Hey lovelies! Been doing keto for about 2 months now (roughly) and noticed my last period the PMS WAS UNBEARABLE! I suffer from PMDD and ADHD which already makes me low in serotonin and dopamine. For about 1 week and a half before my last period I was so depressed, couldn’t work, brain fog was out of control and just had no energy. Also I could feel my heart racing sooooo much every time I ate? Apparently you need to avoid foods high in histamine? Cortisol was through the roof! I’ve always struggled with my PMS due to PMDD but this was unbearable. Was reading up on carb cycling? I’m so scared of breaking my keto diet and I generally love the way I feel and it has helped me with my binge eating. I’m so scared to incorporate carbs and feel I will lose control and go backwards, but I can’t handle the depression that I know is coming as I’m about to finish ovulation and enter my luteal phase! (FML)
Can anyone tell me their experience and what they did/ ate? Also if I do incorporate carbs in luteal phase will I definitely exit ketosis? So should I cut back on how much fat I am having? Please help a sister out! Thank you lovelies xoxoxoxo

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some encouragement, shared experiences, or positive feedback from anyone who has put an aging parent or loved one on a keto diet to fight cognitive decline.

My Mom's Background & Lifestyle

My mom is 76. She is an incredibly smart, hard-working woman who raised four kids on her own after my father left, working multiple jobs and always putting herself last. Her formal education was limited because she left school at 16, but she has always managed to care for our family beautifully.

Her lifestyle over the years hasn’t been ideal. As far as activity goes, she was never very active and didn't do sports. Where she lives, the walks to the bus stop or local shops are very short, so your daily routine simply doesn’t push you to do any real distances as you might get in different settings.

When it comes to her diet, she is from a generation that firmly believed low-fat and calorie-counting was the only healthy way. She ate lots of salads and vegetables, but completely avoided fats—surviving on wholemeal bread, skimmed milk, and "zero-fat" options, which I learned from my research is not the best fuel for the brain. Despite this restriction, she always struggled with her weight, specifically carrying it in her middle section—which we now know is a classic sign of insulin resistance. (For those who need data to understand the picture, she is 80kg and 1.54m).

Over the last few years, things have gone downhill, and her short-term memory is getting worse by the day. To give you a few examples, she completely forgot a major holiday we took last August to Seattle, where the whole family was together doing memorable things like boating on Lake Washington. She forgets financial transactions, like whether she paid her rent. Most worrying is that she forgets if she took her morning medication and might take it twice, or forgets if she has eaten (and if she did eat, she can't remember what). Worst of all is her spatial awareness; she gets lost easily just around her own neighborhood if she deviates even slightly from her exact daily walking route. On top of it all, she gets deeply stressed by recognizing her own memory loss, which only makes things harder for her.

The Project to Fix My Mom

My mom lives alone, though some days of the week my nephew stays with her. The decision to go all-in on this project to fix things started a month ago after a phone call. I had called just to check in on her, but her voice sounded so down. At first, I was sure she had just woken up, but then I realized that wasn't the case. She was just so down, sounding completely lost and low-spirited, like she was just hazily waking up to life while rotting in front of the TV for hours.

My first thought was: This is not on. She worked hard all her life to ensure and secure herself financially to be able to enjoy these years. She deserves so much more. I immediately started a deep dive of research, booked my flight, and decided to do something about it.

Now I believe—I hope, anyway—that cognitive decline is reversible. From my research, it is. Yes, the GP will not tell you that. Yes, they will try to manage your expectations, telling you not to expect much. But f*** that, I do expect much, and I am going to reverse it. I've learned not to listen to them.

When I asked my mom if she wanted to go all-in on this project together and fix her memory decline, she was completely on board. She is a very easygoing, nice lady and trusted me completely. Before we kicked off, I decided to do a MoCA test with her just so we would have a baseline to check later on for any significant improvements. For those who want some kind of measurement to understand exactly where we started, her score was 16 out of 30, which is officially regarded as mild cognitive decline (for context, a score of 26 to 30 is considered normal/healthy).

