EDIT: I'm really sorry for this long story. I know reading some random person's health history is really boring so i'll sum it up to get to the real heart of the problem.
I went on an extremely stressing low carb paleo diet for acne for a few months. I was eating mostly meat and it was pretty low calorie. This went on for a few months. I started transitioning off by eating fruits, which helped immensely initially. During this time, one glass of orange juice could make me instantly hyperactive. I eventually stopped this diet in early July and have since added in a ton of more normal foods (more unrefined carbs from fruits and starches). Added in way more calories which definitely helped jumpstart my thyroid. My diet got monotonous after a while and the monster sex drive, hair recovery, etc waned, but I was still in much better shape than in low carb.
Recently, I've had bouts with hypoglycemia after different meals for the past two weeks. First time it happened, I think I was getting dehydrated, and ate a breakfast of eggs, hash browns, lots of salt, and like 7-8 dates. Perhaps it was the large amounts of sugar and little fluids that really did me in. Now it's hard for me to eat things without my blood sugar going crazy. Wondering how this could've happened, what I should do about it. Is it normal for something like this to happen despite the fact that I seemed to be doing fine with a higher carb load and less stressing diet in general? What does RP have to say about hypoglycemia?
END OF EDIT
Hello everyone,
I'm Kamran. I'm confused as to whether I may have given myself reactive hypoglycemia. I'll give my brief history and try to be detailed about all this.
I initially started experimenting with my health to combat acne. First, I went gluten free, and one thing led to another and I was pretty much only consuming beef, chicken, a few organs from the two, and vegetables. This went on for a few months, I'd say. I became worse. Intense body odor, extremely cold, stressed and hungry all the time. I managed to start getting out of my rut by adding fruits back into this paleo diet. A lot of things improved.
During this time, I developed a prolonged cough. Every time I ate something sweet like a fruit, I began to have coughing fits. They could get pretty bad and I'd say it lasted about a month. I have a feeling it may have been thyroid related. I emailed Ray Peat, but never got an answer. It's okay though because the cough went away.
After the cough went away, I tried to go on a low fat fish and fruit diet. I ate a ton of fruits, and a ton of fish. I'm not a big fish eater, so this diet felt unnatural to keep up, and I only ate it for a few days.
I'm not sure when I started to move back into a more varied, more "normal" diet but I became very interested in raising metabolic health. I did all the crazy paleo, fish diet stuff in the name of trying to "heal my gut" to remove the acne. I eventually found that raising my body temperature made me way more resistant to foods and acne. Whiteheads pretty much disappeared, when I could get my metabolic rate to stay up.
Anyway, I got really into a Matt Stone type diet....which was a whole foods diet, but no emphasis on a macronutrient and eating a lot (a big issue of mine has always been being in a calorie deficit) was emphasized. It was all in the name of raising metabolic rate and getting my thyroid up to speed. I had a croaky voice, cold extremities, constipation, and lethargy for most of teenage life (I just turned 20 btw.)
I combined Matt Stone's ideas with Ray Peat's. I enjoy both perspectives and figured there was no use in trying to do only one, and I seemed to be getting results with both. Body temperature was raising, libido came back, I was gaining needed weight, I was feeling pretty good, and my acne was subsiding...
I have a tendency to fall into monotony, however. My diet before I started health stuff, my diet consisted a lot of eating sandwhichy type foods. Lots of flour and bread stuff, and pasta. There was a little more variation, and I think the benefit to eating this way was being more in tune with what I might have wanted to eat. I ate salty foods, drank water when I felt like it...I had a little bit of variation, but yeah, I could definitely remain monotonous. On the paleo diet, I ate the same meals all the time...fatty, meaty, stuff with vegetables sometimes. I put my body through a LOT of stress on that diet.
Even now on this improved diet to raise my metabolic rate, I kind of settled into eating what worked for me initially. Here is where I start detailing my problem.
Since the before the beginning of my diet experiment, I would always have some sort of egg for breakfast. Used to be an egg sandwich with one egg. On paleo and beyond, I ate just eggs without bread for breakfast. On this metabolic rate diet, I've had pretty much three jumbo eggs with a moderate amount of white potato hash browns for breakfast. The jumbo egg breakfast has been my breakfast since about July.
