Dizziness!! please advice! page

[eri]

I have been "flirting" with primal for 2 or 3 months now, and became more strict about 3 weeks ago, I totally gave up sugar, alcohol, and try to avoid bread and pasta and grains in general, doing pretty well (maybe 1 or 2 days a week I eat 1 slice of bread or some pizza... because of social events, this part is still difficult!! but doing my best and I never eat grains at home, which means at least 5 days a week I do 100%!).
This morning I cooked my first paleo pancakes (yay!), it was a trial and I used what i had: I mixed I egg, 3 tablespoon of shredded coconut (I used this instead of coconut flour, because I cannot find here), 3 table spoon of coconut milk and a bit of stevia. I cooked with organic butter and added a bit more of butter to each pancacke.
So, my breakfast today was 2 pancackes with a bit of butter, and my usual black tea + whole milk + cinnamon.
I ended up SO full!!! more than usual.

So, about 2 or 3 hours later, I'm still not hungry, but... I have a very weird and pretty intense dizziness in my head,,, I started up feeling a bit sleepy, but at the same time my energy levels are totally okay. As day goes by, my dizziness is still there. If I move my head too fast I feel like I'm going to fall down!
I took a milk coffee 1 hour ago... but dizziness is till there. I have no idea why this is happening.
This is my yesterday menu:

breakfast (7:00)t: 1 free range egg scrambled with butter, full fat organic yogurth mixed with a bit of blueberry juice, milk cinnamon tea (my usual breakfast). Plus my daily 6000 UI Vit. D3 and 3 omega 3 pills.
snack (12:00): 1 kiwi fruit
lunch (13:40): fried (olive oil) hake (fish), swiss chard and onion omelette.
I didnt eat nothing more because I was not hungry at all. I went to yoga lesson and when I came back home I was feeling SO exhausted and SO HUNGRY,,, so I ate a lot for dinner.
dinner (20:45): 1 slice of white bread,,, plus a lot of different cheeses (a looot! I love cheese and it help me to overcome my cravings for junk food, I am okay with dairy by the way, and not looking for losing weight just staying healthy), ham, italian salami, a salad (lettuce, cabbage, broccoli) with olive oil and vinegar.
I went to bed at 11 pm as usual, and take 200 mg of Magnesium as usual before sleeping.

Ad today:
breakfast (7:00): 2 paleopancackes, tea with milk and cinnamon
snack (11:00): milkcoffee (no sugar of course)

Any ideas? is it because my body is changing to "fat burning mode"? I don't have sugar cravings or hunger at all! Just this weird feeling in my head....
Thank you in advance!

[sarahmasteller]

I have experienced dizziness when I have upped my fat intake too quickly, which was what happened when I started taking coconut oil last year and I had like 4 TB in one day (realllly bad idea) So it's possible that if you are not used to eating much fat on a daily basis and all of a sudden one meal or one day it was much higher than usual, that could definitely cause some dizziness. Has this ever happened before or just since you have started being more serious about a primal diet? Hopefully others will chime in. If what you are eating now is a lot less carb rich than what you were used to before, this could be part of the carb flu. I didn't experience this myself but I have seen many people who have and they say the sooner you ditch the bad stuff (white bread in particular), the sooner you can get over the initial 'flu'. Also watch out for the processed meats.

[Danielle5690]

Or it could be totally unrelated to your diet. If you feel like you're going to fall down when you move your head to fast, my first guess is fluid in your inner ear. See your doc and rule that out first.

[eri]

Thank you for your responses!

I am thinking it might be because of upping the fat too quickly. I think this because I have been low carb for long time now and didn't experience dizziness as a part of carb flu (just cravings), today is the first time I experience this dizziness, which is the day i had much more fat than usual!! Does it means I have to decrease the fat intake? : /

[activia]

I have experienced dizziness from either lack of calories or lack of carbs, especially if I'm doing workouts. Upping carbs solved the problem

[sbhikes]

If you get dizziness when you stand up quickly that's called isostatic hypotension and can be caused by the water loss and flushing out of mineral salts that happen initially on a low carb diet. You can fix this with bone broth or with supplements of magnesium, potassium and table salt.

I often feel odd when I consume coconut products (oil, whole coconut, milk, shreds etc). Kind of strangely dizzy in an unpleasant way. I keep my coconut to a minimum to keep that under control.

[eri]

I see! maybe coconut is causing it... because i ate shredded coconut and coconut milk, both things I almost never eat.
However, it's already 7 pm and coconut effects should be gone, but my dizziness is still here,,, I have been not hungry at all until 5 or 6 pm, and not cravings at all.
I will try to eat veggies a lot tonight and avoid coconut these days to see what happens!

[tplank]

A less likely thing that is possible is hyperthyroidism. If your symptoms do not clear, you should get a thyroid panel...that could be useful information regardless and would not be wasted effort.

[paleo-bunny]

Your diet looks essentially starch free and clearly not sugar free. Ditch the fruit, milk and coconut, all containing sugar, for sweet potato (a little bit of sugar), high fat cheese and white rice.

Starch is a much safer source of carbs than sugar.

[Primal Greenie]

Last year I reintroduced beef (grass-fed only) into my diet after refusing it for 10+ years. For the first week or so I had crazy dizzy spells, I laid down in bed and the room would spin. I would stand up and the room would spin, and I'd fall to my knees. Couldn't work out or practice yoga. Since I was feeling really good just before this happened, I attributed it to my body deciding to do some major detoxing as it was receiving this new source of nutrition.

Strange new symptoms are scary, but don't necessarily assume that you're body is reacting negatively. Keep up with introducing healing foods as you eliminate the bad ones, but you might have to go more slowly if the symptoms are too strong.

Btw, coconut, especially coconut oil, is super potent and can result in major healing symptoms.