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Struggling With Life, Low Carb And Health...

PW1

Well-Known Member
Messages
45
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
I hesitate to post, because I am desperate for practical ideas, help and support, but scared I’ll get “pull your socks up”. If I could, if I had the energy to do so then I would have done. I am struggling.

I’ve moved house (rentals) twice this year, due to unforeseen circumstances - nothing excessively wrong, just circumstances. I’ve had some success with keto and almost carnivore - clear head, energy, life. But this last 2 months, and especially the last 2 weeks food has fallen apart. I have also been diagnosed with an autoimmune liver disease, which has also affected my pancreas - even more reason to be eating well. I’m also prediabetic.

There is so much work to be done on the new house. I’ve got so little energy - a known symptom of the liver disease. The energy is so low that heating up food is difficult, let alone preparing food. And the screams for simple carbohydrates are overwhelming. I also now live opposite a shop. I’ve put on half stone in 2 weeks. Yesterday I managed to eat cold pork and cold beef for breakfast, but ran out of energy mid morning and had no energy left to say no to going across and buying crisps and ice cream.

I’m trying to rest, to get some energy to be able to say no. I know that when i do have energy, it is easier to see, believe and respond to the truth that simple carbs are doing me harm and not helping.

I’ve got nitrate-free low carb sausages - easy to eat once cooked, but very little energy to cook them, same with pork and steak. I’m trying to work out how to climb out of this pit. One option could be get some better quality ready meals from Sainsbury’s or similar - not low carb, but might manage to cook and eat them, but would use up a lot of energy to get there.

It is frustrating, I know that my energy is best when I’ve got into ketosis, but then I do too much and the cravings for energy from simple carbs get stronger than my limited energy. It’s been quite a few months since it was as difficult as it is at the moment. If I was rich I’d employ a cook-housekeeper to deliver meals on a tray!

It is difficult to describe just how little energy I have and how difficult it is to find the energy to prepare food. Truly, getting a dish out, putting cooked food in it and then heating it up in the microwave is difficult at the moment. I was crying due to lack of energy when trying to wash up a single dish on Friday. Lack of energy has been the battle for many years. Low carb improves the energy eventually but requires energy to get back on track - catch 22. But the alternative - buy, open, eat simple carbs from a packet - is making me more ill.

I’m going to try to put the nitrite-free low carb sausages in the the oven in disposable tin foil trays, and see if I’ve got the energy to eat them. I’ve got steak and pork that have to be cooked or thrown today. So I will try to do an oven cook, with disposable tin foil trays. At least they will be cooked, and I might have the energy left to eat them, and rest enough to want to eat more of them later.

I’m struggling.

 
Hi, you sound very like me a few years ago. I used to manage to struggle out to buy healthy food and then had to throw it out days later because I had no energy left to cook it. I am still trying to sort out the mess in the house left over from those bad years when I didn't live, I just existed.

Have you had your thyroid and vit D levels checked? I had an insufficiency of vit D and once this was addressed my energy levels improved. Maybe a multi vitamin would help to address any other deficiencies?

One ready meal (the only one!) that I found helpful and to my liking and lowish carb is cauliflower cheese. Nuts are good too and for me replaced crisps when I need to just open a packet for a snack.

Have you spoken to your doctor about this? I have to say mine was no help at all and made me feel even more useless, but maybe yours would be more understanding?

The keys for me were seeing a naturopath (because my doctor didn't help), having counselling (which unearthed the reason I was feeling so bad) and well you know the next one....low carbing. I understand you don't have the time, money or energy for the first two but maybe you could try having more fat so that you don't feel so hungry (would your liver be OK with that?) Have butter with the cold meat for breakfast to stop the hunger pangs later on? I find that a coffee with cream acts as a good alternative to a snack. Drinking water helps too.

Sorry, I have a lot of empathy/sympathy for you, but not much practical advice. I hope others will come along with some ideas to help you.
 
You do sound in a bad place at the moment. Perhaps your doctor could be more helpful if they realised just how little energy you have.
Does the shop opposite sell nuts, pork scratching sand cheese? Not ideal, but would be a lot better than crisps and ice cream.
Good luck
 
I really haven't got any advise for you. I just wanted to welcome you to the forum it really is a wealth of information. So very sorry to hear you are struggling so much. I understand the moving house. Soo very stressful. I had little energy just a few months ago but thyroid was low ext. Also i am lucky as my husband does the cooking when i simply was to tired to do it. Pretty sure others will have more advice for you. Good luck and do stick around.
 
Have you heard of pacing? This is where you match your activity level to your energy level. You need the energy, preferably from healthy fats, to stop the Catch 22 cycle so I suggest you go back to basics and try to remember when you first started low carbing. Remember those energy dense and nutritionally dense snacks you discovered? The hard cheese, nuts, peanut butter and creamed coffee as well as your cold meats.

The dirty dishes? No one ever died from having a sinkful of dirty dishes so do not waste precious energy doing the things you think you ought to do but know will deplete your energy reserves. Prioritise your activities because no one ever saw 'She died but she had a lovely clean house' on their gravestone.

I hope you start to feel better really soon. All the best.
 
