A Woman's Perspective on Keto: Challenges

Women often have very different experiences on the keto diet. Everything from biology to psychology can play a role and impact our experience living out a low carb lifestyle.

The Dreaded Keto Flu

After around two weeks of doing keto, I started experiencing headaches and heart palpitations and just generally felt like I had been hit by a truck. I learned later that this was the dreaded keto flu that so many who have already begun their keto journey have already discovered. As your body begins to adapt to consuming fat and ketones as its primary fuel source, it begins depleting its glycogen stores and dumping water and sodium in your urine.

This leads to weight loss, but it can also lead to flu like symptoms like fatigue, headache and an inability to focus. Luckily the fix is pretty simple once you figure out what's going on. Just add more electrolytes to compensate for what your body's dumping out. I started salting my food more aggressively and taking 1-2 servings of Zipfizz per day and that knocked out my symptoms pretty quickly.

That Time of Month

Another big factor that impacts women's experience on keto is hormones. Because of our wonderful monthly visitor, the hormone levels coursing through our bodies are anything but constant. That means if you're slightly obsessive (like me) and you decide to weigh yourself every day, you just find yourself exasperated with the results. 

At the end of the day, I'm glad that I did weight myself every day because it helped me to really dial in my macros and calorie limits for the day, but it does take a pretty flexible mindset to be able to cope with the emotional roller coaster that ensues when your cycle starts to wreak temporary havoc on your results.

How Will the Kids React?

Another thing that us moms generally worry about more is how the kids will adapt to a keto-ish lifestyle. Our kids aren't on full keto (that would be a little extreme for them), but we do prefer to cut out processed foods and limit their carbs in general. While that sounds good and well a parenting decision, it takes a lot of forethought, planning and consistency to make it a reality. We had to start packing lunches and loads of snacks instead of relying on the processed garbage that the school provides. And we had to stay on top of every classroom celebration to make sure our kids had a healthy alternative to cake and ice cream so they didn't feel left out.

There's also the worry about how your kids might react to being odd one out when the snack tray gets passed around. We were worried about this for a microsecond, because the day after Scott explained to our six year old, Lucas about the benefits of keto that boy became a keto evangelist at his elementary school. In fact, we were even told by one of his teachers that he may need to tone it down for a bit. Apparently his zeal was causing other kids to have self esteem issues.

That being said, every kid is different - and you may have different results if you start this journey when your kids are older. Heck, Lucas may even change his perspective as time wears on. But parenting is about setting your kids on the right path and we're prepared for the conversations down the road because we know this is one of a handful of things that will impact our kids' ability to live a happy, healthy life.