A diet for Reactive Hypoglycemia

[Tammy2002]

Originally Posted by MACXXX

Hypo episodes not due to insulin are a result of eating AFAIK and can be brought on by exercising also AFAIK. Normal fasting blood sugar is around 83 mg/dl on average. You really need to measure to know or be tested. I don't know if there is a thing such as long-term low sugar levels. Would need to know your definition of low.

what is AFAIK?

[MACXXX]

Originally Posted by Tammy2002

what is AFAIK?

As far as I know (AFAIK). Lots of people ask me that LOL. I still have to decipher (google) the ones I don't use much like IIRC.

BFN, TTYL

[Tammy2002]

Originally Posted by MACXXX

As far as I know AFAIK). Lots of people ask me that LOL. I still have to decipher (google) the ones I don't use much like IIRC.

BFN, TTYL

[Lillianna]

Originally Posted by Tammy2002

I have a question about hypoglycemia and there are so many knowledgeable people in this thread.... Lately I've been feeling light-headed and dizzy and a bit queasy. I think it could be hypoglycemia but I've not been diagnosed as such. What I dont' understand from my reading on the internet is that hypogl. is caused by low blood sugar so how is doing low-carb a good thing? also, many sites say it is a precursor to diabetes.... that doesn't make sense to me either...i thought people with diabetes don't produce enough insulin, so wouldn't they therefore have MORE sugar in their blood as a result???? a little help understanding would be most appreciated.

I have very limited knowledge of this but from what I understand: Both diabetes and low-blood sugar happen when the pancreas isn't working properly, and it doesn't put out the right amount of insulin. If I have a bagel, for example, my pancreas will overreact and put out way too much insulin that will lower my blood sugar within an hour. Within 1.5 hours I'll be shaky, weak, confused, and STARVING. When I eat low carb, my pancreas only has to put out small amounts of insulin, and my blood sugar doesn't have wild fluctuations. If your pancreas is putting out too much insulin for many years, it can eventually stop making as much insulin. Then your blood sugar will start creeping up. Or if it's still pumping out too much insulin, your body can become resistant to the insulin, so that even though your pancreas is making plenty of insulin, your body is not responding to it, and it's not lowering your blood sugar the way it's supposed to.

I used to have an air conditioner that would run way too cold for days, then barely work at all. It would alternate. It did this for a year until it finally broke down. I think of my pancreas as being like that air conditioner--sometimes working too well, sometimes not enough. With low carb I don't require it to work nearly as much, thereby (I hope) extending the life of it (and me!).

[zizi]

I have food reactive hypoglycemia. I do a hybrid of PP and Atkins.

[Tammy2002]

Originally Posted by Lillianna

I used to have an air conditioner that would run way too cold for days, then barely work at all. It would alternate. It did this for a year until it finally broke down. I think of my pancreas as being like that air conditioner--sometimes working too well, sometimes not enough. With low carb I don't require it to work nearly as much, thereby (I hope) extending the life of it (and me!).

Thanks Lillianna. What a great explanation. Regardless, I'm going to keep lcarbing because it's good for me and to me. I just got bloodwork , including blood sugar done about 2 mths ago and the doc said it was all REALLY good. Maybe it was just a bug.

[Motorama]

Originally Posted by CindyCRNA

Ms Moto, may I ask your age?

I'm 19 but since I was 10 I feel like a comatose 99 year old after a 99 miles marathon

[Motorama]

Originally Posted by 2big4mysize

Yes the DANDR maintnenace is the same as the Atkins For Life maintnenace plan.
What happened to moving on with OWL since you were already at level 7 and your blood sugar issues were stabel back on the 28th?

why did you stop your eating at such low carb levels?yogurt, spinach, avacado, nuts, and stirfried veggies with a few strawberries seems to be way below 30 net grams of carbs and lacking the complex carbs you were eating from the legumes nuts seeds and the starchy veggies you were about to add?

I'm not even sure what I do.
When my blood sugar is unstable and swinging I just can't concentrate or anything and just walk around like a zombie not even remember my own actions. I was getting too emaciated and had lot energy and at the same time I was afraid of reintroducing offenders because I couldn't tolerate increasing hypo episodes over the lack of energy and mental confusion. So I did a mess.

why do you eat your breakfast so low carb since you know you are coming off an overnight fast.

Measuring my blood sugar I noticed it is higher in the morning, something called the dawn phenomenon. Eating more carbs in the morning seems to destroy whatever chance to feel good till tomorrow but at night carbs don't seem to affect me that much.

Are you eating enough food to meet your cal needs?

I'm not sure, I just eating to satiety and not counting anything. I'm not counting carbohydrates either but I used to.

