Keto made easy

Water in the Kitchen, Off the Plan

2018-01-09

January 2018 — about seven months in

I came out of the 2017 holidays a mess, and I said so on camera. My life was, in my own words at the time, a complete mess (video -dHjt_Bpruk).

First, the diet. I was intentionally off it for part of the holidays. Decision, not mistake. I'd said that on camera in December. A couple of things kept me from drifting too far: fiber pills to keep things regular while I was off plan, and on the days I was just too busy, a protein bar as a quick snack so I didn't grab something worse.

Then the house. That Sunday I had the seventh water-damage incident in my kitchen. Seventh. It flooded the apartment downstairs, where somebody was staying, poor guy, now sleeping with dehumidifiers running in his bedroom. Water had gotten into the same spot back in August, and I'd let it go then because it wasn't that bad. So now I had somebody coming to quote ripping out the floor through the kitchen and the living room. Real life. Doesn't help with the meal prep either.

And then the phone. My iPhone's camera roll corrupted. I do all my broadcasts on that phone, and the big video files were fighting me while I tried to clear space and reinstall. The previous attempt at this exact video had crashed.

Why I came back anyway

Because January is when people restart. A lot of the group were getting back on plan after the holidays, or trying to turn up their rate of loss, and a lot of them were complaining about the same thing: being exhausted on keto through the Christmas season: moving around, shopping, travelling and chasing kids.

So I came back with shorter, more regular videos, starting with the thing I thought was causing most of that tiredness: electrolytes (video -dHjt_Bpruk). If you're walking, hiking or doing housework and you're wiped out, it's probably not that you're in ketosis. It's probably your sodium and potassium. Keto foods don't hide much salt, there are no chips or pretzels doing it for you, and you hold on to less of it while you're in ketosis.

What I actually did, three times a day:

I'd been doing that for weeks and stayed positive for ketones the whole time while losing weight. Three cups put me at about 3,300 mg of sodium and a little over 1,800 mg of potassium from the drinks alone, and I seasoned food with the potassium salt on top of that. My targets back then were about 5,000 mg of sodium and 4,700 mg of potassium a day. The good news with electrolytes is that they work fast. Drink one in the morning and you should feel it before lunch. And bouillon is about the cheapest supplement there is.

Donations only

In the same video I said out loud something I'd decided: I run KetoDick on donations only (video -dHjt_Bpruk). No hourly rates, no meal-planning fees, no coaching, no "extra group I pay more attention to for $30 a month." Charging would take me away from people who don't have the means: people on a tight budget, people in rural places without easy access to a doctor, people with three kids whose money should go elsewhere. There was a wish list for anybody who'd already lost weight and wanted to give back, and I told people flat out: if you're financially stressed, don't send me anything.

That was the restart. Not a big comeback. A short video, a mug of bouillon, and a rule about money. When life is loud, restart small.

What I'd tell you now

The electrolyte routine still holds as a way to get sodium in without much effort. My numbers are the part where the literature and I don't line up. The National Academies' 2019 reference intakes set an adequate sodium intake of 1,500 mg a day for adults and say to reduce intake above 2,300 mg; for potassium they give 3,400 mg for men and 2,600 mg for women (NASEM, 2019). My 5,000 mg sodium came from the side of a real debate: the PURE study of 101,945 people found 3–6 g a day linked with fewer deaths and heart events than higher or lower intakes, but it estimated sodium from a single morning urine sample (O'Donnell et al., 2014). Both are on the sodium page. Potassium salt substitutes have good trial evidence (Neal et al., 2021), but if you have kidney disease or take blood-pressure medication, ask your doctor before you use one or change your salt much. See who should talk to a doctor first and potassium and magnesium. And the donations-only rule didn't last forever. By January 2019 I had changed my mind and was offering paid coaching (video 1JbK1_ClDmY). That's its own story: nine sixty a year. The full video is here.

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