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Comment by hbarka | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know what I did wrong but I was on a Keto type diet for over a year but I lost muscle mass and had multiple alopecia-looking hair loss spots occurring on my scalp. I looked great because I was slimmer but I fell off the keto wagon. Anyhow, I’m eating carbs again and hair is back to full health and muscles are noticeably back to prior mass. I don’t lift—-just usual busy work of activities.

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Elimination diets, whether keto or anything else, put people at heightened risk of subtle micronutrient deficiencies which can cause all sorts of weird symptoms. If you're going to eat only a limited set of foods then take a detailed look at nutrition labels and make sure you're not missing something. Multivitamin pills are mostly useless for people eating normal, healthy diets but can be a convenient way to fill in the gaps for people eating restricted diets.

Keto isn't an elimination diet, it's more of a reduction diet (people choose different levels of carbs ranging from the < 10 hardcore crowd to the 30-50g crowd). You can eat a lot of veggies, certain types of fruits, meat, nuts and dairy. There's just a ton of variety available across a wide nutrient spectrum.

Any "diet", even SAD can leave one with deficiencies if you just eat pre-packaged foods. One always should look for variety in their food selection.

Not saying keto is necessary or for everyone - it's not. But it's pretty easy to not be nutrient deficient on it.

Did you do resistance training on a regular basis while on keto? When at a deficit, your body gets rid of what it doesn't need. The goal is to tell your body it needs the muscle (and doesn't need the fat).

Edit: just read that you don't lift. That's why you lost muscle.

Just out of interest, did you eat a balanced diet, mainly with a lot of different vegetables? Or closer to /r/keto "egg & bacon everyday"

GP here, I gave up on keto after one year because it required eating a special diet which is difficult to prepare and store while traveling. 4 hour TRF worked for me long term.

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