Have you tried eating a high fat high protein snack before bed to see if it help your morning low blood sugar?

This sounds like a good idea.
I tend to wake up around 4 or 5 am from a nightmare and covered in sweat. So something bad is happening to my blood sugar at night.
Can you suggest a good bedtime snack? When you wold eat it?

[mamabear6]

I have reactive hypoglycemia as well, just recently figured it out, but it's been bothering me for a long long time.

Atkins '75 works best for me. I have never felt better than when I'm on a good streak of '75.

Any time I slip up and eat sugar or anything high on the glycemic index, the symptoms come back just like old times. It's horrible.

[JoSkids]

Originally Posted by Tammy2002

[COLOR="Sienna"]AFAIK = As Far As I Know[/COLOR]

[Tammy2002]

Originally Posted by JoSkids

[COLOR="Sienna"]AFAIK = As Far As I Know[/COLOR]

OHHHHHHHH... thank you.... I was having a brain-fart there...

[Tammy2002]

Originally Posted by fawn

Are you testing? Do you know what your blood sugars are doing?

Waking up spacey tells me that you might also be dealing with other issues ie: thyroid or adrenals.

There's more going on here and a daily menu would be nice to see.

Hi Fawn, I went home and looked at the copy of my blood work that my doc gave me when I had a physical and blood draw two months ago. The Canadian (metric) is different than the American but it looks like my blood sugar is in a good range.... 4.7 and anything under 7 is "normal". I've been feeling ALOT better the last few days. I DO think that I maybe need to eat a little more often. So I'm trying to do that.

[MACXXX]

Originally Posted by Tammy2002

Hi Fawn, I went home and looked at the copy of my blood work that my doc gave me when I had a physical and blood draw two months ago. The Canadian (metric) is different than the American but it looks like my blood sugar is in a good range.... 4.7 and anything under 7 is "normal". I've been feeling ALOT better the last few days. I DO think that I maybe need to eat a little more often. So I'm trying to do that.

To convert mmol/l to mg/dl just multiply by 18. So your 4.7 equates to 84.6. Normal. 7 equate to 126 which is the ADA cutoff for diabetes. > 100 is pre-diabetic.

[Tammy2002]

Originally Posted by MACXXX

To convert mmol/l to mg/dl just multiply by 18. So your 4.7 equates to 84.6. Normal. 7 equate to 126 which is the ADA cutoff for diabetes. > 100 is pre-diabetic.

awesome. Thanks MACXXX.

[2big4mysize]

You are still not answering my question about what happened in the last week. maybe I'm confusing you. On the 27th you posted this topic and said your blood sugar issues were controlled by eating Atkins and you were on OWL level 7 eating 50 grams of carbs.

now you say you are eating induction for 3 weeks and only 30 grams. why did you back off your OWL at 50 grams a day since you were stable? I know it wasn't a scale issue cause on the 27th you were getting too small as a male at" 5.8 and 125 pounds"

Originally Posted by Motorama

I was suffering from unstable blood sugar and energy swings.
I have been shown the test Atkins proposed for sugar instability and was positive to it. That hooked me on Atkins. I was getting lethargic after a carb meal, irritable in the morning before eating, spacey and lightheaded in the afternoon, tired and weak in the evening. I wanted that to end and that's why I did Atkins.

[COLOR="Red"]I did three weeks of induction and 7 levels of OWL
I'm now up to 50 grams of carbs per day and my symptoms have improved but at the same time I'm getting emaciated[/COLOR]. I looked myself in the mirror and didn't like what I saw. As a baby faced guy of 20 with a face (I'm told) which reflects my inner positive, joyfull and playful attitude, I was shocked to see I have now gaunt cheeks, sulken eyes, an angular and tough/sad looking face and I look older as well.

I'm not sure why my face is getting so drawn and flat compared to the rest of the body. My BMI is 19 and I have a small teen like frame.

I'm really torn between stopping the weight loss which is making me emaciated (and I'm sure there's some muscle loss there too) and not going back to the energy roller coaster I used to suffer from.
I don't want to ruin all the work I have done so far but I can't really lose anymore.

Your opinion?

Why are you eating less carbs and having issues is my question? Why did you drop 20 grams of carbs from your eating and become unstable?

[desertholly]

Originally Posted by Motorama

Morning is the worse moment of the day for me. I feel the most confused, tired and spacey and everything I eat (including just fat or protein) either seems to cause an hypoglycemia reaction or a lack of energy or stomachache.

Lately I feel better only after 10 pm which is where I get all my enthusiasm, creativity, mental focus back. This is causing insomnia since I feel alive and productive only at night. For example sunday afternoon I declined a friend request to spend the day together watching a movie or going out. But sunday night I started feeling like in that precise moment I could have really enjoyed my friend presence and a lot of other things that seemed tiring and boring during the day. Does this sound familiar to any of you?

