4 Months Primal and SO tired/groggy/foggy?? page

[kristi41]

I've been primal for 4 months and it's been great for my health. I've lost weight and look great. However, since about 2 months, I've been so foggy and tired all day. I can't attribute it to anything else in my life except being primal because it's the only thing that's changed. After some preliminary research, I've found that others on low-carb-type diets have felt the same way and blame it on potassium deficiency. So...I bought the Morton's lite salt (with added potassium). Maybe it's helped a bit, but I still feel so down and unable to focus or "snap out of it".

My diet includes an omelet or scrambled eggs & sausage for breakfast, a bountiful salad w/grilled chicken for lunch, and a meat with two veggies for dinner (and a glass of red wine). Am I not getting enough carbs?

Does anyone have experience with this feeling and how I can get rid of it? My eyes are also always dry, which I've also heard may be casued by a low-carb diet.

Thanks!

[mamaparks]

Try more fat

[ChocoTaco369]

1.) Eat more food.

2.) Eat more primal carbs.

If you're lacking energy, you're lacking fuel. If you eat high protein but low calorie, low fat and low carb, you have nothing to fuel your body as all the protein is going into muscle sustainability and repair. If you think you can't handle carbs well, trying upping your fats and choose MCT-based fats like coconut and butter. If you eat a lot of fat as it is, try upping your carbs with potatoes, sweet potatoes, white rice and bananas. If you're not eating enough calories, nothing will save you until you stop starving yourself. Take your body weight and multiply it by 14 or 15 (15 if you're more active) and you should be eating that many calories for your maintenance. If you're VERY active, you may need 16 times your body weight in calories or more. I strongly recommend taking 1-2 weeks and eating at maintenance levels, or even 10% over, to see if that gets your energy back up and gets your metabolism moving again. Most women on this site don't eat enough food.

[kristi41]

Thanks for your responses. That makes sense. I will up the fat first, then carbs.

[Uncephalized]

Second the recommendation to try coconut oil if you think you need to keep carbs low. But starches like sweet potatoes and white rice are great, especially if you work out hard.

EDIT: Choco, if it was possible to calculate your maintenance calories with a simple bodyweight*X formula, I would be at 5% body fat already eating 1800-2200 kcal/day. Maintenance can vary hugely even irrespective of exercise.

[duckmama]

My naturopath (who is Primal) has advised me to increase my carbs (Primal-friendly ones of course) because I've complained of the same thing. The past few weeks I've been adding sweet potatoes, winter squash, a few red/yellow traditional potatoes, some white rice, and apples. I think it's helping.

[Paleobird]

Take your body weight and multiply it by 14 or 15 (15 if you're more active) and you should be eating that many calories for your maintenance. If you're VERY active, you may need 16 times your body weight in calories or more. I strongly recommend taking 1-2 weeks and eating at maintenance levels, or even 10% over, to see if that gets your energy back up and gets your metabolism moving again. Most women on this site don't eat enough food.

Choco, while other things you said may be true, this formula is horse puckey. It doesn't take into account age, gender, hormonal issues such as menopause, PCOS, current fitness levels, current BF percentage, etc.

As I found out by losing 35 pounds by cutting back calories, there are many women on this site who are eating too MUCH food not too little.

You are a well respected poster around here. You should be more careful about tossing out crap formulas like this.

[Chaohinon]

Being consistently low-carb for a long time can eventually down-regulate your metabolism. I'd definitely suggest adding in some denser starches (don't use a lot of sugar to carb-up, although some fruit won't be a big deal), starting one meal at a time and working your way up from there depending on how you feel. Sweet potato, potato, and white rice are ideal sources. Possibly beans, lentils, and quinoa if you don't have any serious gut impairment issues.

Check out Perfect Health Diet and Leangains for strategies on how to incorporate carbs.

[ChocoTaco369]

Second the recommendation to try coconut oil if you think you need to keep carbs low. But starches like sweet potatoes and white rice are great, especially if you work out hard.

EDIT: Choco, if it was possible to calculate your maintenance calories with a simple bodyweight*X formula, I would be at 5% body fat already eating 1800-2200 kcal/day. Maintenance can vary hugely even irrespective of exercise.

That's not how it works. Cutting calories won't necessarily lead to fat loss and can actually lead to muscle loss and fat increase. However, this is generally true for maintaining, and it assumes largely isocaloric proportions of food - 33/33/33 percent calories from fat/protein/carbs. Ultimately, you need to find out what works for you, but it's a good starting point.

[ChocoTaco369]

Choco, while other things you said may be true, this formula is horse puckey. It doesn't take into account age, gender, hormonal issues such as menopause, PCOS, current fitness levels, current BF percentage, etc.

As I found out by losing 35 pounds by cutting back calories, there are many women on this site who are eating too MUCH food not too little.

You are a well respected poster around here. You should be more careful about tossing out crap formulas like this.

It's not crap. It's a generalization. Assuming you're eating real, whole foods - which you will be doing around here - that will get you pretty close to your maintenance levels. You may need to add or subtract some depending on outlying factors, but it'll get you pretty close. What's truly a bunch of crap is that chronic low carbohydrate is somehow this magic bullet. It reduces your performance, makes it easier to store body fat and reduces insulin sensitivity in healthy people. If I never got off the high fat/low carb bandwagon, I'd still be sitting at 16-17% body fat instead of 11% where I'm sitting now. Adding 100 lbs to my squat and deadlift while cutting 10-15 lbs of pure body fat was a nice bonus, too. Everyone has to find out what works for them in terms of experimentation, but you need a starting point, and generally 14-16 times body weight for maintenance calories is a starting point.