Thank you.
I’m doing an ultra-low-carb diet too. Giving it a 2-week test to see if it will actually work for me. My metabolism is weird, so I don’t always get the results the books say I should. But this week I went a little too far and actually had to add carbs back in after I started seeing early warning signs of ketoacidosis. It’s a balancing act, that’s for sure.
The great thing about low carb is that you can adjust it to what works for you .... everyone is different. The big thing is that you should feel GOOD doing it!!
Low carb for me is 0 to 20 or less, which is pretty extreme. I’m all but carnivore, so eating that low is not hard. I have a LOT of food allergies (31 out of 33 tested!) & chronic hives, plus I’m pretty sensitive to carbs, so that is what works for me. I didn’t start that low - started with a keto diet/recipes (love casseroles) & gradually worked down to very simple meals, just meat, maybe broccoli or cabbage or squash as a side, an egg, etc. Unfortunately, as much as I love them, I am reactive to nightshades - ignored it for years, ate them anyway, & now that I’m off of them, I realize the price I was paying. I finally started knocking out one by one all the veggies & kept feeling better & better doing that.
So that being said, in the last 3 months or so, I decided to add back a little bit of carb ... my body can now handle it without going nuts & shooting off a load of insulin. What appears to work very well is to add something that is considered “ancestral” & “natural” - if you were a hunter/gatherer, it is something you would eat. Two things that meet those criteria are berries (a few/handful - blueberries are good) and honey. Honey you say?? Isn’t that sugar? Real, raw honey, not heat treated, the darker the better and honey like this is not pourable is what we’re talking about .... it’s something produced by bees, so not artificial at all. Honey is a prized treat for hunter/gatherers. I will have a teaspoon with a meal or as a treat. I have no “reaction” (blood sugar going up/crashing back, etc.). I feel good adding that in to my diet. That is something you could try. Also, some squash (not butternut!) works for some very low carb folks if they need a bit more carb .
If you are not reactive to plants, you could add in a few more carby vegetables. A lot of people find some sweet potato works for them.
A question for you ... do you really mean ‘ketoacidosis’? This is an issue with Type 1 diabetics (you may be, I don’t know), but is not the same as dietary ketosis.
Here’s a link to explain the difference:
https://www.vaxxenlabs.com/ketosis-ketoacidosis-benefits-side-effects/
Many folks try hard to stay in dietary ketosis, but some thoughts that I’m seeing more recently are that while there are health benefits to being in ketosis, being in a constant state of ketosis is maybe not such a good thing. If you’re really low carb all the time, adding a little selected carb is likely a good thing to do ... again, you should be feeling good doing that.