I've been properly tested with a glucose tolerance test.
My glucose dropped to 36 and I fainted.

I'm not overweight, I just have lot of belly fat and a skinny body!

Have you had your adrenals checked? Early a.m. fatigue and late evening energy and the belly fat are classic symptoms of adrenal fatigue. I have both adrenal fatigue and reactive hypoglycemia. I eat LC to control my blood sugar and my dr is treating my adrenals. He said that unless the adrenals are treated the other hormones usually won't work properly. The most accurate way to test the adrenals is with a saliva test.

[Motorama]

Originally Posted by 2big4mysize

Why are you eating less carbs and having issues is my question? Why did you drop 20 grams of carbs from your eating and become unstable?

I'm not consuming 30 grams of carbs.
What I said is that I think my blood sugar are more balanced when I have a fixed amount of carbs per meal, rather than alternating high carb meals and low carb meals. So I was talking about 30 carbs per meal, which would be 90 to 120 carbs a day, but it was just an example or an hypothesis at max. Also induction is a thing of the past, I'm not on induction right now. Right now I'm doing nothing, I'm counting nothing, I'm following nothing because I'm just discouraged and confused and don't feel the point in following a plan since I'm not even sure what plan I should follow. I'm just eating whatever is in the fridge.

[Motorama]

Originally Posted by desertholly

Have you had your adrenals checked? Early a.m. fatigue and late evening energy and the belly fat are classic symptoms of adrenal fatigue. I have both adrenal fatigue and reactive hypoglycemia. I eat LC to control my blood sugar and my dr is treating my adrenals. He said that unless the adrenals are treated the other hormones usually won't work properly. The most accurate way to test the adrenals is with a saliva test.

I haven't had my adrenals checked, I will ask information about this.
How many grams of carbs and what kind of carbs you consume?

[2big4mysize]

Originally Posted by Motorama

I'm not consuming 30 grams of carbs.
What I said is that I think my blood sugar are more balanced when I have a fixed amount of carbs per meal, rather than alternating high carb meals and low carb meals. So I was talking about 30 carbs per meal, which would be 90 to 120 carbs a day, but it was just an example or an hypothesis at max. Also induction is a thing of the past, I'm not on induction right now. [COLOR="Red"]Right now I'm doing nothing, I'm counting nothing, I'm following nothing because I'm just discouraged and confused and don't feel the point in following a plan since I'm not even sure what plan I should follow. I'm just eating whatever is in the fridge.[/COLOR]

See this is what is confusing.

you were getting too small according to your post on the 27th but had blood sugar stable and were going to add a few more grams of complex carbs to your 50 grams total to see what happened. a week later you are doing no plan and having blood sugar issues.
again what happened to make you change things this drastically in less then a week's time?

[Motorama]

Originally Posted by 2big4mysize

again what happened to make you change things this drastically in less then a week's time?

I added more carbs and my blood sugar went crazy while my weight kept lowering, so I lost my patience and thought "the hell with everything"

If someone wants to help me I'm willing to start again at an higher carb intake, addind few grams at a time and hoping to find the perfect balance for my blood sugar and my weight. For someone reason I also seem to require starches but can't stand potatoes, rice or bread.

[flashtgm]

Originally Posted by Motorama

Can you please tell me more or making specific examples?
I'd like to feel better a little even before whatever book I might order will be delivered to me.

I'm definitely overwhelmed by the amount of information, books, plans and contradictory information out there.

What I learned so far is that very low carb diets worsen my condition. I tried induction but couldn't see an improvement after three weeks. I tried to raise carbs to 40 grams but that didn't work either. I also realized that if I didn't want to spend a fortune I needed to buy low-quality food (i.e meat) which might not be so healthy.
I also realized complex rules of timing and combinations generates a lot of confusion for me and also that I'm tired of counting anything whether calories, carbs, fibers or what not. I also found out that too high fat diets don't agree with my digestion and make me feel sick (i.e. pouring the fat released from cooking from the pan to the plate) and also deliberately eating mostly high-fat foods (i.e cream, mascarpone, pork fat, egg yolks without whites, butter) don't work for me. I found out that in whatever plan I'm always at loss figuring out what to eat and how to keep things varied and exciting.

Morning is the worse moment of the day for me. I feel the most confused, tired and spacey and everything I eat (including just fat or protein) either seems to cause an hypoglycemia reaction or a lack of energy or stomachache.

