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#brain has headache probably from poor mood+dehydration so its hard to think
liveto100blog-blog · 5 years
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Live to 100 plan
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20 lifestyle changes to help you live for longer. The live to 100 plan.
There comes a time in every persons life where they start to think about longevity. This is where you should make your 'live to 100' plan. In our younger years we feel indestructible and may not have given much consideration to the foods we eat, the alcohol we drink and other unhealthy vices. As we become older and wiser, our body has ways of letting us know that we need to make some lifestyle changes for longevity. It is impossible to guarantee a long and healthy life. Illnesses, accidents or hereditary conditions can wade in at any time but we can take measures to reduce risks and tip the scales in our favour. You can take steps today to increase your longevity and live a long, healthy and happy life... 1, Supplements You should always try to get the nutrients that your body needs from food where possible. A healthy, balanced diet will cover these bases. If you do not get these nutrients in your diet, supplements are a good alternative. Generally, you get what you pay for with multi-vitamin tablets. Cheaper options can be relatively useless as they breakdown too fast and your body ends up passing the nutrients in your urine. Look out for slow release tablets to ensure you are getting the maximum benefit from your multi-vitamins. Vitamin C The recommended amount of vitamin C is 70mg per day for women and 90mg for men. If you eat plenty of fruit and vegetables, you should easily be able to reach these amounts. The main advantage of Vitamin C is that it is a strong anti-oxidant and it can boost the bodies immune system. Vitamin D Vitamin D is a hard one to come by in food. The best natural sources of vitamin D are fatty fish, egg yolks and plenty of sunlight. 15 minutes of sunshine a day can give you all of the vitamin D that your body needs yet many adults only get 40% of this requirement. A good multi-vitamin pill will contain your RDA of vitamin D. Magnesium Magnesium is an essential nutrient which has multiple benefits. It is great for bone health and helping with energy production. It also has many secondary benefits such as balancing blood levels, helping with sleep and reducing stress. You can source magnesium in healthy foods such as Spinach, pumpkin, nuts, brown rice and tofu. If you do not get enough of these foods in your diet, look for a multi-vitamin that contains magnesium. Calcium Calcium is an easy nutrient to get in your foods so a supplement is not usually required. It is essential for strong bones and teeth. The best natural sources are... Dairy products (milk, cheese, and yogurts)Fortified cerealsBroccoliKaleSalty fishNuts and nut buttersBeans and lentils Zinc Age and stress can cause zinc levels in your body to be low. Zinc is essential for boosting our immune system and healing injuries. In addition to this, it helps the body use carbohydrates, protein and fats for energy. There are plenty of foods that have a high zinc content such as spinach, brown rice, liver and sardines. Iron This is an essential nutrient for increasing energy and better brain function. If you eat plenty of red meat, you are probably getting enough iron in your diet. If you are a vegan, going through puberty or pregnant, you may need to consider an iron supplement Different people need different amounts of iron. Look for a multi-vitamin that contains around 18mg. 2, Healthy fats
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Fats have been given a bad name in recent years but the right fats have many benefits to your health. Healthy Fats are a great source of energy and provide protection for your heart and brain. Bad fats (usually known as trans-fats) will increase bad cholesterol and cause weight increase when overeaten. Make sure you are eating healthy fats from the following sources... Olive oil, canola oil or peanut oilAvocadosOlivesNuts and nut buttersFatty fishSeeds If you are not getting enought Healthy fats in your diet, supplement with fish oil capsules or olive oil. 3, Hydration Drinking plenty of water is essential for good health. By staying hydrated you are promoting good cardio-vascular health, muscle/joint health and supple skin. The performance of your brain and body is heavily influenced by your hydration levels. A dehydrated brain and body can cause feelings of fatigue, tiredness and headaches. In addition to this, other symptoms caused by lack of water intake can be constipation, water retention and kidney stones. Aim to drink at least 2 litres of water a day. If you partake in intense exercise or sweat a lot, you should increase this accordingly. 4, Exercise - Part of your live to 100 plan It goes without saying that regular exercise is beneficial to increasing your life expectancy. Exercise should be something that you enjoy and not a chore. This can be conventional running, walking or an active hobby such as kayaking or football. There are literally hundreds of different ways to get active. Click this link for healthy exercise ideas. 5, Protect yourself This comes down to common sense but the reality is that many fatal accidents can be prevented by taking simple measures. Here are the main examples of protection measures that you should be already taking... Always wear your seat beltWear protective and reflective clothing/helmet when cyclingUse recommended protective clothing for extreme sportsAlways use good quality sun protection 6, Reduce alcohol Too much alcohol can have negative effects on your weight, skin condition, energy levels and quality of sleep. Excessive alcohol can also lead to various medical conditions such as a damaged liver or ulcer. Reducing your alcohol intake to a couple of units per week can make a major difference to your health of you are a regular, daily drinker. Red wine is the best option if you fancy an alcoholic drink when you are out for a meal. It contains anti-oxidants and in moderate amounts it can benefit your overall health. 7, Cut out stress Stress is a major factor in a lot of physical and mental health issues. There are a number of ways that you can reduce the stress in your life. Change your job - If your job is causing constant stress, look in to changing it. Changing your job can take a lot of courage but you'll be glad that you did when your stress levels reduceCut relationships that cause you constant stress - I'm not talking about abandoning somebody in need. If there is somebody in your life that causes you consistent, unnecessary stress, avoid spending time with them.Exercise - Intense exercise releases endorphins and allows you to take your mind off of day-to-day stresses. It is also a mood enhancer and helps you to think with clarity.Therapy - If you find that you are constantly stressed for no rational reason, consider seeing a therapist. Identifying the trigger and dealing with the root cause can lead to a huge weight off of your shoulders.Sleep - It is important to get 7-8 hours of quality sleep every night. Tiredness can cause stress and the related consequences. Changing your mattress, pillows and bedding can all help to contribute to a better nights sleep. 8, Meditate - The live to 100 plan
