I want to begin a strict Ketogenic Diet but feel lost and overwhelmed, and would like medical supervision/guidance. I can’t afford to hire a ketogenic dietitian (three months of consulting costs about $1,700). The Charlie Foundation website has a list of hospitals that provide ketogenic therapy - do I just show up to the one nearest me? (Also, I’m not eligible to participate at a local weight loss clinic that employs a ketogenic diet as I’m not overweight, and I want to participate in a study on the effects of the diet on people with schizophrenia but I think the study participants must be obese.)
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Ketogenic diet works but all it does it substitutes your primary source of energy with healthy fats instead of carbs. Any form of caloric restriction will result in weight loss. If you want yourself to look better, you would need to take into account of macronutrients, that is protein, fats and carbs. You do not need a ketogenic diet to lose weight. If you have diabetes, then it is a suitable diet.
Ketogenic diet is amazing for weight loss IF you can sustain the diet and not go manic for food once the diet is over.
That was my issue I could not sustain it
Plus I went manic for food after.
People swear by it.
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Only way to loose weight is to cut on calories intake and increase energy expenditure.
Thanks for the replies. I’m interested in the diet not for weight loss but to treat symptoms of schizophrenia.
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There really is no diet that will treat your mental illness if that is what you are looking for. It is important to eat healthy regardless your mental state.
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No, where did you read that your diet can treat SZ?
Take your meds!
See Psychology Today article from April 2019 by Chris Palmer M.D. titled “Chronic Schizophrenia Put Into Remission Without Medication: New research suggests ketogenic diet may play a role in treating schizophrenia.”
@naturallycured is the one to ask about this. I personally have tried dozens of diets to treat my symptoms and none helped. But it is a fairly low risk thing to try.
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Some SZ have good success with this, but eat lean meat, and avoid hoofed animal meats and milk (contains the sugar Neu5gc, inflammatory cancer risk.)
Get your fats from plants, like seeds and avocados.
Trust me diet doesn’t treat SZ. Ask your psychiatrist if you don’t believe me. In cases where SZ is “treated” without med its because it was very mild or it was drug induced like weed or cocaine psychosis and the drug is stopped.
SZ can be transient and its treated by itself without even the diet.
" An 82-year-old woman with chronic paranoid schizophrenia since age 17
The first patient documented in the Schizophrenia Research article is a woman who spent nearly her whole life suffering chronic, treatment-resistant schizophrenia. For more than 50 years, she endured paranoia, disorganized speech, visual and auditory hallucinations. By the time she was 70, she was suicidal and had been hospitalized repeatedly for psychosis or suicide attempts. She had been treated with over ten different antipsychotic and mood stabilizing medications, including regular antipsychotic injections. None of them helped her symptoms. She was unable to care for herself and had a court-appointed guardian and home health services.
At the age of 70, weighing 330 pounds, she went to a medical weight loss clinic and was started on a ketogenic diet. Within two weeks of starting the diet, she reported a noticeable reduction not only in her weight but also her psychotic symptoms. Within several months, she started to feel so much better that she was able to stop taking her psychiatric medications while remaining on the diet. Over time, her mood stabilized, and her hallucinations and paranoia remitted completely. She was no longer suicidal. Her case was first reported in 2009.
Today, 12 years later, she has lost a total of 150 pounds and remains on the ketogenic diet. She takes no medications and remains symptom-free. She was able to regain her independence, no longer requiring the guardian and the home health care team. When I recently spoke with her, she recalled her decades of suffering and hopelessness, and said that since starting the diet, she has had a “new life,” and is happy to be alive."
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There is a lot of info online you can access if you try to go it on your own. Some of it is conflicting and you need to find out what works for you.
If you then see your pdoc regularly, they might adjust your medication down if you are feeling better.
Keto is good for inflammation and auto-immune problems, and there is at least some evidence (I think 
) that sza is related to those.
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SZ symptoms naturally decrease as you get very old because the brain is less functional and there is less dopamine produced. Age is a natural antipsychotic.
Her’s a bigger study with all diet types and SZ, only 10% of SZs improved slightly because they had nutrients deficiencies, meds are much superior to diet and supplements:
keto is not that difficult that youd want to spend $1700, just eat meats and dark green vegetables, avoid sugar, grains, track your calories by weighing your food and searching the calories and nutritional information on google or myfitnesspal for that amount than make sure you daily carbs are low like under 20g per day, some go up to 50g but less is better, youll want to cook the majority of the meals you eat
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The 10% recovery rate only seems to apply to gluten avoidance.
I am not saying it doesn’t help but its just not as powerful as meds and its an insanely dangerous idea to stop meds and do a ketogenic diet. Pretty sure you get banned here if you tell someone to do it.
Not saying stop meds, just that keto is actually effective for stopping SZ symptoms.
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