Hungry After Eating And Other Symptoms

Kamran

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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.
 
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I don't have much in the way of advice, but I can relate. I went through reactive hypoglycemia when I started eating a couple of eggs every morning. I just try to eat plenty of sugar and salt. I try to go by what my body craves at any given time. Also, sometimes it takes a couple of weeks before your body gets over reactive hypoglycemia. Perhaps some of your symptoms are a result of your body "unwinding" (i.e., a cascade of hormone changes for the better).
 
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Kamran

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Thanks for the reply Solaire, even just relating helps.

I've been a bit frightened because I've read stories of people on the internet who've had RH and it's like followed them all their lives. Most of the mainstream advice is always really lame (Eat 24 small 100 calorie meals a day and drink lots of water HUR DURR) but I figure this is more of a temporary condition than most might realize. At least I hope it is.

I wish it would be something like a positive hormone change, but I don't have a lot of confidence in it being that :(

My diet was treating me pretty well, but I think it was monotony that really created gaps that weren't filled in time, at least for now. Having eggs for breakfast was nice at first, but after a while, breakfast just didn't fill me up anymore. Maybe the amino acids from the eggs released a lot of insulin and it lowered my blood sugar and cortisol was released to raise it. That might have been what kept making me hungry. Now if that keeps happening day after day, perhaps my body just snapped.

I had been adding tons of salt and cutting down on fluids as well, which may have exacerbated the problem... Perhaps a few things at once were enough to put my body over the edge.

My appetite and will to eat solid foods has declined, which probably doesn't help. I'm wondering if taking thyroid will help me get out of this rut long enough to heal myself with foods.
 

nwo2012

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Sorry but to not sift through the whole post, have you actually checked your blood sugar levels when this happens or are you going by feel? What are they if so? Perhaps it is adrenaline and cortisol that are spiking? I would answer the feeling with some syrup and salt even if it is happening after eating sugar. And are you male or female? Perhaps some Progest-e rubbed on the gums when this happens would also help. I think you should start using aspirin at 800mg/day or so (with 10mg of K2) fo starters. Perhaps bloodwork (fasting BSL, cortisol and adrenaline levels) if you have a 'good' doctor.
 

nwo2012

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Also how are your temeperatures and pulse usually and also during these episodes? Having spotted your emotional oubursts it sounds like an estrogen excess is going on ( I know, I used to easily get teary during movies etc when I was using AAS as a bodybuilder. High estrogen makes you a large teddy-bear, lol).

RP mentions that he needs a quart of OJ to balance out the protein of just one egg. Sugar needs are very high when your thryoid is improved.
 
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Kamran

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Hi nwo2012...

I'm going by what I feel and comparing my symptoms to information on the internet. I know, I should definitely check my blood sugar when these attacks come on. Is there a cheap measuring device I can get at like Wal Mart or something?

My temperatures are usually on the lower side...some parts of my body are lightly warm and a good amount of it is cold to the touch. I haven't check the actual underarm temp...i figure it's pointless since my underarm temp always comes out to being close to 98.6 but it's not really accurate since different parts of my chest seem to be at different temperatures.

I'm only really susceptible to my emotional outbursts when I have one of these episodes after a meal. Otherwise I'm normally calm and content. When I have an episode, things that didn't bug me before become triggers for tears. Could be excess estrogen that makes itself apparent during these episodes or something...just guessing not really sure.

I'm a male.

I haven't tried to OJ with extra salt and sugar because the initial episodes seemed to get really bad with more foods...sugar seemed to do the worst.

I've heard about RP advocating aspirin...what purpose does it serve?

Thanks for the reply nwo2012
 

nwo2012

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Aspirin lowers stress and estrogen. It acts similarly to how mead acid does but we have a long way until we displace all the PUFA to get decent levels of mead acid back.

Yes BSL monitors can be picked up for a few bucks all over the place. Im in Oz so cant tell you where in US but they are cheap. Will be well worth checking it to be sure. It sure does sound like estrogen and or adrenaline and or cortisol excess. The aspirin will help with those. Also pregnenolone would serve a purpose in this area. I know you feel it after sugar intake but it is worth trying to bombard the body with sucrose and salt during an attack, I think it will work,
 
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nwo2012 said:
Aspirin lowers stress and estrogen. It acts similarly to how mead acid does but we have a long way until we displace all the PUFA to get decent levels of mead acid back.

Doesn't getting rid of PUFAs take four years? I got the impression you were following Peat for a while.
 

nwo2012

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j. said:
nwo2012 said:
Aspirin lowers stress and estrogen. It acts similarly to how mead acid does but we have a long way until we displace all the PUFA to get decent levels of mead acid back.