Lately I feel better only after 10 pm which is where I get all my enthusiasm, creativity, mental focus back. This is causing insomnia since I feel alive and productive only at night. For example sunday afternoon I declined a friend request to spend the day together watching a movie or going out. But sunday night I started feeling like in that precise moment I could have really enjoyed my friend presence and a lot of other things that seemed tiring and boring during the day. Does this sound familiar to any of you?

I've been properly tested with a glucose tolerance test.
My glucose dropped to 36 and I fainted.

I'm not overweight, I just have lot of belly fat and a skinny body!

Hi all, I am a 19 years old guy from Italy. I've found this forum through Google, since I was searching information on my condition (which truly resembles reactive hypoglycemia). I'm not very good with english, so sorry for the grammar/syntactic mistakes i will probably make.

Motorama, I'm really impressed by your statement: "Morning is the worse moment of the day for me. I feel the most confused, tired and spacey and everything I eat (including just fat or protein) either seems to cause an hypoglycemia reaction or a lack of energy or stomachache. "

This happen to me too, in the same way. Your other symptoms are very similar to the ones I have.

When I was diagnosed hypoglycemia, 2 years ago, I started a moderatly low-carb diet, with lot of protein, vegetables, whole bread and no fruit. I had my up and down, with crisis (depression, anxiety, dizziness) from time to time.
Morning was (and still is) the worst phase of the day. I couldn't (and I can't) eat any little breakfast (not even protein or vegetables) without feeling an uncomfortable sense of fullness and dizziness. Also, I tend to have this sense of fullness with other meals, so I can't eat 5-6 times a day like most of you recommends. I'm currently taking the drug "Levosulpiride", which improves my overall condition but does not resolves all my problem with food.

However, that diet made me feel better, and allowed me to study and pass my exams (I'm currently studying medicine). Although this had been a real progress, I was not happy yet with the fact I had crisis from time to time. So, about 2 months ago, I cut out the whole bread. My situation worsened, and I'm going to reintroduce it soon.

I just wanted you to know you're not alone. I hope we may eventually find a dietary scheme which works for us. Please let me know if you have any ideas.

[Motorama]

Oh my God flashtgm !
I'm a 19 year old guy from Italy !
I'm from Rimini what about you?

[desertholly]

Originally Posted by Motorama

I haven't had my adrenals checked, I will ask information about this.
How many grams of carbs and what kind of carbs you consume?

Many doctors don't believe in adrenal fatigue so don't be surprised if you get a negative response. Before I went to the dr. I got the test results back indicating that they were below normal. I got the test from ZRT Labs, a well kn ow reputable lab, but went through Hormone Test Kits - Saliva and saved about $60.

I aim for between 30 and 50 carbs per day, mostly from vegetables since I love them so much. I have begun adding brown rice and quinoa. I have to be very careful as I have food intolerances, such as gluten intolerance and dairy, which I'm still working on eliminating (I love my cream).

I am also supposed to cut out all stimulants such as coffee and chocolate to help my adrenals heal.

[flashtgm]

Originally Posted by Motorama

Oh my God flashtgm !
I'm a 19 year old guy from Italy !
I'm from Rimini what about you?

I'm from Siracusa! We should absolutely call each other. There's so much I'd like to hear and to say about our condition...

Sorry for the italian language:
Oddio, Motorama, a parte mia madre sei la prima persona che conosca con l'ipoglicemia reattiva! dobbiamo assolutamente parlare. Il mio indirizzo e-mail è luposuper@hotmail.com. Se hai MSN messenger, aggiungimi ai contatti.
Aspetto con ansia una tua risposta.

[2big4mysize]

Originally Posted by Motorama

I added more carbs and my blood sugar went crazy while my weight kept lowering, so I lost my patience and thought "the hell with everything"

[COLOR="Red"]If someone wants to help me I'm willing to start again at an higher carb intake, addind few grams at a time and hoping to find the perfect balance for my blood sugar and my weight.[/COLOR] For someone reason I also seem to require starches but can't stand potatoes, rice or bread.

Since we discussed this in your other topic last week, exactly adding a few more carbs but mostly more fats and a bit more protein to what you were already eating so you could stop your weight loss I don't understand why you went wild adding more carbs and kept losing weight for the last 7 days?

[brit67chick]

I combated reactive hypoglycemia by switching to a simple, balanced diet following a few rules.
Do not restrict carbs from your diet. Your body needs carbs to regulate blood sugar!
Swap white bread and noodles for whole grains.
Drink water or non-caffeinated tea instead of soda.
Eat every 2 hours.
Eat more veggies, avoid sugars & HFCS.
Drink and Eat Before You Exercise.
Switch to an ovo-vegan based diet.
My symptoms are 100% gone...unless I eat Cliff Bars
If you want a fuller explanation of everything you can check out this article.