I went on a keto diet for 5 months and it completely restored my liver. I felt healthier than I’d ever felt before. Keto is a sugar-free, extremely low-carb, high-(healthy!)-fat diet that forces your body switch to the fat metabolism.
Because the glucose metabolism is our default, it takes a few weeks for your body to make that switch. During this time, you’ll probably experience some side-effects. I know I did. I also know what I would do differently if I went on keto again to avoid those side-effects. Here are my 5 tips!
Tip 1: Nutritional yeast
Even if you are not a vegetarian or a vegan, I’d suggest you add a tablespoon of nutritional yeast to your daily food intake. If you are a vegetarian/vegan, make sure to pick the kind with added B vitamins.
Nutritional yeast is full of minerals and trace elements that help your body switch from the glucose to the fat metabolism.
Tip 2: Sea salt
Eating sea salt is a great way to prevent keto rash. When your liver metabolises fat, it produces a chemical that gets into your sweat and causes a rash on your skin. Sea salt contains chemicals to keep the process in balance.
You really want to add this to your diet as soon as possible. Keto rash is very uncomfortable!
Tip 3: Green leaf salad
A salad a day is part of the keto diet. This needs to be a green leafy salad so your body gets all the necessary nutrients for the change in metabolisms.
A salad a day might sound daunting at first but not only do you get used to it, once your body has changed enough, you will even crave it. I can go for a day without salad. Any longer and I get cranky now.
Tip 4: Omega-3 fatty acids
A keto diet increases your fat intake. Cheese and meat are staples, unless you are a vegan. You want to make sure to keep your omega-6 (type of fat in most foods) and omega-3 (rarer type of fat) in balance.
What this means is you need to eat the same amount of both or you’ll experience side effects, like dry skin and hair.
Foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids include walnuts, hazelnuts, avocados, olives, olive oil, salmon and sea-weed. I’m not a fan of food supplements but when I started out, I disliked most of these foods intensely so I took a vegan omega-3 supplement made from sea-weed. It worked well. Now that I got used to my walnuts and olives (I still don’t like avocados) I no longer need it.
Tip 5: Go easy on yourself
And this brings me to my final and really important tip: Go easy on yourself. Your body has to go through a lot of changes. Chances are that you’ve always been on the glucose metabolism and that you might have eaten unhealthy carbs and processed foods most of your life without realizing.
It takes time to change. Your body has to literally create the enzymes to break your new food apart. Your microbiome needs to shift and regrow different microbes. Hopefully, these 5 tips will help you reduce any side-effects so that staying on keto for as long as you want remains an option.
The Dodo Munches cannot and does not contain medical/health advice. The information is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. Please read the full disclaimer here.