Doesn't getting rid of PUFAs take four years? I got the impression you were following Peat for a while.

It can but we are speeding up the process when we do everything right and use all the supplements. Yes it has been a while now but still a way to go. We simulate an almost PUFA free environment when we use all the tools, but to be able stop using many of these we will need to get rid of the PUFA stored. If that makes sense.
 

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Here's a question. Since we are trying to stop the burn of PUFA's, then wouldnt it actually take longer to rid PUFA's?

Sorry, not trying to thread jack here.
 

nwo2012

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Charlie said:
Here's a question. Since we are trying to stop the burn of PUFA's, then wouldnt it actually take longer to rid PUFA's?

Sorry, not trying to thread jack here.

My understanding is that by increasing our metabolism and using the tools we speed up the expulsion of these from our body. We are minimizing the release of free fatty acids into the bloodstream but I dont think that slows down their expulsion from the body. But I could have it all wrong of course.
 

nwo2012

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Fortunately this PeatPhone still works. :D

RP
Thyroid and sugar help the liver to detoxify them by glucuronidation, without having to oxidize them.

So yes basically what I was trying to say. ;)
 

charlie

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Very cool, thanks nwo!
 
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Kamran

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Hello everyone,

Interesting discussion so far.

Just wanted to give a few updates. I think I mentioned before that playing around with my salt intake for about two weeks caused me to have these episodes?

If I hadn't, the gist of it was that I increased my salt intake while simultaneously lowering my fluid intake over the course of two weeks. The very first day I did it, my body warmed up great and all the benefits were great, which led me to keep repeating the process and not really pay attention to my body's cues for thirst. It all culminated with these attacks that started nearly a month ago.

Well every time I ate any food, these attacks would happen, and it's like no matter what I ate, these awful symptoms would occur and I had no idea why.

I sort of got a clue when I realized this all started happening when I was playing around with my fluid/salt intake. Not listening to my body's cues for salt or for fluids (i.e. drinking when I was thirsty!)

I read a comment from someone who mentioned they went on a blood sugar rollercoaster while doing an RBTI regimen, which if you don't know, alters fluid/salt intake rigidly. I thought it sounded familiar to what I was going through. Both of us had altered our fluid/salt intake according to what we thought was best, even though we weren't doing exactly the same thing.

Another clue was that sometimes during the weeks I was having the attacks, that water intake sometimes really helped a lot. If I drank too much, things would get bad again. Then sometimes gatorade helped me a lot, instead of water. Then sometimes, having some salty food when I felt like eating it was really helpful. I just kept following those cues as best I could and I seemed to have stabilized a lot more. I can eat things without having any symptoms pretty much now. I'm hesitant to say I'm completely better, but I do think the cause was not consuming things according to my body's needs.

I haven't been checked my BS levels because I started recovering so I didn't really go out and buy one. So I'm not 100% sure that it was hypoglycemic attacks. I've been told it could be hypernatremia...that would make more sense...but simply only drinking water didn't cure me. If I had too much water, the symptoms would occur again.

Another big thing was eating salt with FOOD. I had no appetite so I was kind of just adding random amounts of salt with liquids like orange juice and cranberry juice. I had salt with gelatin and I think I had too many liquids or something because I got this awful chronic pain in my chest that didn't go away until like two hours before I had to wake up...

Anyway, I suppose I'm asking...Is there any connection to blood sugar levels and salt/fluid intake? Ray Peat have anything on that?

I've played around with the idea of hypertension and high blood pressure. A lot of the symptoms are similar. Same with hypernatremia. That would make the most sense, I guess. Perhaps hyper/hyponatremia and hypoglycemia feel similar? What gets me is that when I checked other forums of people who apparently had reactive hypoglycemia, they said reported very similar experiences. Especially the feeling like crying for no reason... That was back when I was pretty sure I gave that to myself. I can eat eggs now and not feel as terrible as I used to, but too many and I start shaking and feeling weak. I hope in time I can completely reverse this.
 
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Kamran

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Hi everyone,

Back in September, I thought I had afflicted myself with reactive hypogylcemia. Basically, what happened was I had diarrhea, was sweating a lot, really yellow urine and was not drinking enough water to replace those fluids. Instead, I drank a crap ton of orange juice and kept piling on the salt. I eventually hit an extreme low when I ate like 7-8 large dates really fast and my blood sugar plummeted. Felt so awful and weak. Didn't get a clue and kept drinking orange juice and forcing food down my throat, I felt okay and then I really crashed and it was very easy to start crying and bawling.