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Meditation is a great way to relax your body and mind. It is a great stress reducer and helps you to focus when things are getting on top of you. Popular types of meditation are... Zen meditationMindfulness meditationMantra meditationYoga meditationGuided meditation These are just a few examples. Give them a try and see which one you find the most suitable for you. 9, Improve relationships We all have friends or family members that rely on us and can sometimes cause us stress. If this is a consistent issue, address it and find a solution with the person concerned. If they are not willing to listen or compromise, avoid spending time with them or cut them from your life. Cutting negative people from your life is one thing, but you may also have people that mean something to you that you would like to reconnect with. It is easier than ever to reach out to old friends and family with the up rise of social media. 10, Monitor health - Live to 100 plan Regular check-ups for you blood pressure, cholesterol levels and general health are essential as you get older. If an issue is identified at an early stage, it can often be dealt with by simple lifestyle changes or medication. Tests for breast cancer, prostate cancer and cervical cancer are free on the NHS. It is essential to attend these screenings in order to catch any cancerous cells before they spread. 11, Mentally challenge yourself Keep your brain active on a daily basis. This can be anything from crosswords or tv quizzes to an academic qualification. Mentally challenging yourself can also curb anxiety and depression. 12, Eat fresh, clean meals Where possible, try to eat clean meals made with fresh ingredients. Ready meals, fast food and junk foods are packed full of artificial additives and trans-fats. By cooking your own meals, you can be sure that the food entering your body is healthy and nourishing. 13, Keep active - The live to 100 plan Regular exercise is important for physical and mental health but even when you are not intentionally exercising, try to stay active. Gardening, housework, dog walking and DIY jobs are all great ways to stay active. Sitting in front of a TV for hours a day can be bad for your physical and mental health. If your home and garden is already in perfect condition, consider helping others that are unable to maintain theirs. This is great exercise as well as being very rewarding. 14, Dental health Your dental health is not going to have a direct influence on your lifespan but poor dental care does have its downsides. Losing the ability to chew on meats or fibrous vegetables can mean that you will not get the nutrients that your body requires. Regular brushing, flossing and dental check-ups will ensure that you retain your ability to eat these healthy foods. Nobody wants a diet of soup and smoothies! 15, Get regular, uninterrupted sleep
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Closeup of a mature couple sleeping with eyes closed in the bed at home There are many health benefits related to a good nights sleep. Regularly, uninterrupted sleep will... Lower blood pressureReduce stressImprove memoryHelp the body to repair muscles jointsImprove mental health If you are not getting regular, uninterrupted sleep, consider changing your mattress type or pillows. A good mattress is not cheap and you generally get what you pay for but it is a worthwhile investment. Memory foam or Hybrid mattresses can be great if you find your self waking up with stiff joints and aches. Try before you buy Many bed retailers will allow you to try mattresses in store or take home for a free trial. Take advantage of this to find one that suits your body type and sleeping positions. 16. Regular mobility stretches and exercises There is no better way to start the day than with stretches and mobility exercises. It allows you to work out any stiffness in the joints as well as encouraging good blood circulation. Stretching and mobility exercises only need to take 10-15 minutes each day and are especially essential if you intend to perform any physical activities. By performing a good mobility workout each day you will encourage strength and flexibility in your joints as well improving your posture. 17, Train with weights Weight training does not only have to be performed by bodybuilders or strength athletes. Regular weight training will strengthen your muscles but will also help you to increase your flexibility, burn body fat, improve bone density, strengthen joints and improve cardiovascular fitness. A word of warning, weight training can become extremely addictive. In the first few weeks you will see great improvement in your strength and muscle-tone. This can be a great motivator if you are looking to improve your general fitness. 18. Declutter your life We have touched on simplifying relationships in order to reduce stress but you can also declutter other areas of your life. There are many books written on the subject and the belief is that if you live a minimalist life, you will have minimal stress. This in turn leads to more time to focus on important things such as your family, friends and general happiness. You can start the process by clearing out your house and garage. Be ruthless and get rid of anything that you may be hoarding or will no longer have a use for. You can also declutter your finances, eating habits and social/work commitments. 19, Avoid fad diets - Live to 100 plan Whilst all diets will work in the short term, most of them are not sustainable and will usually lead to weight gain in the long term. People will get quick results on various juice and soup diets but the majority of the weight loss will be water and not body fat. If you find yourself constantly switching diets or stop-starting the same diet, take the time to reflect and ask yourself why you fell off the wagon last time. If you find yourself binge-eating for emotional reasons, you should seek professional help in order to break the cycle. Long term eating plans There are some diets that can be adopted as a long-term eating plan but the at the end of the day, you will only lose body fat by being in a calorie deficit. This can be achieved by cutting the carbohydrates (as in a low-carb diet) or cutting the sugars and trans-fats (as in the paleo or south-beach diet). Take the time to find an eating plan that works for you and your lifestyle. If you like big meals, you can consider intermittent fasting, if you take part in any intense exercise, you may prefer to eat little but often. Either way, you can control the calories that you put in to your body. Calorie tracking apps Apps such as myfitnesspal have an easy to use calorie tracker making the whole process much easier. This app allows you to identify your daily calorie requirement, record the nett amount of calories that you have consumed and track your macros. 20, Get a hobby
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Smiling ethnic elderly woman kayaking with her husband on a river as the sun sets on a beautiful summer night Hobbies can be a great way to relax, socialise, stay in shape and keep mentally stimulated. Having a passion for something in life is important. There are literally thousands of pastimes that you may not have even ever considered. If you find yourself spending too much time in the pub or in front of the television, check out this list of active hobby ideas.
