Can you survive long term as low carb but NOT in ketosis?

[Vectian]

i have been at this for 20 years with varying degrees of success so i'll put my 2 cents in. When first diagnosed I went VLC for 6 months. Took my carbs down to 20 - 30 a day. Hoped it would help me lose weight but no. No ketosis, no weight loss. Fabulous HBA1C, Liver results and lipids however. Tons more energy since forever. Very low hunger. On this basis I suggest you try 25 carbs a day for 1 - 2 weeks if you can manage it. Its hard and it'll mean being very strict on fruits and most veges as well as no breads etc. It would be interesting to see if this revs up your energy levels, if its a BG issue, I suspect it might.

I left this way of living because it was miserable for a previous gourmand to screen out so many foods and I started feeling sorry for myself. The precipitating factor in me changing my eating was that we were in Australia at the time and it was stinking hot, I was at 5.5 hours since eating (not yet on any meds at that stage) and I was hot and hungry. I saw an ice cream stand and the rest is history.

But why I say this is, after eating the ice-cream I had to go to bed for the afternoon, the impact of the sugar was so great, I was totally exhausted. After that, I had managed to kick start my sugar cravings again and never got back to VLC again.

As to other conditions, have you considered thyroid and had a range of thyroid tests done? Low thyroid can be pretty tiring. If you have something like IBS, that too can result in nutritional deficiencies over a longer period which may effect energy.

I have heard people say that keto gives you more energy, but would be so difficult to sustain for me. The issue I would have with maintaining that level of low carb is getting enough calories, not eating meat. A load of vegetables is nowhere near enough, I only just get enough calories now and that's with eating a lot of nuts. I also need to get my cholesterol down a bit and don't want statins so increasing saturated fat won't work.

I'm pretty sure now it's down to depletion of glycogen stores, I have read some about this. If you only eat enough carbs to just cope with every day activities you never build up stores so fatigue and muscle weakness. It improves when I eat more carbs so I think that is what I have to do, just try and find the minimum I can get away with. Thyroid was fine. Strangely my response to carbs seems to be improving 8 months in, I can have more than a few months ago and don't need to exercise every time. I thought that was impossible with T1, not complaining but odd, still no insulin or any medications.