Another Honest Update

Summary

Hannah provides a two-month update on her experience using the ketogenic diet and metabolic therapy to treat her schizoaffective disorder. She reports feeling incredibly stable with a huge improvement in her mental illness symptoms and capacity to handle stress. Her husband Rob, who is doing the same intervention but doesn't have a diagnosed mental illness, mainly notices physiological changes like faster recovery from workouts. They clarify that this is Hannah's personal medical decision that she is choosing to share publicly, not a recommendation for viewers. Next they plan to explore other metabolic therapies like exercise, sleep, and social engagement.

Takeaways

• 😊 Hannah and Rob provide an update on their experience with the keto diet after 2 months
• 😣 Taking exogenous ketones knocked them out of ketosis temporarily
• 🤔 Hannah believes negative responses to the project may come from people happy with their meds
• 😊 The keto diet is Hannah's personal treatment choice that she's sharing publicly
• 👍 Rob notices faster body recovery times and less inflammation on keto
• 👍 Hannah and Rob haven't gotten sick despite kids getting ill
• 😊 Hannah has greatly increased capacity to handle stress on keto
• 🤔 Rob focuses more on physiological changes from keto
• 😊 People notice Hannah's excessive blinking is diminished on keto
• 😀 Hannah and Rob will explore other metabolic therapies like exercise and sleep

Q & A

What happened when Hannah and Rob took exogenous ketones?

When they took exogenous ketones, their blood sugar spiked and they were knocked out of ketosis. Hannah started experiencing symptoms of psychosis very rapidly afterwards.

Why was Hannah surprised by some of the negative responses to her keto project?

Hannah was surprised because she is simply sharing her personal experience trying keto as a treatment option for her mental illness. She is not expecting or telling anyone else to follow the same path.

What are some of the positive effects Rob has noticed from the keto diet?

Rob has noticed reduced inflammation, faster recovery after workouts, not getting as sick when kids have illnesses, and increased energy levels.

How has the keto diet impacted Hannah's capacity to deal with stress?

Hannah feels she has much more capacity to deal with intense psychological stress without triggering increased symptoms of her mental illness.

What percentage has Hannah reduced her antipsychotic medication dose?

Hannah has reduced her antipsychotic dose by 40%. She is now at the lowest dose she has ever been on.

What kinds of metabolic therapies will they focus on next?

Next they will focus on exercise, sleep, social engagement, and other metabolic therapies for improving metabolic health.

What is Hannah's excessive blinking caused by?

Hannah's excessive blinking is a form of tardive dyskinesia caused by long-term use of antipsychotic medication.

Has Hannah's excessive blinking changed on the keto diet?

Yes, people have noticed Hannah's excessive blinking seems to be diminished overall on the keto diet.

How does Rob deal with stress compared to Hannah?

Whereas stress triggers increased symptoms for Hannah, Rob mainly deals with stress through feeling tired/fatigued and needing to sleep more.

How long have Hannah and Rob been on the keto diet so far?

At the time of this video, Hannah and Rob were about 2 months into following the keto diet.

Outlines

00:00

😊 Introducing the keto project for treating mental illness and initial experiences

This first paragraph introduces the keto and metabolic therapy project that Kristi and Rob have started about 2 months prior. The goal is to see if the keto diet and other metabolic therapies can be an effective treatment for Kristi's schizoaffective disorder. They provide some initial experiences, including tracking ketone levels, accidentally getting knocked out of ketosis, and some initial mental health improvements Kristi has seen.

05:01

😊 Clarifying that the keto project is a personal medical choice

Kristi clarifies that trying the keto diet as a treatment for her mental illness is a personal medical choice, and she is not saying viewers need to do the same. She explains it's like a case study she is sharing in case it helps others. Rob also notes this was never suggested by doctors as a treatment option.

10:03

😀 Feeling good mentally and physically so far into the project

This paragraph focuses on the positive improvements both Kristi and Rob have seen so far two months into the keto project. This includes mental health and capacity improvements for Kristi, and physical benefits like recovery, inflammation reduction, and lack of sickness for Rob.