Summary - Live to 100 plan
This is not an exhaustive list of ways to increase your lifespan but is a great place to start. Take a few days to reflect on your lifestyle and ways that you can improve it in order to increase your life expectancy. BUT DO NOT PROCRASTINATE! Start making a list of simple changes and start applying them. You will immediately start to feel better about yourself and this will encourage you to make more changes. Read the full article
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viridescent-lament · 3 years
Text
: use irritants to lessen irritated mood
- how
: focus on small irritant (itchy wound) to avoid thinking and fixating on vague, big irritants. do not itch this irritant but focus on it
0 notes
lauramalchowblog · 4 years
Text
What Is Low Carb Flu, or Keto Flu? And Ways to Beat It
Over the first few days (up to two weeks) of eating low-carb, you may run into some frustration. Where is all of this energy I’m supposed to have? Why do I want to mow through that bag of chips right now? Am I coming down with a cold? For some people, the transition from burning glucose to burning fat comes with unwanted symptoms that range from slightly uncomfortable to miserable. This transition period is known as keto flu, or low-carb flu. It’s real, and it can be pretty terrible.
But, it’s temporary.
What is Low Carb Flu?
Low carb flu, or keto flu, is a set of symptoms that you may feel over the first few days of limiting carbohydrates. Low carb flu isn’t a flu or infection at all, and it’s not a medical term. It got its name because some of the symptoms of carb restriction can feel like you’re sick with the flu.
Low carb flu has dissuaded millions of people from pursuing and sticking to a healthy diet. You can laugh now that you’re fat-adapted and humming along on stored body fat, but you’ve forgotten just how terrible the transition from sugar-burning to fat-burning can be.
Symptoms of Keto Flu, or Low Carb Flu
It shows up differently for everyone. Some people, likely the ones who are metabolically flexible to a degree before even starting, won’t notice much trouble. That’s somewhat rare. More often, people new to carb restriction will experience some degree of:
Headaches
Brain fog
Malaise, fatigue, listlessness, and other synonyms for “exhaustion”
Feeling lightheaded or dizzy
Irritability
Mood changes
Constplation
Diarrhea
Nausea
Vomiting
Muscle aches
Lack of motivation
Feelings of anxiousness
Cravings
At some point, you’ll just have to accept the reality of the situation: you’re shifting from a sugar-burning metabolism to a fat-burning metabolism. You’re building the metabolic machinery necessary to burn fat. You’re updating your body’s firmware, and it’s a big update. That takes time.
How Long Does Keto Flu Last?
Generally, you can expect keto flu to last 4-7 days.
Most commonly, people who have symptoms with low-carb will experience symptoms If the results of one study are representative, it takes about five days on a low-carb, high-fat diet to increase AMPK and start building new fat-burning mitochondria.12 And sure enough, most people report that the low-carb flu lasts from four to seven days—right on target.
But that doesn’t mean we have to like it. So, what can you do to speed up the transition and reduce the pain and suffering?
Here are a few strategies to help you cross the rocky terrain of keto flu more quickly.
11 Keto Flu Remedies to Make Low Carb Easier
Eat fatty fish or take fish oil
Support your stress systems
Don’t skimp on salt
Eat enough potassium
Take magnesium
Stay hydrated
Eat more fat
Include medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs)
Consider ketone supplements
Move around at a slow pace
Reduce carbs gradually
1. Eat fatty fish or take fish oil
One theory is that low-carb flu is caused by the release of stored arachidonic acid from adipose tissue. Since AA is the precursor to inflammatory molecules implicated in headaches,3 a sudden rush of AA into the blood—as happens in obese and overweight people during initial weight-loss—could be responsible.4 If this is true, taking extra fish oil or eating fatty fish like sardines or salmon should counter the omega-6-induced inflammatory response triggering the headaches. If this isn’t true, eating fish is still a good idea.
