Weakness - What to do? page

[Chorlton]

It's day 7 of going primal. I'm due to do my workout but I'm weak all over. This morning walking my dog it was tough climbing a hill, and now I've just picked my kids up from school I feel really exhausted.

I don't think i've been getting much carbs this week. Should I eat a couple of bananas or something to get some energy for this workout?

PS: My last workout was Saturday, and that was fine.

[Danielle5690]

Could be a that transition phase from high-carb to low-carb that people refer to as the "low-carb flu". It might make you feel weird for a few days (listless, hungry, foggy-headed, even achy). Walk plenty, but don't worry about working out hard until you feel better. If your carbs have been below 50g/day for a while, try bumping it up closer to 100g/day and see if it helps.

[Chorlton]

Thanks Danielle, I would have thought the transition would be done by now!

Yesterday for example I had:

* bacon + eggs
* banana/apple/spinach green smoothie
* Cream of chicken soup (home made, large chunks of chicken, lots of cream)
* A few small bites of fruit

Today:

Cheese omelette + parma ham / 3 slices of melon
Left over chicken soup
(yet to come) Fish + low carb veggies (probably carrots/brocolli)

I have not been measuring the carbs, but that does seem quite low when I look at some of the charts available online...

[Danielle5690]

Thanks Danielle, I would have thought the transition would be done by now!

Yesterday for example I had:

* bacon + eggs
* banana/apple/spinach green smoothie
* Cream of chicken soup (home made, large chunks of chicken, lots of cream)
* A few small bites of fruit

Today:

Cheese omelette + parma ham / 3 slices of melon
Left over chicken soup
(yet to come) Fish + low carb veggies (probably carrots/brocolli)

I have not been measuring the carbs, but that does seem quite low when I look at some of the charts available online...

The transition can take up to a few weeks for some people. You'll make the transition faster if you lower carbs, raise fat, and power through it. But also, now that I see your menu sample, it also looks like you may not be eating enough. Do you feel hungry, or just weak? Your sample menu for yesterday could be one meal for me, especially on a workout day. Try tracking your intake for a couple days and make sure you're getting enough calories and that roughly 60-70% of them are from healthy sources of fat. Hope that helps!

[Chorlton]

Well I feel pretty ravenous in the morning because I am also doing 16hr IF --I have a headache till I eat as well. Looking at ti you're right it does not look like a lot. I will have to find some way to increase it like you say...

If Im having fish in a cream sauce + carrots/broccoli though, I can't immediately think of a way to increase the calories unless I just have "more" - is that generally what people do, just eat way more?

[Pebbles67]

Drink a cup or two of bouillon. I use the cubes in hot water. Some of the exhaustion is caused by rapid fluid loss leading to an electrolyte imbalance. This is my go to cure for the "carb flu"

[Leida]

Hot bone broth or coffee with cream or tea with butter & salt helps. While fueling up on the easy carb source like a banana will immediately make you feel better, at least in my case it leads to endless cycle, while sticking to low carbs eventually flips the energy switch.

You might want to drop fruit for 2-3 weeks to ease the adaptation, because it might be messing things up and keeping you from completely going to fat-burning.

[Chorlton]

Great. Will do that now, thanks Pebbles! Im going to do my workout anyway and just see how it goes I think

[Chorlton]

Hot bone broth or coffee with cream or tea with butter & salt helps. While fueling up on the easy carb source like a banana will immediately make you feel better, at least in my case it leads to endless cycle, while sticking to low carbs eventually flips the energy switch.

You might want to drop fruit for 2-3 weeks to ease the adaptation, because it might be messing things up and keeping you from completely going to fat-burning.

Thanks for this Leida. I'd really like to make the breakthrough so it would seem toughing it out is the way to go!

[merryish]

Just seconding the broth/salt part of this! When you make the switch from processed foods to unprocessed foods, you end up cutting your salt intake dramatically, which is not the good thing CW would have us all believe. So supplementing by salting your foods and adding in the salty broth helps a lot with balancing your electrolytes and staving off the lo-carb flu!