Do you suffer from chronic fatigue?

Are you a victim of chronic fatigue? It doesn’t matter if you have a chronic illness that is causing fatigue, or have had a complete check-up with your clinician, chronic fatigue can impact your life. Did you stop and think that your diet can change the way that you feel? The keto diet is a low carb diet that will give you energy and feel amazing. When you produce ketones, you are fueling your mitochondria and improving your quality of life. Have you ever noticed that you feel exhausted after consuming a high carb meal? This is no coincidence! Your body has to work harder to process those carbs! It is a wonder you have any energy at all. In this article, I will discuss how the keto diet can help with chronic fatigue and get you on the road to improvement.

 

How the keto diet helps with chronic fatigue

Keto diet helps to fuel your mitochondria.

The first way that the keto diet can help with your chronic fatigue is by providing fuel to your mitochondria. Anytime you avoid sugar and high carbs, you are essentially giving your pancreas a break, optimizing your fuel to your mitochondria. When you eat, your pancreas secretes insulin into your bloodstream, which lowers your blood sugar to keep it in normal ranges because excess glucose is toxic to your cells.¹ If you eat sugar and a diet heavy in carbs, then that is more work for your pancreas!

Conversely, when you consume a keto diet, which is high in essential fats and low in carbs, you will experience improved energy because that is less work on your pancreas and other organs! Your body will produce fewer destructive free radicals as it metabolizes ketone bodies instead of sugar, so you will have less cellular energy spent to mop up those free radicals ²! This will equate to you rediscovering power that you thought was long gone!

Don’t you worry about those sugar cravings!

If you are concerned that eliminating sugar will drive you crazy and crave it more, do not worry! The keto diet has the natural ability to help suppress those cravings once you are in fat-burning mode. It has been found that a low carb diet without sweeteners is very effective at reducing sugar cravings. Not only will you feel satisfied, but your cravings for sweets will also be significantly reduced³.

Considering other causes of chronic fatigue.

Now that I have covered how the keto diet may help with your energy, it is still crucial for you to consider other causes! If you are suffering from chronic fatigue, it is always important to first see your healthcare provider and make sure you don’t have an underlying illness. If you already have done this, then you are on the right track! Feel free to use keto to see if you can naturally improve your symptoms. Time and time again, I have seen it work wonders for chronic fatigue sufferers! Some other things to consider besides underlying health conditions would include EMFs, chemical exposure, etc.

EMFs

EMFs are dangerous radiation that is emitted from smartphones, computers, smart TVs, and other devices! It turns out that these can cause severe destruction to our bodies! EMF exposure triggers oxidative stress in various tissues and causes significant changes in levels of blood antioxidant markers. Fatigue, headache, decreased learning ability, and cognitive impairment is among the symptoms caused by EMFs.

If you want to read more about EMFs, I suggest you read my article Is your Smartphone toxic to your health.  I realize that it is challenging to avoid EMFs, so luckily, some devices can help minimize the exposure. You can read about some of them in this article, but one of my favorites is the QI device. I love the QI device because it will block radiation from EMFs in your home, go, or even a vast office building. If you are interested in purchasing one or would like to read more about it, I suggest you go to the website and learn more about it here.

Chakra imbalance

Another thing that may impact your fatigue would be imbalanced chakras. If you aren’t sure what chakras are, I suggest you listen to my podcast on the Keto diet and chakra balance. Chakras are known as little energy centers in your body, and if they are out of balance, you may get a disease or a mental disorder. These little energy centers are essential to your well-being and are wonderful nutrients for your soul.

If you have chronic fatigue, it may be beneficial for you to balance these little energy centers. If you aren’t sure how to balance them, that is okay! I am here to help! I have started a podcasting series on Chakras, and I am going through each one of them. There are seven total chakras, and so far, I have done the first three: the root, sacral, and solar plexus chakras. Please go to my podcasts and listen and learn.