15:04

😊 Clarifying some areas of improvement and future plans

Here Kristi and Rob cover some final topics like Kristi's reduced medication dosage, speculation on why she hasn't gotten sick, updates on Rob's digestion, the stress capacity improvements Kristi has seen, and what content is coming up next on the keto therapy journey.

Keywords

💡ketogenic diet

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates for energy. Hannah is using the ketogenic diet to try to treat her mental illness by improving metabolic health and providing ketones as an alternative brain fuel.

💡ketones

Ketones are molecules produced by the liver from fat when glucose levels are low, such as during fasting or a very low-carb ketogenic diet. Ketones can cross the blood-brain barrier and be used by the brain for energy, which is why the ketogenic diet is being studied as a metabolic therapy.

💡metabolic therapy

Metabolic therapy refers to treatments that aim to improve overall cellular metabolism and mitochondrial health. In addition to ketogenic dieting, metabolic therapies include exercise, good sleep habits, stress reduction and nutritional supplements.

💡mental illness

Hannah has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a serious mental illness involving psychosis, abnormal thoughts/beliefs and mood disturbances. She hopes metabolic therapies like the ketogenic diet can help treat her illness.

💡symptoms

Hannah uses 'symptoms' to refer to the troubling psychiatric symptoms she experiences due to schizoaffective disorder, such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, etc. Her goal is to alleviate these symptoms.

💡medication

Along with the ketogenic diet intervention, Hannah takes antipsychotic medication to help manage her illness. She has been able to reduce her medication dose since starting the diet.

💡mitochondria

Mitochondria are small organelles inside cells that produce energy. Some theories link psychiatric disorders to impaired mitochondrial function. Metabolic therapies aim to improve mitochondrial health.

💡inflammation

Chronic inflammation may exacerbate psychiatric illness for some people. Hannah noticed the ketogenic diet has reduced inflammation in her body, which could contribute to symptom improvement.

💡stress

Stress often triggers or worsens psychiatric symptoms. Hannah explains that despite significant stressors, the ketogenic diet seems to have increased her resilience and ability to cope without an increase in symptoms.

💡discinesia

Discinesia refers to involuntary muscle movements that can arise from medication side effects. Hannah suffers from excessive eye blinking due to medication-induced discinesia, which seems to have lessened on the ketogenic diet.

Highlights

We are 2 months into trying the keto diet to treat my schizoaffective disorder

I've had drastic improvements in mental health, capacity and wellbeing on keto

I'm on the lowest dose of antipsychotic medication I've ever been on

I was never prescribed a metabolic therapy for mental illness before

The medical system is doing a disservice by not informing patients of metabolic treatment options

I have the right to try emerging treatments like keto rather than just medication

