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not sure if this is working...

M

MING

Well-Known Member
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Once again, it's me asking questions and bringing problems :mrgreen: sorry !
Husband been on the low-carb diet for 2 and a half weeks. He has lost 6lbs which is good.
He is very tired though, with no energy and is now constipated as well. (He had really bad piles once before and doesnt ever want them back :evil: )
How do I know that this diet is working/good for him ?
He sleeps most of the day and is a bit depressed. Some meals are ok and some are hellish, because I am NOT a cook and I am also just trying stuff to see what works (and most doesnt :mrgreen: )
Any advice gratefully grabbed. I mean, I do know things will settle & improve, but am just trying to do the best I can for him .
 
Today he's had an episode of extreme weakness & sweating, and he looked so drained it was scarey. That was at 1 o'clock.
He had porridge at half nine, and his BS was 6.3 at half eleven. His lunch was ready so I sat him down and he had that and felt a wee bit better, but is still wiped out. What's going on with him, does anybody know? Was the gap between breakfast and lunch too long? Should I make meals more frequent?
 
I can't solve all of this, but I can help with the constipation part
Make sure he eats loads of leafy vegetables and drinks plenty of water as well as taking a good walk daily. That should solve it. In the meantime, Dulcoease, does what it says on the packet.
Hana
 
I'm not sure if I'm the best person to answer this, I'm not really an expert. But from my understanding of human physiology, some people simply can't 'burn' fat fast enough to keep their energy levels up. You say he's lost 6lbs in two and a half weeks - that's an awfully quick drop. Some of that will be loss of water retension, but the weight loss is telling you that he's in caloric defecit. The lethargy will be to do with that. His body's panicking that it's slowly starving, so is making him sleepy to try to conserve energy.

In essence, he's having carb withdrawl symptoms, which is understandable. Even the most complex carbs will metabolise withing about an hour or so, while some fats can take up to six hours to fully digest (or so it said way back when on my GCSE biology course, haha). That kind of sudden shift will take its toll. Suddenly it's six times harder and slower for his body to get energy. No wonder he's miserable!

A few extra espressos a day might help - I know when I really go low carb for a day, I need the caffeine to make up the difference. Either that, or try weening him off the carbs slower - give his body time to adjust. It might keep his blood sugar a little higher in the meantime, but cold turkey is never the way to go with anything.

Low-carbing itself is a fine idea, but don't forget you may be able to lift his mood with a small sweet thing, followed by a brisk walk. That way he should get a lift both from a little carbohydrate as well as the exercise while burning off the sugar to keep his levels down. Both the aleviation of cold turkey AND the exercise will release endorphins that will elevate his mood.

As for the time between meals, low carbing actually allows you to spread them out a bit further, because hunger (so long as he is getting the neccesary amount fuel for his body) is controled by insulin drops. The lower the carb level, the lower the rises and drops, the lower the hunger. Also, the compensating fats will, like I mentioned, take longer to burn, theoretically fueling him for longer, allowing more time between meals.

You can add golden linseed to poridge in the morning. Adding a copious amount will seriously beef up the nutritional value of the meal, while at the same time keeping it low carbohydrate. And I read an article in muscle and fitness that spoke of a study which deemed such a meal to lower hunger levels all throughout the day. All good things!
 
OK, brilliant help ty :mrgreen: Only thing I can't do is the walk bit. Not unless we wear flippers. The fabulous Scottish summer in full swing... :evil:
 
Useless pretty Boy said:
You can add golden linseed to poridge in the morning. Adding a copious amount will seriously beef up the nutritional value of the meal, while at the same time keeping it low carbohydrate.
Click to expand...

Whoa - Porridge? Not on a lo-carb diet. Trying to eat porridge for breakfast then lo-carbing your other meals is counter productive. Hi-carb breakfasts are gonna keep him weak all day.

It sounds like your husband would really benefit from lo-carbing. After the first week or so, his mood will lift, and he'll start to feel great.

It usually takes 2-3 days to get all of the carbs out of your body. Start lo-carbing on a Monday, and by Wednesday he should start feeling great. Try scrambled eggs for breakfast instead of porridge. Add a little cream and keep them runny and he can eat them out of a bowl with a spoon and pretend it's porridge! :wink:
 
He likes his porridge ! :mrgreen: but its with salt and cream... He's been on low carb almost 3 weeks Patch, I thought it would have got better for him by now.. we can try a few days without porridge though, I suppose, see what that does.
 
