[madaxe_again]

So, I played with ketosis and lost. 7 years ago I weighed 260lbs, having converted a once fit and muscular physique into lard with the help of my desk and startup. I decided to do something about this, and to simultaneously run an experiment to determine my general metabolic rate and baseline nutritional requirements.

To do this, I stuck myself on a fixed daily 700kcal diet, ran 15km a day, and got on with life as usual. I measured blood sugar, weight, fat mass, resting pulse, b.p.

Needless to say, I lost weight, fast, and was down to 180 by the time I ended the experiment, four months later. 80% of the mass I lost was fat, 20% muscle, my sleep apnoea was cured, and I felt good about myself for the first time in years.

I also got some beautiful graphs out of it. By keeping the inputs all constant, I could see my weight shifting along a curve as my metabolic requirements shrank as I dropped mass, I could see blood pressure and glucose moving in curves beautifully correlated with my fat mass. To that end, everything went as planned.

About six months after this, I started being sick. I'd spend days puking and delirious, and would then be fine for months, or weeks - came and went at random. Several years of baffled doctors later, I diagnosed myself with gall stones, got an ultrasound, confirmed my hypothesis, and had my gall bladder removed last year. Turns out that having a prolonged low calorie diet pissed my duodenum and gall bladder off mightily, and they grew a huge cluster of stones in short order. I'm seemingly fine now, after five years of misery.

Long story short, you're not actually invincible, don't learn this the hard way like I did.

[bstrand]

Sounds like you played with starvation and lost.

Ketosis does not require or imply a severe caloric deficit. It requires a very low carbohydrate intake, but you can eat a maintenance level of calories and be in ketosis.

None of the standard guidance (e.g. [1]) for a weight loss program using a ketogenic diet advocates such a severe deficit. Presuming you're a male of average height, 700 kcal is about a 75% deficit. By all appearances, that was the source of your troubles, not keto per se.

I'm glad you recovered all right!

[1] http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/