2. Support your stress systems
There’s a good chance you have been fueled by glucose for most of your life. So, when glucose suddenly isn’t available, your body might think you’re in danger – that you’re in a time of scarcity or famine. That triggers your stress response, and your adrenal glands release cortisol, which makes you store body fat.
An easy way to combat this is with adaptogens – supplements that act directly on your body’s stress mechanisms. Adaptogens help to modulate the stress response so that the physical effects of stress are less pronounced.
3. Don’t skimp on salt
Going low-carb increases salt requirements on multiple levels. First, when your body dumps glycogen, it doesn’t just dump the water that accompanies it. You’re also losing tons of sodium. Second, a byproduct of low insulin is reduced sodium retention,5 so you’re both losing and failing to hold on to it. Third, going on a Primal eating plan inevitably entails eating more fresh food and less unprocessed food. Unprocessed food is usually low-salt; processed food often comes with added salt. Nothing a little extra salt can’t fix.
Add salt to taste. Drink salty bone broth (Peter Attia likes bouillon dissolved in hot water, but I prefer the real stuff). Sprinkle a little salt in your water.
4. Eat enough potassium
You also lose potassium when you go low-carb and dump all that water weight.6 To replenish your stores, Use Lite-Salt (a potassium salt) along with your regular salt, and eat lots of non-starchy green vegetation, like spinach. Other great potassium sources include avocados and yogurt (if you get real yogurt, the bacteria have consumed most of the sugar).
5. Take magnesium
Notice a theme here? Electrolytes matter when you’re going keto.
Although losing water doesn’t really flush out magnesium like it does other electrolytes, we do need extra magnesium to regulate sodium and potassium levels in the body.7 Leafy greens like spinach (again) are great sources of magnesium, as are most nuts and seeds. Even though low-carb and sweeteners don’t usually mix, I’d say the huge amount of magnesium in blackstrap molasses makes a tablespoon worth adding.
You may have to dip into the supplement bin for this one. Any magnesium ending in “-ate” will do: glycinate, citrate, malate, etc. And once again, it’s one of those cases where almost everyone can probably use extra magnesium regardless of their current diet. It’s simply a good nutrient to have.
6. Stay hydrated
People tend to focus on the electrolytes you lose with water loss, but there’s also the water. If you’ve ever been dehydrated, you know the symptoms—dizziness, fatigue, mental confusion—match those of the low-carb flu. Pay attention to your thirst and get yourself a good source of mineral water with a TDS of at least 500 mg/L (or make your own using mineral drops), like Gerolsteiner, to boost your intake of minerals that may be lost to water shedding. Don’t drink healthy-sounding things like reverse osmosis water without remineralizing it.
7. Eat more fat
The study I cited earlier in which a low-carb, high-fat diet increased AMPK had another experimental group who also experienced AMPK upregulation: lean adults given a bunch of fat to eat. It turns out that both carbohydrate restriction and fat feeding can increase AMPK activity. In both instances, the amount of fat available for burning increases. By supplementing your endogenous fatty acids (the stuff coming off your body fat) with exogenous fatty acids (dietary fat, or the fat you eat), you can maximize the AMPK activation and, hopefully, get to a state of metabolic flexibility faster. You may not lose as much body fat this way, but you’ll be happier, less fatigued, and more likely to stick with the diet.
8. Include some medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) in that fat
MCTs metabolize differently than other fats. Rather than store them in the body fat or use them in cell membranes, the body sends them directly to the liver for burning or conversion into ketones. So a good percentage of the MCTs we eat become ketones, which provide some additional fuel to glucose-deprived bodies that haven’t quite adapted to a fat-based metabolism. Coconut fat is the natural source of MCTs, though only about 14-15% of the fatty acids in coconut oil are MCTs. If that’s not giving you the boost you need, MCT oil is an isolated source of the ketogenic fatty acids. You can go even further and get just caprylic acid-based MCT oil, which isolates the specific fatty acid with the most ketogenic potential.
9. Consider ketone supplements
Part of the low-carb flu comes down to poor energy availability: when you take away the energy source you’ve been relying on all your life, it takes a while to feel normal. Similar to MCTs but more so, ketone esters “force” ketone availability. And while I’m skeptical of taking large amounts of supplemental ketones on top of a high-carb diet, I can imagine them helping the newly low-carb speed up the adaptation process and overcome the low-carb flu.
10. Move around a lot at a slow pace
If you haven’t read Primal Endurance, consider grabbing a copy. It really fleshes all this out. But long story short? Hold off on the extended sugar-burning training—long CrossFit WODs, long hard endurance efforts, 30 minute interval workouts, P90X—until you’re fat-adapted. Do some intense stuff, but keep it really intense and brief. Short 2-5 rep sets of full body lifts, brief 5-10 second sprints (with plenty of rest in between), things like that. The bulk of your training should consist of easy movement keeping your heart rate in the fat-burning zone (180 minus your age) until you’re adapted and the low-carb flu has abated. Hikes, walks, light jogs, cycling, swimming are all great depending on your level of fitness, and they’ll jumpstart the creation of new fat-burning mitochondria to speed that process up.