Cutting the porridge will DEFINITELY make a difference... Don't cut out the cream, though - put it in with his scrambled eggs! :wink:

(The combination of Porridge (high Carb) and Cream (high fat) is VERY BAD. High Carb + High Fat is an absolute killer. The fat without the carbs is fine, believe it or not...)
 
Your average serving of porrige has about 27 grams of carbohydrate, and more or less zilch sugar. And oats are about as slow release as you get. It's not exactly a huge bowl of white pasta. The reason everyone is encouraged to eat such meals for breakfast is that they efficiently deliver energy in about an hour and that lasts for a reasonable time.

You could try leaving it out. But my personal experience is that without a small carb kick-start to my day, I'm going nowhere fast. I usually do my best to keep carbs to a reasonablely low level, but yesterday, i skipped the slice of toast and just had eggs for breakfast. The morning was very nearly a total wash. It wasn't until I had a small portion of noodles with my lunch that I actually started feeling up to facing the day. By comparison, I had some granola and a sliced banana for breakfast this morning, and despite only getting a few hours sleep, I feel great, ready for the whole day.

I suppose the only thing to point out is that no two diabetics are exactly alike. If you can function while cutting out almost all carbs, then that's great, you should definitely go for it. But I don't believe it to be an arguable point that everyone is capable of doing so. I know I sure as hell can't. I'm sure there are a lot of people here who would be shocked by the amount of carbohydrate I eat, but 'low carb' is a relative term. Low compared to what? Sure I had granola and banana for breakfast, but before I was diagnosed, I could happily finish off six deep dish pancakes and maple syrup with no problems (and NO, haha! I'm a type 1, so that's not how I got diabetes. LOL)

You can only do what works for you, or in this case, for your husband. If blood sugar is level and easily enough controlled on a moderate, or even high carbohydrate diet, then the argument for low carb is perhaps less pressing. I, myself, would only argue a seriously low carb diet for those whose bsls peak and trough quickly and frequently. If that's not your husband, then the two of you are possibly going through a lot of misery for minimal benefit.

If you don't mind me inquiring, Ming, how old is your husband and what percentage of his total weight would 6lbs be? Whether or not you can 'work' any given diet can be affected by both your age and general bodyshape/type, as both have significant influence on your metabolism.

:-)
 
He's 63, is 6ft and 15st 10lbs . He has low thryoid and pernicious anaemia, both of which I think, might slow his metabolism down. I'm trying to do the best I can for him, because since his first heart attack 5 years ago, he's been on tons of pills every day and his health has got steadily worse. Is a waste of time going to the doc for anything at all now, because he will just shove more pills at him. :evil:
 
Two things could contribute to the tiredness and sweating.

Because fat can also be a toxin store, when you lose weight toxins get released into the bloodstream and need to be dealt with by the body. That can take a little time.

The other thing is that so many, if not all Diabetics have issues with Candida and yeast overgrowth in the body due to the imbalanced sugar metabolism. When you radically change your diet and remove a lot of carbs you are removing the foods that they feed on.

Of course, being able to lower the amount of Candida and its ilk in the body is a good thing, but they don't give up without a fight and can release toxins as they die. That is something that I have been struggling with myself so I can vouch that it happens.

Until his body has cleared the toxins and overcome the 'die-off' symptoms (commonly called Herxheimer reaction) he may well go through a series of different symptoms - that is no unusual.

As far as the constipation is concerned, again, when I changed my diet and started the Specific Carb Diet my body went through the whole gamut of bowel changes (I had had raging D IBS previously) and has now settled down, but I do find that if I have much dairy it gives me C.

A little more good fats in the diet can help a bit too - coconut oil, butter, ghee, fish oils and olive oil (not margarines or vegetable oils) - apparently from what I was reading, whilst drinking water helps the unrinary system, the bowel makes a certain amount if its moisture from fats in the diet.

People who are already eating a low-fat diet often just drop the carbs but don't replace them with anything - you need good fats in the diet - the body uses a large amount of fat. It is not fat that makes you fat unless it is eaten with carbs. It is carbs, and too many of them that makes you fat.
 
This would make sense Ali, as he was previously on the "healthy" diet of pasta pasta and more pasta. ( he likes pasta LOL !) They said it was healthy so I gave him it :evil:
I told him to to hang in there and stop whining. Then I got out and did the garden ! :mrgreen:
 
Sounds like he needs a kick in the ass - and like he should buy you a bunch of flowers!
 
Tell him that when he is eating the 'yummy' high-carb stuff he is also feeding the extremely nasty and parasitic 'beasties' within.