Initially, it was very easy to get full with this breakfast, but as time pressed on, I could get extremely hungry after eating this huge breakfast. I thought it was because egg protein released a lot of insulin into the blood and lowered blood sugar thus requiring cortisol to pick up the slack...but the low blood sugar created the feeling of hunger after breakfast. I'd been feeling funny and unsatisfied from that breakfast for a little while now that I think about it.
So then I read about what I could do about that and came across a quote from Ray about how he drinks about a quart of OJ to balance an egg...correct me if I'm wrong. Being that I had three jumbo eggs, my breakfast started to consist of 3 jumbo eggs, a moderate helping of hash browns, and LOTS AND LOTS of OJ. Initially, it was helpful, but eventually my body temperature dropped after breakfast...my face became oily again...and acne seemed to be coming back really easily.
Then I read on Matt Stone's site about hyponatremia and realized that my excess fluid intake was creating this cold feeling, lowering my metabolism, and giving me unwanted symptoms. The remedy was a healthy dose of salt, and a lowering of OJ intake at breakfast. The salt on my breakfast was extremely plentiful and tasty when I first used it. In an effort to try to avoid hyponatremia, however, I started drinking less and less fluids...far too little than I realized. Apparently, when your metabolic rate goes up, your need to fluids can also go up, and then declining fluid intake and the increasing salt intake for about 1-2 weeks (I also go to college in Arizona, so I'm out in the heat ALL THE TIME) I believe led to me dehydrating.
Now, I read also that sodium helps with hypoglycemia, so adding the salt to the eggy breakfast would control my blood sugar and hopefully prevent those hunger episodes an hour or two after breakfast. I believe it did help with that, so I avoided fluids to try and prevent the blood sugar crashes...which I think created this mess.
Okay, now last Monday, I tried eating a breakfast with dried fruit (dates) and salty eggs and potatoes. Little liquid, because again, I think it was because I wanted to increase my sugars and read from Matt's site that sometimes water fruits and juices don't do much for raising sugars in the body because water dilutes it. So I figured I could eat like 4-5 dates and then be full for breakfast and be fine.
Initially, I was. Then about 2-3 hours later, I started getting these awful shakes, and an unmistakable feeling of weakness and fatigue I believe is associated with low blood sugar. Never had blood sugar issues in my life, but I think that's what it was. I went to school, and mentioned to my friends before a test that I felt really awful and weak...but I was humorous about it. I thought it would just dissipate...
Nope, I had this feeling all day, and came home around 4 o clock. I didn't have too much of an appetite (presumably from the little fluid intake) but forced myself to eat a bowl of rice and some chicken. It wasn't tasty (it was also part of the monotonous diet, too, so I had it everyday). I thought the shaking and crappy feeling might have been from excess sodium and not enough potassium, so I drank a few glasses of OJ thinking I might feel better. I thought I did, but then I still felt crappy and then this crazy emotional wave hit me and I started bawling my eyes out. I had no idea why I suddenly got so emotional. I just though about how I wished this wasn't happening and my health endeavors would just go well for once. I cried and cried. I felt better, but went to Urgent Care. By the time they saw me, I felt normal again, so my vitals were normal. Took my blood glucose and it was at 117...they took it while I was feeling fine, though.
So I went to school the next day and ate a "breakfast" of milk and sourdough. I felt like throwing up for a long time. Then the shaking and fatigue came back, so I got a soda to try and make it better. It didn't help at all.
A little bit of fluid intake seemed to set these episodes off, but then I decided to go for it and drink a bunch of water later that day. I kept drinking a pretty good amount after every hour, and my symptoms seemed to dissipate. So I thought it was just dehydration. I go to the doctor's the next day and tell him what happened, but that I also felt fine and thought it was all over.
I drank some more water and my pee was pretty clear, but no matter. Got a blood test, drank some more water, went to school, drank some OJ and ate some sourdough (appetite still wasn't normal)...walked to class in a hurry since I was feeling fine. Got to class, 5 minutes later, the unmistakable feeling hit, and I was just like...frick. It was my birthday.
I managed okay all day, and then got home...tried to eat but I just puked. Mom gave me some powerade and that felt much better after puking...
So I pretty much go back and forth between feeling normal/fine...to feeling awful and emotional throughout the period of a day. I got an infection last sunday and just started to get it treated last night, which just made everything feel worse.
There were a lot of details, but I'm wondering...is there any idea as to what could've started these episodes? They seem to be worse with eggs, but I just had a brief episode after eating some applesauce and crackers (still sick, and eating lightly).