11. Reduce carbs gradually
The vocal ones, the people who post on message boards and leave comments and submit success stories, are generally going to be more extreme. They’re going from 400 grams of carbs a day to 20 grams. They’re going all in. They’re going cold turkey (literally: they’re eating entire meals consisting entirely of cold turkey to avoid carbs). That doesn’t work for everyone.
Another option, and one that might work even better for most people, is to gradually reduce carbs. By reducing carbs more gradually you reduce the shock to your system and give your body the chance to find its sustainable sweet spot. You might do best on 150 grams a day (that’s about where I am, in fact). You might like 120, or 130, or 70. The point is going gradually allows you to take a journey through all the possible permutations of carb/fat/protein intake. It’s quite possible that 140 grams a day works best for you, but because you immediately launched into a very low-carb 20g/day diet and failed miserably, you’re turned off from the idea altogether.
You can judge your ketone sweet spot by how you feel after the first week. Or, you can measure your ketones and see what levels make you feel your best.
That’s what I’ve got, folks. Those are the tips that work best for me and mine. Those are the tips that science suggests actually work. What about you? How have you gotten over the low-carb flu?
Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.
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References
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20533901
https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-0032-1312656
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3143481
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1901193
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3533616/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7332312
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8274363
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jesseneufeld · 4 years
Text
What Is Low Carb Flu, or Keto Flu? And Ways to Beat It
Over the first few days (up to two weeks) of eating low-carb, you may run into some frustration. Where is all of this energy I’m supposed to have? Why do I want to mow through that bag of chips right now? Am I coming down with a cold? For some people, the transition from burning glucose to burning fat comes with unwanted symptoms that range from slightly uncomfortable to miserable. This transition period is known as keto flu, or low-carb flu. It’s real, and it can be pretty terrible.
But, it’s temporary.
What is Low Carb Flu?
Low carb flu, or keto flu, is a set of symptoms that you may feel over the first few days of limiting carbohydrates. Low carb flu isn’t a flu or infection at all, and it’s not a medical term. It got its name because some of the symptoms of carb restriction can feel like you’re sick with the flu.
Low carb flu has dissuaded millions of people from pursuing and sticking to a healthy diet. You can laugh now that you’re fat-adapted and humming along on stored body fat, but you’ve forgotten just how terrible the transition from sugar-burning to fat-burning can be.
Symptoms of Keto Flu, or Low Carb Flu
It shows up differently for everyone. Some people, likely the ones who are metabolically flexible to a degree before even starting, won’t notice much trouble. That’s somewhat rare. More often, people new to carb restriction will experience some degree of:
Headaches
Brain fog
Malaise, fatigue, listlessness, and other synonyms for “exhaustion”
Feeling lightheaded or dizzy
Irritability
Mood changes
Constplation
Diarrhea
Nausea
Vomiting
Muscle aches
Lack of motivation
Feelings of anxiousness
Cravings
At some point, you’ll just have to accept the reality of the situation: you’re shifting from a sugar-burning metabolism to a fat-burning metabolism. You’re building the metabolic machinery necessary to burn fat. You’re updating your body’s firmware, and it’s a big update. That takes time.
How Long Does Keto Flu Last?
Generally, you can expect keto flu to last 4-7 days.
Most commonly, people who have symptoms with low-carb will experience symptoms If the results of one study are representative, it takes about five days on a low-carb, high-fat diet to increase AMPK and start building new fat-burning mitochondria.12 And sure enough, most people report that the low-carb flu lasts from four to seven days—right on target.
But that doesn’t mean we have to like it. So, what can you do to speed up the transition and reduce the pain and suffering?
Here are a few strategies to help you cross the rocky terrain of keto flu more quickly.
11 Keto Flu Remedies to Make Low Carb Easier
Eat fatty fish or take fish oil
Support your stress systems
Don’t skimp on salt
Eat enough potassium
Take magnesium
Stay hydrated
Eat more fat
Include medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs)
Consider ketone supplements
Move around at a slow pace
Reduce carbs gradually
1. Eat fatty fish or take fish oil
One theory is that low-carb flu is caused by the release of stored arachidonic acid from adipose tissue. Since AA is the precursor to inflammatory molecules implicated in headaches,3 a sudden rush of AA into the blood—as happens in obese and overweight people during initial weight-loss—could be responsible.4 If this is true, taking extra fish oil or eating fatty fish like sardines or salmon should counter the omega-6-induced inflammatory response triggering the headaches. If this isn’t true, eating fish is still a good idea.
2. Support your stress systems
There’s a good chance you have been fueled by glucose for most of your life. So, when glucose suddenly isn’t available, your body might think you’re in danger – that you’re in a time of scarcity or famine. That triggers your stress response, and your adrenal glands release cortisol, which makes you store body fat.
An easy way to combat this is with adaptogens – supplements that act directly on your body’s stress mechanisms. Adaptogens help to modulate the stress response so that the physical effects of stress are less pronounced.
3. Don’t skimp on salt
Going low-carb increases salt requirements on multiple levels. First, when your body dumps glycogen, it doesn’t just dump the water that accompanies it. You’re also losing tons of sodium. Second, a byproduct of low insulin is reduced sodium retention,5 so you’re both losing and failing to hold on to it. Third, going on a Primal eating plan inevitably entails eating more fresh food and less unprocessed food. Unprocessed food is usually low-salt; processed food often comes with added salt. Nothing a little extra salt can’t fix.
