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Food Can Be Literally Addictive, New Evidence Suggests
(www.scientificamerican.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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Science of Cooking
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I really identify with this article as I'm addicted to chips. When I stop I get awful withdrawal symptoms for two weeks, and it takes about two months for me to not feel the need any more. However eventually I fall back into it again because I underestimate it. I've often wished that there was some kind of external control for this stuff.
This sounds like keto flu. When people enter ketosis for the first time they have serious withdrawal symptoms, due to electrolyte imbalances. When you reduce your carbohydrate intake, your body is changing how it retains salt, which changes fluid levels. Which can lead to basically hangover. It's usually addressed with electrolytes.
There is an external control, if you do keto consistently, the cravings go away. Not the habits the cravings. Breaking the behavioral habits is a lifelong journey
I remember not eating that garbage for a whole year. I accidentally ended up in the chips section in the supermarket and I remember feeling so silly. I used to go through so much trouble to go to this place, think about the flavors and which one to buy, and waste money on it. At that point I couldn't possibly imagine doing something like that.
So electrolytes. Chips is also super salty, maybe that is related as well? Salt goes down, fluid goes down. So what do you recommend to get extra electrolytes?
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto/supplements
If you Google it you'll get a thousand opinions. There's companies that sell electrolyte replacement drinks, Gatorade without the sugar basically. Or like little electrolyte mixins. Like LMNT (pronounced element).
But all that fancy stuff isn't for me. I just use light salt, lo salt. You can find in most grocery stores. Low salt salt basically. It's roughly half potassium half sodium. I pour that into some hot water about 1 g. Mix it. Then dilute it with cold water. And then drink it. It tastes like salt. This is the absolute cheapest way to do it. I do this twice per day. So two grams per day.
Some people use bouillon cubes.
I'll look for it. Maybe I'll just eat some salty food like chilli or ramen.
One time it was crazy hot and I biked around true whole day in the sun. Eventually I started getting dizzy and like I would faint. I ate pure salt from a store and felt better. Well who knows maybe it was the airco or placebo. But who knows maybe I also stopped eating junk that week.
When you exert yourself you sweat more which means you lose more electrolytes. You absolutely were low on the electrolytes.
Electrolytes do a lot of things, but the body uses them to move water around. So sweat uses electrolytes. That's why sweat taste salty.
It could have been a combination of moderate heat stroke, and low electrolytes. The salt definitely helped you
Ah is that the osmosis thing where the imbalance in charge causes liquids to diffuse across the membranes? I also remember that it's important for action potential in neurons.
Thanks a lot. I'll make a plan for tackling it.