If keto works, it could show new treatment options for mental illness

Keto has reduced inflammation and I recover faster from workouts

We haven't gotten sick since starting keto

My capacity to handle stress has increased dramatically on keto

I'm still stable despite significant life stressors recently

My tic-like blinking seems reduced on keto

We feel solid on maintaining keto, ready to explore other metabolic therapies

We'll look at exercise, sleep, social engagement next

Thank you for following our journey with keto

Transcripts

you know why do you sit so close to me

you know what when when we're sitting on

the couch you need to be like

this this is what you need to be like

yeah and then it's work babe stay

professional hi everyone so we are about

2 months in or maybe a little bit over

two months in now to our keto project or

keto and metabolic therapy project and

you know trying it out as a means of

seen if it's a potential treatment for

my schizo affector disorder and so we

just wanted to take some time to have a

bit of a conversation with you guys and

with each other about how it's been

going up to this point you know what our

experiences looked like um things we may

have struggled with things that are

going well and what we're hoping the

next several months look like as well so

I think that we're through kind of the

beginning phase of this project in terms

of getting started you know figuring out

what it is that we can eat making some

mistakes um and tracking ketones we now

have kind of a good idea of basically

where we're at on average I think for

like ketones you're usually pretty high

like in the fours and even fives and I'm

still like kind of in the high ones we

don't really know why that

is your liver works better than mine at

converting that into a superior specim

yeah you love it my in competitiveness

really comes out when it comes to

measuring ketones and perhaps that's

actually something that is not healthy

is not healthy where I am like I need to

get the highest Ketone levels and my

focus should be more on okay well am I

feeling good how am I feeling which it

is Shifting more into but there was

definitely that little bit of an

endorphin rush of getting high it's not

a competition I'm satisfied with my

Ketone Nels okay well we'll get into how

you're feeling oh later that sounded

like a well you're not feeling as good

as me no no it wasn't like that I mean I

think people you know have been asking

how is Rob doing through all this as

well because he's doing the same medical

intervention that I am as well and so

yeah I want to know more about your

mental health and whatnot as well but we

should probably give a quick update

because we haven't been doing as much of

the vloggy updates as of late and we

kind of just left behind handing after

we were like I made a big mistake with

the exogenous ketones so what happened

with that was got knocked out of ketosis

had well we had the exogenous keton we

had the exogenous keton as sweet as like

a slushie or whatever there was no sugar

in them but they tasted so sweet through

artificial sweeteners that I think our

bodies assumed we had just consumed

glucose and our blood sugar skyrocketed

and our Ketone levels dropped

drastically and so we both got knocked

out of ketosis essentially and

immediately I we took it before soccer

which was in the evening that night and

on the way home from soccer I was

experiencing symptoms and I was feeling

scared that I was in psychosis it was

fast it was extremely fast like kind of

mind-blowing actually how quickly that

happened getting bumped out of ketosis

and

so and it lasted uh I mean you we

recorded the video and I think you

recorded a separate update video the

next day but it lasted a couple of days

a few days you're not feeling great even

though your ketone come back up yeah I

was off and not feeling good for

probably a week following that and

throughout that week my ketones were

kind of all over the place it seemed

like they were kind of trying to

regulate themselves again sometimes they

were almost where I was at normally

sometimes they were really low and they

were just kind of fluctuating quite a

bit so it had a big impact on my body um

but after that week or so it kind of

stabilized again back to where I was

before taking the exogenous ketones and

I have my regular Ketone levels which

are you know threes to fives and I'm

feeling good again I'm feeling stable

again and back to where I was before

taking the exogenous ketones but good

lesson so that's an update on that kurur

fuffle that we shared with you but then

I think it's also worth chatting a

little bit more about the last video we

put out where it was titled are you mad

at me and I talked about people's kind

of difficult feelings with this project

add me I think it's something that we've

been kind of surprised about in general

and I've been struggling with it I've

been struggling with some of the

response to this project now don't get

me wrong I know that there are a lot of

you who are supportive of it and giving

encouragement and maybe even being

encouraged to try some of the things

we're talking about yourselves which is

great but I've been really surprised and

taken aback by the negative

um response to this project as well and

I talked about in the last video how I

can empathize and understand with that

to a degree but I think something that I