Add salt to taste. Drink salty bone broth (Peter Attia likes bouillon dissolved in hot water, but I prefer the real stuff). Sprinkle a little salt in your water.
4. Eat enough potassium
You also lose potassium when you go low-carb and dump all that water weight.6 To replenish your stores, Use Lite-Salt (a potassium salt) along with your regular salt, and eat lots of non-starchy green vegetation, like spinach. Other great potassium sources include avocados and yogurt (if you get real yogurt, the bacteria have consumed most of the sugar).
5. Take magnesium
Notice a theme here? Electrolytes matter when you’re going keto.
Although losing water doesn’t really flush out magnesium like it does other electrolytes, we do need extra magnesium to regulate sodium and potassium levels in the body.7 Leafy greens like spinach (again) are great sources of magnesium, as are most nuts and seeds. Even though low-carb and sweeteners don’t usually mix, I’d say the huge amount of magnesium in blackstrap molasses makes a tablespoon worth adding.
You may have to dip into the supplement bin for this one. Any magnesium ending in “-ate” will do: glycinate, citrate, malate, etc. And once again, it’s one of those cases where almost everyone can probably use extra magnesium regardless of their current diet. It’s simply a good nutrient to have.
6. Stay hydrated
People tend to focus on the electrolytes you lose with water loss, but there’s also the water. If you’ve ever been dehydrated, you know the symptoms—dizziness, fatigue, mental confusion—match those of the low-carb flu. Pay attention to your thirst and get yourself a good source of mineral water with a TDS of at least 500 mg/L (or make your own using mineral drops), like Gerolsteiner, to boost your intake of minerals that may be lost to water shedding. Don’t drink healthy-sounding things like reverse osmosis water without remineralizing it.
7. Eat more fat
The study I cited earlier in which a low-carb, high-fat diet increased AMPK had another experimental group who also experienced AMPK upregulation: lean adults given a bunch of fat to eat. It turns out that both carbohydrate restriction and fat feeding can increase AMPK activity. In both instances, the amount of fat available for burning increases. By supplementing your endogenous fatty acids (the stuff coming off your body fat) with exogenous fatty acids (dietary fat, or the fat you eat), you can maximize the AMPK activation and, hopefully, get to a state of metabolic flexibility faster. You may not lose as much body fat this way, but you’ll be happier, less fatigued, and more likely to stick with the diet.
8. Include some medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) in that fat
MCTs metabolize differently than other fats. Rather than store them in the body fat or use them in cell membranes, the body sends them directly to the liver for burning or conversion into ketones. So a good percentage of the MCTs we eat become ketones, which provide some additional fuel to glucose-deprived bodies that haven’t quite adapted to a fat-based metabolism. Coconut fat is the natural source of MCTs, though only about 14-15% of the fatty acids in coconut oil are MCTs. If that’s not giving you the boost you need, MCT oil is an isolated source of the ketogenic fatty acids. You can go even further and get just caprylic acid-based MCT oil, which isolates the specific fatty acid with the most ketogenic potential.
9. Consider ketone supplements
Part of the low-carb flu comes down to poor energy availability: when you take away the energy source you’ve been relying on all your life, it takes a while to feel normal. Similar to MCTs but more so, ketone esters “force” ketone availability. And while I’m skeptical of taking large amounts of supplemental ketones on top of a high-carb diet, I can imagine them helping the newly low-carb speed up the adaptation process and overcome the low-carb flu.
10. Move around a lot at a slow pace
If you haven’t read Primal Endurance, consider grabbing a copy. It really fleshes all this out. But long story short? Hold off on the extended sugar-burning training—long CrossFit WODs, long hard endurance efforts, 30 minute interval workouts, P90X—until you’re fat-adapted. Do some intense stuff, but keep it really intense and brief. Short 2-5 rep sets of full body lifts, brief 5-10 second sprints (with plenty of rest in between), things like that. The bulk of your training should consist of easy movement keeping your heart rate in the fat-burning zone (180 minus your age) until you’re adapted and the low-carb flu has abated. Hikes, walks, light jogs, cycling, swimming are all great depending on your level of fitness, and they’ll jumpstart the creation of new fat-burning mitochondria to speed that process up.
11. Reduce carbs gradually
The vocal ones, the people who post on message boards and leave comments and submit success stories, are generally going to be more extreme. They’re going from 400 grams of carbs a day to 20 grams. They’re going all in. They’re going cold turkey (literally: they’re eating entire meals consisting entirely of cold turkey to avoid carbs). That doesn’t work for everyone.
Another option, and one that might work even better for most people, is to gradually reduce carbs. By reducing carbs more gradually you reduce the shock to your system and give your body the chance to find its sustainable sweet spot. You might do best on 150 grams a day (that’s about where I am, in fact). You might like 120, or 130, or 70. The point is going gradually allows you to take a journey through all the possible permutations of carb/fat/protein intake. It’s quite possible that 140 grams a day works best for you, but because you immediately launched into a very low-carb 20g/day diet and failed miserably, you’re turned off from the idea altogether.