Poor sleep initiation and continuity

Do you have chronic fatigue that is tied to sleeping poorly at night? This may be for various different reasons. It could be from poor sleep hygiene, such as not getting to bed at the same time every night or using electronics prior to going to bed. If this is you, then I recommend that you consider revamping your sleep habits to get some serious snooze time. Sleep lays the ultimate foundation for everything and is essential to organ healing and function. If you don’t get good quality sleep then you will not be very compliant with the keto diet. Improving your sleep hygiene is not hard but it does take some discipline! It means that sometimes you will have to forego those social commitments! It may be tough if your friends want to hang out past 10 PM and you have to tell them, “I can’t, I have to get to bed.” At first, this may not be easy but will pay off when your health improves. Here are some good sleep tips:

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1. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.
2. Avoid caffeine after 12 pm.
3. Avoid alcohol in the evening.
4. Do not use any electronics a few hours prior to bedtime.
5. Keep your bedroom cool, preferably between 5.5 degrees C (60 degrees F) and 19.4 degrees C (67 degrees F).
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Order a Chilipad to help improve your sleep!

When it comes to keeping your bedroom cool, I do understand that this would mean an increased electric bill if it is the summer. After doing some research and listening to my friend, Rebecca , I recently ordered a Chilipad.  I’m really excited about this because not only will this save on my electric bill, but it is going to help improve my sleep continuity by keeping my body at consistent ambient temperature.

According to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF),  the suggested ideal temperature for sleep is somewhere between 15.5 degrees C (60 degrees F) and 19.4 degrees C (67 degrees F). This temperature is ideal not only to initiate sleep but in order to sustain your snooze time.  The Chilipad has also been found to help with hot flashes at night. As soon as I heard this, I was like, ” Sign me up!” I have had those during my premenstrual parts of my period for the last several years and it has not been so fun.  If you are interested in learning about the Chilipad or even ordering one, click here.

Keto diet review

Review of concepts

Since we have discussed how the keto diet can help with chronic fatigue, let me review some concepts. From a holistic keto goddess perspective, the keto diet is a low carb diet, high-fat diet focusing on beautiful low carb vegetables or fruit, non-processed meats such as fish, chicken, grass-fed beef, and quality fats such as avocados. It does not include highly processed meats such as sausage or bacon. I can’t even begin to tell you how many people think they can eat an unlimited supply of meat and feel that that is keto-compliant. That is furthest from the truth! The central premise of the keto diet is not only to lose weight but to fuel your mitochondria. If you want to learn more about what foods are on the keto diet, please go to my article, What you should know about a keto pantry.

Keto diet monitoring

When you first begin the keto diet, you will need to monitor your ketones to tell if you are ketosis. The goal is to do a strict keto diet for at least three weeks, if not six weeks. By this, I mean, stay within 20-30 net or total carbs per day, and then after that time-frame, you can add in 2 days of the higher amount of carbs. The amount of carbs you cycle back in depends on your activity level and if you can keep yourself in ketosis or not. If you want to learn more about carb-cycling, please refer to my article on keto-carb cycling.

You will know that you are when your ketones stay between 0.5-1.5 mmol/L. If you want to learn more about monitoring your ketosis, please see my Keto Biometrics 1 and Keto Biometrics 2 posts, as they will further explain the details.

How to monitor ketones?

The best way to monitor ketones is with a blood monitoring device! If you follow it any other way, then you run the risk of interference in the readings. When it comes to a monitoring device, I would highly recommend a Keto-mojo meter. When I first started the keto diet, I used urine test strips. I can always remember that they were not very accurate, mainly if I consumed many fluids. Even though it is exciting to see the test strip change color! There were times where I thought I was in ketosis, and it said otherwise! Ever since I bought my keto-mojo monitor, I have not had to worry about this! It directly monitors my ketones via blood, and I don’t have to worry about the accuracy.

The main reason that checking ketones via blood is most accurate is because it monitors the critical ketone used by the body, which is beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB). BHB is carried through the blood to get to the cells to be used for energy and fuel². Since our blood ketone levels are not profoundly affected by different variables (unlike ketones in the breath or urine), blood ketone testing is the most accurate representation of how many ketones we produce.

In conclusion

In summary, when you decide to choose a keto diet to help with your chronic fatigue, you are completing your first step towards health. It is the beginning of your journey! If you would like to read more about initiating your wellness path, I would go to my Start Here page. I am here as a guide for you; after all, this is your transformation. Please sign up for my email list and join me! You got this!

Namaste!

 

This post contains affiliate links.

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MERCOLA, D. R. J. O. S. E. P. H. (2018). Fat For Fuel: a revolutionary diet to combat cancer, boost brainpower, and increase your … energy. Place of publication not identified: HAY House UK LTD^1,2
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/benefits#beat-sugar-cravings³.

https://www.thensf.org/?s=sleep+temperature

 

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