Hi Sheltiegal,

With an additional note of the dangers of inadvertantly eating a high-sugar snack during the ketogenic diet, (such a snack on the diet will usually cause blood sugar levels to briefly sky-rocket, then often precipitously drop, sometimes to such low levels as to occasionally induce hypoglycemic seizures, and moderately to very rare cases of death), an old posting about the Dr. Atkin's ketogenic diet is:

I was on the Dr. Atkin's Diet in the late 1970's. I was in my mid 20's then, and I didn't know my clusters of complex partial seizures were a form of epilepsy. I used the diet to lose body fat while building muscle mass with weight lifting. One side-effect of the diet was that it minimized my complex partial seizures; a couple undesirable side-effects were the low fiber and occasional episodes of very low blood-sugar levels just before awakening in the morning to have breakfast. Snacking on sardines right before bed stopped the low blood-sugar symptoms, but such a snack was slightly unpleasant.

Once my body went into ketosis (measured in urine by Ketostix's available at most drugstores) my hunger went away, and I had to eat by measurements and schedules to be sure to maintain strength and nutrition. Now blood sugar levels are so easily measured at home with digital meters, I wish I had the meters back then instead of the "match the color" diabetic blood test strips to also monitor blood sugar levels better while on the diet, since the "valleys" were very unpleasant.

I tried for zero carbohydrate intake because carbohydrates frequently "sneak" into protein foods, and going out of ketosis messes things up for a day or so at least. The cost of an all meat diet back in the 1970's wasn't that much greater than a regular diet, but now the price differences are very large. The low fiber causes irregularity, and the ketosis gives off "fumes" that can be minimized by drinking more than average amounts of water, or at least somewhat masked by non-sugar (or very low sugar) SenSen licorice-like breathe mints. The diet was very inconvenient if I couldn't always eat at home. I was on the diet for a few months when I reached a near ideal muscle-mass-ratio. A couple months after stopping the diet, my clusters of complex partial seizures slowly returned at about half the intensity/frequency per cluster for 5-6 years. Many editions of Dr. Atkin's Diet Books are in still print.

I hope this helps.

Tadzio