Thank you for your replies and ideas. I spent yesterday in bed, looks like today will be similar. It is easier, when I try to get up my legs and stamina were weak with some dizziness. I’ve probably got a relapse of my chronic condition. But at least this is allowing me to focus on food as I can’t do anything else anyway.

In reply to recommendations: I’ve added multivits including vitamin d3. And I re-established a form of pacing that I came up with earlier this year - I call it “Food First”. Most of my energy is available first thing in the morning and lasts until it runs out (very occasionally it lasts all day, sometimes it lasts barely one hour). So by putting Food First, I try to make sure that the first thing I do is prepare the food I will enjoy eating that day, because if I run out of energy I’ll definately not be able to prepare food later. I’m using with disposable tin foil trays and dishes and eating with my fingers. Back to basics.

Thank you for your advice, it is good to know that I’m not alone and that others have similar difficulties. I totally appreciate your support and comments.
 

Do you have a slow cooker or pressure cooker? If I'm going to be super-busy, lobbing something into the slow cooker or pressure cooker and making a batch of something reassures me I'll have something nice to eat later on, when I might have suddenly realised I'm ravenous!

Curiously enough right now, I have a gammon bone and the remains of a joint in the pressure cooker, making ham stock. Later, there'll be a bunch of veg (whatever's lying around and needs used) lobbed in and it can have a bit longer to cook. Suddenly there are 6-8 servings of soup we can have with whatever, or can be frozen and heated another day.

For me, if I'm busy (which I appreciate is different from lacking energy), I find making simple things I can reheat in a trice to be a life saver.

Is your Doc aware of the predicament you currently find yourself in?
 
DCUKMod said:
Do you have a slow cooker or pressure cooker?
Click to expand...

Slow cookers and electronic pressure cookers are great, unfortunately the process you are describing is only possible on a really good day - and those days are totally unpredictable in arrival. At the moment all I can manage is putting sausages in tin foil trays in the table top oven and waiting for them to cook to eat.

I’ve tried to tell doctors of the level of fatigue - but they imply that they are powerless to help. In fact most of them seem to dismiss the fatigue as “part of being ill”, “if I had a pound for every patient who complained about fatigue and we couldn’t find a cause...”. At least we have finally determined that it is most likely due to multiple autoimmune conditions, that is progress.
 
I'm so sorry you're struggling so much. The winter before last I was very ill, and like you, had no energy to cook and was barely managing (I lived on Co-op cauliflower cheese for quite a while). Then a friend realised what was going on and asked for three low carb recipes from me - I gave her chicken soup, lamb curry and a veggie stew with tofu. We went to the supermarket and bought all the ingredients, a shed load of freezer to microwave containers and a microwave (I didn't have one), and she cooked a huge number of dishes for me and stuck them in the freezer. After that, I had boiled eggs, or plain yogurt for breakfast and a freezer meal for dinner and life was simple. I didn't even have to stand up very long.

Do you have anyone who could do something similar for you? If not, I did find a few ready meals that my BG was fine with, including a soup, the cauliflower cheese from the co-op and a couple of chicken dishes, plus a couple of frozen fish dishes, and survived on them.

Are you comfort eating? If so, can you lay in some low carb treats? Pork scratchings or nuts instead of crisps for example?

Sending you love in the meantime x
 

I can cook frozen meat (chicken, stewing steak, lamb) straight from the freezer in y pressure cooker - even chicken with bones. You could lob in frozen meat, frozen vegetables and a stock pot/cube, and get it going. In my electric pressure cooker, that would cook, including coming to pressure in about an hour. When it finishes it's cook cycle it automatically goes onto a "Keep Warm" function for up to 24 hours.

If you want to cook with spices, you could use little clip tip pots to create your spice and seasoning mixes, and they'll keep awhile.

As I say, I lob in in the morning, and dinner waits for me until I'm ready. It probably takes me less time to kick off a frozen ingredient casserole or curry in the pressure cooker than it takes you to dress and go over to the shop to buy something you then probably have to ping in the microwave.
 
Hi PW1, are you sure it is all about a lack of energy? Have your Doctors ever mentioned depression for example? If I were you I would get back to the Doctors and insist on some proper testing, whatever is wrong with you is clearly not normal. In the meantime, what about buying things to eat that need no cooking at all? As others have said, cheese, yogurts, nuts, dips and low carb raw veg? Maybe you could boil a load of eggs in one go and keep them in the fridge?, pre cooked slices of ham/pork/beef etc? It's hard for any of us to advise properly because we are not Doctor's and don't know anything about your general health or your auto immune issues. Do you have any friends or family that could help you by providing some home cooked low carb meals that you could then re heat?
 
Hi, really sorry I haven’t replied to posts. But the posts have been helpful. I realised that I totally needed to focus on Food and pacing. Which means that anything else has got to take second place until I get better. I managed to eat keto yesterday, and even dipped into a good level of ketosis for several hours.

I am off now to bed rest, and go very careful with food. I’m thankful for tin foil trays, table top oven and that i can now just about manage to cook and eat meat as long as I do very little else. I do like kindle unlimited, very helpful in this resting place.

Thank you all.
 
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