You can judge your ketone sweet spot by how you feel after the first week. Or, you can measure your ketones and see what levels make you feel your best.
That’s what I’ve got, folks. Those are the tips that work best for me and mine. Those are the tips that science suggests actually work. What about you? How have you gotten over the low-carb flu?
Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.
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References
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20533901
https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-0032-1312656
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3143481
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1901193
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3533616/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7332312
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8274363
The post What Is Low Carb Flu, or Keto Flu? And Ways to Beat It appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.
What Is Low Carb Flu, or Keto Flu? And Ways to Beat It published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/
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lauramalchowblog · 4 years
Text
What Is Low Carb Flu, or Keto Flu? And Ways to Beat It
Over the first few days (up to two weeks) of eating low-carb, you may run into some frustration. Where is all of this energy I’m supposed to have? Why do I want to mow through that bag of chips right now? Am I coming down with a cold? For some people, the transition from burning glucose to burning fat comes with unwanted symptoms that range from slightly uncomfortable to miserable. This transition period is known as keto flu, or low-carb flu. It’s real, and it can be pretty terrible.
But, it’s temporary.
What is Low Carb Flu?
Low carb flu, or keto flu, is a set of symptoms that you may feel over the first few days of limiting carbohydrates. Low carb flu isn’t a flu or infection at all, and it’s not a medical term. It got its name because some of the symptoms of carb restriction can feel like you’re sick with the flu.
Low carb flu has dissuaded millions of people from pursuing and sticking to a healthy diet. You can laugh now that you’re fat-adapted and humming along on stored body fat, but you’ve forgotten just how terrible the transition from sugar-burning to fat-burning can be.
Symptoms of Keto Flu, or Low Carb Flu
It shows up differently for everyone. Some people, likely the ones who are metabolically flexible to a degree before even starting, won’t notice much trouble. That’s somewhat rare. More often, people new to carb restriction will experience some degree of:
Headaches
Brain fog
Malaise, fatigue, listlessness, and other synonyms for “exhaustion”
Feeling lightheaded or dizzy
Irritability
Mood changes
Constplation
Diarrhea
Nausea
Vomiting
Muscle aches
Lack of motivation
Feelings of anxiousness
Cravings
At some point, you’ll just have to accept the reality of the situation: you’re shifting from a sugar-burning metabolism to a fat-burning metabolism. You’re building the metabolic machinery necessary to burn fat. You’re updating your body’s firmware, and it’s a big update. That takes time.
How Long Does Keto Flu Last?
Generally, you can expect keto flu to last 4-7 days.
Most commonly, people who have symptoms with low-carb will experience symptoms If the results of one study are representative, it takes about five days on a low-carb, high-fat diet to increase AMPK and start building new fat-burning mitochondria.12 And sure enough, most people report that the low-carb flu lasts from four to seven days—right on target.
But that doesn’t mean we have to like it. So, what can you do to speed up the transition and reduce the pain and suffering?
Here are a few strategies to help you cross the rocky terrain of keto flu more quickly.
11 Keto Flu Remedies to Make Low Carb Easier
Eat fatty fish or take fish oil
Support your stress systems
Don’t skimp on salt
Eat enough potassium
Take magnesium
Stay hydrated
Eat more fat
Include medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs)
Consider ketone supplements
Move around at a slow pace
Reduce carbs gradually
1. Eat fatty fish or take fish oil
One theory is that low-carb flu is caused by the release of stored arachidonic acid from adipose tissue. Since AA is the precursor to inflammatory molecules implicated in headaches,3 a sudden rush of AA into the blood—as happens in obese and overweight people during initial weight-loss—could be responsible.4 If this is true, taking extra fish oil or eating fatty fish like sardines or salmon should counter the omega-6-induced inflammatory response triggering the headaches. If this isn’t true, eating fish is still a good idea.
2. Support your stress systems
There’s a good chance you have been fueled by glucose for most of your life. So, when glucose suddenly isn’t available, your body might think you’re in danger – that you’re in a time of scarcity or famine. That triggers your stress response, and your adrenal glands release cortisol, which makes you store body fat.
An easy way to combat this is with adaptogens – supplements that act directly on your body’s stress mechanisms. Adaptogens help to modulate the stress response so that the physical effects of stress are less pronounced.
3. Don’t skimp on salt
Going low-carb increases salt requirements on multiple levels. First, when your body dumps glycogen, it doesn’t just dump the water that accompanies it. You’re also losing tons of sodium. Second, a byproduct of low insulin is reduced sodium retention,5 so you’re both losing and failing to hold on to it. Third, going on a Primal eating plan inevitably entails eating more fresh food and less unprocessed food. Unprocessed food is usually low-salt; processed food often comes with added salt. Nothing a little extra salt can’t fix.
Add salt to taste. Drink salty bone broth (Peter Attia likes bouillon dissolved in hot water, but I prefer the real stuff). Sprinkle a little salt in your water.
4. Eat enough potassium
You also lose potassium when you go low-carb and dump all that water weight.6 To replenish your stores, Use Lite-Salt (a potassium salt) along with your regular salt, and eat lots of non-starchy green vegetation, like spinach. Other great potassium sources include avocados and yogurt (if you get real yogurt, the bacteria have consumed most of the sugar).
