Hi @sunshinedaydream21 Here's a helpful thread from a while back: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10766400/weight-loss-hair-loss#latest

sunshinedaydream21 wrote: »

Thanks for this...this thread is also kind of all over the place. Is there no real consensus on what causes this and how to avoid it?

There is consensus. Which I posted in conversation linked upthread. It's the stress of weight loss on the body. Tellogen effluvium.

I usually post this part of an article from Diet Doctor on this topic as I found it a good explanation:

Can low-carb diets result in hair loss?

Hair Loss on Low Carb
Is it possible to lose hair when starting a low-carb diet? Yes, and there are many misunderstandings and myths about it.

Here’s what you may need to know.

Temporary hair loss can occur for many different reasons, including any big dietary change. This is especially common when severely restricting calories (e.g. starvation diets, meal replacements) but it can also occasionally happen on low-carb diets.

If so, it usually starts 3-6 months after starting a new diet, at which point you’ll notice an increasing amount of hairs falling out when brushing your hair.

The good news is that even if you should be so unfortunate this is only a temporary phenomenon. And only a percentage of the hair will fall out (the thinning will rarely be very noticeable to others).

After a few months all the hair follicles will start to grow new hair, and when they have regrown your hair will be as thick as before again. Of course, if you have long hair this could take a year or even more.


Background
To understand exactly what is happening it’s necessary to know the basics of how hair grows.

Every single hair on your head usually grows for about 2-3 years at a time. After that it stops growing for up to 3 months. Then a new hair starts growing in the same hair follicle, pushing the old hair out.

Thus you’re losing hairs every day, but as the hairs are unsynchronized it’s not so noticeable. You lose one hair and another starts growing, i.e. you always have about the same number of hairs on your head.

Stress and synchronized hair loss
If your body experiences significant stress more hairs than usual can enter the resting phase at the same time. This can happen for many reasons, like these:

• Starvation, including calorie-restricted diets and meal replacements
• Diseases
• Unusually demanding exercise
• Pregnancy
• Breast feeding
• Nutrient deficiencies
• Psychological stress
• Any big diet change

Then as the new hairs start growing a few months later all these formerly resting hairs will fall out at almost the same time. This is called “telogen effluvium” in fancy medical terms..., and it’s relatively common.
https://www.dietdoctor.com/can-low-carb-diets-result-in-hair-loss

Ways to minimize it are not letting calories get too low, not over-exercising, and maybe eating more protein. Avoiding eating too little and getting enough protein will eliminate any chance of nutrient deficiency being the cause. But hair loss is a common thing that happens whenever you create a prolonged stress condition in the body.

When I say I lost a lot of hair, I should have said it looked like I was losing a lot of hairs. I had no bald spots. I just was losing a lot of hairs at once (which is freaky to have a handful of hair in the shower) and it thinned out a bit. This would have happened if I had lost weight on any diet, I'd just never been able to stay on one long enough to experience this phenomenon before.

sunshinedaydream21 wrote: »

Thanks so much for this. I was having a hard time synthesizing the info. Would you way that this is something that happens with most people with keto? How likely/unlikely is a person to experience hair loss? Ior your help. am not looking to lose a ton of weight or drastically reduce calories, but I was eating pretty high carb before. Thanks

From what I've heard from other keto dieters over the years is that it is not uncommon to lose a bit more hair than usual during your weightloss journey using keto. That's how the body works for weightloss in general, but it's not always a huge amount. I have super long hair so the hairs I lose are LONG so it makes it look worse than it is. My hair is thinner now, not going to lie, but it wasn't noticeable to anyone but my neurotic self. My hair is a lot more manageable now as it was almost too thick before. I have only a few times heard of someone actually experiencing severe loss (super thinning or balding) and it turned out that a nutrient deficiency (one person low iron and one elevated vit A due to a med) was the cause twice and hypothyroidism (non-related to keto. Keto doesn't cause hypothyroidism) the other time.

So what I suggest is if you feel like keto is the plan for you, just monitor calories, nutrients, and protein. If you start to lose hair to the degree you are seeing too much scalp, double-down on making sure your food choices are nutrient-rich and up your protein and see your doc to see if there's something else going on. A lot of things falsely get attributed to keto. Things change with people's health all the time due to other factors WHILE they are keto and then some blame the diet for them. As people age, they can develop hypothyroidism, autoimmune diseases, and other issues. I developed Sjogren's, but I know that it's ridiculous to blame that on a low-carb diet. That was a bomb in my genes that just happened to coincide with me finally sticking to a diet long-term. Someone else in my family also developed Sjogren's, and they have never done keto.

HTH. If you want to hedge your bets, you can take a decent multivite and take some biotin to give you piece of mind. But those who legitimately experience hair loss (as opposed to just temporarily losing more hairs) are few.

What does your protein level look like?

Also, this is fairly common with any diet. Bodies are not big on caloric restriction.

Without knowing your height, weight and activity level, its hard to say. But in general terms, yes that is fairly low. Its more the calories that have me concerned.

The protein is lower then i would recommend. But considering how active you are its possible your calories are a bit low. How fast are you losing weight. I would get protein around ,
120g+