Kelsey Kinney: So, as for how the keto diet can affect digestion. If somebody’s got, I’ll answer this from two different perspectives. The first perspective is if somebody has active digestive symptoms like they’re really kind of suffering with digestive problems at the moment, and then somebody who’s not because I think those two people can kind of have very different reactions to a ketogenic diet in terms of how that affects their digestion.
For somebody who’s got active digestive problems, I think the keto diet can be useful because, if you think about it, a lot of times you’re for the most part, of course, decreasing carbohydrates, which is generally going to decrease some of the fiber that somebody’s eating, especially things like soluble fiber. But then you also have to think about the fact that they might be increasing their nonstarchy vegetable intake. In fact, most people, when they go on keto, they’re probably going to increase their nonstarchy vegetable intake, at least a little bit, so that in and of itself can solve some problems, but it also causes other problems.
Sometimes just taking out those carbs, especially if somebody’s got something like SIBO where just carbs really bloat them up, it’s kind of feeding all that bacteria in the small intestine. That can help to kind of just keep digestive problems feeling a little bit better for the time being. But then, of course, if that person is increasing their nonstarchy vegetable intake by a lot, that can potentially cause some digestive problems or certainly not decrease the digestive problems that they’re experiencing.
It can kind of go either way, and I’ve heard and seen it go either way. You just want to kind of make sure you’re keeping track of all of the changes somebody is making and use that to evaluate how someone is responding. If somebody goes on keto to help with digestive symptoms, and you find that their symptoms are just staying the same or getting worse, look at what they’re increasing in their diet as a result of going on a ketogenic diet because that can be really telling for a lot of people.
I do think when it comes to digestion, and if somebody’s got active digestive problems, keto is not usually the place I go, at least first by any means. I’m going to try decreasing their FODMAP intake, maybe their carbs a little bit, but I probably would not have them go keto right off the bat, so just think about all that. There are definitely other options when it comes to digestive problems in terms of dietary recommendations that might help get some symptom relief while you figure out what else is going on in kind of healing that from the root cause.
Then the other group of people that I mentioned is somebody who doesn’t have digestive issues. Like their digestion seems totally fine, and maybe you’re doing keto for other reasons, maybe trying to figure out blood sugar issues. They’ve had a traumatic brain injury, or they’ve got epilepsy. There are many reasons why you might have someone on a keto diet as a therapeutic approach. One of the things that I will say that I notice a lot, and I don’t work with ketogenic diets really, so, for the most part, I’m hearing from people who have been on a ketogenic diet in the past, and they’re just explaining their health history to me and kind of what happened when they went on a ketogenic diet. Or I’ve worked with people who are on a very low-carb diet, but I certainly wouldn’t say that it was ketogenic.
What I have noticed and heard from those people is that when they go on these really low-carb diets or they’re ketogenic, it tends to cause constipation for a lot of people. I would imagine just because you’re not bringing quite as much water into the large intestine because carbs kind of help to bring that into the large intestine, so that’s definitely something to look out for. If that does happen, and somebody doesn’t have to be on such a low-carb diet, I would definitely consider upping their carbohydrates, but if you have somebody on a keto approach for something like epilepsy or a TBI like something where you’re really using as a therapeutic approach and you want them on that ketogenic diet, there are definitely things, of course, that you can do to help get things moving digestively without having them increase their carbs.
It sort of depends on what your reason is for the ketogenic diet as to how you can address the constipation that might arise from a ketogenic diet. I just want to put that out there because a lot of clients, you might get some patients or clients that are coming to you like saying, “I want to do a ketogenic diet. Can you walk me through this?” I’ll just tell you personally, I don’t love when people come to me with specific requests like that because sometimes it’s not the right choice for them. If you got somebody that came into your practice saying, “I want you to walk me through a keto diet,” and then a couple weeks in they’re having horrible constipation, you want to be like, “You know, maybe we should increase your carbs. Maybe that’s the right choice at this point.” Sometimes they’re going to, they fight you on a little bit, even though they’re suffering. I’m not a huge fan of that.
I really like to get people in my practice who trust my expertise, and oftentimes those are the people that don’t come in having a specific request like that, so that’s something to just keep in mind. Kind of a little off topic here, but if you are getting people coming to your practice saying like, “I want to do this, can you make me a meal plan” or “Can you walk me through this?” Just keep that in mind that sometimes those patients can be a little bit problematic when things start to go wrong if they do start to go wrong. Because you want them to really trust your expertise if you say, “You know what? I think a little bit of a higher carb diet is really going to be better for you.”
So, I think I answered that part about keto diet affecting digestion. Then as for the keto specific meal prep services, honestly, I don’t know any personally, but again, I’m not really working with people on a ketogenic diet, so it’s not something that’s like really been on my radar either. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful there. I would have to imagine that there might be, but it’s probably a pretty hard thing to do just from a business perspective for that kind of meal prep service. But yeah, so in terms of like a national thing like that, that would ship out to them, I don’t know. Obviously, a great option if they can afford it is somebody who could at least do some meal prep for them and or kind of prep their meals entirely like cook them all, put them in little containers, and put them in their freezer or fridge. But even sometimes something people don’t think about when they really do need some help with the meal prep, it just getting somebody in to chop up vegetables and prep the meat so that it’s all ready to go and ready to be cooked. Or even like cook some parts of the meal so that they’re more easily put together.
If you’ve got somebody who can afford some degree of help with meal prep, that is something to bring up. It doesn’t have to be a full service-type deal. Because like I said, I just don’t know of any keto specific meal prep services, but if anybody else does who’s on the call, feel free to type in, and we can all share that information because I’m sure it would be useful for a lot of people definitely.