Why Am I Cold on Keto? How to Fix It

September 16, 2022
woman on top of the building photo

If you’ve started the keto diet, you may have started noticing some weird symptoms.

You may have started feeling cold.

This is likely because when you eat keto, you usually get hungry and eat less.

This can result in shivers and a cold feeling.

But, you may be wondering how you can solve it.

If you’re in this situation, here’s an article explaining the reasons it happens & the ways to stop it for good.

What is the Ketogenic Diet?

The ketogenic diet is a very low-carb diet that uses healthy fats to fuel your body – instead of sugar.

When you eat fats instead of carbs, you start producing ketones from your own fat. This leads to weight loss, but may also lead to some odd side effects.

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The Side Effects of Going into Ketosis

There are many health benefits of going into ketosis, but the diet is not without side effects.

You may experience a wide variety of side effects during the ketogenic diet, including:

  • Constipation – Due to the low-carb diet, you may experience constipation. This is temporary, so you don’t have to be too worried about it. If it persists, you can try adding vegetables or removing certain foods one by one to find the culprit.
  • Keto breath – Whenever you start producing ketones on the keto diet, your breath will smell like ketones. Ketones in the breath smell sweet & sometimes weird. This is just a sign that you’re in keto.
  • Headaches – The brain is the body’s biggest energy user, so when you switch to a keto diet, it won’t adjust as fast as the rest of the body. This can result in headaches – which are also temporary. Just keep eating keto & eventually, in around six weeks, your brain will get used to using fat & ketones as energy.
  • Dry mouth – The ketogenic diet makes your body produce less saliva – which means you may get dry mouth. To combat this, eat more vegetables & drink more water to hydrate yourself.
  • Kidney stones – Since the ketogenic diet has more animal proteins, which are more acidic, your body might go into acidosis. If you don’t drink enough water & eat enough vegetables, you might be at an increased risk to form kidney stones.

Why Am I Cold on Keto?

Because ketosis usually results in a caloric deficit, you might start getting cold. That is because you’ll have less energy to maintain your temperature, which can lead to feeling cold.

person wearing jacket and backpack

How To Stop Being Cold on Keto

If you’re restricting your calories too much on the keto diet, you might not have enough energy to maintain your body temperature.

To stop being cold, try increasing your calories.

If you don’t want to increase your calories, just keep doing keto & wait until your ketones increase.

Once your ketones increase, you’ll be able to use your own fat for energy to a better extent, so your heating would go up and your coldness would go away.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the ketogenic diet might make you cold.

If you’re cold on the keto diet or whilst you fast, you can either increase calories, or just keep waiting it out as your body gets adjusted.

Once you’re better adjusted to using your own fats, you’ll get back to a normal body temperature.

If you’re interested in learning about some of the side effects of keto, here’s an article I made with the solutions to all of the side effects of keto.

Hope this helped!

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