Is Keto Bad For Your Stomach?‍

Keto can cause stomach issues, but it doesn’t have to.

In this article, I’ll discuss if keto is bad for your stomach or not, and how to solve stomach issues that pop up on a ketogenic diet.

What is a Keto Diet?

A ketogenic diet is a diet that is high in fat, moderate in protein, and low in carbohydrates.

Typically on keto, the body is encouraged to use fat for fuel, instead of carbohydrates, which are found in foods like bread, pasta, cereal, and starchy vegetables.

On a ketogenic diet, the body produces ketones in the blood instead of using glucose, which is found in carbohydrates and sugar.

A ketogenic diet may be suitable for people who have certain medical conditions, such as diabetes, epilepsy, or exercise-induced asthma, and people who are on certain medications.

Before you start a ketogenic diet, you should consult your doctor to ensure the diet is safe for you.

You can follow a ketogenic diet for weight loss or for improving health conditions, like type 2 diabetes.

There are a few different ways to follow a ketogenic diet.

You can follow a very strict meal plan with an extremely reduced amount of carbohydrates like under 20 grams per day.

You can also try a more relaxed keto diet and just eat under 50 grams of carbs per day.

How Does A Keto Diet Affect Your Stomach?

On the keto diet, for the first couple of weeks, your digestion will be worse than before. This is because your digestive system needs time to adjust to mainly digesting fats, proteins, & vegetables, instead of carbs.

Is Keto Bad For Your Stomach?

Keto is not bad for your stomach as long as you still eat multiple servings of vegetables a day. The keto diet will still provide the essential nutrients, electrolytes, & fiber your stomach needs, as long as you still eat vegetables.

If you don’t make sure to get enough minerals, vitamins, and fiber, you could end up with constipation, mineral deficiencies, and inadequate hydration.

Therefore, if you follow keto properly, making sure to eat multiple servings of vegetables, the keto diet is actually very good for your stomach.

In fact, on keto, since you’re eating less fermentable carbs, the bad bacteria that feed off of sugars will quickly die, which would solve a lot of pre-existing stomach issues for people.

How To Solve Stomach Problems on Keto

Try adding more fiber-rich vegetables, like cauliflower, cabbage, and celery, to your meal plan. Since vegetables have more water, electrolytes, fiber, & minerals in them, they would help your stomach digest the food you eat easier. This would solve most of the stomach problems you have on keto.

You could also try supplementing with psyllium husk, an herbal supplement derived from the seeds of an Indian plant that’s been used for centuries as a natural remedy for constipation.

If those two don’t work, you can try eliminating certain foods from your diet, for example, dairy, one by one until you find out what’s causing the keto stomach issues.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a keto diet can be effective for weight loss and may also help prevent type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and cancer.

The benefits of a keto diet are quickly becoming well-known, but some people may experience stomach issues with keto.

If you have just started keto, and are experiencing stomach issues, your digestive system probably just needs time to adjust to digesting a different diet.

However, if you’re experiencing stomach issues after a week or two on keto, try adding more vegetables to your diet so your good gut bacteria grows and so you get more fiber into your system.

If that doesn’t work, also try supplementing with psyllium husk powder.

If both of those didn’t work, try removing certain foods, like dairy, one by one until your stomach issues go away.

If you want more information on how to solve bloating on keto, you can read my article on the topic here.

Hope this helped!