Since then, things haven't been normal like they used to health-wise. Some days, for a couple days at a time, I feel normal, but it's hard to tell if i'm regaining balance or just delaying the worsening of symptoms.

I was getting back to normal feeling a month ago, and then suddenly I felt strange after eating a spoonful of honey. I saw that simple sugars gave me this lightheaded, strange feeling. Starch didn't do that. My body would feel weak and like it was empty of food even after i've just eaten. I want to say it was something with my sugars, but I'm not sure.

Just recently, as per Matt Stone's recommendations, I kept snacking on dates and salt when I felt cold to warm up and then I regained my ability to handle sugars and salts better. It was the constant drinking of water (which helped initially) that started to slowly knock me off balance. The salt and simple sugar things made me feel way normal again for a few days. Body temp went way up, libido was more consistent, felt full after meals for the first time in a while and felt generally like I was on the right path.

However, it seems like that's starting to fade. Now, strange symptoms come in like feelings of low blood sugar and that I need to eat quickly. Even if I do eat, I hardly feel full or relaxed afterwards.

My appetite has also been very inconsistent and crappy since that crash in September.

I'm seeing a holistic medicine practitioner who got rave reviews on the internet for spending a lot of time LISTENING to patients' stories as well as being a believer in NDT. I was thinking that my hypoglycemia and my crappy inconsistent appetite (which makes it hard to dictate what types of foods I'm really wanting to eat) could be remedied by taking some thyroid to get it up to speed and then getting me out of this slump.

Another hypothesis for my troubles is that my body has just been weakened from all the dieting that it is really easy to knock my body off balance in this delicate state. Sometimes drinking water helps me regain it, sometimes drinking OJ, sometimes piling on the salt and sugars helps, sometimes liver helps, etc. After a particularly bad blood sugar attack, I had some french fries and a frostee from Wendy's (I know the french fries were loaded with PUFA, but I needed something to get me strong enough to drive home from school) which made me feel nice and then crappy as soon as I got home, but I had some liver (a small amount, maybe 1-2oz) that seemed to stop my blood sugar attack from reappearing. I still felt strange, but I also felt more normal than I had in a while for the next few days. My singing voice sounded so clear which is indivcative of better thyroid status, no? :D

So with my increased body temp (my core body temp was super warm while my hands and feet were iffy), is it just a matter of increasing all the nutritious foods? My body temp was running on fire, but I was eating relatively the same amount of liver. Do I have to up it much more? I was always under the impression that i've gotten enough liver if it tastes nastier than usual to me, but I think I'm learning that it's never going to be a pleasant experience, haha.

Anyway, a symptom I'm experiencing now is that I feel exactly as hungry as I did before I ate my dinner after I ate it. It is a little frightening. Any insight that could be offered would be great! I'm hoping thyroid will normalize all this long enough for me to get well enough to function normally without it!
 

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Kamran said:
Anyway, a symptom I'm experiencing now is that I feel exactly as hungry as I did before I ate my dinner after I ate it. It is a little frightening. Any insight that could be offered would be great! I'm hoping thyroid will normalize all this long enough for me to get well enough to function normally without it!
Eat more? Im always hungry when things are working right..and never when theyre not.
 

charlie

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Gonna have to go with Combie on this one, maybe try eating more? Are you gaining weight?
 
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Kamran

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When I'm hungry (and it's not my normal, nice feeling hungry i've gotten my entire life), yes I eat a lot of food. I am gaining weight, I weigh nearly 117 which is the most the scale has ever given me in my life (I've always been on the smaller side).

Trust me, it's not just eating more. If that was truly the problem, I would've already solved it. It was like my stomach started feeling emptier and my blood sugar felt all weird while eating. When I feel weird blood sugar wise, i tend to lose my appetite or just not feel as hungry. I felt a little nauseous too, like I my body didn't want food but I still felt really hungry.

When things are right, I get hungry too, but I also get full after eating a whole meal and I don't feel weak while I'm eating it and lose my appetite.

I'll keep watching my body in case so I can get more detail if it happens again. Thanks for the posts. Any other thoughts you may have would be appreciated.
 

charlie

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Are you checking your blood sugar with a meter?
 
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Kamran

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No, I'm not. :( I always just went by the way I felt.

BS meters are expensive from what i've looked at and I've never experienced symptoms long enough to warrant me buying one. I guess I should invest in one to know for sure. I just didn't want to experience the psychological stress of checking it all the time.
 

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