really want to clarify here for everyone

is that I am making this decision to

attempt to use the ketogenic diet and

other metabolic therapies as a means of

treating my schizo effective disorder my

mental illness I've done research I've

looked into it I've talked to experts

and I think that it's something that I

think is worth

trying I mean I think it goes even

further than that in that you have

already seen

results yeah but what I'm trying to say

is that this is a personal decision that

I made and I'm choosing to share it on

the internet on the off chance that it

could help other people I'm not at all

saying that if you're watching this you

have to do what I'm doing that is not at

all my Approach here this is essentially

a case study a like singular case study

about trying out the keto diet and

metabolic therapies to treat my skizo

affected disorder and I'm sharing my

experience and what I'm learning with

you all if you want to take that

information and apply it to your own

life great if you don't that's okay I'm

not asking you to do that I'm simply

putting the information out there in the

hopes that it could maybe help other

people as well or even in the hopes that

it could show researchers or people

funding interventions for mental illness

other options than just the typical

medication route and

exploring if there are ways to treat or

manage mental illness that may feel

better to some people you know we've

gotten people saying I'm more than happy

to just take my meds and they working

fine for me and if that's working for

you that's great but I and I know some

other people still experience a degree

of suffering even on these medications

and so to

me I feel it's worth trying something

that may work and it may not work in an

effort to alleviate some of that

suffering Within Myself and perhaps

other people will feel the same about

trying something like this something

that we haven't talked a lot really at

all on this channel is

how you were never ever prescribed to

treatment like this as an intervention

from any of your medical team in the

past and I think that's doing a great

disservice to

um well to you in terms of even just

allowing you to know what all of your

options are like if if this was a

treatment option that was on the table

for you you and you made the decision

like that's not for me I can't do that

because of accessibility or cost or

discipline or whatever there's a there's

there's a lot of reasons why it's more

difficult that would be something but it

was it was a treatment intervention that

was just never even brought to your

attention but I get that a degree of

that is that this is all new and

emerging the gold standard

for you know

trusting uh method of treatment is you

know the randomized control trials and

those don't exist yet they're in the

process of being done currently so I get

to an extent why it's not offered from

the medical system currently but you

know doing my own research and digging

into it it just seems like why wouldn't

I give it a try and you know that was

kind of what I came to this project

thinking you know why not give it a try

if it works amazing my life will be

improved and I will feel better if it

doesn't work is it really really that

big of a deal that I ate differently and

took care of my body in other ways for 6

months no probably not and so it was one

of those things that seemed really low

risk to try yeah yeah and but now you

know two months into

it I'm a little blown away at the

differences that I am experiencing in

terms of my mental health my capacity my

well-being I you know I I feel like I

keep just saying how good I'm feeling

and how much my capacity and wellness

has improved and mental Clarity and

experience of symptoms I don't really

experience symptoms of schizo effective

disorder hardly at all right now and I'm

also on the lowest dose I've ever been

on of my antis psychotic and so it's

kind of wild to me how obvious it is

that this change in my lifestyle through

diet diet and exercise and focusing on

sleep and all these metabolic therapies

is having such a profound impact already

two months in and I feel like it's not

very good storytelling what we're doing

because it's just kind of all like yeah

things are going great this is awesome

like there's nothing wrong I I get that

there's a desire for you know a where's

the drama a conflict uh you know a

struggle or whatever but I think it's a

good thing that that's not existing

and I think that it's really encouraging

for me and hopefully for some of you

watching that uh intervention like this

could be so effective so that's my

experience of my mental health at this

two-month Mark you know I've gone down

on meds 40% I was on 100 milligrams of

my Antico and I'm now on 60 which is the

lowest I've been on and the last time I

was on that low of the dose I ended up

in the hospital and I just feel

incredibly stable and clear of symptoms

like I feel really hesitant to say that

because you know it's been two months

and but it's a it's definitely a

different experience of my symptoms and

my illness than I was having two months

ago so yeah I was going to say what is

your mental health like you're doing the

same medical intervention as I am but

you don't have a diagnosed mental

illness so what is that experience like

for you do you notice any differences

from a mental health

perspective difficult to say maybe a