5. Take magnesium
Notice a theme here? Electrolytes matter when you’re going keto.
Although losing water doesn’t really flush out magnesium like it does other electrolytes, we do need extra magnesium to regulate sodium and potassium levels in the body.7 Leafy greens like spinach (again) are great sources of magnesium, as are most nuts and seeds. Even though low-carb and sweeteners don’t usually mix, I’d say the huge amount of magnesium in blackstrap molasses makes a tablespoon worth adding.
You may have to dip into the supplement bin for this one. Any magnesium ending in “-ate” will do: glycinate, citrate, malate, etc. And once again, it’s one of those cases where almost everyone can probably use extra magnesium regardless of their current diet. It’s simply a good nutrient to have.
6. Stay hydrated
People tend to focus on the electrolytes you lose with water loss, but there’s also the water. If you’ve ever been dehydrated, you know the symptoms—dizziness, fatigue, mental confusion—match those of the low-carb flu. Pay attention to your thirst and get yourself a good source of mineral water with a TDS of at least 500 mg/L (or make your own using mineral drops), like Gerolsteiner, to boost your intake of minerals that may be lost to water shedding. Don’t drink healthy-sounding things like reverse osmosis water without remineralizing it.
7. Eat more fat
The study I cited earlier in which a low-carb, high-fat diet increased AMPK had another experimental group who also experienced AMPK upregulation: lean adults given a bunch of fat to eat. It turns out that both carbohydrate restriction and fat feeding can increase AMPK activity. In both instances, the amount of fat available for burning increases. By supplementing your endogenous fatty acids (the stuff coming off your body fat) with exogenous fatty acids (dietary fat, or the fat you eat), you can maximize the AMPK activation and, hopefully, get to a state of metabolic flexibility faster. You may not lose as much body fat this way, but you’ll be happier, less fatigued, and more likely to stick with the diet.
8. Include some medium chain triglycerides (MCTs) in that fat
MCTs metabolize differently than other fats. Rather than store them in the body fat or use them in cell membranes, the body sends them directly to the liver for burning or conversion into ketones. So a good percentage of the MCTs we eat become ketones, which provide some additional fuel to glucose-deprived bodies that haven’t quite adapted to a fat-based metabolism. Coconut fat is the natural source of MCTs, though only about 14-15% of the fatty acids in coconut oil are MCTs. If that’s not giving you the boost you need, MCT oil is an isolated source of the ketogenic fatty acids. You can go even further and get just caprylic acid-based MCT oil, which isolates the specific fatty acid with the most ketogenic potential.
9. Consider ketone supplements
Part of the low-carb flu comes down to poor energy availability: when you take away the energy source you’ve been relying on all your life, it takes a while to feel normal. Similar to MCTs but more so, ketone esters “force” ketone availability. And while I’m skeptical of taking large amounts of supplemental ketones on top of a high-carb diet, I can imagine them helping the newly low-carb speed up the adaptation process and overcome the low-carb flu.
10. Move around a lot at a slow pace
If you haven’t read Primal Endurance, consider grabbing a copy. It really fleshes all this out. But long story short? Hold off on the extended sugar-burning training—long CrossFit WODs, long hard endurance efforts, 30 minute interval workouts, P90X—until you’re fat-adapted. Do some intense stuff, but keep it really intense and brief. Short 2-5 rep sets of full body lifts, brief 5-10 second sprints (with plenty of rest in between), things like that. The bulk of your training should consist of easy movement keeping your heart rate in the fat-burning zone (180 minus your age) until you’re adapted and the low-carb flu has abated. Hikes, walks, light jogs, cycling, swimming are all great depending on your level of fitness, and they’ll jumpstart the creation of new fat-burning mitochondria to speed that process up.
11. Reduce carbs gradually
The vocal ones, the people who post on message boards and leave comments and submit success stories, are generally going to be more extreme. They’re going from 400 grams of carbs a day to 20 grams. They’re going all in. They’re going cold turkey (literally: they’re eating entire meals consisting entirely of cold turkey to avoid carbs). That doesn’t work for everyone.
Another option, and one that might work even better for most people, is to gradually reduce carbs. By reducing carbs more gradually you reduce the shock to your system and give your body the chance to find its sustainable sweet spot. You might do best on 150 grams a day (that’s about where I am, in fact). You might like 120, or 130, or 70. The point is going gradually allows you to take a journey through all the possible permutations of carb/fat/protein intake. It’s quite possible that 140 grams a day works best for you, but because you immediately launched into a very low-carb 20g/day diet and failed miserably, you’re turned off from the idea altogether.
You can judge your ketone sweet spot by how you feel after the first week. Or, you can measure your ketones and see what levels make you feel your best.
That’s what I’ve got, folks. Those are the tips that work best for me and mine. Those are the tips that science suggests actually work. What about you? How have you gotten over the low-carb flu?
Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care.
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References
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20533901
https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-0032-1312656
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3143481
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1901193
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3533616/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7332312
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8274363
The post What Is Low Carb Flu, or Keto Flu? And Ways to Beat It appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.
What Is Low Carb Flu, or Keto Flu? And Ways to Beat It published first on https://venabeahan.tumblr.com
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