Lower Carb Side Effects? page 2

[j3nn]

Low carb is good for that! I agree.

Low-carb has a few benefits. I think potatoes and fruit have more. And I don't just mean nutritionally, I mean deliciously.

[Sue]

Just moderate yourself. Don't go cold turkey with the carbs. Keep some fruit in and starchy veg.

[Neckhammer]

Ok, so I can't stand to eat sugar any longer, in any form. Dates, fruit, sweet potatoes, bananas, dark chocolate etc. There is no "moderation" for me...I eat a piece and I want more. That being said everytime I try to cut sugar from my diet I get severe symptoms. I have cut sugar before (2011) and didn't have anything but headaches, but it is completely different now. I get morning/night sweats, rapid heartbeat(upon waking), almost like an anxiety attack or something...anyone else have/had these problems?...and what I can do about them? What was everyones symptoms like when you took the "no sugar" plunge? I get kind of scared when these things start so I rarely make it past 3 days..the third day is usually when it starts. Any comments would be most helpful

Sounds like symptoms of drug addiction withdrawal to me. You may wanna wean yourself off rather than going cold turkey. Just going primal and allowing yourself as many primal carbs as you like then cutting down from there may be a healthy way to go about it. I admittedly had no symptoms or low carb flu when I cut sugar and starch intake. I also was not a sugar addict or metabolically challenged in any way to start with. You really shouldn't experience all those symptoms from just eliminating sugar so you obviously have some issues there. Again I'd really work on weaning yourself off over the course of a couple weeks to a month.

[Gorbag]

Go low or zero carbs most of the day and save up some carbs for your evening meal, then you will sleep well and wake up happy...

[Alison]

Thanks for all the suggestions....I do feel like sugar is a drug(at least to me). Everyone is different. The rapid heartbeat/sweats dont happen throughout the day, just in the morning upon waking( Im guessing since I went around 10-12 hours without sugar??) I wonder if a spoon full of coconut oil upon waking would stop it?...I know I do not need to feed it 'quick carbs'..

[imgliniel]

OP, I am sorry that is happening to you, that sucks. Here is something I have learned about myself that may be helpful to you. A sweet potato by itself will leave me wanting something else relatively quickly. A sweet potato with plenty of butter and I won't want anything else for hours. Now you might say its the butter. Well it is probably the combination of both. Because if I just had some cheese, or eggs with butter, I tend to also be looking for something else post meal. And usually I want something sweet (carbs!). With the sweet potato without butter I start craving cheese (fat!). Fat does slow digestive emptying and blunt the blood sugar rise of the carbs, so that may have something to do with it. Personally I find including a bit of starch in my meals, with the meals, works best. I really try to listen to my body, but then I kinda taught it how to talk to me, YMMV.

When I first started out I had cravings for all the regular crap like pizza and cookies and whatnot. But I tried to figure out what the root of the craving was and tried eating something primal that might fullfill that need. And it worked, I kinda retrained my brain and body and cravings. Pizza meant I really wanted cheese and fat. french fry craving were actually a craving for salt that Kale chips knocked out nicely. Chocolate is still chocolate, lol but thats not so bad. Ussually when I wanted candy other then chocolate, or felt like "something sweet" I wanted some carbs. And it does not take much and can be totally primal carbs and knock that craving out. Baked pumpkin with cinamon and heavy cream. not alot of carbs in plain pumpkin, but it would destroy a candy craving in it's tracks. Now I have retrained my brain to associate those nutrients with the primal food. So when my body wants to tell me it needs some more fat, I get a craving for plain cheese or scrambled eggs, or salad with a good drenching of olive oil. When my body wants some carbs I'll crave sweet potatos and butter, or occassionally homemade hash browns. When it wants actual Sugar (and yes, I allow natural sugars like fruit and stuff, I have come to trust my body, again YMMV) it usually wants an apple, whereas it used to scream at me to eat a bunch of candy. Protein needs have always been a craving for meat so that hasn't really changed haha.

Weather or not this will work for you I can't tell. But teaching myself to crave the right kind of foods to fullfill those needs was definately better then white knuckling it and being hungry and pissed all the time.

[Pebbles67]

Hi Alison,
I do not want to dictate what is best for your body. If you are looking for advice on going low carb, feel free to join us over at the "Eat More Fat" challenge thread. I am using high fat, low carb to overcome a binge eating disorder that has gotten worse over the last year.

[AshleyL]

An important thing in lowering carbs are electrolytes, eating broths and also meats that are not boiled, processed or grilled (your potassium floats and drips away) help.

Also, if you have had chronically high blood sugars, as I used to, going low carb those sugars will start to fall into a more normal baseline level. However, since your body is used to an overly high blood sugar, a level that it has come to believe is normal, it may think it's sugar is too low and act hypoglycemic. Mine did this for about 2 weeks both times I lowered my carbs- though my symptoms were more along the lines of intense hunger and crankiness, and then it was easy after that.