little bit more like like Clarity if you

could call it that I I think that it's

probably I and maybe it's just cuz

that's where my focus has been but more

like on like how my body has been

feeling like a lot of reduced

inflammation in my body like I don't

like I had talked about knee pain in the

last video and um yeah no knee pain at

all and one thing that I was noticing is

how

quickly um it feels like my body

recovers after a workout so you know we

we'll be in the gym or we'll be doing

like a strength training exercise and it

will be

intense and usually the day after or the

day after the day after there's pretty

intense muscle soreness and I feel like

I think specifically because of Keto but

I'm not sure like that is way less like

our bodies are able to recover a lot

faster I hadn't actually taken account

of that but yeah I haven't experienced

much soreness even though we have upped

drastically how much we're going to the

gym and doing strength training and

doing workouts and yeah that's

interesting and how are your

poops they're okay I think that I had

figured out that the problem was too

much cheese and that like the calcium

does something if calcium and the cheese

has some does some kind of binding thing

I'm not totally sure I kind of

researched Google and then just kind of

threw everything at the wall in terms of

like trying to like fix the problem but

I think what really helped was like

digestive enzymes and this like fiber

four supplement that I like started

taking on a kind of regular basis there

was something going on in your gut

microbiome wasn't happy and I keep

thinking oh yeah now I can eat all the

cheese that I want and no it's like no

there's nothing to do with cheese and so

when I dial it back it's like okay but

I'm a happier person now so he is much

here now that he's got things flowing

again

moving so I guess on the topic of kind

of like like physical recovery another

thing that um I've noticed is and and

part of this could be chance but I don't

think it's totally chance it's that we

haven't gotten sick

like really at all since we started keto

and it could be because at the end of

last year like our house got hit by

covid and the flu and it was kind of

terrible but um over the past 2 months

like I I would say typically we get some

kind of like respiratory infection per

month like a cold or something that the

kids bring home from school or daycare

and and our kids have the kids have

gotten sick um and we didn't which is

pretty weird like usually they get sick

and then it's like oh no you know that

it's coming um and you can't really do

anything about it cuz you're in constant

proximity to them but this time it was

like we saw them getting sick and then

we didn't get sick I I got actually a

little bit of like runny nose and that

was it and that was a pretty weird

response like I think our body did a

much better job of fending that off I

didn't get that but I did feel like kind

of weirdly tired for 2 or 3 days but

that was the extent of it and I think

that was our body being sick on

keto so that's that's cool I mean I like

to think that there's that kind of

immuno response

benefits yeah probably worth looking

into the science behind that but that's

our anecdotal experience of Keto and

being sick I mean I think this might not

have to do specifically with keto but it

might have more to do with um drastic

reduction in Sugar because I think I

think sugar

um was a problem with that in terms of

autoimmune response and so that was kind

of our body handling stress in form of

sickness in a different way or maybe a

better way but also you know we

mentioned it in one of the Vlogs that

we've been

experiencing I was going to call it an

acute but it's turning into a chronic

stressor in our life that has been

really difficult to deal with and that

we've been going to therapy

over agonizing over a little bit and

it's been stressful and hard to get

through and usually a stress of that

magnitude would kind of just derail me

in terms of increased symptoms because

of stress stress is a big trigger for

symptoms for me and so you would be ined

a lot I would I would be ined like

before this all if we were experiencing

the same stressor I have no doubt that I

would be spending hours a day in bed

resting trying to avoid experience of

symptoms I would probably be needing to

speak with my psychiatrist about upping

my dose of meds because I know that my

symptoms would be exacerbated by this

degree of stress but it's been kind of

amazing to me how my capacity to handle

and manage stress like this has

increased I am still able like I'm still

not experiencing symptoms even though

I'm

under stress psychological stress and I

still feel stable through it all I feel

like I have the capacity to notbe not

always sometimes I don't feel like I

have the capacity to deal with it but

that's just because it's stressful I

feel like

ultimately from a dealing with my inless

point of

view it's just not a factor in terms of

managing the stress which

is hard for me to wrap my head around

what do you like you're going through

this stressor too feel

and so I was thinking about how like

when you're like what's the mental

health benefits for you I think about

how that like the stressor is in our

life right now and it's kind of

difficult to deal with um there's always

like stressful things that kind of pop