So, we started. We broke our project down into three distinct parts:

• The Diet (Mediterranean Keto): It was obvious to me that we needed to go on a low-carb, higher-fat, and higher-protein diet, which made keto the absolute best option for us. We specifically chose a Mediterranean Keto approach because my mom isn't a big fan of red meat, and I needed a protocol that would be easy for her to get on board with now—and, more importantly, something she can easily continue on her own later. We are focusing heavily on things like fish (keeping the crispy skin on for those crucial healthy fats!), chicken, nuts, and plenty of keto-friendly veggies.
• The Physical Activity (Upping the Movement): This has honestly been the easy part. You really just need to dedicate the time to walk and do it with her. The changes here have been incredible—I could see a noticeable improvement within just four days. She can now handle a 30-minute walk to a location and a 30-minute walk back (with a solid rest in between, of course). Before we started, she walked so painfully slowly that this would have been entirely impossible.
• The Brain Exercise (The Hard Part): This is by far the toughest piece of the puzzle. When someone has severe short-term memory issues, trying to acquire entirely new skills is a massive uphill battle. The specific challenge we are tackling right now is Sudoku. To be clear, she definitely can't do it on her own yet, but we had a small breakthrough yesterday where she is starting to understand the concept enough that we can actually do it together now. Hopefully, she will be able to manage it solo later. We chose Sudoku because numbers are much more her thing than words or crosswords. (If anyone has other ideas of brain exercises with numbers, please put them in the comments—I need more ideas!).

Where Are We Now & What I’m Seeing

We are already seeing a very good improvement in her mood and physical stamina. Honestly, it is a little bit hard to isolate the exact cause and effect right now because having the constant company of my family definitely ups her mood—though I really hope it’s not the only thing driving these improvements. On the diet front, we find sticking to the Mediterranean keto not hard, and we do three meals a day with zero food in between the meals. On the physical side, like I said, it’s up, and we are adding YouTube chair exercises to the walks, but this definitely requires my active presence to encourage her; I know if she were on her own, she wouldn't do it. As for the brain exercises, my hope is that as her short-term memory improves, she will start to actually enjoy them simply because she'll be able to remember the rules.

My Questions for the Community

Did anyone make changes like this for a loved one suffering from dementia or cognitive decline? Did anyone try a keto diet with them, whether it was Mediterranean keto or a different version? I am really looking for some encouragement here, but if you had a bad experience with it, please be honest and share that as well.

Hi all - I usually use Reddit for fun things but I’m here cause I heard this community was a good support of women. Is anybody here using keto or carnivore for adenomyosis or I guess also endo? I’m wanting to get pregnant and am already doing IVF and my doctor has told me yesterday I have Adenomyosis. I’d like to really lower my inflammation. I’ve done carnivore before and keto but I haven’t been strict with it lately and I’m certain I’m not ketosis. I’d love to connect with anybody who has done this, and ideally who has had success! I know this is super niche but yeah. This new diagnosis is going to delay my transfer now by a few months and I’m pretty deflated about it.

I love keto, but the times that I have done it in the past, I’ve struggled with low estrogen and progesterone. It seems to really mess with my hormones and my cycle. What I’m still uncertain about is whether this was because I was severely restricting calories at times, sometimes doing OMAD and working out really aggressively. This last time I began doing keto was because I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes after eating healthy carbs for about five months. I felt great, but at the same time I was restricting calories and I noticed that my hormones just flatlined and all signals of a period coming just stopped. No cervical mucus at all. No nothing really. I also started getting a lot more anxious. I apologize for this roundabout post, but I guess what I’m wondering is, should I introduce a small amount of carbs and give that a go? I’m hesitant to do that because I noticed that when I do eat a little bit of carbs, my blood sugar starts swinging. It doesn’t get that high, but it definitely drops too low. And I also just feel really tired. I’ve been eating about 50 to 60 g of carbs these last few days. As opposed to 10 or 15. The other option would be to increase my calories and stop fasting but keep my carb intake low. Please tell me what has worked for you! Or if you just have a sense of what I could do.

I’m under 200 pounds again and it FEELS SO GOOD!!! This is my second time doing keto.