Could hypothyroidism be a cause? What could've happened. I'm feeling pretty lost and stuck, any advice would be appreciate. Thank you.
I went on an extremely stressing low carb paleo diet for acne for a few months. I was eating mostly meat and it was pretty low calorie. This went on for a few months. I started transitioning off by eating fruits, which helped immensely initially. During this time, one glass of orange juice could make me instantly hyperactive. I eventually stopped this diet in early July and have since added in a ton of more normal foods (more unrefined carbs from fruits and starches). Added in way more calories which definitely helped jumpstart my thyroid. My diet got monotonous after a while and the monster sex drive, hair recovery, etc waned, but I was still in much better shape than in low carb.
Recently, I've had bouts with hypoglycemia after different meals for the past two weeks. First time it happened, I think I was getting dehydrated, and ate a breakfast of eggs, hash browns, lots of salt, and like 7-8 dates. Perhaps it was the large amounts of sugar and little fluids that really did me in. Now it's hard for me to eat things without my blood sugar going crazy. Wondering how this could've happened, what I should do about it. Is it normal for something like this to happen despite the fact that I seemed to be doing fine with a higher carb load and less stressing diet in general? What does RP have to say about hypoglycemia?
END OF EDIT
Hello everyone,
I'm Kamran. I'm confused as to whether I may have given myself reactive hypoglycemia. I'll give my brief history and try to be detailed about all this.
I initially started experimenting with my health to combat acne. First, I went gluten free, and one thing led to another and I was pretty much only consuming beef, chicken, a few organs from the two, and vegetables. This went on for a few months, I'd say. I became worse. Intense body odor, extremely cold, stressed and hungry all the time. I managed to start getting out of my rut by adding fruits back into this paleo diet. A lot of things improved.
During this time, I developed a prolonged cough. Every time I ate something sweet like a fruit, I began to have coughing fits. They could get pretty bad and I'd say it lasted about a month. I have a feeling it may have been thyroid related. I emailed Ray Peat, but never got an answer. It's okay though because the cough went away.
After the cough went away, I tried to go on a low fat fish and fruit diet. I ate a ton of fruits, and a ton of fish. I'm not a big fish eater, so this diet felt unnatural to keep up, and I only ate it for a few days.
I'm not sure when I started to move back into a more varied, more "normal" diet but I became very interested in raising metabolic health. I did all the crazy paleo, fish diet stuff in the name of trying to "heal my gut" to remove the acne. I eventually found that raising my body temperature made me way more resistant to foods and acne. Whiteheads pretty much disappeared, when I could get my metabolic rate to stay up.
Anyway, I got really into a Matt Stone type diet....which was a whole foods diet, but no emphasis on a macronutrient and eating a lot (a big issue of mine has always been being in a calorie deficit) was emphasized. It was all in the name of raising metabolic rate and getting my thyroid up to speed. I had a croaky voice, cold extremities, constipation, and lethargy for most of teenage life (I just turned 20 btw.)
I combined Matt Stone's ideas with Ray Peat's. I enjoy both perspectives and figured there was no use in trying to do only one, and I seemed to be getting results with both. Body temperature was raising, libido came back, I was gaining needed weight, I was feeling pretty good, and my acne was subsiding...
I have a tendency to fall into monotony, however. My diet before I started health stuff, my diet consisted a lot of eating sandwhichy type foods. Lots of flour and bread stuff, and pasta. There was a little more variation, and I think the benefit to eating this way was being more in tune with what I might have wanted to eat. I ate salty foods, drank water when I felt like it...I had a little bit of variation, but yeah, I could definitely remain monotonous. On the paleo diet, I ate the same meals all the time...fatty, meaty, stuff with vegetables sometimes. I put my body through a LOT of stress on that diet.
Even now on this improved diet to raise my metabolic rate, I kind of settled into eating what worked for me initially. Here is where I start detailing my problem.
Since the before the beginning of my diet experiment, I would always have some sort of egg for breakfast. Used to be an egg sandwich with one egg. On paleo and beyond, I ate just eggs without bread for breakfast. On this metabolic rate diet, I've had pretty much three jumbo eggs with a moderate amount of white potato hash browns for breakfast. The jumbo egg breakfast has been my breakfast since about July.
Initially, it was very easy to get full with this breakfast, but as time pressed on, I could get extremely hungry after eating this huge breakfast. I thought it was because egg protein released a lot of insulin into the blood and lowered blood sugar thus requiring cortisol to pick up the slack...but the low blood sugar created the feeling of hunger after breakfast. I'd been feeling funny and unsatisfied from that breakfast for a little while now that I think about it.