up in your life and you're trying to

deal with it and um I'm just trying to

imagine like what would our life be like

if we had no stressors to deal with um

and would my mental health feel a lot

better and um maybe it's hard to say but

do you feel that you have had increased

capacity to deal with kind of intense

stress over the last several weeks or

how Rel it's been you know I I think the

one of the ways that I deal with stress

is like like my uh physiological

response is my body feels really tired

and I nap like I I will sleep in the

middle of the day kind of thing and I

haven't I I felt like I have more energy

so perhaps less of like psychological

and more of just like a physical res

yeah Rob doesn't explore his feelings

it's just all

physical I go to therapy you work stuff

out you know I think that you are

looking for some kind of response that's

just like taking keto for when you don't

have a mental illness is like that

Limitless movie where you're like you

take a pill and you're just like you

start to see formulas and stuff it's not

like that it's not it's not like me

being on keto without a mental illness

is like all of a sudden my world is like

changed I feel good I feel like this is

the healthiest that I've been in a long

time and there is a there's a level of

like confidence that comes with that and

there's a level of like um like like

Clarity and and wanting to figure out

how how can I do more how can I like

you know go farther I think what you're

describing is really just the benefits

you get from taking care of

yourself and you can do that a multitude

of different ways and I think I think

maybe what I'm trying to

like see if there's any difference here

is like I have a mental illness and so

according to this you know brain energy

Theory and the metabolic Health theories

is that I had increased metabolic

dysfunction over you

and so it makes sense that an

intervention that is addressing

metabolic dysfunction or repairing

mitochondrial health and whatnot is

going to be is going to make drastic

changes to my experience of my metabolic

dysfunction my mental illness that makes

sense you don't have that mental illness

and metabolic dysfunction so I was just

wondering you know like what is that

experience them for you what yeah yeah

and I think that's why where I'm coming

from is maybe more noticing the like

physiological changes the like faster

recovery more energy not needing to

sleep as much less uh less colds and

respiratory infections um that kind of

thing less less bodily inflammation and

no like it being at a level where you

notice it it's not like uh I think this

might be happening it's like all of

those things are very like wow I see how

this is having an effect on my body and

my life and I'm experiencing all of

those things too

but just the magnitude of how my

experience of my mental illness has

changed kind of eclipses all of that

even though it is still a very big and

noticeable change the magnitude of the

improvements I'm seeing in my mental

illness is

just huge and is what I obviously am

noticing the most so something that a

lot of you have actually been pointing

out in the comments is that you are

noticing or feeling like my excessive

blinking has diminished and just to kind

of explain I've explained it in other

videos but my excessive blinking that is

often comes about in videos is a form of

of discinesia that has resulted as

that has come as a result of prolonged

use of my antic psychotic medication so

that sucks maybe we'll put a clip in of

like some of the videos no don't we're

not going to do that no I hate it but I

don't know I'm doing doing it but um we

noticed that it and like it did seem

like it was greatly reduced and I don't

know you look at me every day do I blink

a lot still or I'm starting to be more

aware of it now because people are

commenting and it's like sometimes it's

lower and sometimes it's regular and I

think that um we just posted an

interview with Dr breter check that out

if you haven't yet I was really tired

and a little bit off that day and so my

blinking in that video is kind of back

to being excessive at times and so I

think that it is a degree of you know

when I'm more tired the of

discinesia comes out a little bit more

pronounced but generally I do think it

actually has been improving so I've

never heard of that before the keto diet

or metabolic therapies improving

something like of discinesia but

perhaps yeah just by having reduced

anticho medication well I don't know if

it works that way if you know let us

know so that's kind of a general update

of how things have been going over the

last two months things we've been

struggling a little bit with or things

we wanted to clarify for you um where

we're going to be going next in this

series of videos is getting more into

the other types of metabolic therapies

so like Rob was saying we're feeling

pretty solid now in terms of knowing

what we need to do to follow the

ketogenic diet and to stay in ketosis

and so now we're going to be doing kind

of a deeper dive and more of a

concentrated focus on things like

exercise on things like sleep on things

like social engagement and Diving deeper

into the different kinds of other

metabolic therapies that go into

improving metabolic Health as well so

thank you for watching and as always

wishing you and your loved ones good

health we'll see you in the next video

bye bye