High blood sugars on keto diet

[Florenceha_]

Hi there,

I’m T1 and have recently tried a keto diet, mainly to loose a bit of weight. I restricted my diet to protein and fat for 3 days and found my blood sugars ran really high and I actually had to increase my insulin dose. Has anyone had experience of this?

Thank you!

 

[Oldvatr]

Hi there,

I’m T1 and have recently tried a keto diet, mainly to loose a bit of weight. I restricted my diet to protein and fat for 3 days and found my blood sugars ran really high and I actually had to increase my insulin dose. Has anyone had experience of this?

Thank you!

I am not sure, since I am a T2D on orals only, but I think the problem with following an LC diet when using insulin is that at very low carb intake, then the protein intake has an effect.

Now Proteins also convert into blood glucose so are in a way similar to carbs, and some posters I have read advise bolussing for protein grams in a meal to cover this effect. I hope another T1D can join and advise in this.

The other possible thing going on is liver dump. When the bgl glucose falls, the body compensates by taking glucose stored in the liver and muscle cells, and this pushes bgl up. This may be happening because you have only recently dropped carbs, so your body thinks you are in starvation and rushed to the rescue. Over time the liver glucose stores will become depleted due to prolonged LC intake, and then things will settle down. Every carb binge however will recharge the liver battery with glucose, so negating the LC effect.

As a T1D you need some carbs to feed the insulin, so going too low is not necessary for you, whereas for me being T2 it is in my best interests to go VLC. At low carb intake, the insulin dose should be adjusted down too, else there is an increasing risk of going hypo. This reducing the dose is something I cannot advise on, but needs to be done carefully. I am going to tag a couple of people who may be able to help @tim2000s @Jaylee

 

[Bluetit1802]

another one to tag is @Kristin251 who follows a keto regime. I do know she injects for protein.

 

[Rianne]

I am a type 1 too, and I am trying keto now for about 2 months. For me it is important to give a combined or multiwave bolus, that is partly direct and partly delayed. Especially the proteins ask for insulin many hours later than the carbs. In my case often about 5 hours after eating them. For me I need less insulin for the grams of protein than the indicative half of the amount that you should take for the grams of carbs. I find it quite a challenge to find the right balance, and I hope you'll be excited after some time. My bg's really improved!
Good luck!

 

[megan]

Hi there,

I’m T1 and have recently tried a keto diet, mainly to loose a bit of weight. I restricted my diet to protein and fat for 3 days and found my blood sugars ran really high and I actually had to increase my insulin dose. Has anyone had experience of this?

Thank you!

I have been trying this for 3 weeks and I’m type 1,
My insulin needs started to go down a bit. My blood sugars improved after a few days .
Then 10 days in my insulin dose started to go up and has continued to.
No weight loss.
I’m feeling more weak than I normally do and I have ME.
Don’t know what’s going on. Don’t know if I’m doing it right any more.
Tried this a few times before but only up to 5 weeks as I got the flu first time and unable to keep it up the second.
Disheartened by no weight loss and sugars not that great.
Want to preserver as my weight continues to climb each year.
Not sure what to do now I’m not even getting particularly great blood sugars

 

[cristis]

I second @justbe for most recommendations. I'd even suggest keeping your daily carbs intake below 20g. I follow dietdoctor.com's two-weeks Keto diet right now, with max 20g carbs daily meals.

Keto diet means bringing your body into a state called ketosis. In which your body starts converting fat (not glucose from carbs) into fuel. It's an important change in metabolism.

To make sure your body is indeed in ketosis, you may use Ketostix urinal strips 2-3 times a day. I bought 50 test strips for just $6 Canadians from the pharmacy and found them cheap and practical. If their color shows above 1.5 mmol/L ketones, you may say you're in ketosis. Usually (on just carbs) this value is below 0.5.

I think many people follow such a Keto diet, but they actually mess up with their intakes and make it worse than a low carbs diet with no results. To consume so much fat without bringing your body into ketosis - which is the goal of this diet - is simply not just a miss, but a very unhealthy step. Because of the high amount of consumed fat.

 

[Kristine 2]

Hello all. I am so glad I found this forum. I am 46 Yr old and have been type 1 diabetic for 32 years. I just started the keto diet on January 14th (5 +weeks). I take 35u of Lantus in the AM and have stopped taking my Humalog throughout the day. For the first couple weeks, I had to increase my Lantus to 50U, then over the last couple weeks, I started hitting lows so I have slowly reduced to 35. All is going great until last week when I got super sick with a respiratory infection. I was taking cold meds (high in sugar) daily for a week before I realized the error and switched 5 days ago to sugar free syrup.(DUH!) things evened out again until I went to urgent care 2 days ago and they prescribed me Prednisone (steroids). Bad news. BS levels now in the 300's for the past 2 days. BUT, my body is finally TODAY in ketosis. I know, I know, probably registering that way because of the BS levels. WHAT DO I DO? I have 2 more days of steroids. Do I control my sugars and risk going out of Ketosis? (Obvious answer right?) WILL I go out of Ketosis if I increase my insulin levels over the next couple days? I am truly on the fence.