So then I read about what I could do about that and came across a quote from Ray about how he drinks about a quart of OJ to balance an egg...correct me if I'm wrong. Being that I had three jumbo eggs, my breakfast started to consist of 3 jumbo eggs, a moderate helping of hash browns, and LOTS AND LOTS of OJ. Initially, it was helpful, but eventually my body temperature dropped after breakfast...my face became oily again...and acne seemed to be coming back really easily.
Then I read on Matt Stone's site about hyponatremia and realized that my excess fluid intake was creating this cold feeling, lowering my metabolism, and giving me unwanted symptoms. The remedy was a healthy dose of salt, and a lowering of OJ intake at breakfast. The salt on my breakfast was extremely plentiful and tasty when I first used it. In an effort to try to avoid hyponatremia, however, I started drinking less and less fluids...far too little than I realized. Apparently, when your metabolic rate goes up, your need to fluids can also go up, and then declining fluid intake and the increasing salt intake for about 1-2 weeks (I also go to college in Arizona, so I'm out in the heat ALL THE TIME) I believe led to me dehydrating.
Now, I read also that sodium helps with hypoglycemia, so adding the salt to the eggy breakfast would control my blood sugar and hopefully prevent those hunger episodes an hour or two after breakfast. I believe it did help with that, so I avoided fluids to try and prevent the blood sugar crashes...which I think created this mess.
Okay, now last Monday, I tried eating a breakfast with dried fruit (dates) and salty eggs and potatoes. Little liquid, because again, I think it was because I wanted to increase my sugars and read from Matt's site that sometimes water fruits and juices don't do much for raising sugars in the body because water dilutes it. So I figured I could eat like 4-5 dates and then be full for breakfast and be fine.
Initially, I was. Then about 2-3 hours later, I started getting these awful shakes, and an unmistakable feeling of weakness and fatigue I believe is associated with low blood sugar. Never had blood sugar issues in my life, but I think that's what it was. I went to school, and mentioned to my friends before a test that I felt really awful and weak...but I was humorous about it. I thought it would just dissipate...
Nope, I had this feeling all day, and came home around 4 o clock. I didn't have too much of an appetite (presumably from the little fluid intake) but forced myself to eat a bowl of rice and some chicken. It wasn't tasty (it was also part of the monotonous diet, too, so I had it everyday). I thought the shaking and crappy feeling might have been from excess sodium and not enough potassium, so I drank a few glasses of OJ thinking I might feel better. I thought I did, but then I still felt crappy and then this crazy emotional wave hit me and I started bawling my eyes out. I had no idea why I suddenly got so emotional. I just though about how I wished this wasn't happening and my health endeavors would just go well for once. I cried and cried. I felt better, but went to Urgent Care. By the time they saw me, I felt normal again, so my vitals were normal. Took my blood glucose and it was at 117...they took it while I was feeling fine, though.
So I went to school the next day and ate a "breakfast" of milk and sourdough. I felt like throwing up for a long time. Then the shaking and fatigue came back, so I got a soda to try and make it better. It didn't help at all.
A little bit of fluid intake seemed to set these episodes off, but then I decided to go for it and drink a bunch of water later that day. I kept drinking a pretty good amount after every hour, and my symptoms seemed to dissipate. So I thought it was just dehydration. I go to the doctor's the next day and tell him what happened, but that I also felt fine and thought it was all over.
I drank some more water and my pee was pretty clear, but no matter. Got a blood test, drank some more water, went to school, drank some OJ and ate some sourdough (appetite still wasn't normal)...walked to class in a hurry since I was feeling fine. Got to class, 5 minutes later, the unmistakable feeling hit, and I was just like...frick. It was my birthday.
I managed okay all day, and then got home...tried to eat but I just puked. Mom gave me some powerade and that felt much better after puking...
So I pretty much go back and forth between feeling normal/fine...to feeling awful and emotional throughout the period of a day. I got an infection last sunday and just started to get it treated last night, which just made everything feel worse.
There were a lot of details, but I'm wondering...is there any idea as to what could've started these episodes? They seem to be worse with eggs, but I just had a brief episode after eating some applesauce and crackers (still sick, and eating lightly).
Could hypothyroidism be a cause? What could've happened. I'm feeling pretty lost and stuck, any advice would be appreciate. Thank you.