Brain fog and chills

[LittleGreyCat]

Just a quickie.

I am experimenting with varied methods of weight loss.

For the last two days I have been following the diet shake route - as outlined in the Newcastle Study but also covered in many commercial products such as Slimfast and supermarket own brand shakes. I am using Asda shakes because the sugar level seems a bit lower.

Anyway, no major hunger pangs, although the cooked vegetables for the extra 200 kcals is helping enormously to keep me sane.

Physical activity seems fine - I did my regular 2 hour bike ride yesterday with no obvious problems.
Fasting BG is coming down nicely - 5.3 this morning.

However two things do seem to be happening.

I am feeling the cold more - lower BMR?
My brain has gone all fuzzy and I find concentration difficult.

I will be switching back to my normal diet for the next few days as we are going to a local festival with cheap good beer

However I wondered if anyone else had experienced similar symptoms during the induction phase to a shake diet.
I assume that I have gone into ketosis and most reports claim higher energy and clearer thought and concentration at this point.

Cheers

LGC

 

[lessci]

Hi LittleGreyCat,

On the info on the Newcastle Diet website it does say that in the 1st 3-4 days you may feel a little rough, cold, possible flu like symptoms as your body changes it's fuel source. After the 1st week I felt great more energy, better focus, my skin cleared generally felt the best I had in years.

 

[LittleGreyCat]

Thanks - I don't think it is 'carb flu' because I think my diet prior to the last couple of days was low enough in carbs to have me dipping in and out of ketosis.

I've had a protein breakfast and feel a bit more mentally alert.

I was just wondering if this was a side effect of using the shakes.

 

[Brunneria]

How many carbs and fat per sachet?

The lowest carbs, and highest fat I have seen was on Exante diet sachets. 200 cals per meal.

I 'inherited' some from a friend, and used them as mid afternoon snacks at work, for a week or two, until I ran out. It was an interesting experience. Filling, satisfying, but impact on BG was ok, not good.

Oh, and I did notice some brain fog, increasing as the two weeks progressed. I wondered if it was the soya or the whey protein causing it.

Didn't like them enough to take the next batch from my friend (she bought mixed flavours and was trying to offload the ones she didn't like onto her friends. Lol).

 

[LittleGreyCat]

Off the tin - this is a powder made up as a shake to a 280 ml drink - protein 15.2 g, carbs 26 g, fat 3 g.
I would be a bit lower on the carbs because I used water instead of skimmed milk - 250 ml of skimmed milk would contain around 12.5 g of carbs.
There would also be 8.5 g of protein in the milk.
So going below the 200 kcal when using water.

 

[Brunneria]

I think (from memory) the Exante sachets were 16 g carbs and 4 g fat. Can't remember the protein.

26 g of carbs per meal, fairly quick to digest, would floor me...

 

[Spiker]

The Newcastle diet is not by any stretch of the imagination Low Carb. It's very low calorie, but (proportionally) high carb. But basically the design of it is low calorie, they didn't look at all at varying the ratios of macronutrients.

Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

 

[LittleGreyCat]

26g - 12.5g = 13.5g
3 * 13.5g = 40.5g

So even with the veggies in the evening I am assuming that my variant wouldn't go above 60g carbs per day.
So pretty low carb, albeit nearly 40g of carbs lower than the 'official' Asda slimming shakes diet.
I wouldn't consider the Asda with skimmed milk to be low carb.

 

[Spiker]

26g - 12.5g = 13.5g

Is that subtracting the protein from the carbs? I'm not sure why you would do that?

Oh sorry I get it, you are subtracting out the milk carbs, not the protein.

 

[LittleGreyCat]

Having watched the video Spiker posted elsewhere the brain fog may well have been me easing into ketosis, with 60g or less carbs plus exercise.