Eat plenty of food. Don't try to restrict your calories right now. Your body needs fuel to convert its machinery from sugar burning to fat burning.

Eat lots of fat. Get those extra calories from fat. Incorporate coconut oil into your routine in one form or another (I'd say use it to replace the sunflower oil if you're using that to cook with; if you use sunflower oil at all, it should be for cold purposes, not cooking, otherwise you damage the delicate Omega-6 fats in it). No, it's not weird to eat it straight out of the jar.

Keep your sodium, potassium, and magnesium intake up. Take supplements if you have to, especially for magnesium. Keto is naturetic, which means it makes your body dump sodium. When sodium levels get low, it starts doing the same to potassium to try to rebalance the ratios. A lot of people like what's called "lite salt," which is half potassium chloride and half sodium chloride. Others swear by bone broth, which gets you all sorts of good vitamins and minerals. However you do it, don't be afraid of salt.

Drink lots of water. Going low carb means you have less glycogen to draw from. Less glycogen means less stored water. Drink more to ensure you stay hydrated.

what is a difference between regular flu and keto flu?

I am treating this as a regular flu
I have runny nose , fever 100, headache, coughing, sharp pain in the lungs
so bed rest, lots of fluids, fish broth, extra vitamin C and D3

Wait, and stay the course, would be my advice. I get it twice, once when I re-start low-carb, usually a week or two in, and probably when my body is starting to adjust to restricted glycogen (I think of it like the transition stage to an emergency generator). Always get it then about a month or so later, probably when my body is optimising itself to burn fat optimally in the absence of carbs as a primary fuel (I think of it like my body bedding in properly for the long haul).

Usually lasts 2/ 3 days in my case each time, and find it no great nuisance. If it's lasting substantially longer than that, you might consider it's not the low-carb flu, but an actual cold/ flu, lol.

iloseityes wrote: »

By the way, I know low-carb 'flu' is the common term used, but for what I experience personally, calling it a flu is overstating it. For me its more like a crappy low level cold, and one that doesn't linger long before it's gone.

As someone who thought he knew how bad the flu was, until he got it for real, this is so true. The real flu is a devastating beast of an illness. The difference between the real flu and the keto flu is like the difference between a jet airplane and a paper airplane. Yeah, they both have wings and fly. But, there's several orders of magnitude of difference between the two.

iloseityes wrote: »

By the way, I know low-carb 'flu' is the common term used, but for what I experience personally, calling it a flu is overstating it. For me its more like a crappy low level cold, and one that doesn't linger long before it's gone.

How bad keto/carb flu is depends a lot on the person, where they came from (diet-wise), where they're trying to go, and how refined carbs and grains affect them. It uses the "flu" name, because the symptoms are largely the same, even if they aren't as severe as the real flu.

My husband had H1N1 a few years ago, and wheat/grains/carbs have such a stranglehold on him that if he tries to go cold turkey off of any one of them, he feels so bad he once likened how he felt to having H1N1 again.

Pale, cold sweat, shivering, aches, no energy. Even his coworkers commented that he looked like death warmed over, and that was on day 2 of just not having wheat and the subsequent reduction in carbs from that (not even intentionally cutting carbs).

And yes, it wasn't the real flu, because a burger with bun from Wendy's made him very noticeably better.

I, on the other hand, didn't even have what you did, despite cutting my carbs by half to 2/3 what I was previously eating. My body basically leaped for joy at cutting carbs and not eating wheat. The worst I've experienced was going straight from 100-120g to <50g and I got lethargic and couldn't concentrate, so I walked it down to "about 75g," then "under 75g" and finally (so far) "about 50g, preferably under."

Get better soon, chicken broth, add some extra salt.

On avoiding "Keto Flu", I think when people transition to a low carb diet, it should be done in a step down approach, this will help integrate low carb lifestyle for lasting change. Not go extreme, and give up in a month or two or less.

I attempted to go low carb a few months ago, after reading Atkins diet, I felt miserable, headaches, very unwell. I gave up, and went back to regular eating.

This time, completely different experience. I am slowly eliminating carbs, I started with wheat products. No "keto flu", slow lasting change.