Back in 2016, I started the ketogenic diet at ~250 pounds (I’m not sure my highest weight, I wouldn’t step on a scale back then) and lost 70 pounds. I kept it off for about three years, then slowly started gaining it back after life got in the way (moving states and job search, miscarriage, pregnancy, inability to produce breast milk without carbs, another move to another state, etc). I got back up to 242.8 pounds last year.

In August 2025, I got fed up with the way I looked and felt. My father was on a glp-1 medication for a year and lost a bunch of weight easily. I was interested in trying that but my health plan (Kaiser) didn’t cover them. I changed my healthcare provider because my friend got them covered on hers (Cigna). My new doctor informed me that coverage had changed in July 2025, and unless my A1c or blood glucose reading qualified me for a diabetes diagnosis (nope) or a sleep study qualified me for a sleep apnea diagnosis (nope), then I’d have to pay out of pocket ($300-$400 a month after initial discounts). I could not afford that.

I realized it was time to buckle down and restart keto. My doctor was hesitant but supportive, mostly just concerned that I was getting enough protein. Restarting keto was HARD. Back in 2016 when I was 27 years old, the appetite suppression was immediate and easy. This time, it was much harder. It took a lot of hard work to get my calories and appetite under control, but I did it!

I’m almost a year into keto again, and I’ve lost 43 pounds. I feel so good. My doctor is happy with my progress and encourages me to continue! My weight is 199.8 pounds so just barely under 200 but THERE IS A ONE AT THE BEGINNING OF MY WEIGHT NOW Y’ALL! Imma keep going with this for sure. My next goals:
1. going from obese to overweight (196)
2. new low weight (176)
3. ‘healthy’ BMI (164)
4. ULTIMATE dream goal: 140 and able to do a pull up!

I hate feeling like I’m bragging or drawing attention to myself irl, so I haven’t shared this with many people. I’m happy this community exists to support each other! Anyone else wanna share their progress in their journey? I’d love to hear about it and celebrate and support you too!

So I've been strict keto for 9 months then came off for two weeks this summer after finishing my studies. keto was the only thing that cured my headaches and anxiety. After two weeks off keto the anxiety is what brought me back to it. Now Ive been back on and been experimenting with how strict I need to be to stay in ketosis. Yesterday I went on a bike ride and ketones after were 1.8. Then I met friends for dinner and had a large soft serve with sprinkles. My ketones this morning were still 0.8. Does that make sense or is my meter broken?? lol I use keto mojo and its always seemed pretty accurate but I don't really understand how I could eat that much sugar and still have ketones, unless the bike ride and high ketosis before it made the difference?

I have IBS, and back in March I had a severe episode of diarrhea and vomiting that landed me in the hospital with low electrolytes. Up until then, I had been doing keto because it significantly helped my anxiety and depression. During that hospitalization, I found out I also had gallstones, so I stopped the keto diet.
My doctor recommended taking L-glutamine for about seven weeks to help repair my gut lining. For the first couple of weeks, it actually seemed amazing—I was calmer, sleeping better, and felt like it was helping. Every now and then I’d stop it for a few days because it occasionally made me feel a little “off.”
Around the middle to end of the seven weeks, I started noticing hyperactive thoughts, irritability, and getting completely absorbed in my own thinking. It felt very different from how I’d been feeling at the beginning.
I stopped taking the L-glutamine, and about 2–3 weeks later something changed dramatically. Since then I’ve had severe anxiety several days a week—to the point where I feel terrified. My depression has returned, I struggle to keep up with normal responsibilities, and I have intrusive thoughts and emotions that don’t feel like me. It honestly feels like I’ve lost my personality.
I’m trying to figure out what happened. Part of me wonders whether stopping keto caused my symptoms to return. Another part of me wonders whether the L-glutamine played a role since glutamine is involved in the glutamine–glutamate–GABA cycle, although I know that doesn’t necessarily mean taking glutamine directly increases glutamate in the brain.
I’ve started taking a saffron supplement and currently take 400 mg of L-theanine at night, which helps me sleep but doesn’t seem to help the daytime anxiety.
Has anyone experienced anything similar with L-glutamine, stopping keto, or after recovering from a significant GI illness? Did anything help you get back to feeling like yourself? I’m especially interested in hearing from people who’ve had a similar timeline.

