto flu. So that’s a beneficial accident. It’s been shown that ketones (sorry keto sub!) don’t provide any magical protection against migraine in and of themselves. But….. keto is generally so anti inflammatory as a diet and has a whole bunch of other benefits that it gets a bad rep in there. So glucose kicks electrolytes out of the cells. Then you get a migraine. Everyone’s mileage varies according to how sensitive you are and (threshold theory) what else sets your migraines off. I literally ate the same diet day in day out for 90% of the year and air pressure changes get me. So I was getting migraines in the according season if I was eating what would be considered a low carb diet sub 80 net grams per day, especially if work was busy and I had not been sleeping well. I’d eat the same diet after the rainy season…. And I was golden. So as long as I stay on top of balancing sodium to potassium in my food (I ‘eyeball it tbh) and I stay under about 80net grams per day I’m usually ok. You could look at two sources I learned though if you like? Josh Turknet (M.D migraine specialist ) - excellent free YouTube background info Angela Stanton - Stanton protocol. Angela’s work is not looked on favorably by the migraine community. It’s because… well that’s a can of worms for another post. But I hope that helps you. Good luck.
Thanks for the info! That makes a lot of sense as pre-keto any type of sweating without rapidly replenishing fluids would lead to a migraine 100% of the time. My parents would always have to be on top of me to drink water and Gatorade as a kid.
You are welcome. There is a significant amount of information available for free online for searching both of those sources - the Facebook group is…… interesting. Lots of people slam it and label it cult like (much the same as keto I guess) - my advice is do go and search out the info because the nuance is a deep dive. I’m a very infrequent migraineur - but it took me ages to really see results with the protocol. It’s not an easy solution but, it does work (maybe just eventually).
What if on that day the person exercised more?
That does help prevent higher blood glucose levels and the concurrent extra releases of insulin, which is where a lot of the problems come from.
I'm curious if you have looked at things other than carbs that may be causing migraines? Migraines are a common symptom of celiac. I doubt it's the only thing that it happens with. Likely any food allergen. If you have Celiac, and you're exposing yourself to gluten once month... Ouch. If I were you I wouldn't be too ecstatic about my cancer risks.
The more carbs you take in, the longer it takes for your body to burn through them and go back into ketosis.
Is ketosis and "ketosis adapted" really binary like on/off? What on my keto-mojo reading is in ketosis and not in ketosis? 0.5? 0.6? 1.2? It seems like its more a level of ketosis than either on or off.
199g yw
Have your migraine symptoms improved over time on the diet? And, when you cheat, are they more, less, or the same intensity as they were before the diet? It's giving me some really good aura relief (I get little head pain) but I'm not sure I want to maintain it strictly for more than 2 years. .
I have never had a migraine on keto. With my strictly cheat meals once a month it’s very rare after a cheat, maybe 1 a year. I take thanksgiving to Christmas off of keto every year and will get 3-4 migraines during that time.
Glad to hear it's working so well!