I would bet my bottom dollar that he has or has had some of the external signs of Candida/yeasts - Athlete's foot, dandruff, itchy scalp, fungal nail infections, oral thrush (only women for obvious reasons display the vaginal type!), and the charmingly-named 'jock-itch' (those annoying itchy sore patches that get into the areas the 'sun don't shine' - under armpits, in the groin, under the fat 'skirt' etc.

Yeah, yeah, I used to get them all too - slathering the Canesten on like there was no tomorrow, but they have virtually all gone now - and that gives me encouragement that if they are going from the outside then they are going from the inside too.

I am no longer a walking 'fungus-factory'!

Did you know that Candida can produce something in the area of 70 different types of toxins? One extremely bad one - fuelled again by the ubiquitous carbs is Acetaldehyde which can actually make you drunk and give you virtual hangovers without a drop of alcohol touching your lips. That undoubtedly contributes to Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease - bet you never knew you could be an alcoholic without drinking! As one person put it - he has his own built-in brewery.

Candida is fuelled by the use (and so often in the past - over and very often totally unnecessary use) of antibiotics, which kill all the beneficial bacteria but don't touch the yeasts - with nothing to keep them in check they move in en-masse and take over. Add to that the 'normal' high-carb, high-sugar, high- everything Western diet and they are made! Unfortunately they bring with them a host of different health problems both mental and physical.

To be healthy or not to be - Diet is everything.
 
Ugh, candida. First thing my fiancee's mother heard I had diabetes, she told me I must have lots of it in my gut and gave me a bunch of 'candigest' pills to take, which claimed they would kill the bacteria and make me feel better. Took them for a month, had absolutely zilch happen, didn't bother getting any more.

The bottom line is that if he's lost 6lbs in less than three weeks, he's losing it too quickly and it's putting stress on his body. Any more than 2lbs a week is said to be dangerous. A pound of fat is equivilent to about 3500 calories. So 6lbs is 21000 calories. Losing 21000 calories in three weeks would be 1000 calories a day! And your husband has actually been losing weight faster than that. If anyone here says they could cut from (the reccommended for a grown man) 2500 calories a day to 1500 and feel 'amazing' after just a few days, or even a week, while at the same time still holding that caloric intake, is lying; either to us or themselves.

Your husband is down more than 2/5ths of his daily calorie intake since going low carb (if, as you say, he's lost 6lbs). Is anyone really going to say that there's a more immediate cause for his lethargy and misery than that? Low carbing is great - it makes sense for people with diabetes. In the long run, it'll do wonders... especially if that was 'white' pasta he was on rather than wholewheat. But you've got to ease into it. Carbs aren't like a drug. They won't 'get out your system' in 2-3 days. It's not a drug detox. Candida in the gut won't be doing this. This is (not to be overly dramatic) starvation.

Take 1000 calories a day away from a person, any person, and they'll be miserable. And no 'kick in the ass' is going to help that. Get some wholewheat pasta in, halve the portion size he used to have and cover it in some hard parmesan. Either that or he'll need to start adding a lot of double cream to his coffee.
 
It isn't easy, all this , is it ? :mrgreen: On checking his readings, I think the porridge is ok, his readings are ok in the mornings. Today I fed him more often but not huge amounts. ( it sounds like I have a pet rat eh :mrgreen: !) He had fish, salad, home made soup, pate on crackers, and will have boiled eggs for supper. I WILL DO THIS IF IT KILLS ME !!! :twisted:
 
Useless Pretty Boy said:
Ugh, candida. First thing my fiancee's mother heard I had diabetes, she told me I must have lots of it in my gut and gave me a bunch of 'candigest' pills to take, which claimed they would kill the bacteria and make me feel better. Took them for a month, had absolutely zilch happen, didn't bother getting any more.
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Well, I think some of these 'preparations' are pretty suspect at the best of times and what on earth is the point of taking them if you don't change your diet? Even if they do make any inroads on the beasties, the minute you stop taking them they all grow back.

The only way to deal with them is to stop feeding them. It means that we have to cut out most of the 'yummies' for a while, but knowing what these beggars can do I'd rather do that than have them overwhelming me.

The body has a fantastic ability to rebuild itself - it just needs the raw materials and the support - and a high-carb, high-sugar, highly processed diet ain't one of them.

If you crave sweet thing and rich stodgy carby things - it is probably the Candida beasties demanding their dinner........and breakfast......and lunch.......and supper.......and snacks......and.......
 
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