The Keto Flu is probably the #1 reason most people don’t stick with a low carb or keto diet. What is the keto flu?
- Feeling fatigued (cheer up, if you stick with it keto actually gives TONS of energy!)
- Feeling really weak
- Dizziness
- Headache
- Brain fog (this is what people call having a hard time focusing)
- Nausea
- Difficulty sleeping
- Being irritable
There are also some detox symptoms that people like to lump into the keto flu, but usually you only experience them when you first switch your diet to keto.
The Keto Flu can happen ANYTIME if you’re not managing your electrolytes!
What people don’t realize is the dreaded keto flu isn’t just limited to the first week of the keto diet. If you mismanage your electrolytes, even a keto veteran can feel completely yucky and get keto flu symptoms. Over the past 5 years, there’s been several times I’ve just been too busy and didn’t have some beef broth or extra magnesium (especially on a really hot day), drank too much water and sweated then felt like utter crap.
Knowing this fact, you can actually overcome the keto flu even week 1 of going on keto!
What are Electrolytes?
Feeling good on keto and avoiding the keto flu is all about managing your electrolytes. Lets start with, “What are electrolytes?”
- Calcium
- Magnesium
- Potassium
- Sodium
- Phosphate
- Chloride
Most people get their electrolytes from food sources and are perfectly ok. However, it’s a little different for those of us on keto since we tend to deplete our electrolyte sources almost like a person who is working outside on a super hot day and sweat their butts off.
Why does someone on the Keto Diet go through electrolytes faster?
The keto diet does a few things, especially when someone first goes on it. First, it helps get rid of water retention which is caused by the inflammation from the 
carbs. This causes electrolytes to be lost when you pee out that fluid.
Second, it lowers insulin levels which causes the kidneys to release water stores. Once again, you lose electrolytes when you pee it out.
Third, the keto diet tends to create dry mouth which is cured by drinking more. Drinking more means peeing more and peeing more means losing electrolytes.
As you can see, you eliminate electrolytes pretty quickly. to combat this, we tend to salt our food heavier (this is a whole different topic, especially since most of us have been told by our doctors to eat as little salt as possible!) which in turn makes us thirstier which then makes us pee more which once again means elimination of electrolytes. Drink, pee, repeat.
By managing our Electrolytes, we can keep the Keto Flu completely at bay.
The good news is, you can completely avoid the list of keto flu symptoms I started out with in this article. The bad news is, you’re probably going to see the interior of your loo more than you really want to. However, it’s a small price to pay to not feel like crap!
So, what do you need to know about managing those electrolytes? Well, while you can get a lot of your daily nutrients from the foods you eat, because you’re going to be drinking a lot of water and flushing it back out, you’re probably going to have to supplement sodium, potassium and magnesium in the form of tablets, table salt, beef or chicken bouillon, and a product called no-salt or lite salt which helps provide potassium.
The minimum daily intake for magnesium, potassium and sodium are:
- Magnesium: 300mg
- Potassium: 1,000mg
- Sodium: 5,000mg
If you’re outside in the heat (or inside without air conditioning and sweating) or exercising you may need to take extra to prevent headaches, cramps and other fun keto flu symptoms. Usually if you catch it early, you won’t really start feeling terrible.
WARNING: don’t take more than 250mg of potassium at one time. Overdosing does have some consequences such as decreased blood pressure, stomach cramps, irregular heart beat to name a few. Spread the 1,000mg over the day.
How can I get all of this in during the day?! It’s a lot!
- Take magnesium + calcium tablets daily (the calcium helps the magnesium metabolize). This can be picked up OTC or online.
- Take potassium tablets daily, this can be picked up OTC or online.
- Eat pickles (careful of sweet and sour style due to the sugar). 100g of pickles could have (depending on the pickling recipe) 1208mg sodium and 23mg potassium. If you’re really in dire straights you can take a shot of pickle juice. You think it sounds yucky now, when you’re needing the salt and potassium it will be the yummiest thing you’ve ever had. Trust me on that.
- Eat avocados. At 2 net carbs per 100g it’s a great fat source (15g per 100g) and gives you 485g potassium.
- Drink beef or chicken bouillon, or make yourself a bone broth.
- Put liquid magnesium in your water when you’re sporting.
- Put extra salt on your food.
- Substitute half of the salt that goes into your recipes with no-salt or lite salt (add more table salt to taste if needed).
So what do I do on a daily basis to make sure my life isn’t miserable due to the keto flu?
- I take one 99mg potassium tablet in the morning.
- I take two 500mg magnesium/1,000mg calcium tablets in the morning and two at night.
- On the days I exercise, I put a dose of liquid magnesium in my water bottle which gives another 270mg of magnesium.
- I chop a beef bouillon tablet in half and have a cup of broth in the morning and afternoon. My tablets are 1300mg of sodium in total.
- If a recipe calls for 1tsp of salt, I use .5 tsp salt and .5 tsp no-salt.
- I make a conscious effort to salt my food extra. I have even put a few grains in my coffee in the morning!
- I always use salted butter vs. non-salted in my cooking.
- Make sure I get enough fat and protein. These are your energy sources so if you’re not getting enough fat, you could feel fatigued and think it’s the keto flu vs. just not getting enough energy.
If all of that still doesn’t help, then I eat pickles. Besides being delicious, it helps beef up the potassium and sodium!
What shouldn’t you do to combat the keto flu?
#1, DO NOT up your carbs to make yourself feel better! All you’re going to do is set yourself back and prolong the pain. So many people do this (I’ve even done it when I first started) and it’s just not worth it.
Don’t reach for a sports drink. Yes, they have electrolytes but unless you physically put your eyeballs on the nutrition information to verify there’s no sugars in it (or sweeteners if you’re sensitive to them), chances are you’re going to set yourself back by carbing yourself. Not worth it.
That’s all… keep up on your sodium, magnesium and potassium and you’re golden!
PetraAnn
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