Hey there, I’ve done keto previously and it worked really well for me. I’m 48 in perimenopause - I tried HRT for 5 months, but it was not a good fit for me…apparently I’m very sensitive to estrogen and can’t take it. I’m wondering if I start a keto diet again, if it would help manage perimenopause symptoms. Anyone been through that?

So this is labelled shark week but when I actually feel bad is in the week/weeks post period and pre ovulation.

My head is dizzy, I have zero energy, and my heart started feeling heavy in the last two months, like even breathing is fatigued as if I have low blood pressure (checked and I don't have it). And I crave carbs, which is weird because I'm generally used to not have carbs even when I'm not on a diet.

I get iron supplements, calcium, magnesium/electrolytes and all the B vitamins. Anyone who has gone through it?

36F, 5'4" 185lbs SAHM with insulin resistance, elevated fasting glucose, and PCOS/PMOS. Started keto months ago after a 3rd (non recurrent) miscarriage to aid in weight loss and reverse insulin resistance therefore hopefully increasing egg quality. Fell off the keto wagon for the month of April as I was vacationing and apparently coping with the loss with alcohol and food 😔 Been back on legit keto for a few weeks now and I'm not seeing any changes whatsoever. Sure, I'm a little less bloated and my cycle has regulated, which is incredible! But zero changes on scale, and no changes in how clothes fit, etc. I was around 175 before my vacations in April and I cannot get lower than like 183 on a good day.

Current macros are: 140P, 20C, 87F and I am tracking them regularly. My workouts are consistent and steps are 8-10K/day. I typically do some length of IF 6/7 days per week. I did add dairy back in my diet months ago, I haven't had it for years bc I thought it made me constipated but it doesn't seem to be an issue. However, could it be causing the lack of change if there is inflammation idk about? Have I just not done it long enough to see any movement/results? Are my macros too high? Would love any insight, thank you!

ETA: more details

Hi all, this is my first time asking a question here after going to all kinds of doctors and not getting a unified explanation. My glucose levels go up to 13 and down to 4.5 a few times every day. One doctor told me I have diabetes and should exercise more (which I tried but it made me so tired that I had to take a nap afterwords). The other doctor told me I don't have diabetes, just insulin resistance. My OB/GYN told me it is probably linked to my hormonal imbalance (I am 46 and in perimenopause) and other doctors gave me one or another version of the same thing.

So, my question is this: I know keto can lower the glucose levels but does it actually make it lower and this will drop my lows even more? Or, does it make it more even throughout the day?

Sorry if this is a stupid question, I am just very new to this.

The past few months I've been having a difficult time staying on track with low carb during luteal phase of my menstral cycle. Will my luteal phase get any easier over time the longer I stick to keto diet? I feel like such a sugar addict during luteal and it doesn't help that I have two young children with sweet treats in the pantry. I probably won't buy that junk for my kids anymore so at least I can get rid of those temptations, but it's still hardddd with how badly I crave a carb or sugar.

I've read to eat a pickle during hard times like this but The thought of eating a pickle in that moment seems so unappealing. I haven't tried it, so who knows, maybe it would work? Any helpful suggestions or encouragement?

I’ve noticed something about myself with keto and I’m wondering if other people relate.

Keto genuinely helps me a lot with food noise, cravings and energy stability. But when I fall off, it’s almost never because I suddenly stop believing in keto or decide it doesn’t work.

Usually it starts somewhere else.

Sometimes it’s stress, pain or exhaustion. Sometimes my kitchen is a disaster and I feel too overwhelmed to deal with it. Sometimes I don’t have the right food at home and ordering food becomes the easiest option. Sometimes I tell myself “I’ll restart Monday” and then keep pushing it forward. And weirdly enough, sometimes keto suppresses my appetite so much that I accidentally undereat all day, then crash later and end up eating complete junk.

I’ve also realized that for me the problem often isn’t actual hunger. It’s overwhelm, chaos, comfort-seeking or just being mentally done.

I’m curious where things started going wrong for other people when keto stopped working for them or when they slipped back into old habits. Was there a pattern to it? And did anything actually help long term?